Hi all,

In the last few weeks, I have undertaken a project of EAC-CPF stubs using
dbpedia and VIAF data for the Roman emperors and their relations.  There's
a lot of great information available through dbpedia, and since it's
available in RDF, I put together a PHP script that can start at one point
in dbpedia (e.g., http://dbpedia.org/resource/Augustus) and traverse
through its relations to create a network of stubs using links to parents,
children, spouses, influences, successors, and predecessors provided in the
RDF.  Left unchecked, the script would crawl forward through the Byzantine
period to spread laterally (chronologically speaking) to generate a network
of the ruling hierarchy of the West up to the modern period.  It also goes
backwards to the successors of Alexander the Great.  For all I know, it
goes back through all of the Egyptian dynasties to Narmer ca. 3000 BC, but
I haven't let the script go that far.

The script is fairly generalizable, and can begin at any dbpedia resource.
It's available at
https://github.com/ewg118/xEAC/blob/master/misc/dbpedia-to-eac.php

I should also note that this is a work in progress.  To execute the script,
you'll need to place a "temp" folder in the same place you download/execute
it (for writing EAC records).

At a glance, here's what it does:

-Creates nameEntries for all of the names available in various languages in
dbpedia
-If a VIAF ID is available in the RDF, the script will pull some alternate
record IDs from VIAF, as well as birth and death dates
-Can pull in subjects, occupations, and related resources on the web
-Generate corporate/personal/family relations given the
parents/children/spouses/influences/successors/predecessors/dynasties
linked in dbpedia.  These relations are added into an array which
continually processes until presumably it reaches the end of time.
-You can specify an "end" record to attempt to break this chain, but I
cannot guarantee that it'll work.  Anastasius (emperor of Rome ca. 500 AD)
does actually successfully terminate the Augustus chain.
-Import birth and death places (and associated birth and death dates, if
available)

I think that these stubs are a good starting point for handing off the
management of EAC content to subject specialists who can add chronological
and geographical context.  I wrote a bit more about this script and the
process applied to xEAC, an XForms-based engine for creating, editing,
managing, and publishing EAC-CPF collections at
http://eaditor.blogspot.com/2012/10/using-dbpedia-to-jumpstart-eac-cpf.html

There's a prototype collection of the Roman Empire; if anyone is interested
in taking a look at it, drop me a line off the list.

Ethan