Data collection: the MANTO method
Written by Greta Hawes
In a world of big data, MANTO does things a bit differently. It’s not that we don’t have ambitions around scale (we do!); rather, it’s about our approach: we are crafting expertly-curated, bespoke-structured, artisan data.
High quality data takes time and costs money. It requires commitment and demands constant attention to detail.
Every element of our dataset is added, checked, and then double checked before it’s ready for its final check. Even then, we’re forever tinkering: with the ties, with the dataset, and with our underlying data model. Each time we find a better way of doing things, we go back and look at where else we might use that improvement. All the parts are moving, all the time. Apparently the proper word for this is ‘iterative’. Another would be ‘obsessive’. The experience is akin to building railway tracks while the train is already hurtling down the line, and also deciding that this would be a good time to both refurbish the dining cars, and re-think the whole concept of train travel.
MANTO needs to capture the complexity of Greek myth, but it also needs a data collection method that can be rolled out time and again for a wide variety of texts with reasonable consistency by our fabulous student researchers.
We began in essence with the idea that places in the Mediterranean could be tied to myths in quite systematic ways. So, the city of Athens would produce have a series of semantic triples (entities are in caps):
ATHENA is eponym of ATHENS
THE SHRINE OF PANDROSOS is at ATHENS
CECROPS is founder of ATHENS
ERECHTHONIOS is king of ATHENS
MINOS attempts to conquer ATHENS
ERECHTHEUS is born by autochthony at ATHENS
This is promising, but too limiting. As Classicists, we’re used to the semantic triple since it’s similar to our subject - predicate - object. So, then, why can’t we make some better sentences, with indirect objects, and prepositional phrases, perhaps… ?
ATHENA defeats POSEIDON at ATHENS
ERECTHONIOS dedicates THE WOODEN STATUE OF ATHENA to ATHENA at ATHENS
MEDEA flees from CORINTH to ATHENS using CHARIOT PULLED BY SERPENTS
MEDEA deceives AIGEUS at ATHENS
And now perhaps we add a few purpose clauses, and genitive absolutes, just to round things out…?
ERECHTHEUS offers sacrifice of CHTHONIA at ATHENS in accordance with a prophecy from APOLLO about ELEUSIS and EUMOLPOS
THESEUS abducts HELEN from SPARTA to ATHENS with the aid of PEIRITHOUS
AIGEUS sends THESEUS against THE MARATHONIAN BOAR at the instigation of MEDEA
DAIDALOS is expelled from ATHENS to CRETE to avenge TALOS
ZEUS punishes ATHENS to aid MINOS
And then of course we’re going to need to be able to assert relationships between mythical figures which have nothing to do with place. So:
THESEUS is child of AIGEUS or POSEIDON and AITHRA
MEDEA is spouse of AIGEUS
THESEUS is member of THE ARGONAUTS
Over time, we’ve developed a list of c. 180 predicates, and a handful of prepositional phrases, purpose clauses and genitive absolutes that can be combined to create ties that capture most situations that we encounter. Of course, developing this system has been a process of trial-and-error - Greek myth is eternally unpredictable! For example, we originally limited prepositional phrases to certain kinds of entities; so, ‘at’ would introduce a place, and ‘using’ would introduce an object, etc. Then we discovered Apollodoros 1.6.2, where in the fight between the Olympians and the Giants, Athena throws an island and the resulting tie (‘ATHENA kills ENCELADOS using SICILY’) meant we had to open up the whole system so that any kind of entity could be used in any position.
Data collection for MANTO is - necessarily - a tricky business. There’s no easy way of converting the stuff of myth into machine-readable form. But if we want accurate, usable data that retains something of the fluid complexity of the original thoughtworld, then embracing intricacy - and investing time and money in it — is the only solution.
A page from the list of interactions in MANTO’s Manual of data collection.