Objects and materials mentioned in the recipes are indexed both by their current scientific name (‘Current names’) and by the ‘historical’ terms precisely as they are written in the source texts (‘Historical names’). Objects and materials are linked by relational tables that allow the retrieval of all the different historical names used for one particular material—detailing the historical written context—as well as enabling the user to see the various materials that may be related to a specific name.
We support Linked Open Data, so wherever possible, we link our current and historical names to the Getty Vocabularies.
This layout makes it possible not only to observe the global frequency and recurrence for each ingredient or technical instruction, but also to deduce the availability of artistic material in a chronologically and geographically defined area. These lists also shed light on the diversity of colour names and the complexity of the varied colour terminology used in artisanal recipes.