Technologies
The HESTIA Geoserver provides spatial data from the text of Herodotus' Histories in a variety of formats, which everyone is free to use under a Creative Commons Attribution License. (Warning! This is a working server and, while we are making every effort to provide accurate and reusable information, we can make no guarantees about data quality, service performance or persistence. Any feedback that can improve our data will be welcome!) Below are a sample set of web-mapping tools by means of which you can query the spatial data from HESTIA and which you can use to represent Herodotus' world for yourself. They are: 1. Geographical Information Systems (GIS); 2. GoogleEarth mashups; 3. the narrative Timeline.
Herodotus in GIS (WFS)
If you have a GIS system capable of reading Web Feature Service (WFS) data (we recommend the Open Source application Quantum GIS), you can access our data through a feed here (use the HESTIA/google_earth layer). This will allow you to perform your own queries and analysis of the data as well as to create a range of maps. (For a sample set, along with discussion, go to our Outcomes page.) To provide an eye-catching backdrop, we use WMS satellite imagery, which you can get from NASA here.
Herodotus in GoogleEarth (KML)
If you have GoogleEarth installed on your computer you can access a KML file with an embedded network link here. This will create an overlay of red squares that shows all the locations referred to by Herodotus. When zooming in low, the squares become clickable points that provide information about the location as well as each reference to it (in English and Greek). With this Herodotus Earth application, then, you will be able to construct mashups of visual and textual data to find out what Herodotus has to say about any particular location.
Herodotus' Narrative Timeline
Developed in conjunction with Nick Rabinowitz, the Herodotus Timemap allows users to visualise locations referred to in the text by scrolling along a 'timeline' representing each chapter. Points appear flush to the right-hand side of the timeline bar as you first come across them in the text. Then, as you continue to read and the locations 'fade from memory', so too do the Google icons on the map, until they disappear altogether. It is possible both to search by chapter and to filter locations by type. Clicking on any location on the map brings up information about it, while selecting it on the timeline will display the chapter text and highlight any references in the text to it.You can try it out here.
