In this section we present the study of the domain of our project, the life of Diana, Princess of Wales. We will provide a brief biography of her life, the selection of items and the timeline of her life.
Diana Frances Spencer, most commonly known as Princess Diana, was born on July 1st, 1961 at Sandringham, England. Diana grew up in close proximity to the royal family, as the Spencer family was part of British nobility. In 1975 her father inherited the title of Earl Spencer, and from then on she became Lady Diana.
Diana first met Charles (King Charles III, former Prince of Wales) in 1977. Later, in 1980, Charles and Diana encountered each other again, and after several months and Diana's favorable impression on the Queen following a weekend at Balmoral Castle, Scotland, Charles proposed to Diana. The engagement was publicly announced on February 24, 1981 with a BBC interview.
Six months later, they married on July 29, 1981 at St. Paul's Cathedral, London. The wedding was watched by a global television audience of 750 million people. The service was described as a fairytale wedding, becoming one of the most significant events of the 1980s. Following the wedding, Diana officially became a member of the Royal family, thereby becoming Diana, Princess of Wales.
In their early years of marriage, she gave birth to Prince William and Prince Harry while fulfilling all official engagements as a royal family member. She was particularly involved with several charitable organizations and traveled extensively to support them. She is especially remembered for her efforts to reduce stigma around HIV/AIDS during the mid-1980s epidemic.
During the 80s and 90s she became a fashion icon, a celebrity and a beloved woman all around the world, remembered for her sensibility and her kindness especially for her caring attitude towards the ones in need.
Unfortunately her popularity all around the world started to produce problems in her marriage with Prince Charles. In addition due to his extramarital affairs, their marriage started to crumble. By the beginning of the 1990s the relationship between Charles and Diana was in crisis, all the UK tabloids were every day filled with new gossip.
"Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you."
After several scandals such as the publication of Diana's biography, Diana and Charles separated in 1992. By 1996 Charles asked the Queen for permission to divorce and it was granted after the famous Panorama interview where Diana exposed directly Prince Charles and the royal family.
In the last year of her life she got closer and began a relationship with Dodi Al-Fayed, an Egyptian millionaire, they spent the summer of 1997 together. In Paris, France on the night of August 31, after being chased by paparazzi and the driver of her car being under the influence of alcohol, Diana tragically died in a car crash in the Alma bridge.
A week after her death her state funeral was carried out in London, where over 2.5 billion people around the world mourned her death on TV.
After her death, Diana is remembered as one of the most influential women of the 20th century, deeply beloved by her charming attitude, kindness and amazing fashion sense. Even after more than 25 years of her death she is still honored with movies, TV series and charities in her name. Today she is still an icon for several generations and a source of inspiration, remembered as Diana, the People's Princess.
Exploring Diana's life through key events.
The interactive timeline weaves together Diana's remarkable life story with the featured objects, presenting them in chronological order. While this timeline extends beyond the core assignment requirements, we believe it significantly enhances user engagement and deepens understanding of Diana's legacy.
To provide essential context, we incorporated key life events—her birth, wedding, and funeral—alongside the featured objects. This approach helps readers navigate through different periods of her life while maintaining chronological clarity.
The timeline is powered by Timeline.JS, a free visualization tool developed by Northwestern University's Knight Lab. For detailed information about the timeline's creation and functionality, please visit the Timeline.JS website.
Exploring Diana's life through the objects that tell her story.
The 10 distinctive objects selected for this narrative represent a broad spectrum of media types, incorporating textual materials, architectural structures, musical works, and additional cultural artifacts that collectively illuminate different aspects of Diana's life.
The selection of items was done considering their relevance on her life and legacy in relation to other individuals, places and time.
These items serve as the foundation for our knowledge models and data creation. By clicking on any image below, you can access an enlarged view of the resource and follow external links to both the source where the metadata was drawn from. The download button gives access to the CSV file containing the complete raw metadata for each item.
All images and visual materials used in this project are either copyright-free, sourced from public domain collections, or used under Creative Commons licensing agreements, ensuring full compliance with intellectual property rights.
Elaborating on the construction of information using models.
In this section, we document our attempts to make sense of the existing constructs of the information in which our diverse objects exist. During this process, we acknowledged how different the natures of our items were, which may result in diverging ontologies and varying use of metadata by the source organization.
In particular, it was challenging to understand the metadata standards used to describe the wedding dress and tiara due to their provenance. The items are in private possession by the Spencer family and are not digitally represented by, for example, a non-profit organization such as a museum. However, fortunately, the exhibits of both items have been documented by the hosting institutions, including Kensington Palace, which allowed us to trace some of their metadata.
The theoretical model helped us to identify the most prominent information that can describe the objects using natural language. This intermediate step bridges the challenging process of abstracting real-world objects into their conceptual understanding.
Ultimately, the conceptual model's graph visualizes the ontology resulting from our abstraction, as we tried to connect it to as many existing standards and vocabularies as possible. We found that we only lacked a term for "royal" or "royal family" and decided to define this ourselves.
During the metadata analysis, we identified and documented the metadata according to the standards chosen by the institution to encode the items. The table below shows the item, its object type, the provider institution, and the metadata standard. The standards marked with an * indicate those in which the provider did not explicitly specify the used standard; in such cases, a close estimate of the metadata standard has been provided.
| Item | Object Type | Provider | Metadata Standard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engagement interview | Video | ITN | Open Graph / Schema.org |
| Kensington Palace | Building | Historic England | Custom |
| Lady Diana Spencer's Wedding Dress | Wedding Dress | Historic Royal Palaces | Dublin Core/ CDWA CCO * |
| Spencer Tiara | Jewelry Tiara | Wikipedia | Dublin Core* |
| "Diana, her True Story - In her own words" | Book | OPAC SBN | MARC21 |
| Photograph of Diana Shaking hands with AIDS patients | Photo | Getty Images | IPTC/XMP* |
| Photograph of Lady Diana on holiday in Portofino | Photo | Getty Images | IPTC/XMP* |
| The Crown | TV Series | IMDB | Schema.org |
| Candle in the Wind | Song | MusicBrainz | MMD |
| Divorce announcement | News Article | New York Times | Schema.org |
| Alma Bridge | Building | Structurae.net | Schema.org* |
After identifying the data descriptions, we depicted the items in natural language within a graphic model, reusing the descriptions provided by the institution holding the items. We added relevant information and interlinked the relationships between the items to create a narrative for our study domain, aiming to enrich the data with an interpretative layer. To ensure the unique identification of our entities, we aligned them with authoritative records and well-established knowledge repositories on the web. We used these standards to connect to our data: VIAF, GeoNames, the Getty vocabularies and Wikidata.
We created this theoretical model answering the questions: Who, Where When, What for each item.
We developed our Conceptual Model as a formal representation of the Theoretical Model. The subjects, concepts, and relationships identified within the Theoretical Model were refactored in the Conceptual Model using classes and properties sourced from selected schemas, vocabularies, and ontologies.
Initially, we primarily relied on schema.org for describing entities and object properties, given its comprehensive coverage of events and more abstract concepts. For domain-specific entities, we incorporated terms from Dublin Core and Getty vocabularies.
We also employed CIDOC CRM, which facilitated a semantically rich and structured representation of cultural heritage processes. For object and datatype properties, we adopted terms from FOAF, Dublin Core, CIDOC CRM, and schema.org, depending on the level of semantic context required.
Both models are free to download using the button below. We used yEd to create these models and graffoo to style the conceptual model.
We produced a table for each item (csv file) with the full description of the object by reusing the standard and creating relations and links to related items. The CSV files are available here:
We employed XML/TEI encoding methodology to represent the textual structure of a selected excerpt from the opening chapter, "In Her Own Words,". The XML/TEI encoded document sample is accessible here:
The XML document is henceforth transformed into a HTML document. The XSLT file is accessible through the download button and the visualization is shown here below.
The XML/TEI document is transformed into a RDF document. The RDFs are made available in both a .ttl and python file and downloadable as a .zipfile through the button here below:
We produced an RDF dataset of all our items. Download the python code and rdf file here:
@prefix crm: <http://www.cidoc-crm.org/cidoc-crm/> .
@prefix dbr: <http://dbpedia.org/resource/> .
@prefix dc: <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/> .
@prefix dcmitype: <http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/> .
@prefix dcterms: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> .
@prefix foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> .
@prefix lod: <https://github.com/digitalctrlv/LifeOfDiana/> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix schema: <https://schema.org/> .
@prefix wd: <https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/> .
@prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .
crm:E8 crm:P22 lod:RoyalFamily ;
crm:P23 dbr:Daniel_Finch ;
crm:P24 lod:NottinghamHouse .
lod:DivorceAnnouncement a schema:NewsArticle ;
dc:language "en"^^xsd:language ;
dc:subject lod:Divorce ;
dc:title "It's Official: Charles and Diana Split, and She Pays Her Own Bills" ;
schema:articleSection "A" ;
schema:copyrightHolder dbr:The_New_York_Times ;
schema:creator dbr:Sarah_Lyall ;
schema:isPartOf "CXLV, 50534" ;
schema:locationCreated <http://vocab.getty.edu/page/tgn/7007567> ;
schema:pagination 9 ;
schema:publishDate "1996-08-29"^^xsd:date ;
schema:publisher dbr:The_New_York_Times .
lod:EngagementInterview a dcmitype:MovingImage ;
dc:language "en"^^xsd:language ;
dc:title "On This Day: Charles and Diana's Awkward Engagement Interview, 1981" ;
crm:P14 lod:Charles,
lod:LadyDiana ;
schema:copyrightHolder "ITN archive" ;
schema:creator dbr:BBC ;
schema:dateCreated "1981-02-24"^^xsd:date ;
schema:genre "Entertainment" ;
schema:identifier "I0__QzksN8w" ;
schema:locationCreated lod:BuckinghamPalace ;
schema:provider dbr:YouTube ;
schema:publisher <http://www.youtube.com/@royalchannel, The Royal Family Channel"> ;
schema:uploadDate "2022-02-24"^^xsd:date .
lod:LadyDianaWithAIDSPatient a schema:Photograph ;
dc:subject "Princess Diana and Aids Patients " ;
dc:title "Princess Diana shaking hands with an AIDS patient" ;
foaf:depicts lod:LadyDiana ;
schema:copyrightHolder "WireImage" ;
schema:creator "Anwar Hussein" ;
schema:dateCreated "1987-08-09"^^xsd:date ;
schema:identifier 14653447 ;
schema:locationCreated dbr:Middlesex_Hospital ;
schema:provider <http://viaf.org/viaf/151544970> ;
schema:uploadDate "2007-08-22"^^xsd:date .
lod:TheCrown a schema:TVSeries ;
dc:language "en"^^xsd:language ;
dc:title "The Crown" ;
owl:sameAs <https://viaf.org/en/viaf/3838148997596659870003> ;
foaf:depicts lod:AlmaBridge,
lod:BuckinghamPalace,
lod:Charles,
lod:DianaHerTrueStory,
lod:KensingtonPalace,
lod:LadyDFuneral,
lod:LadyDiana,
lod:LadyDianaOnHolidayInPortofino,
lod:NottinghamHouse,
lod:RoyalFamily,
lod:RoyalWedding,
lod:Tiara,
lod:WeddingDress ;
schema:actor lod:ElizabethDebicki,
lod:EmmaLouiseCorrin ;
schema:creator lod:PeterMorgan ;
schema:genre "Biographical, Drama, Historical" ;
schema:locationCreated "Ardverikie Estate, Kinloch Laggan, Newtonmore, Highland, Scotland, UK
(Balmoral Castle in Scotland)" ;
schema:producer lod:LeftBankPictures,
lod:SonyPictureTelevision,
"Sony Pictures Television Production UK" ;
schema:provider <https://viaf.org/en/viaf/110144647635343459670> ;
schema:uploadDate "2016-11-05"^^xsd:date .
dbr:Christopher_Wren foaf:name "Chrisopher Wren" .
dbr:Sarah_Lyall foaf:name "Sarah Lyall" .
dcmitype:StillImage rdfs:subClassOf schema:Image .
<http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300007838> rdfs:subClassOf <http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300264550> .
<http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300046046> rdfs:subClassOf <http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300209261> .
<http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300255177> rdfs:subClassOf <http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300209261> .
<http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300005743> rdfs:subClassOf <http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300264550> .
lod:AndrewMorton owl:sameAs <http://viaf.org/viaf/22238479> ;
foaf:name "Andrew Morton" .
lod:Archiginnasio owl:sameAs dbr:Archiginnasio_of_Bologna ;
schema:location <http://viaf.org/viaf/5185150647115410860003> .
lod:CandleInTheWind a schema:MusicComposition ;
dc:language "en"^^xsd:language ;
dc:title "Candle in the Wind ’97 (live, 1997-09-06: Westminster Abbey, London, England, UK)" ;
owl:sameAs wd:Q2449307 ;
schema:about lod:LadyDiana ;
schema:contributor lod:BernieTaupin ;
schema:creator lod:EltonJohn ;
schema:dateCreated "1997-09-06"^^xsd:date ;
schema:duration "4:03" ;
schema:genre dbr:Ballad,
dbr:Classic_rock,
dbr:Pop,
dbr:Rock_music,
"Singer-songwriter" ;
schema:identifier "T-011.520.443-7, T-070.028.244-5" ;
schema:isBasedOn "Candle in the Wind" ;
schema:locationCreated <http://vocab.getty.edu/page/tgn/1100068> ;
schema:lyricist lod:BernieTaupin ;
schema:publisher lod:songPublisher .
lod:DianaHerTrueStory a schema:Book ;
dc:language "en"^^xsd:language ;
dc:subject lod:Charles,
lod:Divorce,
lod:LadyDiana,
lod:RoyalFamily ;
dc:title "Diana: Her True Story - In her Own Words" ;
schema:creator lod:AndrewMorton ;
schema:datePublished "1997"^^xsd:gYear ;
schema:genre "Biography" ;
schema:identifier "97818547927091854792709" ;
schema:mentions lod:Apartments,
lod:KensingtonPalace ;
schema:publisher "Michael O'Mara Books" ;
schema:sourceOrganization lod:Archiginnasio .
lod:ElizabethDebicki owl:sameAs <http://viaf.org/viaf/305280245> ;
foaf:name "Elizabeth Debicki" ;
schema:roleName lod:LadyDiana .
lod:EltonJohn owl:sameAs <http://viaf.org/viaf/84034533> ;
foaf:name "Elton John" .
lod:EmmaLouiseCorrin owl:sameAs <http://viaf.org/viaf/1883161881819434100005> ;
foaf:name "Emma-Louise Corrin" ;
schema:roleName lod:LadyDiana .
lod:LadyDFuneral a schema:Event ;
schema:location <http://vocab.getty.edu/page/tgn/1100068> ;
schema:workPerformed lod:CandleInTheWind .
lod:LadyDianaOnHolidayInPortofino a schema:Photograph ;
dc:subject "Lady Diana, Princess of Wales, sitting on the diving board of Mohammed Al Fayed's private
yacht 'Jonikal' as a seagull flies overhead" ;
dc:title "Lady Diana on holiday in Portofino" ;
foaf:depicts lod:LadyDiana ;
schema:copyrightHolder "Sygma Premium" ;
schema:creator "Stephane Cardinale - Corbis" ;
schema:dateCreated "1997-08-24"^^xsd:date ;
schema:identifier "news-31717-003.jpg" ;
schema:locationCreated wd:Q232782 ;
schema:provider <http://viaf.org/viaf/151544970> ;
schema:uploadDate "2016-08-24"^^xsd:date .
lod:LeftBankPictures owl:sameAs <http://viaf.org/viaf/130591214> ;
foaf:name "Left Bank Pictures" .
lod:PeterMorgan owl:sameAs wd:Q948122 ;
foaf:name "Peter Morgan" .
lod:RoyalWedding a schema:Event ;
dc:date "1981-07-29"^^xsd:date ;
crm:P14 lod:Charles,
lod:LadyDiana ;
crm:P16 lod:Tiara,
lod:WeddingDress ;
schema:location <http://vocab.getty.edu/tgn/7011781> .
lod:SonyPictureTelevision owl:sameAs wd:Q652390 ;
foaf:name "Sony Pictures Television" .
lod:songPublisher owl:sameAs wd:Q57818158 ;
foaf:name "Universal–Songs of PolyGram International, Inc." .
schema:Book rdfs:subClassOf schema:Text .
schema:MusicComposition rdfs:subClassOf schema:CreativeWork .
schema:NewsArticle rdfs:subClassOf schema:Text .
schema:TVSeries rdfs:subClassOf dcmitype:MovingImage .
dbr:The_New_York_Times foaf:name "The New York Times" ;
schema:location <http://vocab.getty.edu/page/tgn/7007567> .
dcmitype:MovingImage rdfs:subClassOf schema:Image .
<http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300209261> rdfs:subClassOf schema:CreativeWork .
<http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300264550> rdfs:subClassOf schema:CreativeWork .
lod:AlmaBridge a <http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300007838> ;
dc:title "Alma Bridge" ;
schema:copyrightHolder "Minister of Equipment, Transport, Housing, Tourism, and the Sea" ;
schema:creator "Auguste Arsac, M. Dougnac","J. F. Coste, Ch. Blanc" ;
schema:endDate "1974"^^xsd:gYear ;
schema:geoCrosses <http://viaf.org/viaf/316432461> ;
schema:location wd:Q90 ;
schema:material "Steel bridge" ;
schema:startDate "1970"^^xsd:gYear .
lod:Apartments schema:isPartOf lod:KensingtonPalace .
lod:BernieTaupin owl:sameAs dbr:Bernie_Taupin ;
foaf:name "Bernie Taupin" .
lod:BuckinghamPalace owl:sameAs <https://viaf.org/en/viaf/135411769> .
lod:Divorce a schema:Event ;
crm:P14 lod:Charles,
lod:LadyDiana .
lod:SpencerFamily owl:sameAs dbr:Spencer_family .
schema:Image rdfs:subClassOf schema:CreativeWork .
schema:Photograph rdfs:subClassOf dcmitype:StillImage .
schema:Text rdfs:subClassOf schema:CreativeWork .
lod:NottinghamHouse schema:creationDate "1605"^^xsd:gYear ;
schema:creator "Sir George Coppin" .
lod:Tiara a <http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300046046> ;
dc:relation lod:WeddingDress ;
dc:title "Spencer Tiara" ;
schema:copyrightHolder lod:SpencerFamily ;
schema:creator "Garrard & Co" ;
schema:dateCreated "1937"^^xsd:gYear ;
schema:location "Spencer Family Collection" ;
schema:material "Silver, gold, diamonds" .
lod:WeddingDress a <http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300255177> ;
dc:relation lod:Tiara ;
dc:title "Lady Diana Spencer's Wedding Dress" ;
schema:color "Ivory" ;
schema:copyrightHolder lod:SpencerFamily,
"David Emanuel, Elizabeth Emanuel" ;
schema:creator "David Emanuel, Elizabeth Emanuel" ;
schema:location "Spencer Family Collection" ;
schema:material "Ivory silk taffeta, antique lace, pearls, sequins" .
lod:RoyalFamily owl:sameAs dbr:British_royal_family ;
schema:owns lod:KensingtonPalace .
lod:Charles owl:sameAs <http://viaf.org/viaf/84034215> ;
schema:memberOf lod:RoyalFamily ;
schema:owns lod:KensingtonPalace .
lod:KensingtonPalace owl:sameAs <http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300005743> ;
dc:title "Kensington Palace" ;
dcterms:replaces lod:NottinghamHouse ;
owl:sameAs <https://viaf.org/en/viaf/172644537> ;
schema:address "KENSINGTON PALACE, KENSINGTON PALACE W8" ;
schema:creator dbr:Christopher_Wren ;
schema:genre <http://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300107014> ;
schema:identifier 1223861 ;
schema:material "Stone" ;
schema:publishDate "1969-04-15" ;
schema:sourceOrganization dbr:Historic_England .
lod:LadyDiana owl:sameAs <http://viaf.org/viaf/107032638> ;
schema:deathPlace lod:AlmaBridge ;
schema:homeLocation lod:Apartments .
We established URIs for our chosen entities and items, along with supplementary resources that could enhance the network of internal relationships:
