NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum

In historical centres in Europe, near churches, palaces etc. etc. one can very often find historical statues. How to map them? Very often they are not ment as memorial to a historical person, rather they are symbolic, mythological etc. There may be an angel, or a saint, who may have never existed as a person, or even if it existed the statue is not really a memorial to this saint as a person, rather it has deeper religious or symbolic meaning (so the theme is for example "freedom", "justice" or anything else to what the saint is traditionally connected).

There are two basic options:

  1. tourism=artwork - according to wiki this is very good tag for any artist oeuvre. However it does not cover any historical meaning of these sculptures.
  2. historic=memorial - this is much more suitable for historical objects, however wiki mentions, that it should be used for "memorials, usually remembering special persons, peoples lost their lives in the world wars"

I prefer solution no. 1, but I have seen many usages of no. 2 - for example statues on Charles bridge in Prague, which is BTW very good example of what I have in mind, there are statues like "Pieta" or "cross with Calvary", which are NOT just memorials to one person.

asked 10 Jun '13, 21:57

gorn's gravatar image

gorn
542212537
accept rate: 11%


I think you can use historic=memorial. They are also smaller ones (e.g. Stolperstein) tagged with this. See the different examples and memorial:type taginfo. Via the CheckTheMonuments page you get to Historische_Objekte which provides a nice overview. historic=wayside_shrine (see @Vincent de Phily) or historic=wayside_cross would also be options, depending on what you see in reality.

tourism=artwork allows for artwork_type to specify. But it seems to be intended rather for current artwork although historical statues are still artwork …

I think you could go for using even all (like @stf says): historic=memorial (plus maybe memorial:type=xxx), tourism=artwork (plus maybe artwork_type=sculpture ).

permanent link

answered 12 Jun '13, 14:03

aseerel4c26's gravatar image

aseerel4c26 ♦
32.6k18248554
accept rate: 18%

Sometimes, when I don't know of a better tag or don't have time to comb the wiki I just add
historic=yes
to the object in question. This is not too ambiguous imho.

permanent link

answered 11 Jun '13, 20:09

malenki's gravatar image

malenki
4.7k24683
accept rate: 6%

Yes, or that similar way:

  • historic=memorial
  • description=historical statue of an angel with a probably deeper religious or symbolic meaning
  • fixme=better tags, see description

But I think it is better get it right the first time.

(11 Jun '13, 21:39) aseerel4c26 ♦

The specifically says it's not a memorial, but a religious feature. Of course you could argue that what is "religious" today was "memorial" at the time, but that'd be mapping the past :p I still like my "wayside shrine" suggestion.

(12 Jun '13, 08:13) Vincent de P... ♦

@Vincent de Phily: If you mean me: Eh, yes, the first tag should just symbolize the first tag which comes to the mind of gorn (so wayside shrine would be equally good), so he con continue working while tagging this one at least somehow.

(12 Jun '13, 13:30) aseerel4c26 ♦

Wayside shrine sounds to me like what you want, as long as those statues retain some religious meaning.

permanent link

answered 11 Jun '13, 09:06

Vincent%20de%20Phily's gravatar image

Vincent de P... ♦
17.3k18152249
accept rate: 19%

While wayside shrines often contain a (small) statue, what the OP describes definitely is something different.

(11 Jun '13, 18:59) cartinus

AFAIK wayside shrines can also be just the statue, big or small, without an enclosure. And since the OP talks about the feature having a "deep religious meaning", it does make sense to me.

(12 Jun '13, 08:08) Vincent de P... ♦

Nothing stopping you from using both tags.

Looks like both tags have a reasonable amount of use and are, in some instances, both set on the same object:

http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/search?q=tourism%3Dartwork

http://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/search?q=historic%3Dmemorial

permanent link

answered 10 Jun '13, 22:18

n76's gravatar image

n76
10.8k1082172
accept rate: 17%

I understand that nothing stops me to use both. However I would like to know what is the right usage. I remember even seeing OSM project which is trying to correct wronglly tagged historical object and I think memorial was one of them.

(11 Jun '13, 00:58) gorn

@gorn: project - I guess you mean CheckTheMonuments (mentioned in the Wochennotiz Nr. 147).

(11 Jun '13, 01:20) aseerel4c26 ♦
Your answer
toggle preview

Follow this question

By Email:

Once you sign in you will be able to subscribe for any updates here

By RSS:

Answers

Answers and Comments

Markdown Basics

  • *italic* or _italic_
  • **bold** or __bold__
  • link:[text](http://url.com/ "title")
  • image?![alt text](/path/img.jpg "title")
  • numbered list: 1. Foo 2. Bar
  • to add a line break simply add two spaces to where you would like the new line to be.
  • basic HTML tags are also supported

Question tags:

×930
×191
×89
×19

question asked: 10 Jun '13, 21:57

question was seen: 6,452 times

last updated: 12 Jun '13, 14:03

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum