Chiara Palladino (Furman University), Representing ancient landscapes digitally: the what, the how, the why.
Digital Classicist London (Senate House MakerSpace, room 265)
Fri, July 5, 2024: 17:30 BST
What does it mean to use digital tools to investigate ancient travel practices? This talk is going to provide a survey into the essential concepts and methods for the digital representation of geographical information in ancient primary sources, and emphasize the challenges connected to data modeling and representation.
Ancient sources present many challenges to the quantitative analysis of spatial information, from the georeferencing of ambiguous or uncertain place names, to the many nuances of orientation and spatial conceptualization that help a traveler find their way. More fundamentally, ancient perceptions of space do not have the same “ground truth” as Cartesian ones, as physical/natural spaces are often enriched with layers of narrative, mythological, and spiritual information that is just as relevant to environmental understanding.
How are digital and computational methods supporting these challenges? What potential is offered by the newest frontiers in 3D modeling and Virtual Reality? What are the epistemological limitations of these methodologies, and how can these be addressed in the context of a research project?
