Presentation on three collaborative projects: Hestia (http://hestia.open.ac.uk/), GAP (http://googleancientplaces.wordpress.com/gapvis/), and Pelagios (pelagios-project.blogspot.com)

1. Towards a graph of ancient
world geographical knowledge
Elton Barker (The Open University)Elton Barker (The Open University)
11 March, 2014 | Classics and Ancient History seminar, Exeter

2. Geographical Applications | AMWC: mapping antiquity topographically

3. Geographical Applications | Orbis: mapping historical
networks

4. Harley (1989)
 The object of mapping is to produce a 'correct' relational model of the
terrain. Its assumptions are that the objects in the world to be mapped
are real and objective, and that they enjoy an existence independent of
the cartographer; that their reality can be expressed in mathematical
terms; that systematic observation and measurement offer the only
route to cartographic truth; and that this truth can be independently
verified.
The research context | Counter-cartography, spatial humanities, narrative geographie
Harris, T. M., Bergeron, S. and Rouse, L. J. (2011)
 Much of the interest in GIS has largely revolved around a (re)discovery
of the power of the map. The humanities have long been at risk of
treating space, the backdrop to all human behavior and events, as being
neutral—a spatial vacuum—an isotropic backdrop to human affairs.
Indeed, a perusal of many maps incorporated in humanities texts would
imply that events take place in landscapes seemingly devoid of any
terrain, hydrology, infrastructure, human culture, or other geography.
Purves (2010)
 Plot's spatial legacy is pervasive in ancient Greek thought, where songs might
be conceived as pathways, logoi as routes, writing as the movement of oxen
turning back and forth across a field with a plough..., narratives as pictures or
landscapes, and plots even as living creatures that take up set areas of space.

5. How is space mapped discursively in Herodotus’s Histories?
 Hestia (2008-2010, 2013-2014), funded by the AHRC
 Stefan Bouzarovski, Dept. of Geography, University of Birmingham
 Chris Pelling, Christ Church, Oxford
 Leif Isaksen, Dept. of Archaeology, University of Southampton
Presentation summary | The projects
How can we extract and visualize spatial data from texts?
 GAP (2010-2011, 2012-2014), funded by Google
 Leif Isaksen, Dept. of Archaeology, University of Southampton
 Kate Byrne, Institute of Informatics, Edinburgh
 Eric Kansa, Open Context, UC at Berkeley
 Nick Rabinowitz
 Enrico Daga, KMi, The Open University
How can we link together the graph of ancient world data?
 Pelagios (2011, 2011-2012, 2013-2015), funded by JISC, Mellon
 Leif Isaksen, Dept. of Archaeology, University of Southampton
 Rainer Simon, Austrian Institute of Technology

6. But after this (the Persians say), the Greeks were very much to blame; for they
invaded Asia before the Persians attacked Europe… “We of Asia did not deign to
notice the seizure of our women; but the Greeks, for the sake of a Lacedaemonian
woman, recruited a great armada, came to Asia, and destroyed the power of Priam.
Ever since then we have regarded Greeks as our enemies.” For the Persians claim Asia
for their own, and the foreign peoples that inhabit it; Europe and the Greek people
they consider to be separate from them. Herodotus, Histories 1.4
I laugh to see how many have before now drawn maps of the world, not one of them
reasonably; for they draw the world as round as if fashioned by compasses, encircled
by the Ocean river, and Asia and Europe of a like extent. For myself, I will in a few
words indicate the extent of the two, and how each should be drawn.
Herodotus, Histories 4.36.2
It was in the reign of Cleomenes that Aristagoras the tyrant of Miletus came to Sparta.
When he had an audience with the king, as the Lacedaemonians report, he brought
with him a bronze tablet on which the map of all the earth was engraved, and all
the sea and all the rivers ( χων χάλκεον πίνακα ν τ γ ς πάσης περίοδοςἔ ἐ ῷ ῆ ἁ
νετέτμητο κα θάλασσά τε π σα κα ποταμο πάντεςἐ ὶ ᾶ ὶ ὶ ). Herodotus, Histories 5.49.1.
Why is Herodotus ‘good to think with’? | Three passages

7. ‘going through in detail towns of men both small and great
alike: for of the places that were once great, most have
now become small, while those that were great in my time
were small before’
( μο ως σμικρ κα μεγ λα στεα νθρ πων πεξι ν· τὁ ί ὰ ὶ ά ἄ ἀ ώ ἐ ώ ὰ
γ ρ τ π λαι μεγ λα ν, τ πολλ σμικρ α τ ν γ γονε·ὰ ὸ ά ά ἦ ὰ ὰ ὰ ὐ ῶ έ
τ δ π με ν μεγ λα, πρ τερον ν σμικρ , Herodotusὰ ὲ ἐ ᾿ ἐ ῦ ἦ ά ό ἦ ά
1.5)
The problem? | Mapping the Histories

8. The Source | The Perseus digital text

9. Immediate outcomes | The Database

10. Immediate outcomes | Top physical places

11. GIS | all places

12. Web technologies | Google Earth

13. Web technologies | The NarrativeMap

14. Network Analysis | A Qualitative Typology
 Definition: place and proxy
 Unit: clause analysis (SVO) of Histories 5
 Quality: movement and/or transformation
 Variables: focalisation, tense/mood
Telling a story and following a path are cognate activities, telling a story is
ordering events and actions in space and time – it is a form of knowledge
making. Diagrams and maps are likewise stories. In science, just as in all
knowledge producing traditions, the processes are inherently narratological;
they involve the creation of knowledge spaces in which people, practices and
places are discursively linked… We make our world in the process of moving
through and knowing it.
Turnbull (2007)

15. Network Analysis | The Spaghetti monster

16. Network Analysis | Total book 5
Sci2 Team (2009) Science of Science (Sci2) Tool. Indiana University & SciTech Strategies
http://sci2.cns.iu.edu

17. Network Analysis | Category 1: Positioning

18. Network Analysis | Category 4: Mobile Intervention

19. Automated Networks | “Territories” in GIS

20. Automated Networks | Web-browsing Book 5

21. GAP | The challenge of a million texts…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozyman/

22. The concept | There and back again

23. .txt
.html
.xml
Format
conversion
Token-
isation
POS
tagging
Lemma-
tisation
Named
Entity
Recognition
.geotagged
.xml
Geotagging
Gazetteer
lookup
Resolution
.geotagged
.xml
.gaz.xml
Georesolution
www.inf.ed.ac.uk/publications/online/1360.pdf
The methodology | Geoparsing

24. The interface | A Snapshot of the Histories

25. The interface | The Reading View

26. The interface | The Place View

27. 27
…or any other online resource that bears
a relation to a particular ancient place!
Connecting Ancient World Research Resources
through the Places they refer to
InscriptionsInscriptions
TextsTexts
Archaeological
Finds
Archaeological
Finds
Museum
Objects
Museum
Objects
Archaeological
Sites
Archaeological
Sites
Pelagios | linking together the places of our past
through the documents that refer to them

28. 28
 Data aggregation
 Federated search
 Standard data representation
 Schema alignment
Connectivity through common references rather than a common schemaConnectivity through common references rather than a common schema
What Pelagios isn’t | One ring to rule them all

29. The concept | Don’t Unify the Model – Annotate!
29
pleiades:579885
(Athenae)
pleiades:570685
(Sparta)

30. The outcome | The Pelagios API
30
 Context – obtain links to online data
that may be relevant to your own
 Discovery – users can find your data
by following links on other partners’
sites
 Reuse – the Pelagios API provides
machine-readable representations
(JSON, RDF) to enable mashups
and other forms of 3rd
party re-use

31. Pelagios API in the Wild | awld.js
31
A JavaScript library for Ancient World Linked Data, developed by Nick
Rabinowitz and Sebastian Heath, awld.js adds functionality and visual
elements based on links to stable URIs. http://isawnyu.github.com/awld-js/
Pop-ups for Pleiades places link to Pelagios references

32. Visualization Interface | Heat Mapping Annotations

33. 33
 New periods and areas: incl.
Mediaeval, Islamic and Chinese
traditions
 New challenges: aligning gazetteers;
producing annotations; geoparsing
texts and maps; developing user
interfaces
Pelagios phase 3 | Early Geospatial documents (up to 1492)
Early Geospatial Documents

34. Text Annotation Interface | Places in a document (the ‘target’)

35. Map Interface | Places in the gazetteer (the ‘body’)

36. http://hestia.open.ac.uk/
http://googleancientplaces.wordpress.com/
http://pelagios-project.blogspot.co.uk/
36