Link
tba [https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/529280914]
Runtime
2024-2036
project participants
Project leads: Professor Dr. Michael Rathmann (Chair of Ancient History, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt); Privatdozentin Dr. Silke Diederich (Institute of Classical Studies, University of Cologne). CCeH supervision: Dr. Tessa Gengnagel, Jonathan Blumtritt.
Funding
Funded by the German Research Foundation.
Description
A corpus of Latin Roman geographical writings and fragments from the earliest known texts to Isidore of Seville represents a significant gap in research. The objective of the present project is to make available a corpus of geographical texts accompanied by a critical apparatus, commentaries, translations, introductions and continuously updated bibliographies, presented in an innovative cartographic format. This Open Access tool will provide a scientifically sound research basis, which will benefit not only Classical Studies and its neighbouring disciplines, but also all interdisciplinary and transcultural comparative research conducted in cultural, literary and media studies. This includes any field that, in the wake of the Topological Turn, takes an interest in the historical concept of space, including cartography, toponomastics, cultural anthropology and migration studies.
In order to create a reliable basis and provide impulses for new research approaches, this project merges traditional edition and commentary philology with a completely new digital media format that, in cooperation with the Cologne Center for eHumanities (CCeH), enables innovative methods of presentation and visualization.
In order to establish a reliable foundation for this undertaking and to stimulate new avenues of inquiry, this project integrates traditional philological techniques with a novel digital media format, developed by the Cologne Center for eHumanities (CCeH), which offers innovative methods of presentation and visualisation. This innovative media concept, made possible by recent developments at the CCeH, provides animated maps of individual regions and the entire oikoumene for the ancient texts. The provision of a synoptic presentation of texts, maps and comments, together with cross-links to the online commentary on the Tabula Peutingeriana, facilitates comprehension of the intricate spatial representations of Roman authors and their readers within the context of their traditions and the processes of change that shaped them.
Furthermore, the software offers full-text searchability both of texts and maps for toponyms, encompassing all their potential spellings. The option to combine various search parameters (e.g., space, place, time, type of text, purpose, addressees) with AND/OR operators enables the location of geographical items in their textual contexts and the comparison of textual sources and map illustrations with one another. Consequently, it is readily apparent how a geographem (for example, the location of Thule) evolves across various historical periods and literary genres. The texts shed light on one another, and the interconnected commentary directs attention to additional source texts. Consequently, a single piece of information becomes a relational “cosmos”.
The synthesis will subsequently be presented in the form of a monograph, representing the inaugural comprehensive account of the history of Roman geography, including the first glossary of Latin geographical terminology.
The objective of this project is to develop a novel approach to understanding the geographical worldview of the Roman elites, who conquered a vast empire and imprinted their political, administrative, logistical, religious, and cultural order on this expansive region.
Picture credits
Illustration of Pliny the Elder in a manuscript of his Historia naturalis, Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 82.4, fol. 3r, https://tecabml.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/plutei/id/1109337/rec/3507.