Ontology-Based Knowledge Organization of Bronze Weapons From the Shang and Zhou Dynasties

This study constructs an ontology that supports both morphological analysis and historical contextualization of bronze weapons from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, providing semantic support for the development of ancient Chinese military knowledge bases and advancing the structured organization of cultural heritage knowledge. The ontology is developed using a “term–concept–characteristic” methodology and integrates a “weapon–actor–event” semantic chain, enabling the representation of both structural characteristics and contextual relations. To ensure semantic interoperability and scalability, we reused standard ontology vocabularies from International Committee for Documentation Conceptual Reference Model (CIDOC CRM) and Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), and formally represented the ontology in Web Ontology Language 2 Description Logic (OWL 2 DL). The resulting Bronze Weapon Ontology encompasses physical characteristics, functional attributes, manufacturing processes, and historical contexts of bronze weapons, achieving fine-grained semantic modeling across multiple dimensions. Evaluation through structural metrics and SPARQL Protocol and Resource Description Framework (RDF) Query Language (SPARQL)-based competency queries confirms the ontology’s logical consistency, semantic expressiveness, and potential for supporting complex reasoning tasks. By providing a unified framework for weapon classification, morphological analysis, and contextual modeling, this ontology offers a robust methodological foundation for the semantic representation of cultural artifacts. It also contributes to broader applications in intelligent cultural heritage services, digital archaeology, and knowledge graph construction for ancient warfare studies.