Dear All,
I hope for a vivid discussion! Here my humble attempt to redefine what
is man-made:-[
E24 Physical Man-Made Thing
Subclass of:E18Physical Thing
E71 Man-Made Thing
Superclass of: E22 Man-Made Object
E25Man-Made Feature
E78Collection
Scope Note:This class comprises all persistent physical items that
are purposely created by human activity.
This class comprises man-made objects, such as a swords, and man-made
features, such as rock art. No assumptions are made as to the extent of
modification required to justify regarding an object as man-made. For
example, a “cup and ring” carving on bedrock is regarded as instance of
E24 Physical Man-Made Thing.
Instances of this class may act as carriers of instances of E73
Information Object.
*New Scope Note:*This class comprises all persistent physical items that
are purposely created by human activity. This class comprises, besides
others, man-made objects, such as a swords, and man-made features, such
as rock art. For example, a “cup and ring” carving on bedrock is
regarded as instance of E24 Physical Man-Made Thing.
Typically, physical man-made things do not exhibit similarity with the
“raw materials” they are produced from. However, enough instances of
this class may be the result of modifying pre-existing physical things,
preserving larger parts or most of the original matter and structure,
which poses the question if they are new or even man-made, in particular
in natural history collections. Therefore, the respective interventions
of production made on such original material should be obvious and
sufficient to regard that the product has a new, distinct identity and
intended function and is man-made. Substantial continuity of the
previous matter and structure in the new product can be documented by
describing the production process also as instance of /E81 Transformation/.
Whereas interventions of conservation and repair are not regarded to
produce a new man-made thing, the results of preparation of natural
history specimen that substantially change their natural or original
state should be regarded as physical man-made things, including the
uncovering of petrified biological features from a solid piece of stone.
On the other side, scribbling a museum number on a natural object should
not regarded to make it man-made. This notwithstanding, parts, segments,
or features of a physical man-made thing may continue to be non-man-made
and preserved during the production process, such as the uncovered
traces of the Archaeopterix in the Natural History Museum of Vienna,
predating the prepared object.
Instances of this class may act as carriers of instances of E73
Information Object.
--
------------------------------------
Dr. Martin Doerr
Honorary Head of the
Center for Cultural Informatics
Information Systems Laboratory
Institute of Computer Science
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton,
GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece
Vox:+30(2810)391625
Email: mar...@ics.forth.gr
Web-site: http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl
