Recently, I have been working on importing small monuments in the Czech Republic.
Wiki only in Czech: Cs:Drobné památky Import
While going through the wiki and looking for suitable tags, I noticed several issues regarding the tagging of holy pictures, column shrines, and niche chapels.
Definitions:
holy picture – a small monument most commonly placed on a tree trunk. Holy pictures were used because memorial crosses and column shrines in forests would not survive long if trees fell.
column shrine – a small monument in the shape of a column, pillar, or prism. It was meant to symbolize the pillar at which Jesus Christ was whipped.
niche chapel – usually smaller than a chapel and without an interior room. Instead of an inner space, it typically has a shallow niche for a statue or picture, positioned above the ground. These chapels often have a gabled roof, frequently topped with a small metal cross.
Note: these are fairly regional features (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Germany, …)
Holy picture – tagging of holy pictures is not properly solved. There is the tag historic=tree_shrine, but it requires the object to be on a tree, which is very specific. Moreover, this tag is not widely supported, and it is recommended to use historic=wayside_shrine + natural=tree or historic=wayside_shrine + support=tree, where the information that it is specifically a picture is lost. So how to tag holy pictures that are not on the tree?
Column shrines and niche chapels – both tagged with the same tag: historic=wayside_shrine. There is no tag that would distinguish these elements.
Solution, introducing the following tags:
wayside_shrine=picture or image
wayside_shrine=column
wayside_shrine=chapel
which would require the tag: historic=wayside_shrine.
Image on a column: picture or column shrine?
In theory, an image can also be placed on a column. In such cases, the distinction depends on whether the column itself is considered part of the shrine.
If the column merely serves as a support for the image (for example, a simple wooden post), then it should be tagged as wayside_shrine=picture.
However, if the column itself has architectural, artistic, or heritage value and forms an integral part of the shrine, then wayside_shrine=column is more appropriate.
Elements currently tagged as historic=tree_shrine could be converted, without losing information, to: historic=wayside_shrine + wayside_shrine=picture + support=tree. This is possible because of the definition stating that historic=tree_shrine are pictures. Of course, if there is any interest in it.
The Czech OSM community has agreed on this tagging. See the discussion: openstreetmap.cz discussion thread
If there is agreement that this is an appropriate tagging scheme, I would create OSM wiki pages for the individual tags.
It can be useful to use note=* and/or description=* to explain what something is. If something is rare or unique, then trying to create infinite categories each with a limited number of categories might be misplaced energy. There might also be wikipedia=* or wikimedia_commons=* pages that are specific to an individual object.
I think there there is general agreement that putting recent / current / new religious objects in the historical=* category isn’t great. historical=wayside* might not be correct either, as there may be no formal way.
One option for certain objects would be tourism = artwork and artwork_subject = religious. However, I’m not sure that is much better than historical=* for most religious objects, not least that they don’t have any substantial tourist or artistic merit.
I think that different religions and different locations will have some aspects in common, but some others will be very different. For example, I get the impression that Protestant denominations tend to be very minimalist when it comes to religious symbols and artwork. In contrast, Roman Catholic and various Orthodox traditions embrace them much more.
Regarding location, I think that Latin America has probably been influenced a lot by Spanish and Portuguese Roman Catholicism while in other locations the manifestations of second-level / semi-formal religious sites will have been influenced by things like pre-Christian traditions (e.g. holy wells and Celtic crosses in Ireland), local skillsets and availability of suitable materials (e.g. limited supply of wood in the desert).
These are some of the tags used in Ireland for non-church / chapel / cathedral locations:
amenity=place_of_worship and building=no
historic=cross
historic=high_cross
historic=monument
historic=wayside_cross
historic=wayside_shrine
man_made=altar
man_made=cross
man_made=summit_cross
memorial=cross
memorial=celtic_cross
monument=cross
place_of_worship=altar
place_of_worship=holy_well and natural=spring
place_of_worship=mass_rock
worship=stations_of_the_cross
As you can see, there are lots of options, many of them overlapping. There may be a case for making a distinct category for religious objects.
Thank you for your feedback. I understand that from a global perspective, these objects might seem rare. However, in Central Europe (and specifically the Czech Republic), they are an integral, highly frequent part of the landscape, not an anomaly.
To give you a better idea of the scale, here are the numbers from the Czech “Drobné památky” (Small Monuments) database alone:
Column shrines (boží muka): 2,215 objects
Chapel shrines (výklenkové kaple – non-building type): 5,643 objects (There will be slightly fewer of them, because there are buildings here as well.)
Holy pictures (svaté obrázky): 1,398 objects
Pictures from “Drobné památky” (Small Monuments) database:
With nearly 10,000 objects in just one country, relying on note=* or description=* would completely defeat the purpose of structured data. It would make machine processing and rendering practically impossible.
Regarding Wikidata integration: This dataset is already being systematically linked with Wikidata. You can see examples of these bulk updates in recent changesets (e.g., 182613601, 182613595, 182613590, etc.).
As for the criticism of the historic=* key being used for newer religious objects: as Mateusz Konieczny once pointed out, historic=wayside_cross and historic=wayside_shrine have long been used as catch-all tags for these features simply because no better top-level alternative was established. I am not trying to reinvent the entire tagging schema or fix this legacy issue; my goal is simply to introduce a systematic subtagging system (wayside_shrine=*) to clean up and categorize the massive amount of existing data.
I also agree that tourism=artwork is not ideal. These elements are expressions of local folklore, landscape history, and religion - they are not primary tourist attractions or contemporary art pieces.
The proposed wayside_shrine=* values fit perfectly with existing definitions and align well with Wikidata concepts: