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Does Pleiades record modern names?

Creators: Tom Elliott
Contributors: Sean Gillies
Copyright © The Contributors. Sharing and remixing permitted under terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (cc-by).
Last modified Feb 11, 2013 02:08 PM
Yes we do, and here's how to search for them, add them, and find them in the downloads files.

Pleiades names should be associated with time periods. You'll see the associated time periods summarized on the names listing on the place resource page and also on the individual name resources pages. Whenever a contributor adds a new name, they should indicate the time period(s) during which the name is attested or thought to have been in use using the appropriate combo box on the edit form. Modern names for the sites themselves can also be added; there is a "modern" time period defined for this purpose. Names of nearby modern villages or towns, first-order administrative divisions and other descriptions of the location of a place should be added to the "description" or "details" field on the place resource (or on a "location" resource), not as a modern name. Editors will check for this before publishing new resources. Users of the Pleiades download files will find the time period information in the "timePeriodsKeys" field of the CSV "names" file.

Note that most of the "modern names / locations" recorded in the Barrington Atlas Map-by-Map Directory are *not* currently recorded as names in Pleiades. Rather, they've been added as notes to our "details" field on the place resource. This is because the Barrington used a single column in the directory table that doesn't unambiguously differentiate between the actual modern name of a site, the modern name of the nearest village, the first-order administrative division containing the site, etc. The details field is fully searchable, so entering a modern name in the Pleiades search box will turn up the corresponding Pleiades place resource provided that the Barrington registered that form of the modern name. Users of the Pleiades download files will find the original Barrington Atlas "modern name / location" strings in the "geoContext" field in the CSV "places" file.