EAD Basics, Part 3:

EAD is hierarchical because its area of concern is organized by hierarchical principles. The hierarchy of its subject matter is reflected quite well by its nested series of tags.

In practice, EAD has three distinctive key tags which create the overall structure of an iteration of EAD.

The first of these is the <ead> tag. Its primary function in it is to provide a structural frame in which the various other tags that provide detailed information about or structure to the informational contents of the finding aid being encoded.

There are three tags / elements which are contained within the nesting of the <ead> tag.

<eadheader> : A required tag

<frontmatter> : An optional tag

<archdesc> : Another required tag.

Here is an example of the minimal content required for a valid use of this tag:

<ead>
    <eadheader>
        <eadid>[...]</eadid>
        <filedesc>
            <titlestmt>
                <titleproper>[...]</titleproper>
            </titlestmt>
        </filedesc>
    </eadheader>
    <archdesc level="fonds">
        <did>[...]</did>
        <dsc type="combined">[...]</dsc>
    </archdesc>
</ead>