Key:graffiti
 graffiti
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 |
| Description |
|---|
| Used to tag presence of historic graffiti. |
| Group: Historic |
| Used on these elements |
    |
| Useful combination |
| See also |
| Status: in use |
| Tools for this tag |
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The graffiti key can be used on buildings, walls and other structures to describe the historical graffito or graffiti at this place in more detail. Historic graffiti can be found in churches, on church walls, very often prison walls and were left for a variety of reasons: to leave a mark of one's presence, folk magic, to pass time etc.
This is not meant to be used on spray painted graffiti of the modern era, please look at tourism=artwork for that.
How to map
For a single, relevant graffito on a wall, you may use historic=graffiti (even though the singular would be grammatically more correct, but going down the tagging scheme, the plural makes more sense and is used colloquially for single graffiti anyways). To indicate which way the graffito is facing, it might be useful to add direction=*.
It is probably not necessary to map graffiti of initials, unless the identity is known, because they were well known political prisoners. The relevance of motifs depends on the cultural and historical surroundings of the location.
At a building with several graffiti, sometimes of several subjects, add the key graffiti=* and add the value of whatever is depicted. Please use singular forms, even when more than one of a type are present:
| value | explanation | example |
|---|---|---|
| masons_mark | Stone mason's mark, often to be found at churches. | |
| ship | One or more boats or ships are etched into the wall, sometimes interpreted as having been left by pilgrims after surviving a shipwreck. | |
| windmill | Graffito depicting a windmill | |
| sundial | Sundials etched into walls can sometimes be found around churches or prisons. | |
| human | Depiction of humans, heads of full size. | |
| skull | ||
| hand | Outline of a hand, found in churches and prisons. | |
| building | Sometimes, elaborate sketches of buildings can be found. If you are able to identify the building, add graffiti:building:wikidata or graffiti:building:name to identify it by. |
|
| pilgrims_cross | Etched into wall by pilgrims along pilgrim routes or at other Christian sites. In a prison context, use the other types of crosses instead. | |
| maltese_cross | Cross used by the Order of St John in Malta | |
| latin_cross | Latin cross with long vertical line and shorter horizontal line, often found in a Christian context (churches, pilgrim locations) | |
| star_of_david | six-pointed star | |
| pentagram | five-pointed star, often associated with the occult | |
| swastika | ancient religious icon, often (ab)used in a Nazi context |
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The table can of course be extended, depending on cultural circumstances of the location.
You can add graffiti:wikimedia_commons=* to link to a category of all graffiti of that place. In the rare occasion that the artist_name=* is known (from a prison context maybe), it can be added.
See also
- man_made=survey_point for benchmarks which might be confused with stone mason's marks
- https://maltashipgraffiti.org/, a website dedicated to record the graffiti of ships in Malta