Getting Started

The simplest view of the physical model of ancient world resources in Pleiades is the one below. Places contain temporally limited Names and Locations and may relate to other Places. All of these objects get their own permanent URI and representations in HTML and other formats.

Contributors may add a new Name to an existing Place, add a new Location to an existing Place (directions forthcoming), check out and modify an existing Place (see the "check out" action in any Place's content toolbar); or, after searching through existing content to prevent duplication, add an entirely new Place.

Let's begin by adding a new modern appellation to an existing place in Pleiades.

Adding a new modern name

The main source of Pleiades places, the Barrington Atlas, lacks some of the modern names for ancient places that a researcher may need to spatially reference modern or translated works. Let's consider the process of adding the modern English appellation Thebes to the place known to ancient Greeks as Θῆβαι and transliterated for the Barrington as Thebai, http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/786017.

To the left of the map on that place page (and any other) is a list of its locations and a list of its names. Let's ignore the locations for now and consider the names in the screenshot below.

To the right of the names list header is a plus symbol in square brackets, [+], bearing a link to a form that allows the addition of new names or appellations in the context of this place.

The language and name as attested fields are absolutely mandatory. A title for the new resource will be computed from them using the Pleiades transliteration scheme. "Thebes" in English gets transliterated to "Thebes", of course. A good description (not shown in the screenshot above) adds value to the object, and the details field would be the place for etymology of the appellation.

Further down in the form is the temporal attestations field: click the plus symbol to make a new attestation, choose the modern time period and the appropriate level of confidence.

Reviewers will insist on references to ancient sources (papyri, inscriptions, etc) for ancient names. As shown above, a Wikipedia reference will suffice for a modern name. Meaningful change notes make the version history of a resource easy to follow and will be appreciated by all.

The form submission button is at the very end. Clicking it creates a new name in the drafting workflow state. It can't be accessed by the public until published by a reviewer. Select "Submit for review" from the State menu in the resource's object toolbar to get the new name into the review list. The reviewer might ask for some changes (rejection with notes) or might publish it immediately.