Stones Heritage Ontology

This paper presents the Stones Heritage Ontology (SH Ontology), developed within the INT-ACT project, which explores the integration of tangible and intangible cultural heritage through immersive eXtended Reality (XR) experiences. The ontology is a specialization the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CIDOC-CRM) to represent the physical, symbolic and experiential dimensions of megalithic heritage sites. Two case studies, namely, Cromeleque das Fontainhas (Portugal) and Calanais I (Scotland), are used to demonstrate the ontology’s structure and application. The SH Ontology introduces classes and properties to account for megalithic archaeological features such as menhirs, artefacts, and site-specific environmental data, as well as intangible elements represented in images, narratives, videos and 3D models. The SH Ontology model is implemented in OWL and is publicly available to support semantic interoperability across cultural heritage datasets. By linking material description related to physical heritage site with lived experiences contained in intangible cultural heritage, the SH Ontology contributes to richer digital heritage representations and is aligned with the development of XR applications that foster engagement, understanding, and preservation of cultural memory.