Herodotus' Histories and TEI

I found a wonderful project called Hestia which utilizes the digitized text of Herodotus’ histories alongside web-mapping technologies, “to investigate the cultural geography of the ancient world through the eyes of one of its first witnesses.”

Here's the link: http://hestia.open.ac.uk/

This website immediately called out to the inner archaeologist in me so I began to investigate. Hestia allow anyone to experience Herodotus’ travels in a modern context (google maps) yet without reference to modern points on a map through its use of TEI compliant XML to tag place names within Herodotus' histories. 

Hestia explains its XML tagging strategies, even describing the process of updating the TEI to a newer version through an automated conversion tool developed by Sebastian Raht. In the process of switching to the new TEI, Hestia further differentiated their place names tags by categorizing them as a territory, a settlement, or a physical feature. Sadly Hestia does not share its XML for other researchers to use.

I find this use of TEI so fascinating because when I was in my undergraduate degree I never considered the wealth of knowledge concerning ancient perspectives and cultures which could be uncovered through the application of digital tools to archaeology. Through the use of TEI Hestia is able to visually present a huge amount of complex data in way that is incredibly accessible and engaging to an international audience.

I encourage you all to check it out the Herodotus Timemap aspect of the project. This map displays the digitized text of the histories alongside an interactive map which highlights all the settlements, regions, and physical features which have been mentioned in the page you are reading; it even gives allows you to choose which type of category of place you are most interested in viewing.

Herodotus Timemap: http://hestia.open.ac.uk/herodotus/basic.html

Another page allows you to search throughout the histories yourself for a particular place, such as Egypt. Hestia will then bring up with all the accounts of that place within Herodotus’ histories as well as provide you with both the English text alongside the Greek text.

Histories Seach: http://hestia.open.ac.uk/database/data_view.php?ftr_mode=standard&retftrset=4

This project has officially swayed me, I now worship at the feet of the Digital Humanities. 

Sarah Silvestri