Place:Trench

Place:Trench node definition.

Description

Nodes with both the "Place" and "Trench" labels, representing the locations of defined areas of various size or shape (usually rectangular and often of standardized dimensions, e.g., 1m x 1m, 2m x 10m, 5m x 5m) where material is removed and documented as part of a controlled and systematic excavation. Sometimes referred to as an excavation "square" or "unit", trenches are often the primary organizational unit for the documentation of archaeological fieldwork, with excavation proceeding through a series of "contexts" (or "loci") that are identified, documented, and removed as the excavation progresses in both vertical and horizontal dimensions within the trench. A "Place:Trench" must always be located within an enclosing "Place:Site", often through an intermediary "Place:Area". Represented in visualizations by HTML hex color #FFCA3A: Place:Trench with black (#000000) label text.

Analogy

A row in an "Trenches" spreadsheet or relational database table.

Example

"UJ.U.10": Trench U.10 at Umm Al-Jimal; Square "B.2" at Tall Hisban

CIDOC-CRM Mapping

MAYBE include a short summmary here, but leave the details for the designated CIDOC-CRM section.

Node Properties

Basic Properties

property	type	req?	uniq?	description	example(s)
-	-	-	-	-	-
uid	string	Y	Y	Unique identifier as alphanumeric slug, prepended with “trench-”	"trench-uj-u-10"
name	string	Y	Y	Unique name by which this Trench is known in the database.	"UJ.U.10"
description	string	Y	n	Short description of the Trench recorded by this node. Will almost certainly be unique, but this is not enforced.	"Trench U.10 at Umm Al-Jimal"
locationWKT	string (WKT)	n	n	REQUIRED FOR ALL NEW PLACES. The place's spatial geometry as a point, line, or (multi)polygon, expressed as a WKT string (the Open Geospatial Consortium standard for spatial geometry interchange).	"POLYGON ((36.379595 32.319053, 36.387148 32.322898, 36.387405 32.331673, 36.380625 32.33907, 36.363287 32.346467, 36.351871 32.345307, 36.349039 32.334429, 36.353416 32.3184, 36.379595 32.319053))"
locationSRID	string	n	n	REQUIRED FOR ALL PLACES WITH A locationWKT. Spatial Reference Identifier (SRID, often identical to EPSG code) for the coordinate reference system in which the location is defined.	"4326" for WGS 84
locationConfidence	string	n	n	REQUIRED FOR ALL PLACES WITH A locationWKT. The confidence level in the recorded location's accuracy and precision, selected from the Vocab:Confidence controlled vocabulary.	"moderate"

TENTATIVE Properties

(these may be changed to edge/relationships with Vocab terms or XX nodes, rather than directly stored as node properties)

property	type	req?	uniq?	description	example(s)
-	-	-	-	-	-
type	string	n	n	The type(s) of Trench recorded by this node entity, selected from the Vocab:TrenchType controlled vocabulary.	"open-area trench"

System/Audit Properties

(these are not required/enforced by Neo4j but are populated via the UJAP Database web application; these could also be handled—perhaps more simply—by edge/relationship to AuditEvent nodes)

property	type	req?	uniq?	description	example(s)
proposedAt	datetime	n	n	Timestamp of entity proposal (initial database record creation)	"2026-01-30T02:39:15.638Z"
proposedBy	string	n	n	Email or userID of the person who created this entity's initial/proposed record	"person@email.com"
approvedAt	datetime	n	n	Timestamp of entity proposal (initial database record creation)	"2026-01-30T12:47:15.638Z"
approvedBy	string	n	n	Email or userID of the person who created this entity's initial/proposed record	"person@email.com"
committedAt	datetime	n	n	of node entity COMMIT (i.e., formal approval/ publishing to database by an admin).	"2026-01-31T02:41:56.043Z"
committedBy	string	n	n	Email or userID of the person who COMMITTED this node entity.	"person@email.com"