Filters
Selected Filters
None
Available Filters
Modern Countries and Continents
File Formats
Network Tags
Network Topics
Node Topics
Edge Topics
Directionality
Weighted
General

Search Fields

The following fields can be used for targeting a specific field as described in the query syntax below.

canonicalCitation
collectionTags
description
fileFormats
id
name
tags.txt
authors.firstName
authors.lastName
authors.orcidId
construction.additionalComments
construction.description
construction.sources.sourceTypes.txt
license.licenseId
relatedPublications.canonicalCitation
structure.directionality
structure.weighted
topic.edgeAttributes.txt
topic.edgeTopics.txt
topic.modernCountriesAndContinents.name
topic.networkTopics.txt
topic.nodeAttributes.txt
topic.nodeTopics.txt

Query Syntax

TitleOperatorExampleDescription
Phrase / Exact match
""
"Roman"
"Roman Road Network"
The term or phrase must be matched exactly (case insensitive) to get a match.
Field Search
FIELD_NAME:()
name:(Roman Road Network)
name:("Roman Road Network")
Field searches makes it possible to narrow the search to a specific field instead of searching all fields. The same operators as used in a normal search can be applied to field searches.
Wildcard
?, *
Roma?
Ro*
Search words including or ending with and an unknown set of characters. The wildcard 
?
matces a single character and 
*
matches 0-n characters.
Fuzzy
~
Roma~
Squire~
Find words which are similar (spelling wise) to the given word. Good for finding misspelled words. The examples could e.g. result in "Roma, Roman, Rome" or "Squire, Super, Squibb".
Given the length of the word different rules apply *:
[0-2]:
No fuzzyfication is applied - the word must match exactly
[3-5]:
One edit** is allowed
[6-*]:
Two edits** are allowed
* The default rules for edits can be overwritten by applying one of [0, 1, 2] after the "~", where the number specifies the number of edits allowed.
** An edit is an insertion, deletion or substitution of a character.
Must
+
+Roman Road +Network
+name:(Roman Road)
+"Roman Road" Network
Express which terms must be present to get a match:
+Roman Road +Network
Both "Roman" and "Network" must be present, "Road" is not required but would make a better result if present
+name:(Roman Road)
One of the terms must be present in the title field (If all terms must be present prefix each term with a "+")
+"Roman Road"
The exact phrase must be present
Must Not
-
-Roman Road
-name:(Roman Road)
-"Roman Road" Network
Express which terms must not be present to get a match:
-Roman Road
"Roman" must not present
-name:(Roman Road)
One of the terms must not be present in the title field (If all terms must not be present prefix each term with a "-")
-"Roman Road"
The exact phrase must not be present
Grouping
( )
(+Roman +Road) (+Ancient +Network)
Group expressions together to form sub-queries. The Example reads: match ("Roman" and "Road") or ("Ancient" and "Network").
time
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Constellation line figures in sky cultures across the world

Authors
Maintainers
Formats
json
Nodes
-
Edges
-
Years
-1470–2021
Access
|
Added
2025-06-23
22

A referenced dataset of historical star constellations. They describe sky cultures (traditional astronomies, oral or literate, tribes to empires) across the world and through time, to the extent that documentation of those astronomies has survived. Very rarely (for China and Western astronomies), there are multiple datasets for the same culture, at different times.

Most constellations have lines (are connect-the-dot figures, or spatial networks). A few more important sky objects are also included: star clusters (such as the Pleiades), the Milky Way, planets, and some individual stars.

The data has: culture metadata, constellation names, stars, and lines, the degree of certainty in its identification, a summary of practical usage or mythological themes for that constellation, the semantics of the constellation, and links to any known related constellations (also cross-culture).

          (The example image is part of the Romanian folk sky, documented around 1900.)
Tags
astronomy
Modern Countries and Continents
Asia
Europe
North America
Oceania
South America
Structure
Directionality
undirected
Weighted
no
Hypergraph
no
Longitudinal
yes
Multigraph
no
Multilayer
no
Multipartile
-
Probabilistic
no
Self Loops
no
Signed
no
Spatial
yes
Data Url
https://github.com/doinab/constellation-lines/
Canonical Citation
Doina Bucur (2022-) Constellation line figures in sky cultures across the world (a referenced dataset). https://github.com/doinab/constellation-lines.
License
Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 International
Related Publications
Doina Bucur (2022) The network signature of constellation line figures. PLOS ONE 17(7): e0272270.
Network Topics
astronomical
Node Topics
star
Edge Topics
line
Node Attributes
name
Edge Attributes
-
Uncertainties
Nodes
yes
Edges
yes
Node Attributes
-
Edge Attributes
-
Uncertainty Description
Occasionally, the identification of stars or lines in a constellation is not certain, either because in that culture the exact star (if the star is minor) is not important, or because an exact memory of the star or line has not survived. The "certainty" field in the data summarises the uncertainty.
Statistics
Avg. Clustering Coefficient
-
Avg. Degree
-
Construction

The data was acquired by digitising existing ethnographic studies. The many scholarly sources are books, ethnographic studies, cultural astronomy literature, sky charts, or language dictionaries.

Sources

These are provided in the dataset itself in the BibTeX format (file sources.bib).

Source Types
publication
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