Windows on Data: Object Biography for Stained Glass Research

On October 14 and 15, 2025, the DiHMa.Lab at Freie Universität Berlin in cooperation with ZIB hold a joint workshop with the consortia of the German National Research Data Infrastrucure MaRDI and NFDI4Objects consortia. The focus of this interdisciplinary workshop was on the topic of “Objects and Methods” that brought together different perspectives from mathematics and object-based humanities. The aim is to facilitate dialogue between approaches, tools, and issues in both disciplines, highlight common ground, and discuss shared methodological challenges.

This presentation introduces the concept of the digital object biography for the cross-consortia Use Case "Windows on data", where many different perspectives on stained glass are brought together.

Within NFDI4Objects researchers work with the material remains of human and environmental history. The task is to build a sustainable, interoperable research data infrastructure capable of integrating the highly heterogeneous datasets produced across archaeology, collections, cultural heritage studies and related disciplines. 

At the core of this effort lies the concept of the digital object biography. This is an event-based data model that systematically links information about an object’s origin, use, collection information, contextual shifts, research or conservation acitivities. The information is linked with actors, places, time spans and sources. Using established standards such as CIDOC CRM and LIDO (Lightweight Information Describing Objects), this initiative enables consistent modelling of complex object histories, the documentation of uncertainties, and the interoperability of data across institutional and disciplinary boundaries. The digital object biography functions as a “maximum dataset” that brings together diverse research information and makes it reusable in a FAIR-compliant way. The Stained Glass use case illustrates how event structures, part–whole relationships and actor involvement can be precisely represented and offers a chance for modeling the information in the context of stained glass as digital object biography.