Classes & Properties Declarations of CIDOC-CRM version: 6.2.9
with Translation & Versioning information

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 and other unstructured data for the expression of anything not captured by formal properties

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 and E5 Events, 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, such phenomena are also called perdurants. This class is disjoint from E77 Persistent Item and is an abstract class that typically 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 instance of 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 a single event, i.e., an instance of E5 Event, and as an extended period, i.e., an 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.

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.

Typical use of this class in cultural heritage documentation is for documenting cultural and artistic periods. 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 in the European sphere of influence 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 instance of 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 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, 2010)
• 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.