Topographies of Entanglements
Topographies of Entanglement. Mapping Medieval Networks
The aim of the platform “Topographies of Entanglement. Mapping Medieval Networks” is the demonstration of the potential of concepts and tools of network visualisation and network as well as complexity theory for the analysis of the medieval world. With the help of these instruments, social, economic, religious, political and intellectual entanglements between individuals, groups, communities, institutions, polities and localities as well as between societies and their environments and the dynamics of these phenomena in time and space shall be visualised and analysed in a qualitative and quantitative as well as comparative perspective. Thereby, the actual complexity of pre-modern societies and the relevance of such research for the analysis of comparable complex interweavements in a modern-day globalised world become visible.
The platform is also open for other researchers working with these tools for the medieval period (in its broadest senses – chronologically and geographically) to present their visualisations; please contact Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences): [email protected]
For more information on the actual project behind this platform, visit
http://www.oeaw.ac.at/imafo/die-abteilungen/byzanzforschung/communities-landscapes/historische-geographie/komplexitaet-netzwerke/
For more samples of the work of Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, visit
http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller
Global People of the Middle Ages
The aim of this subsection within the platform “Topographies of Entanglement” is the presentation of visualisations, network graphs and maps which demonstrate the (deliberate or forced) mobility of groups (may they be defined on the basis of religion, ethnicity, region of origin, language, commercial or intellectual interests, etc.) across wide distances within the medieval world and the entanglements between different localities and regions resulting from these phenomena. Of special interest are groups which may not have been part of the “mainstream” of societies, but are particularly impressive with regard to their mobility and their wide ranging connections.
Phone: 0043-(0)1-51581-3447
Address: Institut für Mittelalterforschung
Abteilung für Byzanzforschung
Wohllebengasse 12-14/3
1040 Vienna, Austria
The aim of the platform “Topographies of Entanglement. Mapping Medieval Networks” is the demonstration of the potential of concepts and tools of network visualisation and network as well as complexity theory for the analysis of the medieval world. With the help of these instruments, social, economic, religious, political and intellectual entanglements between individuals, groups, communities, institutions, polities and localities as well as between societies and their environments and the dynamics of these phenomena in time and space shall be visualised and analysed in a qualitative and quantitative as well as comparative perspective. Thereby, the actual complexity of pre-modern societies and the relevance of such research for the analysis of comparable complex interweavements in a modern-day globalised world become visible.
The platform is also open for other researchers working with these tools for the medieval period (in its broadest senses – chronologically and geographically) to present their visualisations; please contact Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences): [email protected]
For more information on the actual project behind this platform, visit
http://www.oeaw.ac.at/imafo/die-abteilungen/byzanzforschung/communities-landscapes/historische-geographie/komplexitaet-netzwerke/
For more samples of the work of Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, visit
http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller
Global People of the Middle Ages
The aim of this subsection within the platform “Topographies of Entanglement” is the presentation of visualisations, network graphs and maps which demonstrate the (deliberate or forced) mobility of groups (may they be defined on the basis of religion, ethnicity, region of origin, language, commercial or intellectual interests, etc.) across wide distances within the medieval world and the entanglements between different localities and regions resulting from these phenomena. Of special interest are groups which may not have been part of the “mainstream” of societies, but are particularly impressive with regard to their mobility and their wide ranging connections.
Phone: 0043-(0)1-51581-3447
Address: Institut für Mittelalterforschung
Abteilung für Byzanzforschung
Wohllebengasse 12-14/3
1040 Vienna, Austria
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Mapping Medieval Networks by Topographies of Entanglements
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller and Ekaterini Mitsiou have created a map to visualise some aspects of the spatial organisation of the Late Byzantine Church, esp. for the 14th century.
By selecting four different layers, you can see:
• Places of estates of the Patriarchate of Constantinople as indicated in a privilege charter of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1271
• Places of so-called patriarchika dikaia (entitlements of the Patriarchate on income, properties and/or juridical rights) as indicated in the documents of the Register of the Patriarchate of Constantinople between 1315 and 1402
• Bishoprics contributing to the Patriarchate according to a charter of 1324 (cf. PRK I 88, 39–73)
• Bishoprics of the Patriarchate of Constantinople temporarily administrated by the same Metropolitan or Archbishop due to acts of “Epidosis” as indicated in the documents of the Register of the Patriarchate of Constantinople between 1315 and 1402
Data collection and visualisation by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller and Ekaterini Mitsiou as part of the project “Edition of the Register of the Patriarchate of Constantinople” (http://www.oeaw.ac.at/byzanz/prk.htm). Also most of the data comes from this central collection of documents for the Late Byzantine Church. For further studies on this material cf. also the bibliography on the website indicated above. Contact: [email protected]; [email protected]; Websites: http://oeaw.academia.edu/EkateriniMitsiou; http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller.
a interactive map of 336 localities connected through the mobility of 2402 members of the Byzantine elite in the years 1282 to 1402
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zFF_0-ggg3xI.kzPtUQfs7H8s&usp=sharing
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller has created a database of more than 2400 individuals and 330 places (on the basis of the Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, augmented with additional data) and a network model of these places connected due to the mobility of people in the years 1282 to 1402 CE. You can now explore this network online if you follow the link above. One can also only look at the distribution of places by unselecting the network layer. More sophisticated interactive visualisations of the data are under construction, but this site provides a first impression of the density and amount of connections of Late Byzantium.
More information on the underlying database you can find here: http://www.academia.edu/8247283/A_new_view_on_a_century_of_Byzantine_history_The_Vienna_Network_Model_of_the_Byzantine_Elite_1282-1402
The database is part of the project "Mapping Medieval Conflicts" (http://oeaw.academia.edu/MappingMedievalConflict)
More on this project and the underlying methodology you can also learn here: https://www.academia.edu/19333312/Calculating_the_Middle_Ages_The_project_Complexities_and_networks_in_the_Medieval_Mediterranean_and_Near_East_COMMED_
(all graphs and visualisations were calculated and created by the author; network graphs and analyses were created with the help of the software tools Pajek* and ORA*)
The underlying database integrates all information on ties of kinship, marriage, friendship and support, allegiance, diplomacy and conflict between these individuals to be found in the Proposographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit (PLP, ed. Erich Trapp et al., CD-Rom Version Vienna 2001, cf. http://hw.oeaw.ac.at/3003-1) as well as additional information from other sources.
The model in total so far includes 2490 individuals and 336 localities (places of residence and travel or activities of commerce and pilgrimage, etc.)
The network model has been created by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller and will be analysed in detail in his upcoming monograph Byzantium´s Connected Empire, 1282-1402. A Global History (forthcoming with Palgrave Macmillan in 2015/2016). In addition, the model will also be used for the newly established project Mapping MEDieval CONflicts: a digital approach towards political dynamics in the pre-modern period, funded within the framework of the go!digital-programme of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (cf. http://oeaw.academia.edu/MappingMedievalConflict)
For further information contact: [email protected]
I then constructed a model for the network between this sites by connecting every site with all neighbouring ones within a radius of 50 km.
For the emerging network, I weighted the strength of connections between sites indirectly proportional to the geographical distance between them (strength of ties = 1/number of km).
For this network model, I determined the centrality measure of betweenness (quantifying the ratio of shortest connections between nodes a node is part of and indicating the significance of a node as « intermediary » between otherwise not directly connected nodes or groups of nodes)
Furthermore, I applied the Newman grouping algorithm in order to detect clusters of nodes more densely connected among each other than with the rest of the network.
The network visualised here thus constitutes a first approach towards the modelling of connectivity within the natural and built environment of an early medieval polity in historical Armenia and is part of a larger ongoing study on the emergence and development of the Kingdom of Vaspurakan within the matrix of politics, economy, geography and ecology.
For an overview of similar applications see also:
Barthélemy, M., Spatial Networks. Physics Reports 499 (2011) 1-101.
Conolly, J./Lake, M., Geographical Information Systems in Archaeology (Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology). Cambridge: Cambridge 2006.
Gorenflo, L. J./Bell, Th. L., Network Analysis and the Study of past regional Organization, in: Trombold, Charles D. (ed.), Ancient road networks and settlement hierarchies in the New World. Cambridge 1991, 80-98.
Rodrigue, J.-P., with Comtois, Cl./Slack, B., The Geography of Transport Systems. 3rd ed., London – New York 2013.
This study, which is work in progress, was made possible on the basis of a fellowship of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation for research at the Institute for Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens.
On this basis, I created a “3mode-network” of sites, locally produced types and imported types of ceramics. These “affiliation networks” I then transformed into two 1mode-network of sites, where sites are connected to each other if at least one type of ceramics can be found in both; such links between sites have different strength depending of the number of co-occurring ceramic types (from 0 to 9 for the local ceramics-network, from 0 to 14 for the imported ceramics-network).
Such affiliation networks recently have been used quite frequently in studies of archaeological network analysis in order to model systems of distributions of artefacts in a specific region; one has to keep in mind that links in such models do not reflect direct connections of exchange or interaction between sites (although of course they could overlap with these), but ties of similarity of artefact assemblages of different strength which reflect different degrees of integration of sites within distribution systems for specific types of artefacts. Still, the may provide some impression of the complexity as well as of different spatial orientations of these distribution systems (for an overview cf. BRUGHMANS, T. (2013), Thinking Through Networks: A Review of Formal Network Methods in Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 20, pp. 623–662, and SINDBÆK, S.M. (2013), Broken Links and Black Boxes: Material Affiliations and Contextual Network Synthesis in the Viking World, in: C. KNAPPETT (ed.), Network Analysis in Archaeology: New Approaches to Regional Interaction. Oxford 2013, pp. 71–94, for a comparable case study and a critical evaluation of the potential and pitfalls of this approach).
This study, which is work in progress, was made possible on the basis of a fellowship of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation for research at the Institute for Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens.
I constructed a network of concepts and actors for the genre of imperial panegyrics in Byzantium between 1204 and 1328, relying on data from the excellent study by Dimiter Angelov (D. Angelov, Imperial Ideology and Political Thought in Byzantium (1204-1330). Cambridge 2007, esp. 86–90). Angelov systematically surveyed authors and addressees (the emperors, of course) of imperial panegyrics for this period as well as the figures from the biblical as well as classical tradition (such as King David or Alexander the Great) with which authors compared emperors in their texts. I combined this data into a three-mode-network of Emperors (red), authors (blue) and comparative figures (green). This network is also object of further analysis in: J. Preiser-Kapeller, From quantitative to qualitative and back again. The interplay between structure and culture and the analysis of networks in pre-modern societies, in: E. Mitsiou - M. Popović – J. Preiser-Kapeller (eds.), Multiplying Middle Ages. New methods and approaches for the study of the multiplicity of the Middle Ages in a global perspective (3rd-16th CE). Akten der Konferenz in Wien im November 2012. Vienna 2014 (forthcoming).
I transformed the 3-mode-network of authors, emperors and figures in a 1-mode-network of figures, in which two figures are connected if they were used by the same author for the same emperor; as several figures were used by several authors for the same emperors, some linkages are stronger than others. As becomes obvious if we inspect the graph of this network with nodes scaled according to their number of ties (degree), there is a densely connected core of nodes with a relatively high number of connections and various less densely interconnected clusters at the periphery of this web of comparative figures. (Blue: figures of biblical origin, red: figures of classic origin).
On the basis of the 1-mode-network of comparative figures used in the imperial panegyrics of Byzantium between 1204 and 1328, I created a network of geographical places which are related to the respective figures (e. g. Moses – Sinai, Julius Caesar – Rome). Two localities are linked in this spatial network if figures connected to them are linked in the above-presented 1-mode-network. Thus, a dense and complex geographical matrix of imperial panegyrics in Late Byzantium becomes visible.
The following network visualisations and calculations are based on the scheme for the systems of routes at land and sea in the Byzantine period as depicted in the above mentioned volumes, regardless of the relative significance of the respective routes in various periods of Late Antiquity and Byzantine history. At the same time, it neither takes into account the actual distance (and travel costs) between localities nor the connections via sea routes; therefore, the model is only a first rough approximation towards a more accurate model of the Byzantine transport system in its dynamics through centuries (cf. also Graßhoff – Mittenhuber, 2009, for a much more sophisticated model for Lycia). Interesting for this study is especially the modification of centrality measures if sea routes are added to the network of land routes.
Three centrality measures have been calculated; nodes in the graphs are scaled according to their relative centralities in this regard (centrality measures are of course only valid within the extract of the total route network of Asia Minor integrated into the network):
Closeness; closeness centrality measures the length of all pathes between a node an all other nodes. The more central a node is the lower its total distance to all other nodes. Closeness can also be used as a measure of how fast it would take to spread resources or information from a node to all other nodes.
Betweenness; betweenness centrality measures the extent to which a node lies on paths between other nodes and indicates the relative significance of a node as “intermediary” within a network due to its position on many (or few) possible shortest routes between other nodes.
Eigenvector; eigenvector centrality is a measure of "indirect" centrality and indicates, if a node is connected to more or less central other nodes within the network.
For a similar study cf. L. Isaksen, The application of network analysis to ancient transport geography: a case study of Roman Baetica. Digital Medievalist, 4 (2008) (http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/204515/)
For more information, contact: [email protected]
All network graphs were created by the author with the help of the software package ORA*.
The following network visualisations and calculations are based on the scheme for the systems of routes in the Byzantine period as depicted by Klaus Belke in the above mentioned volume, regardless of the relative significance of the respective routes in various periods of Late Antiquity and Byzantine history. At the same time, it neither takes into account the actual distance (and travel costs) between localities nor the connections via sea routes; therefore, the model is only a first rough approximation towards a more accurate model of the Byzantine transport system in its dynamics through centuries.
Three centrality measures have been calculated; nodes in the graphs and maps are scaled according to their relative centralities in this regard (centrality measures are of course only valid within the extract of the total route network of Asia Minor integrated into the network):
Closeness; closeness centrality measures the length of all pathes between a node an all other nodes. The more central a node is the lower its total distance to all other nodes. Closeness can also be used as a measure of how fast it would take to spread resources or information from a node to all other nodes.
Betweenness; betweenness centrality measures the extent to which a node lies on paths between other nodes and indicates the relative significance of a node as “intermediary” within a network due to its position on many (or few) possible shortest routes between other nodes.
Eigenvector; eigenvector centrality is a measure of "indirect" centrality and indicates, if a node is connected to more or less central other nodes within the network.
For a similar study cf. Isaksen, Leif (2008) The application of network analysis to ancient transport geography: a case study of Roman Baetica. Digital Medievalist, 4 (http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/204515/)
For more information, contact: [email protected]
The first graph is a visualisation of the connections between letters in localities between which these letters were exchanged (" 2mode network").
The second graph is a visualisation of the weighted network of localities on the basis of Theophylact´s correspondence; two localities are connected if letters of Theophylact were exchanged between them. Links are scaled according to the number of letters within Theophylact´s collection documenting exchanges between them.
The third graph visualises these connections between localities on a map. Links are again scaled according to the number of letters within Theophylact´s collection documenting exchanges between them. The size of nodes is scaled according to their number of connections within the network ("degree").
The fourth graph is a "zoom" into these geographical visualisation of the network for the Western Balkans; links are again scaled according to the number of letters within Theophylact´s collection documenting exchanges between them.
For the localisation of sites within the historical region of Macedonia cf. also the upcoming volumes on Macedonia (Southern Part) by Peter Soustal and on Macedonia (Northern Part) by Mihailo Popovic within the series "Tabula Imperii Byzantini" (http://www.oeaw.ac.at/imafo/die-abteilungen/byzanzforschung/communities-landscapes/historische-geographie/)
For any further questions, please contact [email protected].
(Based on data from: MATSCHKE, Klaus-Peter; TINNEFELD, Franz: Die Gesellschaft im späten Byzanz. Gruppen, Strukturen und Lebens-formen, Cologne – Weimar – Vienna 2001, p. 297-300, and information from the Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, ed. E. Trapp et. al. CD-ROM Version, Vienna 2001).
"
Graph 2: Fig. 2a: The network of correspondence of Metropolitan Michael Choniates of Athens in the years 1205-1222 in geographical space; lines are scaled according to the number of letters sent by Michael to the respective locality. The conquest of Athens by the Crusaders in 1204 forced Michael to seek exile on the island of Keos; from there, despite Latin rule he attempted to stay in intensive contact with friends and supporters within his former diocese on the mainland. At the same time, his more far reaching contacts were re-oriented towards the new centres of Byzantine power and culture in exile in Western Asia Minor (Nikaia) and Western Greece (Arta and Naupaktos). The contacts to the now Latin ruled territories in and around Constantinople on the contrast are very sparse. (Graph by J. Preiser-Kapeller, 2013; data from: Michaeli Choniatae Epistulae, rec. Foteini Kolovou [CFHB XLI]. Berlin 2001).
First graph: Degree; the degree of a node is the number of links connected to it; degree centrality indicates the relative significance of a node within a network due to its number of connections to other nodes.
Second graph: Betweenness; betweenness centrality measures the extent to which a node lies on paths between other nodes and indicates the relative significance of a node as “intermediary” within a network due to its position on many (or few) possible routes between other nodes.
Third graph: Closeness; closeness centrality measures the length of all pathes between a node an all other nodes. The more central a node is the lower its total distance to all other nodes. Closeness can also be used as a measure of how fast it would take to spread resources or information from a node to all other nodes. In our network model here, the differences in closeness centrality between all nodes are relatively small.
For further information see: J. Preiser-Kapeller, Networks of border zones – multiplex relations of power, religion and economy in South-eastern Europe, 1250-1453 CE, in: Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, "Revive the Past" (CAA) in Beijing, China. Amsterdam 2012, 381–393 (online: http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller/Papers)
First graph: Degree; the degree of a node is the number of links connected to it; degree centrality indicates the relative significance of a node within a network due to its number of connections to other nodes.
Second graph: Betweenness; betweenness centrality measures the extent to which a node lies on paths between other nodes and indicates the relative significance of a node as “intermediary” within a network due to its position on many (or few) possible routes between other nodes.
Third graph: Closeness; closeness centrality measures the length of all pathes between a node an all other nodes. The more central a node is the lower its total distance to all other nodes. Closeness can also be used as a measure of how fast it would take to spread resources or information from a node to all other nodes. In our network model here, the differences in closeness centrality between all nodes are relatively small.
For further information see: J. Preiser-Kapeller, Networks of border zones – multiplex relations of power, religion and economy in South-eastern Europe, 1250-1453 CE, in: Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, "Revive the Past" (CAA) in Beijing, China. Amsterdam 2012, 381–393 (online: http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller/Papers)
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller and Ekaterini Mitsiou have created a map to visualise some aspects of the spatial organisation of the Late Byzantine Church, esp. for the 14th century.
By selecting four different layers, you can see:
• Places of estates of the Patriarchate of Constantinople as indicated in a privilege charter of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1271
• Places of so-called patriarchika dikaia (entitlements of the Patriarchate on income, properties and/or juridical rights) as indicated in the documents of the Register of the Patriarchate of Constantinople between 1315 and 1402
• Bishoprics contributing to the Patriarchate according to a charter of 1324 (cf. PRK I 88, 39–73)
• Bishoprics of the Patriarchate of Constantinople temporarily administrated by the same Metropolitan or Archbishop due to acts of “Epidosis” as indicated in the documents of the Register of the Patriarchate of Constantinople between 1315 and 1402
Data collection and visualisation by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller and Ekaterini Mitsiou as part of the project “Edition of the Register of the Patriarchate of Constantinople” (http://www.oeaw.ac.at/byzanz/prk.htm). Also most of the data comes from this central collection of documents for the Late Byzantine Church. For further studies on this material cf. also the bibliography on the website indicated above. Contact: [email protected]; [email protected]; Websites: http://oeaw.academia.edu/EkateriniMitsiou; http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller.
a interactive map of 336 localities connected through the mobility of 2402 members of the Byzantine elite in the years 1282 to 1402
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zFF_0-ggg3xI.kzPtUQfs7H8s&usp=sharing
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller has created a database of more than 2400 individuals and 330 places (on the basis of the Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, augmented with additional data) and a network model of these places connected due to the mobility of people in the years 1282 to 1402 CE. You can now explore this network online if you follow the link above. One can also only look at the distribution of places by unselecting the network layer. More sophisticated interactive visualisations of the data are under construction, but this site provides a first impression of the density and amount of connections of Late Byzantium.
More information on the underlying database you can find here: http://www.academia.edu/8247283/A_new_view_on_a_century_of_Byzantine_history_The_Vienna_Network_Model_of_the_Byzantine_Elite_1282-1402
The database is part of the project "Mapping Medieval Conflicts" (http://oeaw.academia.edu/MappingMedievalConflict)
More on this project and the underlying methodology you can also learn here: https://www.academia.edu/19333312/Calculating_the_Middle_Ages_The_project_Complexities_and_networks_in_the_Medieval_Mediterranean_and_Near_East_COMMED_
(all graphs and visualisations were calculated and created by the author; network graphs and analyses were created with the help of the software tools Pajek* and ORA*)
The underlying database integrates all information on ties of kinship, marriage, friendship and support, allegiance, diplomacy and conflict between these individuals to be found in the Proposographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit (PLP, ed. Erich Trapp et al., CD-Rom Version Vienna 2001, cf. http://hw.oeaw.ac.at/3003-1) as well as additional information from other sources.
The model in total so far includes 2490 individuals and 336 localities (places of residence and travel or activities of commerce and pilgrimage, etc.)
The network model has been created by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller and will be analysed in detail in his upcoming monograph Byzantium´s Connected Empire, 1282-1402. A Global History (forthcoming with Palgrave Macmillan in 2015/2016). In addition, the model will also be used for the newly established project Mapping MEDieval CONflicts: a digital approach towards political dynamics in the pre-modern period, funded within the framework of the go!digital-programme of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (cf. http://oeaw.academia.edu/MappingMedievalConflict)
For further information contact: [email protected]
I then constructed a model for the network between this sites by connecting every site with all neighbouring ones within a radius of 50 km.
For the emerging network, I weighted the strength of connections between sites indirectly proportional to the geographical distance between them (strength of ties = 1/number of km).
For this network model, I determined the centrality measure of betweenness (quantifying the ratio of shortest connections between nodes a node is part of and indicating the significance of a node as « intermediary » between otherwise not directly connected nodes or groups of nodes)
Furthermore, I applied the Newman grouping algorithm in order to detect clusters of nodes more densely connected among each other than with the rest of the network.
The network visualised here thus constitutes a first approach towards the modelling of connectivity within the natural and built environment of an early medieval polity in historical Armenia and is part of a larger ongoing study on the emergence and development of the Kingdom of Vaspurakan within the matrix of politics, economy, geography and ecology.
For an overview of similar applications see also:
Barthélemy, M., Spatial Networks. Physics Reports 499 (2011) 1-101.
Conolly, J./Lake, M., Geographical Information Systems in Archaeology (Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology). Cambridge: Cambridge 2006.
Gorenflo, L. J./Bell, Th. L., Network Analysis and the Study of past regional Organization, in: Trombold, Charles D. (ed.), Ancient road networks and settlement hierarchies in the New World. Cambridge 1991, 80-98.
Rodrigue, J.-P., with Comtois, Cl./Slack, B., The Geography of Transport Systems. 3rd ed., London – New York 2013.
This study, which is work in progress, was made possible on the basis of a fellowship of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation for research at the Institute for Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens.
On this basis, I created a “3mode-network” of sites, locally produced types and imported types of ceramics. These “affiliation networks” I then transformed into two 1mode-network of sites, where sites are connected to each other if at least one type of ceramics can be found in both; such links between sites have different strength depending of the number of co-occurring ceramic types (from 0 to 9 for the local ceramics-network, from 0 to 14 for the imported ceramics-network).
Such affiliation networks recently have been used quite frequently in studies of archaeological network analysis in order to model systems of distributions of artefacts in a specific region; one has to keep in mind that links in such models do not reflect direct connections of exchange or interaction between sites (although of course they could overlap with these), but ties of similarity of artefact assemblages of different strength which reflect different degrees of integration of sites within distribution systems for specific types of artefacts. Still, the may provide some impression of the complexity as well as of different spatial orientations of these distribution systems (for an overview cf. BRUGHMANS, T. (2013), Thinking Through Networks: A Review of Formal Network Methods in Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 20, pp. 623–662, and SINDBÆK, S.M. (2013), Broken Links and Black Boxes: Material Affiliations and Contextual Network Synthesis in the Viking World, in: C. KNAPPETT (ed.), Network Analysis in Archaeology: New Approaches to Regional Interaction. Oxford 2013, pp. 71–94, for a comparable case study and a critical evaluation of the potential and pitfalls of this approach).
This study, which is work in progress, was made possible on the basis of a fellowship of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation for research at the Institute for Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens.
I constructed a network of concepts and actors for the genre of imperial panegyrics in Byzantium between 1204 and 1328, relying on data from the excellent study by Dimiter Angelov (D. Angelov, Imperial Ideology and Political Thought in Byzantium (1204-1330). Cambridge 2007, esp. 86–90). Angelov systematically surveyed authors and addressees (the emperors, of course) of imperial panegyrics for this period as well as the figures from the biblical as well as classical tradition (such as King David or Alexander the Great) with which authors compared emperors in their texts. I combined this data into a three-mode-network of Emperors (red), authors (blue) and comparative figures (green). This network is also object of further analysis in: J. Preiser-Kapeller, From quantitative to qualitative and back again. The interplay between structure and culture and the analysis of networks in pre-modern societies, in: E. Mitsiou - M. Popović – J. Preiser-Kapeller (eds.), Multiplying Middle Ages. New methods and approaches for the study of the multiplicity of the Middle Ages in a global perspective (3rd-16th CE). Akten der Konferenz in Wien im November 2012. Vienna 2014 (forthcoming).
I transformed the 3-mode-network of authors, emperors and figures in a 1-mode-network of figures, in which two figures are connected if they were used by the same author for the same emperor; as several figures were used by several authors for the same emperors, some linkages are stronger than others. As becomes obvious if we inspect the graph of this network with nodes scaled according to their number of ties (degree), there is a densely connected core of nodes with a relatively high number of connections and various less densely interconnected clusters at the periphery of this web of comparative figures. (Blue: figures of biblical origin, red: figures of classic origin).
On the basis of the 1-mode-network of comparative figures used in the imperial panegyrics of Byzantium between 1204 and 1328, I created a network of geographical places which are related to the respective figures (e. g. Moses – Sinai, Julius Caesar – Rome). Two localities are linked in this spatial network if figures connected to them are linked in the above-presented 1-mode-network. Thus, a dense and complex geographical matrix of imperial panegyrics in Late Byzantium becomes visible.
The following network visualisations and calculations are based on the scheme for the systems of routes at land and sea in the Byzantine period as depicted in the above mentioned volumes, regardless of the relative significance of the respective routes in various periods of Late Antiquity and Byzantine history. At the same time, it neither takes into account the actual distance (and travel costs) between localities nor the connections via sea routes; therefore, the model is only a first rough approximation towards a more accurate model of the Byzantine transport system in its dynamics through centuries (cf. also Graßhoff – Mittenhuber, 2009, for a much more sophisticated model for Lycia). Interesting for this study is especially the modification of centrality measures if sea routes are added to the network of land routes.
Three centrality measures have been calculated; nodes in the graphs are scaled according to their relative centralities in this regard (centrality measures are of course only valid within the extract of the total route network of Asia Minor integrated into the network):
Closeness; closeness centrality measures the length of all pathes between a node an all other nodes. The more central a node is the lower its total distance to all other nodes. Closeness can also be used as a measure of how fast it would take to spread resources or information from a node to all other nodes.
Betweenness; betweenness centrality measures the extent to which a node lies on paths between other nodes and indicates the relative significance of a node as “intermediary” within a network due to its position on many (or few) possible shortest routes between other nodes.
Eigenvector; eigenvector centrality is a measure of "indirect" centrality and indicates, if a node is connected to more or less central other nodes within the network.
For a similar study cf. L. Isaksen, The application of network analysis to ancient transport geography: a case study of Roman Baetica. Digital Medievalist, 4 (2008) (http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/204515/)
For more information, contact: [email protected]
All network graphs were created by the author with the help of the software package ORA*.
The following network visualisations and calculations are based on the scheme for the systems of routes in the Byzantine period as depicted by Klaus Belke in the above mentioned volume, regardless of the relative significance of the respective routes in various periods of Late Antiquity and Byzantine history. At the same time, it neither takes into account the actual distance (and travel costs) between localities nor the connections via sea routes; therefore, the model is only a first rough approximation towards a more accurate model of the Byzantine transport system in its dynamics through centuries.
Three centrality measures have been calculated; nodes in the graphs and maps are scaled according to their relative centralities in this regard (centrality measures are of course only valid within the extract of the total route network of Asia Minor integrated into the network):
Closeness; closeness centrality measures the length of all pathes between a node an all other nodes. The more central a node is the lower its total distance to all other nodes. Closeness can also be used as a measure of how fast it would take to spread resources or information from a node to all other nodes.
Betweenness; betweenness centrality measures the extent to which a node lies on paths between other nodes and indicates the relative significance of a node as “intermediary” within a network due to its position on many (or few) possible shortest routes between other nodes.
Eigenvector; eigenvector centrality is a measure of "indirect" centrality and indicates, if a node is connected to more or less central other nodes within the network.
For a similar study cf. Isaksen, Leif (2008) The application of network analysis to ancient transport geography: a case study of Roman Baetica. Digital Medievalist, 4 (http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/204515/)
For more information, contact: [email protected]
The first graph is a visualisation of the connections between letters in localities between which these letters were exchanged (" 2mode network").
The second graph is a visualisation of the weighted network of localities on the basis of Theophylact´s correspondence; two localities are connected if letters of Theophylact were exchanged between them. Links are scaled according to the number of letters within Theophylact´s collection documenting exchanges between them.
The third graph visualises these connections between localities on a map. Links are again scaled according to the number of letters within Theophylact´s collection documenting exchanges between them. The size of nodes is scaled according to their number of connections within the network ("degree").
The fourth graph is a "zoom" into these geographical visualisation of the network for the Western Balkans; links are again scaled according to the number of letters within Theophylact´s collection documenting exchanges between them.
For the localisation of sites within the historical region of Macedonia cf. also the upcoming volumes on Macedonia (Southern Part) by Peter Soustal and on Macedonia (Northern Part) by Mihailo Popovic within the series "Tabula Imperii Byzantini" (http://www.oeaw.ac.at/imafo/die-abteilungen/byzanzforschung/communities-landscapes/historische-geographie/)
For any further questions, please contact [email protected].
(Based on data from: MATSCHKE, Klaus-Peter; TINNEFELD, Franz: Die Gesellschaft im späten Byzanz. Gruppen, Strukturen und Lebens-formen, Cologne – Weimar – Vienna 2001, p. 297-300, and information from the Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, ed. E. Trapp et. al. CD-ROM Version, Vienna 2001).
"
Graph 2: Fig. 2a: The network of correspondence of Metropolitan Michael Choniates of Athens in the years 1205-1222 in geographical space; lines are scaled according to the number of letters sent by Michael to the respective locality. The conquest of Athens by the Crusaders in 1204 forced Michael to seek exile on the island of Keos; from there, despite Latin rule he attempted to stay in intensive contact with friends and supporters within his former diocese on the mainland. At the same time, his more far reaching contacts were re-oriented towards the new centres of Byzantine power and culture in exile in Western Asia Minor (Nikaia) and Western Greece (Arta and Naupaktos). The contacts to the now Latin ruled territories in and around Constantinople on the contrast are very sparse. (Graph by J. Preiser-Kapeller, 2013; data from: Michaeli Choniatae Epistulae, rec. Foteini Kolovou [CFHB XLI]. Berlin 2001).
First graph: Degree; the degree of a node is the number of links connected to it; degree centrality indicates the relative significance of a node within a network due to its number of connections to other nodes.
Second graph: Betweenness; betweenness centrality measures the extent to which a node lies on paths between other nodes and indicates the relative significance of a node as “intermediary” within a network due to its position on many (or few) possible routes between other nodes.
Third graph: Closeness; closeness centrality measures the length of all pathes between a node an all other nodes. The more central a node is the lower its total distance to all other nodes. Closeness can also be used as a measure of how fast it would take to spread resources or information from a node to all other nodes. In our network model here, the differences in closeness centrality between all nodes are relatively small.
For further information see: J. Preiser-Kapeller, Networks of border zones – multiplex relations of power, religion and economy in South-eastern Europe, 1250-1453 CE, in: Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, "Revive the Past" (CAA) in Beijing, China. Amsterdam 2012, 381–393 (online: http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller/Papers)
First graph: Degree; the degree of a node is the number of links connected to it; degree centrality indicates the relative significance of a node within a network due to its number of connections to other nodes.
Second graph: Betweenness; betweenness centrality measures the extent to which a node lies on paths between other nodes and indicates the relative significance of a node as “intermediary” within a network due to its position on many (or few) possible routes between other nodes.
Third graph: Closeness; closeness centrality measures the length of all pathes between a node an all other nodes. The more central a node is the lower its total distance to all other nodes. Closeness can also be used as a measure of how fast it would take to spread resources or information from a node to all other nodes. In our network model here, the differences in closeness centrality between all nodes are relatively small.
For further information see: J. Preiser-Kapeller, Networks of border zones – multiplex relations of power, religion and economy in South-eastern Europe, 1250-1453 CE, in: Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, "Revive the Past" (CAA) in Beijing, China. Amsterdam 2012, 381–393 (online: http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller/Papers)
The data comes from the excellent monograph of Angeliki Panagopoulou, Οι διπλωματικοί γάμοι στο Βυζάντιο (6ος-12ος αιώνας), 2006. The maps were created by myself.
#Byzanzforschung/#IMAFO #ÖAW
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1IBKIxNK33SeCqaQ1q63UPwIzT2w3Sk7n&usp=sharing
Online-Karte mit Orten und Weblinks für das Buch "Jenseits von Rom und Karl dem Großen. Aspekte der globalen Verflechtung in der langen Spätantike, 300 - 800 n. Chr." (Wien 2018) von Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (https://www.mandelbaum.at/buch.php?id=777)
Buch-Trailer: http://files.das-andere-mittelalter.webnode.com/200000214-91fcd92f6a/Buchtrailer%20Jenseits%20von%20Rom%20und%20Karl%20dem%20Gro%C3%9Fen.mp4
For further information, see the Prosopography of the Late Roman Empire, Vol. III (s. v. Aratius, Narses 2 and Isaaces 1).
Network graphs created by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller with the help of the software tools ORA* and QuantumGIS*.
Digital base map: Yahoo Satellite*
(Copyright: J. Preiser-Kapeller, 2013)
Work in Progress!"
If we combine this data into a network model, we can visualise how the ship connects the places of origin of its crew with the localities on its route from Venice to the East (fig. 1)
Michael of Rhodes´ data also allows us to visualise the relative significance of localities on the basis of the respective number of oarsmen coming from each of them (fig. 2). The largest numbers came from Venetian possessions and other sites in Dalmatia and Albania as well as from further inland of the Western Balkans, but also from the Italian hinterland of Venice, Hungary and Germany, as well as from the Eastern and Western Mediterranean (for this phenomenon cf. also Doumerc, Bernard (2007), Cosmopolitanism on Board Venetian Ships (Fourteenth-Fifteenth Centuries). Medieval Encounters 13, pp. 78-95).
We can visualise this assemblage of individuals from all over the Mediterranean in Venice for the purpose of this journey also on a map (nodes again scaled according to the number of oarsmen originating from there) (fig. 3).
Finally, this social network of the ship of 1414 is of course a mobile one (fig. 4), so that this assemblage of people and their places of origin connects to all ports on its route from Venice to Jaffa (fig. 5), establishing a complex web of individual entanglements across the entire Mediterranean; the ship thus emerges as a “heterotopia”, a real place in which various societies and cultural backgrounds of the time were “simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted” (for the adaption of this concept of Michel Foucault cf. Van de Noort, Robert (2011), North Sea Archaeologies: a Maritime Biography, 10,000 BC to AD 1500. Oxford, pp. 33-34).
All graphs were created by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller with the help of the software ORA*; for further questions please contact [email protected] (do not use any material without the consent of the author!).
If we visualise the connections outlined in Anania´s biographical narratives, we detect a multiplex, despite the briefness of both accounts already relatively complex network of ties of education, commerce, kinship, authority and patronage. The backbone of Anania´s longer account is of course the network of education, consisting of ties between teachers and disciples. A simple quantitative analysis makes the central position of Tychikos of Trebizond visible; he also provides connection to the centres of classic education in the Mediterranean, which Ananias himself never visited, but also obtained from his prestige as teacher in Armenia. The wide connections integrated in the life story of a man who himself actually never travelled far beyond the borders of his homeland become also visible if we take a look at the spatial structure of the narratives. Also here, we can quantify the centrality of localities with regard to their “betweenness”; the Armenian capital of Dvin emerges as most important node of intermediation between West and East in Anania´s narratives, thereby corresponding to the description of the city´s relevance in the work of Procopius. The application of spatial clustering to the network of localities within the narrative also provides interesting results; we detect a Mediterranean cluster of education (so important also for Anania´s legitimation as teacher), an Iranian cluster of commerce and a Black Sea cluster of transmission of teachers and teaching between the centre of the Empire and the Middle ground in Eastern Anatolia and Armenia.
Bibliography:
Tim GREENWOOD, A reassessment of the life and mathematical problems of Anania Širakacʿi, in: Revue des études arméniennes 33 (2011), p. 131-186.
Robert H. HEWSEN, Science in Seventh-Century Armenia: Ananias of Sirak, in: Isis, Vol. 59, No. 1, (Spring, 1968), p. 32-45.
Johannes PREISER-KAPELLER, erdumn, ucht, carayut´iwn. Armenian aristocrats as diplomatic partners of Eastern Roman Emperors, 387-884/885 AD, in: Armenian Review 52 (2010) p. 139–215.
Cf. also http://www.academia.edu/3792891/Medieval_Entanglements_Trans-Border_Networks_in_Byzantium_and_China_in_Comparison_c._300-900
Data from: Birgitta Falk, Das Essener Ida-Kreuz, and Annemarie Staufer, Die textilen Reliquienhüllen aus dem Essener Kapitelkreuz, both in: Thomas Schilp, Frauen bauen Europa. Internationale Verflechtungen des Frauenstifts Essen (Essener Forschungen zum Frauenstift 9). Essen 2011, 143-p. 201.
All graphs created by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, 2013 (usage only with permission of the author).
"
Cf. also: J. Preiser-Kapeller, Webs of conversion. An analysis of social networks of converts across Islamic-Christian borders in Anatolia, South-eastern Europe and the Black Sea from the 13th to the 15th cent. International Workshop: „Cross-Cultural Life-Worlds In Pre-Modern Islamic Societies: Actors, Evidences And Strategies“, University of Bamberg (Germany), 22-24 June 2012. (online: http://www.academia.edu/1243539/Webs_of_conversion._An_analysis_of_social_networks_of_converts_across_Islamic-Christian_borders_in_Anatolia_South-eastern_Europe_and_the_Black_Sea_from_the_13th_to_the_15th_cent)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxcHiVTM7HU&feature=youtu.be
See also: http://eurasianmss.lib.uiowa.edu/lectures/, for the abstract
The interactive maps for these four time periods can be inspected on: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zFF_0-ggg3xI.kRE0ByDPZFkA&usp=sharing
The network graphs for the four period can be inspected on: http://www.dasanderemittelalter.net/news/the-diplomatic-network-of-the-ancient-greeks/
This dataset was significantly enlarged and modified by me in order to map the most important maritime and terrestrial routes across the Eastern Mediterranean in the period 1300-1500 AD, with a focus on the Balkans and Asia Minor, the core regions of the Byzantine as well as of the Ottoman Empire.
This dataset was then turned into a topological network model, in which localities serve a nodes and the routes between them as links.
In order to integrate “real space” into the model, the strength of links between nodes was weighted according to their geographical distance (the larger the distance the bigger the cost of interaction and the weaker the connection - for terrestrial routes, a cost factor of five has been applied in comparison with maritime routes).
On this basis, several measurements of network centrality have been calculated in order to quantify the relative significance of sites and routes within the model for the Eastern Mediterranean. In addition, two analyses for diffusion and expansion related to historical developments (the spread of the Black Death from the Crimea and the expansion of the Ottoman state from Northwestern Asia Minor) have been executed.
This study, which is work in progress, was made possible on the basis of a fellowship of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation for research at the Institute for Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens.
Data from: Charalampos Gasparis, Catasticum Chanee, 1314-1396 (Catastici Feudorum Crete). Athens 2008.
From the 155 localities mentioned in the documents edited by Gasparis, I selected a sample of 76 localities, for which Gasparis indicated there exact position; for this localities I determined the geographical data.
I created a network of localities; two localities are connected if there is documentation for at least one noble family possessing feuda in both during the period 1314-1396. The strength of links is scaled according to the number of families having property in both localities.
On this basis I calculated the total strength of connections of each locality (degree values).
Furthermore, I determined the geographical distance between connected localities and compared it with the strength of connections between them.
I visualised the various results of the analysis on a map of the area in order to illustrate the spatial distribution of noble property and the spatial connections between regions due to noble property.
A further analysis also for different time slices during the period 1314-1396 is in preparation.
All graphs and maps were created by the author with the help of the software tools ORA*, Pajek*, QuantumGIS* and PAST*.
A part of statistical analysis is based on a binary time series (1 = presence of a drought in that year, 0 = absence); a „drought“ is defined for a reconstructed precipitation values of 1 standard deviation below the mean value for the period 1089-1600 CE.
Mean waiting times between years with events were calculated on the basis of an expectation test for a poisson process for simple columns of event times for the five phenomena.
Probabilities of transition between years with events and years without were calculated with the help of Markov chain analysis on the basis of the above-mentioned binary time series.
The entire project is work in progress and includes also similar analyses for other medieval polities during this period (until now Byzantium, China, Egypt, England and Hungary; cf. also J. Preiser-Kapeller, (Not so) Distant Mirrors: a complex macro-comparison of polities and political, economic and religious systems in the crisis of the 14th century. Working paper for the International Conference “The Angevin Dynasty (14th Century)” in Targoviste (Romania), October 21st-23rd 2011; online: http://www.academia.edu/512025/_Not_so_Distant_Mirrors_a_complex_macro-comparison_of_polities_and_political_economic_and_religious_systems_in_the_crisis_of_the_14th_century – also with indication of data sources for these calculations, and http://www.academia.edu/3077069/A_statistical_analysis_and_a_first_simple_model_for_internal_instability_in_the_Byzantine_Empire_1200-1453_CE). Comments are always welcome.
All calculations on and graphs of the time series were done by the author with the help of the software programmes Microsoft-Excel* and PAST* (Version 2.17); any usage of material or data only with approval of the author!
Mean waiting times between years with events were calculated on the basis of an expectation test for a poisson process for simple columns of event times for the five phenomena.
Probabilities of transition between years with events and years without were calculated with the help of Markov chain analysis on the basis of the above-mentioned time series.
As already mentioned, the entire project is work in progress and includes also similar analyses for other medieval polities during this period (until now Byzantium, China, Egypt, England and Hungary; cf. also J. Preiser-Kapeller, (Not so) Distant Mirrors: a complex macro-comparison of polities and political, economic and religious systems in the crisis of the 14th century. Working paper for the International Conference “The Angevin Dynasty (14th Century)” in Targoviste (Romania), October 21st-23rd 2011; online: http://www.academia.edu/512025/_Not_so_Distant_Mirrors_a_complex_macro-comparison_of_polities_and_political_economic_and_religious_systems_in_the_crisis_of_the_14th_century – also with indication of data sources for these calculations). Comments are always welcome.
All calculations and graphs were done by the author with the help of the software programmes Microsoft-Excel* and PAST* (Version 2.17); any usage of material or data only with approval of the author!
Mean waiting times between years with events were calculated on the basis of an expectation test for a poisson process for simple columns of event times for the five phenomena.
Probabilities of transition between years with events and years without were calculated with the help of Markov chain analysis on the basis of the above-mentioned time series.
The simple model of possible influences of other time event series on the time series of internal unrest was created on the basis of crosscorrelation tests between these time series; indicated is the coefficient of determination (R²) for the cross correlation and the time lag (in years) between the time series for which this coefficient is valid.
The entire project is work in progress and includes also similar analyses for other medieval polities during this period (until now China, Egypt, England and Hungary; cf. also J. Preiser-Kapeller, (Not so) Distant Mirrors: a complex macro-comparison of polities and political, economic and religious systems in the crisis of the 14th century. Working paper for the International Conference “The Angevin Dynasty (14th Century)” in Targoviste (Romania), October 21st-23rd 2011; online: http://www.academia.edu/512025/_Not_so_Distant_Mirrors_a_complex_macro-comparison_of_polities_and_political_economic_and_religious_systems_in_the_crisis_of_the_14th_century – also with indication of data sources for these calculations). Comments are always welcome.
All calculations and graphs were done by the author with the help of the software programmes Microsoft-Excel* and PAST* (Version 2.17); any usage of material or data only with approval of the author!
"
P(r) = P(l)/rZ
where P(r) is the population of the city of the r-ranked city within the totality of the sample, P(l) the population of the largest city, r the rank of the city (1, 2, 3, …) and Z is a constant in the order of magnitude of 1. This rank-size rule has been empirically studied in many regions throughout the globe for various time periods; many cases satisfy Zipf’s law very closely with values for Z around 1, whereas in other cases rank-size distributions of populations of cities obey power-law behaviour, but have a different power exponent Z - for our English example here, Z = 0.706, for instance, indicating a more "equal" distribution of population than in the classic Zipf-model.
The working of the process which generates these patterns is still under discussion; but most probably they result from the complex interactions within the network of settlements and their hinterland which produce an uneven distribution of demographic and economic potential and a hierarchy of cities.
For more on these phenomena, see also: http://www.academia.edu/512028/_Johannes_Preiser-Kapeller_-_Ekaterini_Mitsiou_Hierarchies_and_fractals_Ecclesiastical_revenues_as_indicator_for_the_distribution_of_relative_demographic_potential_within_the_cities_and_regions_of_the_Late_Byzantine_Empire_in_the_early_14th_century
Mean waiting times between years with events were calculated on the basis of an expectation test for a poisson process for simple columns of event times for the five phenomena.
Probabilities of transition between years with events and years without were calculated with the help of Markov chain analysis on the basis of the above-mentioned time series.
The entire project is work in progress and includes also similar analyses for other medieval polities during this period (until now China, Egypt, England and Hungary; cf. also J. Preiser-Kapeller, (Not so) Distant Mirrors: a complex macro-comparison of polities and political, economic and religious systems in the crisis of the 14th century. Working paper for the International Conference “The Angevin Dynasty (14th Century)” in Targoviste (Romania), October 21st-23rd 2011; online: http://www.academia.edu/512025/_Not_so_Distant_Mirrors_a_complex_macro-comparison_of_polities_and_political_economic_and_religious_systems_in_the_crisis_of_the_14th_century – also with indication of data sources for these calculations – and http://www.academia.edu/3077069/A_statistical_analysis_and_a_first_simple_model_for_internal_instability_in_the_Byzantine_Empire_1200-1453_CE). Comments are always welcome.
All calculations and graphs were done by the author with the help of the software programmes Microsoft-Excel* and PAST* (Version 2.17); any usage of material or data only with approval of the author!
Graph 1: Years of internal instability in the Byzantine Empire, 1200 - 1453 CE
Graph 2: Instability index (years of unrest per decade) for the Byzantine Empire, 1200-1453 CE
Graph 3: Phase portrait of the instability index for the Byzantine Empire, 1200 - 1453 CE
Graph 4: Continuous wavelet transform of the timeseries of the years of internal instability in Byzantium, 1200-1453 CE
("The continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is an analysis method where a data set can be inspected at
small, intermediate and large scales simultaneously. (...) The top of the figure thus represents a detailed, fine-grained view,
while the bottom represents a smoothed overview of longer trends. Signal power (or more correctly
squared correlation strength with the scaled mother wavelet) is shown in colour"; from: Øyvind Hamme, PAleontological STatistics. Reference manual, Oslo 2012.)
Das Reich als Netzwerk der Fürsten
Politische Strukturen unter dem Doppelkönigtum Friedrichs II. und Heinrichs (VII.) 1225–1235
Mittelalter-Forschungen, Band 40
Format 17 x 24 cm
456 Seiten
mit zahlreichen Grafiken und einer Beilage
Hardcover mit Schutzumschlag
ISBN: 978-3-7995-0790-5
€ 64
Der Sturz König Heinrichs (VII.) im Jahr 1235 zählt zu den rätselhaftesten Episoden der mittelalterlichen deutschen Geschichte. Ein so drastischer Schritt wie die Absetzung durch den eigenen Vater schien nur als Folge schuldhaften politischen Versagens denkbar. Die vorliegende, netzwerkanalytisch angelegte Studie untersucht die Bedingungen von Heinrichs Herrschaft innerhalb eines komplexen Wirkverbundes politischer Akteure und zeichnet ein neuartiges Bild eines turbulenten Jahrzehnts der spätstaufischen Zeit.
http://www.thorbecke.schwabenverlag.de/das-reich-als-netzwerk-der-fuersten-p-1754.html?cPath=310_138_245&osCsid=a1582cebfcf4c16437de0df2b5119cda
PI: Doz. Mag. Dr. Mihailo Popović, IMAFO/Abteilung Byzanzforschung (ABF), ÖAW (E-Mail: [email protected])
Host institution: Institut für Mittelalterforschung, ÖAW, Wohllebengasse 12-14, 1040 Wien
Website: https://oeaw.academia.edu/DigitisingPatternsofPower
The project focuses on the analysis of the depiction of space in medieval written sources, of the interaction between built and natural environment, of appropriation of space and the emergence of new political, religious and economic structures of power. DPP compares three regions of the medieval world: the Eastern Alps (6th-12th cent.), the historical region of Macedonia (12th-14th cent.) and historical Souther Armenia (Vaspurakan, 5th-11th cent.). Historical, archaeological, environmental and natural scientific data will be combined and geo-referenced with the help of tools of Digital Humanities (data basis, using the OpenAtlas-system developed by Stefan Eichert, geo-visualisation and spatial analysis, social and spatial network analysis, quantitative and correspondence analysis). Data and results will b presented online open access and linked to other data repositories.
The team at the Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Department of Geography and Regional Research of the University of Vienna consists of:
* Mihailo Popovic, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Abteilung für Byzanzforschung/Division of Byzantine Research (IMAFO/ABF) (PI, case study on historical region of Macedonia)
* Karel Kriz, University of Vienna, IfGR (GIS analyses, geo-communication, technical integration)
* Markus Breier, University of Vienna, IfGR (GIS analyses, geo-communication)
* Stefan Eichert, Austrian Academy of Sciences, IMAFO (software and data basis, case study on the Eastern Alps)
* Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Austrian Academy of Sciences, IMAFO/ABF (network analysis, case study on historical Armenia)
* Katharina Winckler, Austrian Academy of Sciences, IMAFO (data basis development, case study on the Eastern Alps)
In this new project, funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, Prof. Julia Hillner together with partners in Austria, Germany and Denmark, will explore legal, theological and cultural aspects of the exile and forced mobility of clergymen and bishops within the (post)Roman sphere from Constantine to the end of the 6th century. The head of our Division, Prof. Claudia Rapp, is a member of the scientific advisory board to the project.
http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/sites/clericalexile/
For this purpose, as systematical proposographical and geographical data base of all exiled individuals and their contacts and places of residence will be created; this data will be visualised and analysed in the form of social and spatial networks with know how coming from our Abteilung für Byzanzforschung/Division of Byzantine Research, especially from the projects and works of Johannes Preiser-Kapeller ( “Complexities and Networks in the Medieval Mediterranean and Near East” (COMMED); “Mapping medieval conflicts: a digital approach towards political dynamics in the pre-modern period” (MEDCON) and David Natal Villazala (“Episcopal Networks and Fragmentation in Late Antique Western Europe” (ENFLAWE). The main collaborator for the project, Dirk Rohmann, was also at our Division for four weeks to modify and adapt the tools developed here for the purposes of the Sheffield projects - as were Julia Hillner herself and the Digital Humanities Developer of the project, Matthew Groves, for some days in September.
We are very honoured to be part of this most interesting project.
For the projects of our Division mentioned above, see:
https://www.academia.edu/3988811/David_Natal_EPISCOPAL_NETWORKS_AND_FRAGMENTATION_IN_LATE_ANTIQUE_WESTERN_EUROPE_ENFLAWE_
https://www.academia.edu/3988857/Johannes_Preiser-Kapeller_COMPLEXITIES_AND_NETWORKS_IN_THE_MEDIEVAL_MEDITERRANEAN_AND_THE_NEAR_EAST_COMMED_
http://oeaw.academia.edu/MappingMedievalConflict
Host Institution: Institute for Medieval Research. OEAW (IMAFO)
PI: Dr. J. Preiser-Kapeller, IMAFO (Email: [email protected])
Website: : https://oeaw.academia.edu/MappingMedievalConflict
While the term “network” has been used abundantly in historical research in the last years, the actual number of studies taking into account the methodology of network analysis is still limited. The reluctance of historians to adapt tools of network analysis can be also connected with the conceptual and terminological divide between humanities and formal sciences. At the same time, the user-friendliness of software tools tempts others to use them as “black boxes” in order to produce a variety of figures without being aware of the underlying concepts.
Against this background, the aims of MEDCON are:
• The adaptation and combination of a set of software tools which facilitates the relational survey of medieval sources and the visualisation and quantitative analysis of social and spatial networks (using an open source database application named “OpenATLAS”, developed by S. Eichert)
• The development of case studies demonstrating a “best practice” of the application and evaluation of tools of network analysis for medieval history (distribution as open data)
• The creation of an online platform for the exploration of data, methods and results by the wider public (open access)
A generalizable work flow from data input on the basis of medieval sources to the creation, visualisation and analysis of social and spatial network models and their web-based publication and presentation will be established. In order to demonstrate this in detail, MEDCON will focus on the analysis of political networks and conflict among power elites across medieval Europe with five case studies. The project is also conceptualised as digital extension of several internationally renowned long term-projects for text edition, diplomatics and prosopography at IMAFO:
• Fluctuation between opposing parties in the struggle for the German throne 1198-1208 (A. Rzihacek, R. Spreitzer)
• Coalitions in the war of Emperor Sigismund against Duke Frederick IV of Tyrol (G. Katzler)
• Emperor Frederick III Friedrich III. and the League of the Mailberger coalition in 1451/527 (K. Holzner-Tobisch)
• Factions and alliances in the fight of Maximilian I for Burgundy (S. Dünnebeil)
• Political factions in 14th cent. Byzantium (J. Preiser-Kapeller)
We will evaluate the explanatory power of these tools for phenomena of political conflict in medieval societies; thereby, we will provide a set of “best practice” examples of historical network analysis. MEDCON uses the relational structuring provided by modern software not simply as instrument for the organisation of data, but as heuristic tool for the reconstruction and analysis of the relational character of social phenomena of the past which is at the same time also of high relevance for modern-day discussions on the (in)stability of political frameworks. Thus, also the additional benefit of digital tools beyond data collection and their potential to allow for new research questions and analytical results will be demonstrated.
The explanatory value of these new methods has been demonstrated by the Johannes Preiser-Kapeller with case studies for the Late Byzantine ecclesiastical, political and intellectual elites, processes of religious and ethnic transformations in the Late Medieval Eastern Mediterranean, the diplomatic and political entanglements of the Near East between 300 and 1200 CE and the complex dynamics of the Late Medieval “World Crisis” in a global comparative perspective. In the future, an application of the developed toolkit to other periods and regions of the medieval world and on phenomena of environmental history and global mobility is intended. Within the Division of Byzantine Research, the project is closely connected to the Edition of the Register of the Patriarchate of Constantinople (PRK) and the Prosopography of the Palaeologian Period (PLP) and cooperates with the HGIS-based approach of Mihailo Popović to the historical geography of Byzantium (TIB); cooperations have also been established with other projects of the Institute for Medieval Research, especially within the framework of the SFB “Visions of Community”.
Beyond the Austrian Academy, the project is cooperating with colleagues at leading institutions for complexity research and digital humanities in Austria and abroad, such as the Section for Science of Complex Systems (Medizinische Universität Wien), the Archaeological Computing Research Group at the School of Humanities, University of Southampton or the Centre for Network Sciences at the Central European University in Budapest.
Methodology:
We establish a “complex relational perspective” on historical and social phenomena, following the postulations of classics of social theory such as Norbert Elias, who stated already in 1965: “to study individuals first as isolates and to derive the figurations they form together from what they are without the patterns of their living together, is a confusion of thought, impeding the analysis of these figurations. (...) Individuals are always found in figurations and configurations of individuals are irreducible. To think of a single individual as if it originally were socially independent, or of individuals here and there regardless of their relations with each other, is a baseless starting point.” (Norbert ELIAS – John SCOTSON, Etablierte und Außenseiter, 1965, 72, 264-265.)
The already well-established concepts of network theory allow us to analyse and visualise interactions and connections between individuals, groups and institutions. Recent studies work mainly within the framework of quantitative network analysis, which concentrates on the construction of quantifiable network models (with nodes and ties or links) on the basis of relational data and on the mathematical analysis of these models with regard to their general structure and the differences between nodes and groups or clusters of nodes. But besides or in addition to quantitative analysis, the field of “relational sociology” has highlighted the more “qualitative” aspects of social networks with regard to their relevance for the embedding and even construction of identities and relationships. In recent studies on historical networks, we have attempted to combine both approaches.
Even more, in his book “Reassembling the social” (2005, p. 173), Bruno Latour, one of the proponents of Actor-Network-Theory, stated: “we have to lay continuous connections leading from one local interaction to the other places, times, and agencies through which a local site is made to do something. (…) If we do this, we will render visible the long chains of actors linking sites to one another without missing a single step. It might be empirically hard but we should not expect major theoretical hurdles.” For archaeological and historical studies, it does not only prove to be “empirically hard” to re-construct these connections “through which a local site is made to do something”; “major theoretical hurdles” have also appeared for attempts to combine the conceptual framework of Actor-Network-Theory, which due to its integration of the agency of humans as well as objects is of special appeal for archaeologists (cf. Carl KNAPPETT, An Archaeology of Interaction, 2011; Ian HODDER, Entangled. An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things, 2012), with more widely used tools of quantitative network analysis.
Our study aims at taking the task of a “re-assembling” of connections between individuals and objects, localities and times, serious by surveying these entanglements for various case studies, visualising them in multiplex network graphs and applying quantitative methods on them. For this purpose, we regard as “narratives of entanglements” not only written sources on the agencies and connections of individuals, but also assemblies of objects (such as a reliquary casket containing objects of veneration [imagined to come] from various times and localities [see below] or a ship wreck containing objects from various sites of production and trade). Thus, the aspects of bias and fragmentariness inherent in all forms of historical or archaeological evidence are taken into account and conceptualised within the well-established theoretical framework of narratology. In addition, this allows us to apply the concepts of “Quantitative Narrative Analysis” developed by Roberto FRANZOSI (cf. his book of the same title, 2010), who has already applied quantitative network analysis in order to visualise and quantify the underlying structure of relations between elements of a narrative.
As several studies have demonstrated, in pre-modern societies, most individuals were embedded in spatially limited networks of kinship and neighbourhood. At the same time, the emergence of close-knit clusters of nodes connected through “strong ties” of a high frequency of interaction and intimacy is more probable among individuals sharing important markers of identity such as kinship, religious believe or common language; in turn, communities tend to reproduce themselves in such networks of high density. Thus, we observe an interplay between structural (the density of social relations) and qualitative (the homogeneity of individuals) characteristics of social networks. Members of religious elites and nobilities, in contrast, often established highly selective and over-regional contacts for various political, familial or economic occasions (some of which with regard to frequency or intimacy could be considered as “weak”, but others also as “strong”) with their peers, which also crossed borders within and beyond cultural-religious frontiers. Yet, by “localising the global”, we demonstrate how such far reaching entanglements also affected spatially more localised individuals and groups.
http://www.oeaw.ac.at/imafo/die-abteilungen/byzanzforschung/communities-landscapes/historische-geographie/komplexitaet-netzwerke/
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Starting from July 1st 2013, the Division for Byzantine Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences will host Dr. David Natal as Marie-Curie-Fellow for two years. He will work on the ERC-funded project “EPISCOPAL NETWORKS AND FRAGMENTATION IN LATE ANTIQUE WESTERN EUROPE”
(ENFLAWE); project supervisor is the head of the Division for Byzantine research Prof. Claudia Rapp (Univ. of Vienna), as worldwide renowned expert for the episcopate in Late Antiquity (cf. http://www.byzneo.univie.ac.at/mitarbeiter/akademisches-personal/rapp-claudia/).
Dr. Natal will especially concentrate on the re-construction of social networks of leading figures of the Late Antique Church in the Western Empire; for this purpose, he will cooperate with Dr. Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, who has done considerable research in the field of historical network research in the last years (cf. http://oeaw.academia.edu/TopographiesofEntanglements).
Dr. Natal has earned his PhD in Ancient History in 2010. 2011-2013 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Manchester under the supervision of Prof. Kate Cooper.
Outline of the project:
Research Hypothesis
The fragmentation of the Roman Empire contributed to a process of regionalisation of the episcopal networks that was already evident in the fourth century. This project poses the hypothesis that the regionalisation of the episcopal networks 1) reinforced symbolic interactions among long-distance regional hubs, and 2) reinforced patterns of hierarchy and centralisation within regional clusters. Through the application of innovative technologies in the visualization of social networks, this project will bring to the fore new aspects of episcopal networks that remain largely hidden in the scattered written sources.
General Objectives
The main aim of the research is studying how episcopal networks evolved in an increasingly fragmented world with overlapping and changeable authorities and identities, and to apply computer-based technologies to this analysis. More specifically the research attempts to analyse four aspects:
Objective 1: Scale of the episcopal networks
Traditional views on late antique Church are that the fragmentation of the Roman Empire led to a simplification of the episcopal relationships. The main hypothesis of this project is that fragmentation affected interconnection but reinforced hierarchy and centralisation of regional episcopal networks. This project will try to assess how these developments affected the complexity of episcopal networks along the period proposed. For contrasting this hypothesis two points will be analysed:
1. Looking for evidence of jumping-scales strategies, in other words, looking for how bishops chose to act at different scales in different contexts.
2. Asking how did proximity or distance affected the behaviour and development of the networks (cf. also Albert/Barabási 2002, for the concept of ‘small world’ and scale-free networks; for its implications for historical studies see Ormerod/Roach 2004; Preiser-Kapeller 2012b/2013b).
Objective 2: Forms and extension of the networks
Instead of focusing on institutions or bishops as individuals, this research will study the position of bishops as part of a network and the constraints and opportunities to which bishops were subjected. It will allow an assessment of the behaviour of bishops in times of fragmentation and will provide information on the construction of episcopal leadership and geography. More concretely, this research will try to:
1. Identify clusters (those elements of the network that are more densely connected) and hubs (elements that attract links) and determine how central the position of these elements was.
2. Identify the elements that link different networks and how they acted at different scales (Preiser-Kapeller 2012-2013)
Objective 3: Nature of the networks
Different relationships linked episcopal networks: symbolic interactions such as relic exchange or a shared liturgy, institutional dependence, secular politics and affective or familiar connections, among others (cf. Mullett 1997; for this concept of “multiplexity” of historical networks cf. also Preiser-Kapeller 2012a). I will argue that the fragmentation of the Roman Empire led to an increase of symbolic interactions along long-distance networks that reinforced forms of identity and belonging. For contrasting this hypothesis I will:
1. Look for different evidences of loyalties and identities
2. Look for how networks were encouraged or promoted
Objective 4: Patterns and structures
Traditional historiography has interpreted the construction of the church as a top-down process (for a different explanation cf. Rapp 2005). This research poses the hypothesis that bottom-up processes were also important as sustained behaviours and relationships contributed to established structures within the church (cf. also Preiser-Kapeller 2012b). More specifically I will look at:
1. Common patterns and behaviours within the networks
2. Factors or practices which supported and maintained these behaviours
Picture: The spatial range of the network of Ambrose of Milan (374-397 AD) within the episcopacy of the time (data from David Natal; visualisation by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller: network model created with ORA*; geographical layers created with QuantumGIS*; base map: GoogleEarth*; ÖAW, 2013)
Venue: Abteilung für Byzanzforschung/Division of Byzantine Research, Wohllebengasse 12-14/3, 1040 Wien
11.-13. December 2014
Keynote: Prof. Bryan Ward-Perkins, Oxford
Organisator: Dr. David Natal Villazala, IMAFO/ABF, ÖAW ([email protected])
Website: http://www.oeaw.ac.at/byzanz/
The political fragmentation of the Roman Empire also meant a reduction in the scope of economic, social and cultural relationships that had developed across different hierarchical levels and between distant places on Roman soil. New social and cultural relationships developed in the polities that followed the Roman Empire. Nonetheless, the survival of regional and interregional interactions assured certain homogeneity in political, cultural and social forms across post-Roman Europe. This phenomenon has been the topic of exciting academic debate in the last decade and different interpretations and methodological approaches have been proposed.
In this workshop, we intend to focus discussion especially on the issue of interactions beyond the local level between 300 and 800 CE in order to assess 1) to what extent these interactions were affected by the end of the Roman Empire as a political entity, and 2) how these connections contributed to lasting patterns that shaped the post-Roman world in social, cultural and political terms.
We are interested in both Mediterranean-wide and smaller regional networks and have invited papers that deal with all the regions of the (former) Roman Empire (including North Africa, Egypt, Syria, etc.), its periphery (Ireland, Armenia, etc.) and beyond to the Far East.
The theme of this workshop has grown out of research undertaken by David Natal through the ENFLAWE project (‘Episcopal Networks and Fragmentation in Late Antique Western Europe’). Funded by the EU-Marie Curie Actions and hosted at the Division for Byzantine Research (Institute for Medieval Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences-OEAW) under the supervision of Prof. Claudia Rapp (w. M.; Univ. of Vienna), in cooperation with Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (ÖAW), this project analyses episcopal interactions in the late fourth and fifth century from a social network approach (http://www.academia.edu/3988811/David_Natal_EPISCOPAL_NETWORKS_AND_FRAGMENTATION_IN_LATE_ANTIQUE_WESTERN_EUROPE_ENFLAWE_).
Die politische Fragmentierung des Weströmischen Reiches bedeute auch eine Reduzierung des Umfangs und der Reichweite der wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und kulturellen Beziehungen, die sich auf verschiedenen Ebenen zwischen oft weit entfernten Orten auf dem Boden des Imperiums etabliert hatten. An ihre Stelle traten neue soziale und kulturelle Verflechtungen innerhalb der Staatsgebilde, die an die Stelle des Imperiums traten. Dennoch sicherte der Fortbestand bestimmter regionale und überregionaler Verbindungen einen gewissen Grad an Homogenität in den politischen, kulturellen und sozialen Gegebenheiten im post-römischen Europa. Diese Phänomene wurden in den letzten Jahren auf der Grundlage verschiedener Interpretationen und methodischen Zugängen in der Forschung heftig diskutiert.
Diese Konferenz widmet sich vor allem der Untersuchung von über-lokalen Verflechtungen in der Zeit zwischen 300 und 800 n. Chr. und der Frage:
• Inwiefern über-regionale Verbindungen durch den Zusammenbruch des (West)römischen Reiches als politische Einheit beeinträchtigt wurden
• In welcher Weise diese Verbindungen zu dauerhaften Mustern der politischen, wirtschaftlichen, kulturellen Organisation beitrugen, die auch die post-römische Welt prägten
Wir interessieren uns sowohl für das gesamte Mittelmeer umfassende als auch kleinere regionale Netzwerke; Beiträge werden verschiedene Regionen des Römischen Reiches (inklusive Nordafrika, Ägypten, Syrien etc.) als auch dessen Peripherie und Gebiete darüber hinaus bis in den Fernen Osten betrachten.
Diese Konferenz entstand aus dem Forschungsprojekt ENFLAWE (‘Episcopal Networks and Fragmentation in Late Antique Western Europe’), das von David Natal mit Finanzierung der Europäischen Union (Marie-Curie-Programm) an der Abteilung für Byzanzforschung des Instituts für Mittelalterforschung der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften durchgeführt wird; es widmet sicht unter der Leitung von Prof. Claudia Rapp (w. M., Univ. Wien) und in Kooperation mit Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (ÖAW) der Untersuchung kirchlicher Verflechtungen zwischen verschiedenen Provinzen der spätrömischen Reiches mit Hilfe der Instrumente der sozialen Netzwerkanalyse
Friday, 6th March, All Souls College Oxford, 2-6.30 p.m.
Simon Keay: Archaeological Challenges.
Pascal Arnaud: Historical and epigraphic challenges.
Nicolas Carayon: Ports and Networks: Narbonne.
Carlos Cabrera: The ancient port of Seville.
Maxine Anastasi: Ports, islands and networks: Experimenting with network analysis and the small-scale in the central Mediterranean.
J. Preiser-Kapeller: Mapping maritime networks: challenges, potentials, pitfalls and comparisons within the framework of the SPP-1630 “Harbours from the Roman Period to the Middle Ages”.
Concluding comments: Nicholas Purcell, Andrew Wilson
https://www.eventbrite.de/e/den-digitalen-wandel-gestalten-coming-out-openfabnet-tickets-31844459636
To learn more on OpenFabNet: https://openfabnet.com/
dienstag / 29. november 2016 / 19.15 uhr
kunsthaus muerz
"Die Weltgeschichte ist nicht der Boden des Glücks. Die Perioden des Glücks sind leere Blätter in ihr."
(Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1770-1831)
Ein Blick in die Zeitung zeigt derzeit übervolle Blätter; entsprechend groß ist das Unbehagen in den Gesellschaften Westeuropas. Man fürchtet den Zerfall etablierter Strukturen, den persönlichen Abstieg oder die Bedrohung durch Terror oder "Völkerwanderungen". Die üblichen "tagespolitisch" kurzfristig ausgelegten Rezepte der Politik scheinen den komplexen Herausforderungen nicht mehr gewachsen; Eliten verlieren an Legitimation. Eine historische Perspektive eröffnet im Gegensatz dazu die Möglichkeit, vergleichbare Prozesse des Wandels von Staaten und Gesellschaften in ihrer langfristigen Dynamik und Wirkung zu betrachten. Ausgehend vom Zerfall des weströmischen Reiches (dem "Untergang" schlechthin in der europäischen Tradition) und mit neuen Ansätzen der Komplexitäts- und Netzwerkforschung werden Phänomene der Integration und Fragmentierung großer Gemeinschaften, der Mobilität und Migration, der wirtschaftlichen Ungleichheit und des gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalts im Vergleich zwischen Vergangenheit und Gegenwart diskutiert.
https://www.kinderuni-anmeldung.at/event.php?event_id=1196&field_id=1
Über „soziale Netzwerke“ wie Facebook sind heute Menschen auf der ganzen Welt verbunden. Computer und das Internet gab es vor 1000 Jahren nicht. Aber auch damals waren Menschen über große Entfernungen in Kontakt. Wir werden untersuchen, wie Netzwerke damals und heute funktionieren.
http://wien.abendgymnasium.at/sommerseminar/
Integrating ancient sources with network theory.
Imperial formations have been identified as “regimes of entanglements”, in which “certain structural and habitual circumstances (…) allow for the establishment of long term linkages” between individuals and places due to the mobility of people, object and ideas (Mulsow – Rübke 2013, p. 17; cited after Schuppert 2014 [in German]). These regimes have an enduring impact on the routes and modes of mobility across larger distances even after the fragmentation or collapse of an empire.
This paper will present the Sasanian Empire as such a “regime of entanglement”, also for the first centuries after the integration of its territories in the Early Islamic Empire. The focus will be on three “edges”– the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf – which were located at the peripheries of the (post)Sasanian World, but central for processes of exchange with neighbouring people and cultures. As will be demonstrated, the movements and migrations between and across these edges provide also the background for the mobility of objects and elements of Sasanian art and culture across entire Afro-Eurasia and the first Millennium CE.
The aim of this paper is a presentation of some aspects of the “infrastructure” for the significance of Maragha as centre of learning and intellectual exchange during the Mongol Period in Iran. It focuses on the embedding of the city in its hinterland with regard to landscape and environment as well as on its position within regional and over-regional route systems. Finally, one narrative of long-distance mobility across Mongol Eurasia is analysed with the help of network analysis in order to highlight the more far-reaching entanglements of Maragha. In general, some glimpses on the complex web of filaments, which linked the city to its near and wider environs, are provided.
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Institute for Medieval Research/Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller
The project “Complexities and networks in the Medieval Mediterranean and Near East” (COMMED) at the Division for Byzantine Research of the Institute for Medieval Research (IMAFO) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences aims at the adaptation and development of concepts and tools of network theory and complexity sciences for the analysis of societies, polities and regions in the medieval world in a comparative perspective. Key elements of its methodological and technological toolkit are applied for instance in the new project “Mapping medieval conflicts: a digital approach towards political dynamics in the pre-modern period” (MEDCON), which analyses political networks and conflict among power elites across medieval Europe with five case studies from the 12th to 15th century. For one of these case studies on 14th century Byzantium, the explanatory value of this approach is presented in greater detail. The presented results are integrated in a wider comparison of five late medieval polities across Afro-Eurasia (Byzantium, China, England, Hungary and Mamluk Egypt) against the background of the “Late Medieval Crisis” and its political and environmental turmoil. Finally, further perspectives of COMMED are outlined.
Abstract: Based on the assumption that economic complexity is characterised by the interactions of “economic agents (who) constantly change their actions and strategies in response to the outcome they mutually create”, this paper presents how network models can be used a “proxies” for the mapping, quantification and comparison of pre-modern economic complexity. Network analysis provides tools to visualise and analyse the “inherent” complexity of various types of data and their combination (archaeological, geographical, textual) or even of a single piece of evidence. Equally, the relational approach invites to a structural and quantitative comparison between periods, regions and the economic systems of polities and empires. An increasing number of proxies of this kind allow us to capture the trajectories of economic complexity from antiquity into the middle ages beyond metaphors.
If we visualise the connections outlined in Anania´s biographical narratives, we detect a multiplex, despite the briefness of both accounts already relatively complex network of ties of education, commerce, kinship, authority and patronage. The backbone of Anania´s longer account is of course the network of education, consisting of ties between teachers and disciples. A simple quantitative analysis makes the central position of Tychikos of Trebizond visible; he also provides connection to the centres of classic education in the Mediterranean, which Ananias himself never visited, but also obtained from his prestige as teacher in Armenia. The wide connections integrated in the life story of a man who himself actually never travelled far beyond the borders of his homeland become also visible if we take a look at the spatial structure of the narratives. Also here, we can quantify the centrality of localities with regard to their “betweenness”; the Armenian capital of Dvin emerges as most important node of intermediation between West and East in Anania´s narratives, thereby corresponding to the description of the city´s relevance in the work of Procopius. The application of spatial clustering to the network of localities within the narrative also provides interesting results; we detect a Mediterranean cluster of education (so important also for Anania´s legitimation as teacher), an Iranian cluster of commerce and a Black Sea cluster of transmission of teachers and teaching between the centre of the Empire and the Middle ground in Eastern Anatolia and Armenia.
Bibliography:
Tim GREENWOOD, A reassessment of the life and mathematical problems of Anania Širakacʿi, in: Revue des études arméniennes 33 (2011), p. 131-186.
Robert H. HEWSEN, Science in Seventh-Century Armenia: Ananias of Sirak, in: Isis, Vol. 59, No. 1, (Spring, 1968), p. 32-45.
Johannes PREISER-KAPELLER, erdumn, ucht, carayut´iwn. Armenian aristocrats as diplomatic partners of Eastern Roman Emperors, 387-884/885 AD, in: Armenian Review 52 (2010) p. 139–215.
Cf. also http://www.academia.edu/3792891/Medieval_Entanglements_Trans-Border_Networks_in_Byzantium_and_China_in_Comparison_c._300-900";
ed. by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller and Falko Daim. Verlag des Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum 2015, 152 p.
http://www.schnell-und-steiner.de/artikel_8560.ahtml?NKLN=12_RSA
This paper provides an introduction into the concepts of complexity theory and of network analysis and their usage
for the analysis of phenomena of maritime history. After an outline of characteristics of complex systems, the interplay
between social and environmental factors for the selection, development, maintenance or abandonment of harbour
sites is discussed. For this purpose, a simple mathematical port-harbour feedback model is developed. The second
part focuses on the possibilities and problems to model and visualise networks of ports and routes on the basis of
historical and archaeological data. Both complex systems and network models are introduced as potentially powerful
heuristic tools for reflection on the entanglements between societies and environment as context for the emergence
of harbours.
The first aim of this paper is a presentation of a set of digital tools which allow for the establishment of a generalizable workflow from the annotation of original texts via the extraction of data on persons, places and movements to their interactive visualisation and quantitative analysis. Tools of choice emerged from several interacting projects based on the principles of open source and open linked data. The second aim is the exploration of the explanatory value added by the application of these tools to “traditional” research, integrating approaches of (GIS-based) spatial and (multilayer) network analysis.
Change in Historical Perspective: Recent Collaborative and
Interdisciplinary Research (Princeton, May 2018): https://climatechangeandhistory.princeton.edu/news/cchris-2018-colloquium-almost-here
The Mediterranean region is characterized by a variety of micro-regions and “micro-ecologies” (Horden/Purcell 2000), which were in contact and exchange with each other mainly through the sea. This maritime connectivity enabled the emergence of larger imperial formations since antiquity, but only the Roman Empire succeeded in uniting the entire Mediterranean politically. But also subsequent empires such as the Byzantine Empire, the Arab Caliphate or the Ottoman Empire have to be – at least partially – understood as Mediterranean “systems”. For the Ottoman Empire, Sam White (2011) coined the term “imperial ecology”, meaning the entirety of the flows of resources and people directed by the imperial centre upon which the success and survival of an empire depended. This concept can be connected with other notions of perceiving “empires as series of nodes (population centres and resources) joined through corridors (roads, canals, rivers)” (Smith 2005 and 2007) and “empires as networks” (Glatz 2009; Hämäläinen 2013).
Also one focus of the actual modelling of past connectivity have been networks of routes and places. While Walter Scheidel and his colleagues in their “Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World/ORBIS” included the entire Roman Empire (http://orbis.stanford.edu/), other studies tried to reconstruct route networks and potential main axis of transport and commerce in greater detail on the provincial or regional level (cf. for instance Orengo/Livarda 2016). Further network models have been created on the basis of the distribution of artefacts (especially ceramic types, cf. Yangaki 2017, for instance) or textual evidence for the trade of commodities between places (for an overview see Preiser-Kapeller, forthcoming ). Network models in combination with agent-based-modelling have also been used to explore the degree of (economic) integration of the Roman world (Brughmans/Poblome 2016). The study of Brian J. Dermody et al. (2014), which integrated the ORBIS route network as one layer for the attempt to model the “virtual water network of the Roman world”, also shows the potential contribution of such approaches to environmental historical research on the ancient and medieval Mediterranean.
On the same mathematical and conceptual basis as used for spatial or social networks, various approaches towards network modelling have also been introduced into the fields of biology and ecology. On the micro level, such models are built for biochemical reaction chains in order to capture “metabolic networks” in single cells or organisms (Tatarinova/Nikolsky 2017; Fondi 2018). For eco-systems on the local level, “ecological networks”, especially of “food webs”, are created for the mapping of the entanglements and mutual dependencies between various species and for testing the sensibility of these webs to environmental factors (for an overview cf. Woodward 2010). In the field of social ecology, finally, flows of materials between nature and society are explored at the level of cities (“urban metabolism”) or entire societies (“socio-economic metabolism”) with help of network models (González de Molina/V. M. Toledo 2014).
Network theory thus allows to capture core aspects of socio-ecological interdependencies across scales from the single cell via “micro-ecologies” up to entire empires and makes us aware of the “nestedness” of these phenomena; at the same time it introduces an elaborate toolkit to conceptualise and even to measure the vulnerability and resilience of such systems. Although the data currently available does not allow for the mapping of these interconnected networks with the same density and in many cases still forces us to abstain from formal modelling in many cases, this paper will demonstrate the potential of combining all these “relational approaches” towards socio-environmental dynamics to contribute to the debate on “society, environment and change” for Mediterranean empires between the Roman and the Ottoman period and their resilience and vulnerabilities.
Bibliography:
T. Brughmans/J. Poblome, Roman bazaar or market economy? Explaining tableware distributions through computational modelling. Antiquity 350 (2016) 393–408.
B. J. Dermody et al., A virtual water network of the Roman world. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 2014. http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/18/5025/2014/hess-18-5025-2014.html
M. Fondi (ed.), Metabolic Network Reconstruction and Modeling. Heidelberg – New York 2018.
C. Glatz, Empire as network: spheres of material interaction in Late Bronze Age Anatolia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 28(2) (2009) 127-141.
M. González de Molina/V. M. Toledo, The Social Metabolism: A Socio-Ecological Theory of Historical Change. Heidelberg – New York 2014.
P. Hämäläinen, What's in a concept? The kinetic empire of the Comanches. History and Theory 52 (1) (2013) 81-90.
P. Horden/N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. Oxford – Malden 2000.
H. A. Orengo/ A. Livarda, The seeds of commerce: a network analysis-based approach to the Romano-British transport system. Journal of Archaeological Science 66 (2016) 21-35.
J. Preiser-Kapeller, Networks as Proxies: a relational approach towards economic complexity in the Roman period, in: K. Verboven/J. Poblome (eds.), Structure and Performance in the Roman Economy: Complexity Economics. Finding a New Approach to Ancient Proxy Data (forthcoming).
M. L. Smith, Networks, Territories, and the Cartography of Ancient States. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95(4) (2005) 832–849.
M. L. Smith, Territories, Corridors, and Networks: A Biological Model for the Premodern State. Complexity 12(4) (2007) 28–35.
T. V. Tatarinova/Y. Nikolsky (eds.), Biological Networks and Pathway Analysis. Heidelberg – New York 2017.
S. White, The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire. Cambridge 2011.
G. Woodward (ed.), Ecological Networks. Amsterdam et al. 2010.
A. G. Yangaki, Pottery of the Byzantine period, trade networks, mapping, network analysis: A case study. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (July 2017) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.06.036.
https://rmblf.be/2018/03/12/activite-du-rmblf-humanites-numeriques-de-nouveaux-outils-pour-le-medieviste-digital-humanities-new-tools-for-the-medievalist/
http://www.umweltgeschichte.uni-klu.ac.at/index,14499,84.+Minisymposium+am+18.1.2018.html
Der Mittelmeerraum zeichnet sich durch eine Vielfalt an Mikro-Regionen und „Mikro-Ökologien“ (Horden/Purcell 2000) aus, die vor allem über die See miteinander im Kontakt und Austausch standen. Diese maritime Konnektivität ermöglichte seit der Antike die Entstehung größerer imperialer Formationen, von denen es aber einzig dem Römischen Reich gelang, den gesamten Mittelmeerraum politisch zu vereinen. Doch auch nachfolgende Imperien wie das Byzantinische Reich, das Arabische Kalifat und das Osmanische Reich können nur als mediterrane „Systeme“ verstanden werden. Für das Osmanische Reich prägte Sam White (2011) den Begriff der „imperialen Ökologie“ und meinte damit die Gesamtheit der vom imperialen Zentrum gelenkten Flüsse von Ressourcen und Menschen, von denen der Erfolg und das Überleben eines Imperiums abhingen. Im Vortrag werden Kontinuitäten und Brüche dieser metabolistischen Netzwerke und ihre Anpassungen an politische, wirtschaftliche und klimatische Veränderungen für die Zeit zwischen dem spätantiken „Umbau“ des Imperium Romanum und der Entstehung des Osmanischen Reiches betrachtet; dabei werden auch ungeplante Folgen der imperialen Vernetzung wie die Ausbreitung von Epidemien diskutiert. Das Mittelmeer wird damit als ein zentraler Schauplatz der Verschränkungen zwischen Veränderungen der Umwelt und sozio-ökonomischen Umwälzungen bis in die Gegenwart (Stichwort „Mittelmeerroute“) vorgestellt.
In der archäologischen Forschung spielt das Thema ‘Macht’ und ihr Niederschlag in archäologischen Quellen seit jeher eine große Rolle. In den letzten Jahren wurden auch vermehrt neue methodische Ansätze und wissenschaftstheoretische Konzepte aus soziologischen, anthropologischen und ethnologischen Disziplinen herangezogen um historische Interpretationen von archäologischen Quellen in diesem Zusammenhang zu diskutieren.
Im Rahmen der Tagung soll erörtert werden, wie sich ‘Macht’ in archäologischen Funden und Befunden manifestieren kann. Es sollen weiters Überlegungen zu verschiedenen Arten von ‘Macht’ und ihrer Ausübung – also etwa Konzepte/Modelle wie Hierarchie und Heterarchie oder auch unterschiedliche Varianten von ‘Leadership’ oder ‘Rulership’ (‘Anführerschaft’ und ‘Herrschaft’) – angestellt werden. Wie wird in prähistorischen und historischen Gemeinschaften Macht erlangt, gefestigt, erhalten und weitergegeben oder auch verloren? Können wir derartige Prozesse anhand unserer Quellen erkennen und wie können wir sie am besten beschreiben?
The millennium of history of the medieval Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean, commonly called the “Byzantine” one, allows for the long-term analysis of transformations from a complex institutional framework enfolding the entire Mediterranean towards a territorially more confined, but remarkably resilient socio-political system within the medieval world. Periods of dramatic change in the geopolitical and natural environment, leading to near-collapse in the 7th and 11th centuries CE, provide especially interesting episodes of challenge, failure or adaption of institutions of state, church and society. This also refutes still existing stereotypes of Byzantium as a “static” civilisation, fallen out of time and living only on a glorious past.
Besides a qualitative and quantitative survey of written and archaeological evidence, I apply the analytical framework of “systems theory” developed by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) in order to capture the interdependencies between politics, economy and religion within a polity and with the political, economic and ecological environment (Luhmann, 1997; Becker & Reinhardt-Becker, 2001; Becker, 2004). Luhmann´s theory, which also integrates aspects of complexity theory and social evolution, is valuable for our analysis in various aspects; it makes us aware of the reduction of environmental and social complexity which is reflected in our historical sources, and it provides a framework to approach complex mechanisms within and the dependencies between various social spheres and their environment.
In addition, I employ methods and tools of network analysis, which allow us to capture, analyse and model linkages and cause-effect correlations in society, economy, politics and religion on the macro- and micro-level down to groups and individuals (Gould, 2003; Lemercier, 2005). Furthermore, a comparison of institutional trajectories in the medieval Roman Empire with those of neighbouring societies, both causers of challenge and sources of inspiration, allows us to capture the “diversité véritable” without losing track of essential commonalities (the “strange parallels”, as Victor Liebermann has called them, 2009) with regard to the transformation of polities and societies.
Programme: http://www.dasanderemittelalter.net/products/seasides-of-byzantium-harbours-and-anchorages-of-a-mediterranean-empire/
Beyond their significance as remains of maritime infrastructure, recent developments of archaeology, archaeometry, palaeobotanics, palaeopathology, archaeozoology, geoarchaeology and environmental history allow us to use harbours and anchorages of the Byzantine world both as “archives of society” and as “archives of nature” (to speak with Christian Pfister, a pioneer of climate history) for various, hitherto rarely or unexplored aspects of the socioeconomic, cultural and natural history of Byzantium and neighbouring civilisations. These methods enable us (among other things) to reconstruct the dynamics of landscapes in and around harbours, the changes of environmental conditions and the reactions of communities or the patterns of land use, animal husbandry and nutrition and shed fresh light on the extent and volume of maritime exchange in the hinterland and wider foreland of ports. The combination of these findings with tools of GIS, network theory and quantitative analysis produces new visual and analytical results, approaching the actual complexity of the interplay between Byzantine society and the maritime. Elements of this new synthesis are presented for selected examples across the Byzantine world, especially also beyond the Mediterranean, from Late Antiquity up to the late medieval period.
Kinetic Byzantium: space, mobility and imperial practices
Based on his study of the development of the nomadic Comanche polity in the Great Plains of North America in the 18th century CE, Pekka Hämäläinen developed the concept of “kinetic empire” as “a flexible imperial organization that revolves around a set of mobile activities and relies on selective nodal control of key resources” (Hämäläinen 2013). It highlights the emergence of imperial patterns of organisation and of perception of space from a complex interplay of cultural practices and natural as well as geopolitical environmental conditions.
This paper will explore this theoretical framework and its applicability both on (nomadic) empires adjacent to Byzantium as well as on the Byzantine Empire itself. For this purpose, the spatial and temporal dynamics of practices regarding the (mental) mapping of and control over space in Byzantium and neighbouring polities will be explored and compared both from a (empire-wide) macro-perspective and from a regional view, especially on frontier areas of direct confrontation of competing imperial formations (e. g. in Eastern Anatolia, the Black Sea and Caucasus-region or at the Danube). Special attention will be paid to topographical and environmental parameters, (divergent) practices for the exploitation and appropriation of natural resources, imperial ideologies and imaginations and the role of mobility (of people, objects and ideas) respectively its control. In addition, tools and methods of Historical GIS and network analysis will be used to survey and map short and long term patterns of power and mobility. Thereby, the Byzantine case will be localised within a comparative study of imperial ecologies and spatial practices in the pre-modern period and to highlight the contribution of the interplay between competing imperial formations for the maintenance or change of these practices. It shall become clear to what extent also Byzantium had to become a “kinetic empire”, especially during the transitional period from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages.
Digital tools allow for the combination of various layers of information referring to the same source, artefact, site or region; multiplex visualisations emerging from such overlays can already provide new insights in the actual complex interplay of factors. Tools of quantitative and network analysis however enable us to not only visualise, but also to create models to determine possible correlations and weight potential impacts between socio-economic, cultural and environmental dynamics in a specific region across specific timespans, for instance. This will be demonstrated for some examples from the transition zone between ancient and medieval Afro-Eurasia.
Empires can be characterised as “regimes of entanglements”, in which “certain structural and habitual circumstances – principles, rules, standards and mutual expectations – allow for the establishment of long term linkages”. Tools and concepts of network analysis and complexity theory enable us to reconstruct aspects of these networks between communities, places and regions and the resulting flows of resources (the “imperial ecology” ) as well as of individuals, know-how and ideas on which imperial rule in turn depended. On the basis of historical and archaeological evidence, these approaches will be discussed with examples from the Roman and Byzantine empires as well as other imperial formations across Afro-Eurasia, highlighting both their potential and pitfalls.
http://eurasianmss.lib.uiowa.edu/
This Mellon Sawyer seminar is an interdisciplinary collaboration dedicated to mapping cultural exchanges across Eurasia from roughly 400-1450 CE, by focusing on the development, distribution and sharing of manuscript technologies.
Approaches of „global“ and „entangled history“ in the last decades have opened new perspectives on the connections, commonalities, but also differences between regions, polities and cultures across medieval Afro-Eurasia. A number of ongoing projects at the Institute for Medieval Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna try to combine these approaches with concepts of network studies and complexity theory as well as various digital instruments (“Complexities and networks in the Medieval Mediterranean and Near East (COMMED)”: http://oeaw.academia.edu/TopographiesofEntanglements, “Entangled Worlds. Network analysis and complexity theory in historical and archaeological research”: http://www.dasanderemittelalter.net/conference-entangled-worlds/, and the Wittgenstein-Prize-project “Mobility, Microstructures and Personal Agency in Byzantium” of Prof. Claudia Rapp: http://rapp.univie.ac.at/).
In my talk I will present the methodological and technological frameworks of these projects and illustrate their analytical value with case studies on the mobility of people, objects (such as manuscripts) and ideas between the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern period. In particular, questions of the organization of heterogeneous historical and archaeological data, the integration of temporal and spatial uncertainties, the modelling of social and spatial networks at various scales and the visualization of temporal and spatial dynamics will be addressed. Furthermore, I will discuss potentials and pitfalls of more elaborate attempts of mathematical modelling and quantitative comparative analysis. Also the additional benefit of digital tools beyond data collection and their potential to allow for new research questions and analytical results shall be put up for discussion.
2nd UrbNet conceptual conference, Aarhus, 18-20 January 2017 (http://urbnet.au.dk/events/2017/networkevolutions/)
As most resilient materialisation of the traditions of ancient Mediterranean urbanism, Constantinople from the 5th until the 12th century CE constituted one of the largest cities across Afro-Eurasia. Similar to other “mega-cities” of the time (such as Chang´an, Baghdad or Cairo), its urban metabolism depended on the flows of resources and humans within a larger scale imperial formation. Also spatial practices within the city served its functions, needs and representation as self-perceived centre of the “Oecumene”.
Based on written, archaeological and palaeo-environmental evidence, aspects of this interplay between the dynamics of Byzantium´s imperial ecology and the spatial organisation of its capital are analysed with the help of GIS-based network models. In addition, textual analysis and narrative networks are employed in order to survey the mental mapping of Constantinople´s complex socio-economic, political and cultural entanglements and interdependencies within and beyond its walls. Furthermore, comparable phenomena from contemporaneous imperial centres of similar scale are taken into consideration. Equally, the potential and pitfalls of various methods and the challenges of respective data sets are discussed. The aim is to present large scale urbanism of this kind as emerging from a multiplexity of overlaying networks between places and individuals from the local to the global perspective.
Ohne irgendeine Form der elektronischen Speicherung ist heute die Sammlung biographischer Daten über Gelehrte oder andere Persönlichkeiten der Vergangenheit kaum mehr vorstellbar; eine entsprechende Organisation dieser Datenbanken erlaubt ebenso die systematische Erfassung der Vernetzungen zwischen Personen, Institutionen und Orten. Auf dieser Grundlage ermöglichen Instrumente der Netzwerkforschung die visuelle Kartierung dieser Verflechtungen in ihrer räumlichen und zeitlichen Dimension, aber auch die Analyse ihrer Struktur. Die „Reduktion“ gerade intellektueller Netzwerke auf bloße mathematische Modelle mag jedoch Zweifel an ihrer tatsächlichen Erklärungskraft wecken; Ansätze der relationalen Soziologie und die Kombination mit qualitativ- historischen Methoden eröffnen aber auch hier neue Perspektiven zur Untersuchung der Bedeutung sozialer Verflechtungen für die Wissenschaftsgeschichte.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
June 8th-9th, 2016, Rabin Building room 2001
http://mongol.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/DigitalEurasia.pdf
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601763/how-the-new-science-of-computational-history-is-changing-the-study-of-the-past/
Applying network theory to medieval records suggests that historical events are governed by “laws of history,” just as nature is bound by the laws of physics.
http://themacher.report/tmr015/
"Word of the week" with the science journalist Lothar Bodingbauer for Ö1-ORF-Radio
Also as introduction to the Conference "Entangled Worlds": http://www.dasanderemittelalter.net/conference-entangled-worlds/
ScienceTalk ("Physikalische Soiree") of the science journalist Lothar Bodingbauer with Johannes Preiser-Kapeller on network analysis, complexity science and medieval history.
in historical and archaeological research
International Conference, April 13th-15th 2016 (Vienna)
Venue: Institute for Medieval Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Wohllebengasse 12-14, 1040 Vienna
Organisers: Institute for Medieval Research (IMAFO), Austrian Academy of Sciences (project MEDCON) - Austrian Archaeological Institute (OeAI)
Outline: While the term “network” has been used abundantly in historical and archaeological research in the last years, the actual number of studies taking into account the methodology of network analysis is increasing, but still limited. The reluctance of scholars to adapt tools of network analysis can be also connected with the conceptual and terminological divide between humanities and formal sciences. At the same time, the user-friendliness of software tools may tempt others to use them as “black boxes” in order to produce a variety of figures without being aware of the underlying concepts.
Against this background, the project “Mapping medieval conflicts: a digital approach towards political dynamics in the pre-modern period (MEDCON)” at IMAFO, funded within the go!digital-programme of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, aims at an evaluation of concepts of social and spatial network analysis for studying phenomena of political conflict in medieval societies. For this purpose, a generalizable work flow from data input on the basis of medieval sources to the creation, visualisation and analysis of social and spatial network models and their web-based publication and presentation is created.
Even more, a cooperation was established with the Austrian Archaeological Institute (OeAI) within the framework of the DARIAH-network of the European Union with a focus on “Spatial and social network analysis”. The aim is to foster the development of and reflection on tools of network analysis for the study of complex phenomena of the past in exchange with scholars both from the humanities and from the sciences.
For this purpose, the conference “Entangled Worlds. Network analysis and complexity theory in historical and archaeological research” will assemble specialists from various disciplines of historical and archaeological studies as well as mathematics, physics and computer sciences in order to discuss in particular the following four overlapping topics:
• Entangling data: the organisation of relational data on the basis of historical and archaeological evidence (ontologies, software, workflows, standards)
• Entangling texts and people: the modelling and analysis of networks on the basis of textual evidence and narratives (prosopography, diplomatics, epistolography, historiography)
• Entangling sites and artefacts: the modelling and analysis of networks on the basis of archaeological evidence (objects, places, mobilities and exchange)
• Entangling dynamics: the modelling of complex past societies and networks (spatial and temporal dynamics, scales and mechanisms of networks, mathematical modelling)
The conference will be accompanied by a presentation of approaches and tools to the wider public. Proceedings will be published in a collective (peer reviewed) volume. For invited participants, expenses for travel and accommodation will be covered. Speakers will be contacted and invited directly by the organisers.
For further information: [email protected] and [email protected]
Websites: http://oeaw.academia.edu/MappingMedievalConflict and http://www.oeai.at/
See also: http://www.dasanderemittelalter.net/conference-entangled-worlds/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IiMfnagwno&index=2&list=PLxGU2gDyMnMkjcwWCpwr7-oPLn9rDtgOE
Keynote lecture by Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, given at the Workshop: “Bridging the Gaps: (Ancient) History from the Perspective of Mathematical and Computational Modelling and Network Analysis” (Brno, CZ, November 2015: http://gehir.phil.muni.cz/)
Abstract: “The Complex Mediterranean. Networks, diffusion and social dynamics in the pre-modern period”
Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://oeaw.academia.edu/JohannesPreiserKapeller
The “Mediterranean” has become one of the most prominent and most-discussed concepts in historical studies since Braudel´s masterpiece of 1949, more recently followed by studies such as Horden and Purcell´s “Corrupting Sea” (2000), Abulafia´s “Great Sea” (2011) or Broodbanks “Making of the Middle Sea” (2013). Across this scholarship, we encounter various “Mediterraneans”, sometime unified and centres of their own “world systems”, sometimes fragmented into a multitude of “micro-regions” and “micro-ecologies”. In this paper, I will demonstrate how concepts of network analysis and complexity theory can contribute to an integration of these various facets of the “Middle Sea” and a better understanding of the dynamics of its integration and dis-integration during time. Furthermore, phenomena of (cultural, religious, economic or epidemic) diffusion will be discussed against this changing framework and in their interplay with “global”, regional and local networks. In general, the aim is to highlight aspects of social complexity of Mediterranean history beyond metaphors.
See also: http://www.dasanderemittelalter.net/conference-entangled-worlds/