What are Pleiades URIs?

URI stands for Uniform Resource Identifier. A URI is a string of characters that is used uniquely to identify a name or a resource on the World-Wide Web. There is a formal specification for URIs, and Wikipedia also provides a helpful article about them.

Pleiades uses a particular type of URI known colloquially as "HTTP URIs" to identify the four main types of information resources we supply: places, locations, names, and connections. We promise to keep these URIs stable, so that third parties, like our Pelagios partners, can make confident use of them in links, linked data, and other applications. This promise of stability also means that you can cite a Pleiades Place URI in an article or other publication with confidence in its long-term reliability.

Here are the basic Pleiades URI patterns (we use regular expressions here in accordance with the VOID specification):

• places: ^http://pleiades\\.stoa\\.org/places/(\d+)$  (e.g., http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/197189)
• names: ^http://pleiades\\.stoa\\.org/places/(\d+)/(.+)$  (e.g., http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/314921/carthage)
• locations: ^http://pleiades\\.stoa\\.org/places/(\d+)/(.+)$  (e.g., http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/658494/ruins-of-ancient-church-at-kafr-nabo)
• connections: (to be added)