Classes & Properties Declarations of CIDOC-CRM version: 6.2.7

This class comprises all things in the universe of discourse of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model.

It is an abstract concept providing for three general properties:

Identification by name or appellation, and in particular by a preferred identifier

Classification by type, allowing further refinement of the specific subclass an instance belongs to

Attachment of free text for the expression of anything not captured by formal properties

With the exception of E59 Primitive Value, all other classes within the CIDOC CRM are directly or indirectly specialisations of E1 CRM Entity.

• the earthquake in Lisbon 1755 (E5) (Chester, 2001)

• E1(x)

This class comprises all phenomena, such as the instances of E4 Periods, E5 Events and states, which happen over a limited extent in time. This extent in time must be contiguous, i.e., without gaps. In case the defining kinds of phenomena for an instance of E2 Temporal Entity cease to happen, and occur later again at another time, we regard that the former instance of E2 Temporal Entity has ended and a new instance has come into existence. In more intuitive terms, the same event cannot happen twice.

In some contexts, these are also called perdurants. This class is disjoint from E77 Persistent Item. This is an abstract class and has no direct instances. E2 Temporal Entity is specialized into E4 Period, which applies to a particular geographic area (defined with a greater or lesser degree of precision), and E3 Condition State, which applies to instances of E18 Physical Thing.

• Bronze Age (E4) (Childe, 1963)
• the earthquake in Lisbon 1755 (E5) (Chester, 2001)
• the Peterhof Palace near Saint Petersburg being in ruins from 1944 – 1946 (E3) (Maddox, 2015)

• E2(x) ⊃ E1(x)

This class comprises the states of objects characterised by a certain condition over a time-span.

An instance of this class describes the prevailing physical condition of any material object or feature during a specific instance of E52 Time Span. In general, the time-span for which a certain condition can be asserted may be shorter than the real time-span, for which this condition held.

The nature of that condition can be described using P2 has type. For example, the instance of E3 Condition State “condition of the SS Great Britain between 22 September 1846 and 27 August 1847” can be characterized as an instance “wrecked” of E55 Type.

• the "reconstructed" state of the “Amber Room” in Tsarskoje Selo from summer 2003 until now (Owen, 2009)
• the "ruined" state of Peterhof Palace near Saint Petersburg from 1944 to 1946 (Maddox, 2015)
• the state of my turkey in the oven at 14:30 on 25 December, 2002 (P2 has type: E55 Type “still not cooked”)
• the topography of the leaves of Sinai Printed Book 3234.2361 on the 10th of July 2007 (described as: of type "cockled")

• E3(x) ⊃ E2(x)

This class comprises sets of coherent phenomena or cultural manifestations occurring in time and space.

It is the social or physical coherence of these phenomena that identify an E4 Period and not the associated spatiotemporal extent. This extent is only the “ground” or space in an abstract physical sense that the actual process of growth, spread and retreat has covered. Consequently, different periods can overlap and coexist in time and space, such as when a nomadic culture exists in the same area and time as a sedentary culture. This also means that overlapping land use rights, common among first nations, amounts to overlapping periods.

Often, this class is used to describe prehistoric or historic periods such as the “Neolithic Period”, the “Ming Dynasty” or the “McCarthy Era”, but also geopolitical units and activities of settlements are regarded as special cases of E4 Period. However, there are no assumptions about the scale of the associated phenomena. In particular all events are seen as synthetic processes consisting of coherent phenomena. Therefore E4 Period is a superclass of E5 Event. For example, a modern clinical birth, an instance of E67 Birth, can be seen as both as a single event, i.e., an instance of E5 Event and as an extended period, i.e., instance of E4 Period that consists of multiple physical processes and complementary activities performed by multiple instances of E39 Actor.

As the actual extent of an instance of E4 Period in spacetime we regard the trajectories of the participating physical things during their participation in an instance of E4 Period. This includes the open spaces via which these things have interacted and the spaces by which they had the potential to interact during that period or event in the way defined by the type of the respective period or event. Examples include the air in a meeting room transferring the voices of the participants. Since these phenomena are fuzzy, we assume the spatiotemporal extent to be contiguous, except for cases of phenomena spreading out over islands or other separated areas, including geopolitical units distributed over disconnected areas such as islands or colonies.

Whether the trajectories necessary for participants to travel between these areas are regarded as part of the spatiotemporal extent or not has to be decided in each case based on a concrete analysis, taking use of the sea for other purposes than travel, such as fishing, into consideration. One may also argue that the activities to govern disconnected areas imply travelling through spaces connecting them and that these areas hence are spatially connected in a way, but it appears counterintuitive to consider for instance travel routes in international waters as extensions of geopolitical units.

Consequently, an instance of E4 Period may occupy a number of disjoint spacetime volumes, however there must not be a discontinuity in the timespan covered by these spacetime volumes. This means that an instance of E4 Period must be contiguous in time. If it has ended in all areas, it has ended as a whole. However it may end in one area before another, such as in the Polynesian migration, and it continues as long as it is ongoing in at least one area.

We model E4 Period as a subclass of E2 Temporal Entity and of E92 Spacetime Volume. The latter is intended as a phenomenal spacetime volume as defined in CIDOC CRMgeo (Doerr and Hiebel, 2013). By virtue of this multiple inheritance we can discuss the physical extent of an instance of E4 Period without representing each instance of it together with an instance of its associated spacetime volume. This model combines two quite different kinds of substance: an instance of E4 Period is a phenomena while an instance of E92 Spacetime Volume is an aggregation of points in spacetime. However, the real spatiotemporal extent of an instance of E4 Period is regarded to be unique to it due to all its details and fuzziness; its identity and existence depends uniquely on the identity of the instance of E4 Period. Therefore this multiple inheritance is unambiguous and effective and furthermore corresponds to the intuitions of natural language.

There are two different conceptualisations of ‘artistic style’, defined either by physical features or by historical context. For example, “Impressionism” can be viewed as a period lasting from approximately 1870 to 1905 during which paintings with particular characteristics were produced by a group of artists that included (among others) Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and Degas. Alternatively, it can be regarded as a style applicable to all paintings sharing the characteristics of the works produced by the Impressionist painters, regardless of historical context. The first interpretation is an instance of E4 Period, and the second defines morphological object types that fall under E55 Type.

A geopolitical unit as a specific case of an instance of E4 Period is the set of activities and phenomena related to the claim of power, the consequences of belonging to a jurisdictional area and an administrative system that establishes a geopolitical unit. Examples from the modern period are countries or administrative areas of countries such as districts whose actions and structures define activities and phenomena in the area that they intend to govern. The borders of geopolitical units are often defined in contracts or treaties although they may deviate from the actual practice. The spatiotemporal properties of Geopolitical units can be modelled through the properties inherited from E92 Spacetime Volume.

Another specific case of an E4 Period is the actual extent of the set of activities and phenomena as evidenced by their physical traces that define a settlement, such as the populated period of Nineveh.

• Jurassic (Hallam, 1975)
• Populated Period of Nineveh
• Imperial Rome under Marcus Aurelius
• European Bronze Age (Harrison, c2004)
• Italian Renaissance (Macdonald, 1992)
• Thirty Years War (Lee, 1991)
• Sturm und Drang (Berkoff, 2013)
• Cubism (Cox, 2000)

• E4(x) ⊃ E2(x)
• E4(x) ⊃ E92(x)

This class comprises distinct, delimited and coherent processes and interactions of a material nature, in cultural, social or physical systems, involving and affecting instances of E77 Persistent Item in a way characteristic of the kind of process. Typical examples are meetings, births, deaths, actions of decision taking, making or inventing things, but also more complex and extended ones such as conferences, elections, building of a castle, or battles.

While the continuous growth of a tree lacks the limits characteristic of an event, its germination from a seed does qualify as an event. Similarly the blowing of the wind lacks the distinctness and limits of an event, but a hurricane, flood or earthquake would qualify as an event. Mental processes are considered as events, in cases where they are connected with the material externalization of their results; for example the creation of a poem, a performance or a change of intention that becomes obvious from subsequent actions or declarations.

The effects of an instance of E5 Event may not lead to relevant permanent changes of properties or relations of the items involved in it, for example an unrecorded performances. Of course, in order to be documented, some kind of evidence for an event must exist, be it witnesses, traces or products of the event.

While instances of E4 Period always require some form of coherence between its constituent phenomena, in addition, the essential constituents of instances of E5 Event should contribute to an overall effect; for example the statements made during a meeting and the listening of the audience.

Viewed at a coarse level of detail, an instance of E5 Event may appear as if it had an ‘instantaneous’ overall effect, but any process or interaction of material nature in reality have an extent in time and space. At a fine level, instances of E5 Event may be analyzed into component phenomena and phases within a space and timeframe, and as such can be seen as a period, regardless of the size of the phenomena. The reverse is not necessarily the case: not all instances of E4 Period give rise to a noteworthy overall effect and are thus not instances of E5 Event.

• the birth of Cleopatra (E67) (Pomeroy, 1984)
• the destruction of Herculaneum by volcanic eruption in 79 AD (E6) (Camardo, 2013)
• World War II (E7) (Barber, 1994)
• the Battle of Stalingrad (E7) (Hoyt, 1993)
• the Yalta Conference (E7) (Harbutt, 2010)
• my birthday celebration 28-6-1995 (E7)
• the falling of a tile from my roof last Sunday
• the CIDOC Conference 2003 (E7)

• E5(x) ⊃ E4(x)

This class comprises events that destroy one or more instances of E18 Physical Thing such that they lose their identity as the subjects of documentation.

Some destruction events are intentional, while others are independent of human activity. Intentional destruction may be documented by classifying the event as both an instance of E6 Destruction and of E7 Activity.

The decision to document an object as destroyed, transformed or modified is context sensitive:

1. If the matter remaining from the destruction is not documented, the event is modelled solely as an instance of E6 Destruction.

2. An event should also be documented as an instance of E81 Transformation if it results in the destruction of one or more objects and the simultaneous production of others using parts or material from the original. In this case, the new items have separate identities. Matter is preserved, but identity is not.

3. When the initial identity of the changed instance of E18 Physical Thing is preserved, the event should be documented as an instance of E11 Modification.

• the destruction of Herculaneum by volcanic eruption in 79 AD (Camardo, 2013)
• the destruction of Nineveh (E6, E7) (George, 2000)
• the breaking of a champagne glass yesterday by my dog

• E6(x) ⊃ E64(x)

This class comprises actions intentionally carried out by instances of E39 Actor that result in changes of state in the cultural, social, or physical systems documented.

This notion includes complex, composite and long-lasting actions such as the building of a settlement or a war, as well as simple, short-lived actions such as the opening of a door.

• the Battle of Stalingrad (Hoyt, 1993)
• the Yalta Conference (Harbutt, 2010)
• my birthday celebration 28-6-1995
• the writing of “Faust” by Goethe (E65) (Williams, 1987)
• the formation of the Bauhaus 1919 (E66) (Droste, 2006)
• calling the place identified by TGN ‘7017998’ ‘Quyunjig’ by the people of Iraq
• Kira Weber working in glass art from 1984 to 1993
• Kira Weber working in oil and pastel painting from 1993

• E7(x) ⊃ E5(x)

This class comprises transfers of legal ownership from one or more instances of E39 Actor to one or more other instances of E39 Actor.

The class also applies to the establishment or loss of ownership of instances of E18 Physical Thing. It does not, however, imply changes of any other kinds of right. The recording of the donor and/or recipient is optional. It is possible that in an instance of E8 Acquisition there is either no donor or no recipient. Depending on the circumstances, it may describe:

the beginning of ownership

the end of ownership

the transfer of ownership

the acquisition from an unknown source

the loss of title due to destruction of the item

It may also describe events where a collector appropriates legal title, for example by annexation or field collection. The interpretation of the museum notion of "accession" differs between institutions. The CIDOC CRM therefore models legal ownership (E8 Acquisition) and physical custody (E10 Transfer of Custody) separately. Institutions will then model their specific notions of accession and deaccession as combinations of these.

• the collection of a hammer-head shark of the genus Sphyrna (Carchariniformes) XXXtbc by John Steinbeck and Edward Ricketts at Puerto Escondido in the Gulf of Mexico on March 25th, 1940. (Steinbeck, 2000)
• the acquisition of El Greco’s painting entitled ‘The Apostles Peter and Paul’ by the State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg
• the loss of my stuffed chaffinch ‘Fringilla coelebs Linnaeus, 1758’ due to insect damage last year

• E8(x) ⊃ E7(x)

This class comprises changes of the physical location of the instances of E19 Physical Object.

Note, that the class E9 Move inherits the property P7 took place at (witnessed): E53 Place. This property should be used to describe the trajectory or a larger area within which a move takes place, whereas the properties P26 moved to (was destination of), P27 moved from (was origin of) describe the start and end points only. Moves may also be documented to consist of other moves (via P9 consists of (forms part of)), in order to describe intermediate stages on a trajectory. In that case, start and end points of the partial moves should match appropriately between each other and with the overall event.

• the relocation of London Bridge from the UK to the USA. (Clarke, 1992)
• the movement of the exhibition “Treasures of Tut-Ankh-Amun” 1976-1979 (Treasures of Tutankhamun, exhibition catalogue, 1972) .

• E9(x) ⊃ E7(x)

This class comprises transfers of physical custody of objects between instances of E39 Actor.

The recording of the donor and/or recipient is optional. It is possible that in an instance of E10 Transfer of Custody there is either no donor or no recipient. Depending on the circumstances it may describe:

the beginning of custody

the end of custody

the transfer of custody

the receipt of custody from an unknown source

the declared loss of an object

The distinction between the legal responsibility for custody and the actual physical possession of the object should be expressed using the property P2 has type (is type of). A specific case of transfer of custody is theft. The sense of physical possession requires that the object of custody is in the hands of the keeper at least with a part representative for the whole. The way, in which a representative part is defined, should ensure that it is unambiguous who keeps a part and who the whole and should be consistent with the identity criteria of the kept instance of E18 Physical Thing. For instance, in the case of a set of cutlery we may require the majority of pieces having been in the hands of the actor regardless which individual pieces are kept over time.

The interpretation of the museum notion of "accession" differs between institutions. The CIDOC CRM therefore models legal ownership and physical custody separately. Institutions will then model their specific notions of accession and deaccession as combinations of these.

• the delivery of the paintings by Secure Deliveries Inc. to the National Gallery
• the return of Picasso’s “Guernica” to Madrid’s Prado in 1981 (Chipp, 1988)

• E10(x) ⊃ E7(x)

This class comprises all instances of E7 Activity that create, alter or change instances of E24 Physical Human-Made Thing.

This class includes the production of an item from raw materials, and other so far undocumented objects, and the preventive treatment or restoration of an object for conservation.

Since the distinction between modification and production is not always clear, modification is regarded as the more generally applicable concept. This implies that some items may be consumed or destroyed in an instance of E11 Modification, and that others may be produced as a result of it. An event should also be documented using an instance of E81 Transformation if it results in the destruction of one or more objects and the simultaneous production of others using parts or material from the originals. In this case, the new items have separate identities.

If the instance of E29 Design or Procedure utilized for the modification prescribes the use of specific materials, they should be documented using property P68 foresees use of (use foreseen by): E57 Material of E29 Design or Procedure, rather than via P126 employed (was employed in): E57 Material.

• the construction of the SS Great Britain (E12)(Gregor, 1971)
• the impregnation of the Vasa warship in Stockholm for preservation after 1956(Håfors, c2010)
• the transformation of the Enola Gay into a museum exhibit by the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC between 1993 and 1995 (E12, E81) (Yakel, 2000)
• the last renewal of the gold coating of the Toshogu shrine in Nikko, Japan(Cali and Dougil, 2012)

• E11(x) ⊃ E7(x)

This class comprises activities that are designed to, and succeed in, creating one or more new items.

It specializes the notion of modification into production. The decision as to whether or not an object is regarded as new is context sensitive. Normally, items are considered “new” if there is no obvious overall similarity between them and the consumed items and material used in their production. In other cases, an item is considered “new” because it becomes relevant to documentation by a modification. For example, the scribbling of a name on a potsherd may make it a voting token. The original potsherd may not be worth documenting, in contrast to the inscribed one.

This entity can be collective: the printing of a thousand books, for example, would normally be considered a single event.

An event should also be documented using an instance of E81 Transformation if it results in the destruction of one or more objects and the simultaneous production of others using parts or material from the originals. In this case, the new items have separate identities and matter is preserved, but identity is not.

• the construction of the SS Great Britain (Gregor, 1971)
• the first casting of the Little Mermaid from the harbour of Copenhagen (Dewey, 2003)
• Rembrandt’s creating of the seventh state of his etching “Woman sitting half dressed beside a stove”, 1658, identified by Bartsch Number 197 (E12,E65,E81) (Hind, 1923)

• E12(x) ⊃ E11(x)
• E12(x) ⊃ E63(x)

This class comprises the actions of making assertions about one property of an object or any single relation between two items or concepts. The type of the property asserted to hold between two items or concepts can be described by the property P177 assigned property type: E55 Type.

For example, the class describes the actions of people making propositions and statements during certain scientific/scholarly procedures, e.g. the person and date when a condition statement was made, an identifier was assigned, the museum object was measured, etc. Which kinds of such assignments and statements need to be documented explicitly in structures of a schema rather than free text, depends on whether this information should be accessible by structured queries.

This class allows for the documentation of how the respective assignment came about, and whose opinion it was. Note that all instances of properties described in a knowledge base are the opinion of someone. Per default, they are the opinion of the team maintaining the knowledge base. This fact must not individually be registered for all instances of properties provided by the maintaining team, because it would result in an endless recursion of whose opinion was the description of an opinion. Therefore, the use of instances of E13 Attribute Assignment marks the fact, that the maintaining team is in general neutral to the validity of the respective assertion, but registers someone else’s opinion and how it came about.

All properties assigned in such an action can also be seen as directly relating the respective pair of items or concepts. Multiple use of instances of E13 Attribute Assignment may possibly lead to a collection of contradictory values.

All cases of properties in this model that are also described indirectly through a subclass of E13 Attribute Assignment are characterised as "short cuts" of a path via this subclass. This redundant modelling of two alternative views is preferred because many implementations may have good reasons to model either the action of assertion or the short cut, and the relation between both alternatives can be captured by simple rules.

• the assessment of the current ownership of Martin Doerr’s silver cup in February 1997

• E13(x) ⊃ E7(x)

This class describes the act of assessing the state of preservation of an object during a particular period.

The condition assessment may be carried out by inspection, measurement or through historical research. This class is used to document circumstances of the respective assessment that may be relevant to interpret its quality at a later stage, or to continue research on related documents.

• last year’s inspection of humidity damage to the frescos in the St. George chapel in our village

• E14(x) ⊃ E13(x)

This class comprises activities that result in the allocation of an identifier to an instance of E1 CRM Entity. Instances of E15 Identifier Assignment may include the creation of the identifier from multiple constituents, which themselves may be instances of E41 Appellation. The syntax and kinds of constituents to be used may be declared in a rule constituting an instance of E29 Design or Procedure.

• of such identifiers include Find Numbers, Inventory Numbers, uniform titles in the sense of librarianship and Digital Object Identifiers (DOI). Documenting the act of identifier assignment and deassignment is especially useful when objects change custody or the identification system of an organization is changed. In order to keep track of the identity of things in such cases, it is important to document by whom, when and for what purpose an identifier is assigned to an item.
• The fact that an identifier is a preferred one for an organisation can be expressed by using the property E1 CRM Entity. P48 has preferred identifier (is preferred identifier of): E42 Identifier. It can better be expressed in a context independent form by assigning a suitable E55 Type, such as “preferred identifier assignment”, to the respective instance of E15 Identifier Assignment via the P2 has type property.
• Replacement of the inventory number TA959a by GE34604 for a 17^th century lament cloth at the Museum Benaki, Athens
• Assigning the author-uniform title heading “Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832. Faust. 1. Theil.” for the respective work
• On June 1, 2001 assigning the personal name heading “Guillaume, de Machaut, ca. 1300-1377” to Guillaume de Machaut

• E15(x) ⊃ E13(x)

This class comprises actions measuring quantitative physical properties and other values that can be determined by a systematic, objective procedure of direct observation of particular states of physical reality. Properties of instances of E90 Symbolic Object may be measured by observing some of their representative carriers which may or may not be named explicitly. In the former case, the property P16 used specific object (was used for): E70 Thing should be used to specify the information carriers used as empirical basis for the measurement activity.

• include measuring the nominal monetary value of a collection of coins or the running time of a movie on a specific video cassette.
• The E16 Measurement may use simple counting or tools, such as yardsticks or radiation detection devices. The interest is in the method and care applied, so that the reliability of the result may be judged at a later stage, or research continued on the associated documents. The date of the event is important for dimensions, which may change value over time, such as the length of an object subject to shrinkage. Methods and devices employed should be associated with instances of E16 Measurement by properties such as P33 used specific technique: E29 Design or Procedure, P125 used object of type: E55 Type, P16 used specific object (was used for): E70 Thing, whereas basic techniques such as "carbon 14 dating" should be encoded using P2 has type (is type of): E55 Type. Details of methods and devices reused or reusable in other instances of E16 Measurement should be documented for these entities rather than the measurements themselves, whereas details of particular execution may be documented by free text or by instantiating adequate sub-activities, if the detail may be of interest for an overarching query.
• Regardless whether a measurement is made by an instrument or by human senses, it represents the initial transition from physical reality to information without any other documented information object in between within the reasoning chain that would represent the result of the interaction of the observer or device with reality. Therefore, inferring properties of depicted items using image material, such as satellite images, is not regarded as an instance of E16 Measurement, but as a subsequent instance of E13 Attribute Assignment. Rather, only the production of the images, understood as arrays of radiation intensities, is regarded as an instance of E16 Measurement. The same reasoning holds for other sensor data.
• measurement of height of silver cup 232 on the 31^st August 1997
• the carbon 14 dating of the “Schoeninger Speer II” in 1996 [an about 400.000 years old Palaeolithic complete wooden spear found in Schoeningen, Niedersachsen, Germany in 1995] (Kouwenhoven, 1997)
• The pixel size of the jpeg version of Titian’s painting Bacchus and Ariadne from 1520–3, as freely downloadable from the National Gallery in London’s web page <https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/titian-bacchus-and-ariadne> is 581600 pixels.
• The scope note of E21 Person in the Definition of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model Version 5.0.4 as downloaded from <http://www.cidoc-crm.org/sites/default/files/cidoc_crm_version_5.0.4.pdf> consists of 77 words.

• E16(x) ⊃ E13(x)

This class comprises the actions of classifying items of whatever kind. Such items include objects, specimens, people, actions and concepts.

This class allows for the documentation of the context of classification acts in cases where the value of the classification depends on the personal opinion of the classifier, and the date that the classification was made. This class also encompasses the notion of "determination," i.e. the systematic and molecular identification of a specimen in biology.

• the first classification of object GE34604 as Lament Cloth, October 2^nd
• the determination of a cactus in Martin Doerr’s garden as ‘Cereus hildmannianus K.Schumann’, July 2003

• E17(x) ⊃ E13(x)

This class comprises all persistent physical items with a relatively stable form, human-made or natural.

Depending on the existence of natural boundaries of such things, the CIDOC CRM distinguishes the instances of E19 Physical Object from instances of E26 Physical Feature, such as holes, rivers, pieces of land etc. Most instances of E19 Physical Object can be moved (if not too heavy), whereas features are integral to the surrounding matter.

An instance of E18 Physical Thing occupies not only a particular geometric space, but in the course of its existence it also forms a trajectory through spacetime, which occupies a real, that is phenomenal, volume in spacetime. We include in the occupied space the space filled by the matter of the physical thing and all its inner spaces, such as the interior of a box. Physical things consisting of aggregations of physically unconnected objects, such as a set of chessmen, occupy a number of individually contiguous spacetime volumes equal to the number of unconnected objects that constitute the set.

We model E18 Physical Thing to be a subclass of E72 Legal Object and of E92 Spacetime Volume. The latter is intended as a phenomenal spacetime volume as defined in CRMgeo (Doerr and Hiebel 2013). By virtue of this multiple inheritance we can discuss the physical extent of an instance of E18 Physical Thing without representing each instance of it together with an instance of its associated spacetime volume. This model combines two quite different kinds of substance: an instance of E18 Physical Thing is matter while an instance of E92 Spacetime Volume is an aggregation of points in spacetime. However, the real spatiotemporal extent of an instance of E18 Physical Thing is regarded to be unique to it, due to all its details and fuzziness; its identity and existence depends uniquely on the identity of the instance of E18 Physical Thing. Therefore this multiple inheritance is unambiguous and effective and furthermore corresponds to the intuitions of natural language.

The CIDOC CRM is generally not concerned with amounts of matter in fluid or gaseous states.

• the Cullinan Diamond (E19) (Scarratt and Shor, 2006)
• the cave “Ideon Andron” in Crete (E26) (Smith, 1844-49)
• the Mona Lisa (E22) (Mohem, 2006)

• E18(x) ⊃ E72(x)
• E18(x) ⊃ E92(x)

This class comprises items of a material nature that are units for documentation and have physical boundaries that separate them completely in an objective way from other objects.

The class also includes all aggregates of objects made for functional purposes of whatever kind, independent of physical coherence, such as a set of chessmen. Typically, instances of E19 Physical Object can be moved (if not too heavy).

In some contexts, such objects, except for aggregates, are also called “bona fide objects” (Smith & Varzi, 2000, pp.401-420), i.e. naturally defined objects.

The decision as to what is documented as a complete item, rather than by its parts or components, may be a purely administrative decision or may be a result of the order in which the item was acquired.

• John SmithAphrodite of Milos (Kousser, 2005)
• the Palace of Knossos (Evans, 1921-36)
• the Cullinan Diamond (Scarratt and Shor, 2006)
• Apollo 13 at the time of launch (Lovell and Kluger, 1994)

• E19(x) ⊃ E18(x)

This class comprises individual items of a material nature, which live, have lived or are natural products of or from living organisms.

Artificial objects that incorporate biological elements, such as Victorian butterfly frames, can be documented as both instances of E20 Biological Object and E22 Human-Made Object.

• me
• Tut-Ankh-Amun (Edwards, 1979)
• Boukephalas [Horse of Alexander the Great](Lamb, 2005)
• petrified dinosaur excrement PA1906-344

• E20(x) ⊃ E19(x)

This class comprises real persons who live or are assumed to have lived.

Legendary figures that may have existed, such as Ulysses and King Arthur, fall into this class if the documentation refers to them as historical figures. In cases where doubt exists as to whether several persons are in fact identical, multiple instances can be created and linked to indicate their relationship. The CIDOC CRM does not propose a specific form to support reasoning about possible identity.

In a bibliographic context, a name presented following the conventions usually employed for personal names will be assumed to correspond to an actual real person (E21 Person), unless evidence is available to indicate that this is not the case. The fact that a persona may erroneously be classified as an instance of E21 Person does not imply that the concept comprises personae.

• Tut-Ankh-Amun (Edwards, 1979)
• Nelson Mandela (Brown, 2006)

• E21(x) ⊃ E20(x)
• E21(x) ⊃ E39(x)

This class comprises physical objects purposely created by human activity.

No assumptions are made as to the extent of modification required to justify regarding an object as human-made. For example, an inscribed piece of rock or a preserved butterfly are both regarded as instances of E22 Human-Made Object.

• Mallard (the World’s fastest steam engine) (Solomon, 2003)
• the Portland Vase (Walker, 2004)
• the Coliseum (Hopkins, 2005)

• E22(x) ⊃ E19(x)
• E22(x) ⊃ E24(x)

This class comprises all persistent physical items that are purposely created by human activity.

This class comprises human-made objects, such as a swords, and human-made features, such as rock art. No assumptions are made as to the extent of modification required to justify regarding an object as human-made. For example, a “cup and ring” carving on bedrock is regarded as instance of E24 Physical Human-Made Thing.

Instances of this class may act as carriers of instances of E73 Information Object.

• the Forth Railway Bridge (E22) (The Forth Railway Bridge centenary 1890-1990 ICE Proceedings, 1990, Vol.88(6), pp.1079-1107.
• the Channel Tunnel (E25) (Holliday, I., Marcou, G., and Vickerman, R. W., 1991)
• the Historical Collection of the Museum Benaki in Athens (E78) (Georgoula, E., 2005)
• the Rosetta Stone (E22)
• my paperback copy of Crime & Punishment (E22) (fictitious)
• the computer disk at ICS-FORTH that stores the canonical Definition of the CIDOC CRM v.3.2 (E22)
• my empty DVD disk (E22) (fictitious)

• E24(x) ⊃ E18(x)
• E24(x) ⊃ E71(x)

This class comprises physical features that are purposely created by human activity, such as scratches, artificial caves, artificial water channels, etc. In particular, it includes the information encoding features on mechanical or digital carriers.

No assumptions are made as to the extent of modification required to justify regarding a feature as human-made. For example, rock art or even “cup and ring” carvings on bedrock a regarded as types of E25 Human-Made Feature.

• the Manchester Ship Canal (Famie, 1980)
• Michael Jackson’s nose following plastic surgery
• The laser-readable “pits” engraved June 2014 on Martin Doerr’s CD-R, copying songs of Edith Piaf’s.
• The carved letters on the Rosetta Stone

• E25(x) ⊃ E24(x)
• E25(x) ⊃ E26(x)

This class comprises identifiable features that are physically attached in an integral way to particular physical objects.

Instances of E26 Physical Feature share many of the attributes of instances of E19 Physical Object. They may have a one-, two- or three-dimensional geometric extent, but there are no natural borders that separate them completely in an objective way from the carrier objects. For example, a doorway is a feature but the door itself, being attached by hinges, is not.

Instances of E26 Physical Feature can be features in a narrower sense, such as scratches, holes, reliefs, surface colours, reflection zones in an opal crystal or a density change in a piece of wood. In the wider sense, they are portions of particular objects with partially imaginary borders, such as the core of the Earth, an area of property on the surface of the Earth, a landscape or the head of a contiguous marble statue. They can be measured and dated, and it is sometimes possible to state who or what is or was responsible for them. They cannot be separated from the carrier object, but a segment of the carrier object may be identified (or sometimes removed) carrying the complete feature.

This definition coincides with the definition of "fiat objects" (Smith & Varzi, 2000, pp.401-420), with the exception of aggregates of “bona fide objects”.

• the temple in Abu Simbel before its removal, which was carved out of solid rock (Hawass, 2000)
• Albrecht Duerer's signature on his painting of Charles the Great (Strauss, 1974)
• the damage to the nose of the Great Sphinx in Giza (Temple, 2009)
• Michael Jackson’s nose prior to plastic surgery

• E26(x) ⊃ E18(x)

This class comprises pieces of land or sea floor.

In contrast to the purely geometric notion of E53 Place, this class describes constellations of matter on the surface of the Earth or other celestial body, which can be represented by photographs, paintings and maps.

Instances of E27 Site are composed of relatively immobile material items and features in a particular configuration at a particular location.

• the Amazon river basin (Hegen, 1966)
• Knossos (Evans, 1921-36)
• the Apollo 11 landing site (Siegler and Smrekar, 2014)
• Heathrow Airport (Wicks, 2014)
• the submerged harbour of the Minoan settlement of Gournia, Crete (Watrous, 2012)

• E27(x)⊃ E26(x)

This class comprises non-material products of our minds and other human produced data that have become objects of a discourse about their identity, circumstances of creation or historical implication. The production of such information may have been supported by the use of technical devices such as cameras or computers.

Characteristically, instances of this class are created, invented or thought by someone, and then may be documented or communicated between persons. Instances of E28 Conceptual Object have the ability to exist on more than one particular carrier at the same time, such as paper, electronic signals, marks, audio media, paintings, photos, human memories, etc.

They cannot be destroyed. They exist as long as they can be found on at least one carrier or in at least one human memory. Their existence ends when the last carrier and the last memory are lost.

• Beethoven’s “Ode an die Freude” (Ode to Joy) (E73) (Kershaw, 1999)
• the definition of “ontology” in the Oxford English Dictionary (E73)
• the knowledge about the victory at Marathon carried by the famous runner (E89)
• [explanation note: In the following examples we illustrate the distinction between a propositional object, its names and its encoded forms. The Maxwell equations are a good example, because they belong to the fundamental laws of physics and their mathematical content yields identical, unambiguous results regardless formulation and encoding]
• ‘Maxwell equations’ [preferred subject access point from LCSH] (E41)
• http://lccn.loc.gov/sh85082387 [5], as of 19 November 2012]
• **explanation: This is only the name for the Maxwell equations as standardized by the Library of Congress and NOT the equations themselves.
• ‘Equations, Maxwell’ [variant subject access point, from the same source] (E41)
• **explanation: This is another name for the equation standardized by the Library of Congress and not the equations themselves
• Maxwell's equations (E89)
• ** explanation: This is the propositional content of the equations proper, independent of any particular notation or mathematical formalism.
  
• The encoding of Maxwells equations as in https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c4/Maxwell [6]'s Equations.svg/500px-Maxwell'sEquations.svg.png (E73)
• ** explanation: This is one possible symbolic encoding of the propositional content of the equations.

• E28(x) ⊃ E71(x)

This class comprises documented plans for the execution of actions in order to achieve a result of a specific quality, form or contents. In particular, it comprises plans for deliberate human activities that may result in new instances of E71 Human-Made Thing or for shaping or guiding the execution of an instance of E7 Activity.

Instances of E29 Design or Procedure can be structured in parts and sequences or depend on others.

This is modelled using P69 has association with (is associated with): E29 Design or Procedure

Designs or procedures can be seen as one of the following:

A schema for the activities it describes

A schema of the products that result from their application.

An independent intellectual product that may have never been applied, such as Leonardo da Vinci’s famous plans for flying machines.

Because designs or procedures may never be applied or only partially executed, the CIDOC CRM models a loose relationship between the plan and the respective product.

• the ISO standardisation procedure
• the musical notation for Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”
• the architectural drawings for the Kölner Dom in Cologne, Germany
• The drawing on the folio 860 of the Codex Atlanticus from Leonardo da Vinci, 1486-1490, kept in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan

• E29(x) ⊃ E73(x)

This class comprises legal privileges concerning material and immaterial things or their derivatives.

These include reproduction and property rights.

• copyright held by ISO on ISO/CD 21127
• ownership of the “Mona Lisa” by the Louvre

• E30(x) ⊃ E89(x)

This class comprises identifiable immaterial items that make propositions about reality.

These propositions may be expressed in text, graphics, images, audiograms, videograms or by other similar means. Documentation databases are regarded as a special case of E31 Document. This class should not be confused with the term “document” in Information Technology, which is compatible with E73 Information Object.

• the Encyclopaedia Britannica (E32) (Kogan, 1958)
• The image content of the photo of the Allied Leaders at Yalta published by UPI, 1945 (E36 )
• the Doomsday Book

• E31(x) ⊃ E73(x)

This class comprises encyclopaedia, thesauri, authority lists and other documents that define terminology or conceptual systems for consistent use.

• Webster's Dictionary
• 64. (Herbert, 1994)
• Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus (Getty Trust, 1990) ??? Published on behalf of Paul Getty Trust..
• the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (Gergatsoulis, M. et al., 2010)

• E32(x) ⊃ E31(x)

This class comprises identifiable expressions in natural language or languages.

Instances of E33 Linguistic Object can be expressed in many ways: e.g. as written texts, recorded speech or sign language. However, the CIDOC CRM treats instances of E33 Linguistic Object independently from the medium or method by which they are expressed. Expressions in formal languages, such as computer code or mathematical formulae, are not treated as instances of E33 Linguistic Object by the CIDOC CRM. These should be modelled as instances of E73 Information Object.

The text of an instance of E33 Linguistic Object can be documented in a note by P3 has note: E62 String

• the text of the Ellesmere Chaucer manuscript (Hilmo, 2004)
• the lyrics of the song "Blue Suede Shoes" (Cooper, 2008)
• the text of the Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll (Carroll, 1981)
• the text of "Doktoro Jekyll kaj Sinjoro Hyde" (an Esperanto translation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde). (Stevenson, 1909)

• E33(x) ⊃ E73(x)

This class comprises recognisable, short texts attached to instances of E24 Physical Human-Made Thing.

The transcription of the text can be documented in a note by P3 has note: E62 String. The alphabet used can be documented by P2 has type: E55 Type. This class does not intend to describe the idiosyncratic characteristics of an individual physical embodiment of an inscription, but the underlying prototype. The physical embodiment is modelled in the CIDOC CRM as instances of E24 Physical Human-Made Thing.

The relationship of a physical copy of a book to the text it contains is modelled using E18 Physical Thing. P128 carries (is carried by): E33 Linguistic Object.

• “keep off the grass” on a sign stuck in the lawn of the quad of Balliol College
• The text published in Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum V 895
• Kilroy was here

• E34(x) ⊃ E33(x)
• E34(x) ⊃ E37(x)

This class comprises textual strings that within a cultural context can be clearly identified as titles due to their form. Being a subclass of E41 Appellation, E35 Title can only be used when such a string is actually used as a title of a work, such as a text, an artwork, or a piece of music.

Titles are proper noun phrases or verbal phrases, and should not be confused with generic object names such as “chair”, “painting” or “book” (the latter are common nouns that stand for instances of E55 Type). Titles may be assigned by the creator of the work itself, or by a social group.

This class also comprises the translations of titles that are used as surrogates for the original titles in different social contexts.

• “The Merchant of Venice” (McCullough, 2005)
• “Mona Lisa” (Mohen, 2006)
• “La Pie or The Magpie” (Bortolatto, 1981)
• “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (Lennon, 1967)

• E35(x) ⊃ E33(x)
• E35(x) ⊃ E41(x)

This class comprises the intellectual or conceptual aspects of recognisable marks and images.

This class does not intend to describe the idiosyncratic characteristics of an individual physical embodiment of a visual item, but the underlying prototype. For example, a mark such as the ICOM logo is generally considered to be the same logo when used on any number of publications. The size, orientation and colour may change, but the logo remains uniquely identifiable. The same is true of images that are reproduced many times. This means that visual items are independent of their physical support.

The class E36 Visual Item provides a means of identifying and linking together instances of E24 Physical Human-Made Thing that carry the same visual symbols, marks or images etc. The property P62 depicts (is depicted by) between E24 Physical Human-Made Thing and depicted subjects (E1 CRM Entity) can be regarded as a short-cut of the more fully developed path from E24 Physical Human-Made Thing through P65 shows visual item (is shown by), E36 Visual Item, P138 represents (has representation) to E1CRM Entity, which in addition captures the optical features of the depiction.

• the visual appearance of Monet’s “La Pie”
• the Coca-Cola logo (E34)
• the Chi-Rho (E37)
• the communist red star (E37)

• E36(x) ⊃ E73(x)

This class comprises symbols, signs, signatures or short texts applied to instances of E24 Physical Human-Made Thing by arbitrary techniques in order to indicate the creator, owner, dedications, purpose, etc.

This class specifically excludes features that have no semantic significance, such as scratches or tool marks. These should be documented as instances of E25 Human-Made Feature.

• Minoan double axe mark (Lowe Fri, 2011)
• ©

• E37(x) ⊃ E36(x)

This class comprises people, either individually or in groups, who have the potential to perform intentional actions of kinds for which someone may be held responsible.

The CIDOC CRM does not attempt to model the inadvertent actions of such actors. Individual people should be documented as instances of E21 Person, whereas groups should be documented as instances of E74 Group.

• London and Continental Railways (E40)
• the Governor of the Bank of England in 1975 (E21)
• Sir Ian McKellan (E21) (Gibson, 1986)

• E39(x) ⊃ E77(x)

This class comprises signs, either meaningful or not, or arrangements of signs following a specific syntax, that are used or can be used to refer to and identify a specific instance of some class or category within a certain context.

Instances of E41 Appellation do not identify things by their meaning, even if they happen to have one, but instead by convention, tradition, or agreement. Instances of E41 Appellation are cultural constructs; as such, they have a context, a history, and a use in time and space by some group of users. A given instance of E41 Appellation can have alternative forms, i.e., other instances of E41 Appellation that are always regarded as equivalent independent from the thing it denotes.

Specific subclasses of E41 Appellation should be used when instances of E41 Appellation of a characteristic form are used for particular objects. Instances of E49 Time Appellation, for example, which take the form of instances of E50 Date, can be easily recognised.

Numerically expressed identifiers in continua are instances of E41 Appellation, such as Gregorian dates or spatial coordinates, even though their encoding may be similar to instances of E60 Number.

Thus, the use of subclasses of E41 is not determined by the characteristics of the object the appellation refers to, e.g., a person or a place, but rather the form of the appellation itself shows it as a special type of appellation, such as an identifier.

E41 Appellation should not be confused with the act of naming something. Cf. E15 Identifier Assignment

• "Martin"
• "the Forth Bridge"
• "the Merchant of Venice" (E35) (McCullough, 2005)
• "Spigelia marilandica (L.) L." [not the species, just the name] (Hershberger, Jenkins and Robacker, 2015)
• "information science" [not the science itself, but the name through which we refer to it in an English-speaking context]
• “安” [Chinese “an”, meaning “peace”]
• “6°5’29”N 45°12’13”W”
• “Black queen’s bishop 4” [chess coordinate]
• “1900”
• “4-4-1959”
• “19-MAR-1922”
• “19640604”
• “+41 22 418 5571”
• weasel@paveprime.com
• “Vienna”
• “CH-1211, Genève”
• “Aquae Sulis Minerva”
• “Bath”
• “Cambridge”
• “the Other Place”
• “the City”
• “1-29-3 Otsuka, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 121, Japan”
• “Rue David Dufour 5, CH-1211, Genève”
• “the entrance lobby to the Ripley Center”
• “the poop deck of H.M.S Victory”
• “the Venus de Milo’s left buttock”
• “left inner side of my box”
• “the entrance lobby to the Ripley Center”
• “the poop deck of H.M.S Victory”
• “the Venus de Milo’s left buttock”
• “left inner side of my box”

• E41(x) ⊃ E90(x)

This class comprises strings or codes assigned to instances of E1 CRM Entity in order to identify them uniquely and permanently within the context of one or more organisations. Such codes are often known as inventory numbers, registration codes, etc. and are typically composed of alphanumeric sequences. The class E42 Identifier is not normally used for machine-generated identifiers used for automated processing unless these are also used by human agents.

• “MM.GE.195”
• “13.45.1976”
• “OXCMS: 1997.4.1”
• ISSN “0041-5278”
• ISRC “FIFIN8900116”
• Shelf mark “Res 8 P 10”
• “Guillaume de Machaut (1300?-1377)” [a controlled personal name heading that follows the French rules] (Reaney, 1974)

• E42(x) ⊃ E41(x)

This class comprises abstract temporal extents, in the sense of Galilean physics, having a beginning, an end and a duration.

Time Span has no other semantic connotations. Time-Spans are used to define the temporal extent of instances of E4 Period, E5 Event and any other phenomena valid for a certain time.

Since our knowledge of history is imperfect, instances of E52 Time-Span can best be considered as approximations of the actual Time-Spans of temporal entities. The properties of E52 Time-Span are intended to allow these approximations to be expressed precisely. An extreme case of approximation, might, for example, define an instance of E52 Time-Span having unknown beginning, end and duration. Used as a common E52 Time-Span for two events, it would nevertheless define them as being simultaneous, even if nothing else was known.

Automatic processing and querying of instances of E52 Time-Span is facilitated if data can be parsed into an E61 Time Primitive.

• 1961
• From 12-17-1993 to 12-8-1996
• 14h30 – 16h22 4^th July 1945
• 9.30 am 1.1.1999 to 2.00 pm 1.1.1999
• duration of the Ming Dynasty (Chan, 2011)

• E52(x) ⊃ E1(x)

This class comprises extents in space, in particular on the surface of the earth, in the pure sense of physics: independent from temporal phenomena and matter.

The instances of E53 Place are usually determined by reference to the position of “immobile” objects such as buildings, cities, mountains, rivers, or dedicated geodetic marks. A Place can be determined by combining a frame of reference and a location with respect to this frame.

It is sometimes argued that instances of E53 Place are best identified by global coordinates or absolute reference systems. However, relative references are often more relevant in the context of cultural documentation and tend to be more precise. In particular, we are often interested in position in relation to large, mobile objects, such as ships. For example, the Place at which Nelson died is known with reference to a large mobile object – H.M.S Victory. A resolution of this Place in terms of absolute coordinates would require knowledge of the movements of the vessel and the precise time of death, either of which may be revised, and the result would lack historical and cultural relevance.

Any object can serve as a frame of reference for an instance of E53 Place determination. The model foresees the notion of a "section" of an instance of E19 Physical Object as a valid E53 Place determination.

• the extent of the UK in the year 2003
• the position of the hallmark on the inside of my wedding ring
• the place referred to in the phrase: “Fish collected at three miles north of the confluence of the Arve and the Rhone”
• here -> <-

• E53(x) ⊃ E1(x)

This class comprises quantifiable properties that can be measured by some calibrated means and can be approximated by values, i.e. points or regions in a mathematical or conceptual space, such as natural or real numbers, RGB values etc.

An instance of E54 Dimension represents the true quantity, independent from its numerical approximation, e.g. in inches or in cm. The properties of the class E54 Dimension allow for expressing the numerical approximation of the values of instances of E54 Dimension. If the true values belong to a non-discrete space, such as spatial distances, it is recommended to record them as approximations by intervals or regions of indeterminacy enclosing the assumed true values. For instance, a length of 5 cm may be recorded as 4.5-5.5 cm, according to the precision of the respective observation. Note, that interoperability of values described in different units depends critically on the representation as value regions.

Numerical approximations in archaic instances of E58 Measurement Unit used in historical records should be preserved. Equivalents corresponding to current knowledge should be recorded as additional instances of E54 Dimension as appropriate.

• The 250 metric ton weight of the Luxor Obelisk
• The 5.17 m height of the statue of David by Michaelangelo
• The 530.2 carats of the Great Star of Africa diamond
• The AD1262-1312, 1303-1384 calibrated C14 date for the Shroud of Turin
• The 33 m diameter of the Stonehenge Sarcen Circle
• The 755.9 foot length of the sides of the Great Pyramid at Giza
• Christies’ hammer price for “Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers” (E97) has currency British Pounds (E98)
• The time span of the Battle of Issos 333 B.C.E. (E52) had duration Battle of Issos duration (E54)

• E54(x) ⊃ E1(x)

This class comprises concepts denoted by terms from thesauri and controlled vocabularies used to characterize and classify instances of CIDOC CRM classes. Instances of E55 Type represent concepts in contrast to instances of E41 Appellation which are used to name instances of CIDOC CRM classes.

E55 Type is the CIDOC CRM’s interface to domain specific ontologies and thesauri. These can be represented in the CIDOC CRM as subclasses of E55 Type, forming hierarchies of terms, i.e. instances of E55 Type linked via P127 has broader term (has narrower term): E55Type. Such hierarchies may be extended with additional properties.

• weight, length, depth [types of E54]
• portrait, sketch, animation [types of E36]
• French, English, German [E56]
• excellent, good, poor [types of E3]
• Ford Model T, chop stick [types of E22]
• cave, doline, scratch [types of E26]
• poem, short story [types of E33]
• wedding, earthquake, skirmish [types of E5]