Descriptions of time and the temporal attributes of people, events, and things are fundamental to the discussion of the past. When scholars attempt to represent information about the past as structured data, however, the inconsistencies in the ways we describe and annotate time become major stumbling blocks to the aggregation and reuse of historical datasets. This chapter presents some practical steps scholars can take to standardize chronological information in their data, and to take advantage of Linked Data resources to enrich their own datasets and make their data more useful to others. Using a hypothetical list of papyri as an example, the chapter discusses calendrical systems, standardized date formats for absolute time in digital environments, and the definition of relative expressions of time-divisions like periods with reference to external Linked Data authorities. It concludes with an overview of the process for adding new user-generated periods to the PeriodO Linked Data gazetteer of period definitions.

TQ4CG964