DPP Newsletter

Digitising Patterns of Power

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Colleagues,

As has been recently announced in our first DPP Newsletter, we will inform you quarterly on our scholarly activities and results. This newsletter, which was programmed by our historian and software engineer Bernhard Koschicek, is the last issue for 2015 and will give you a succinct report of the achieved cornerstones of the project “Digitising Patterns of Power (DPP): Peripherical Mountains in the Medieval World” in 2015. Starting with 2016 we will keep to the envisaged time frame with respect to our newsletter.

Please feel free to consult our web page at dpp.oeaw.ac.at for further information, which was requested 102,562 times in 2015, and also if you would like to subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2016!

Yours sincerely,
the DPP team

Scholarly Papers in 2015

First results of the project were promoted at various venues in Europe and the USA. In 2015 the DPP team has presented altogether 15 papers on manifold topics – i.e. historical, archaeological, geographical, technical and software-related – of the project. Some selected highlights shall be mentioned in the following: The kick-off was undertaken by Mihailo Popović with a short presentation of the then newly approved project at the “Österreichische Tage der digitalen Geisteswissenschaften” (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 1-3 December 2014)

At the International Medieval Congress in Leeds 2015 Katharina Winckler presented a paper entitled “Mapping the Competition: Bavarian Bishoprics in Carolingian Times”. At the same congress Stefan Eichert introduced the audience to the technical and software-related aspects of DPP with the paper “OpenATLAS: An Open Source Tool for Mapping Historical Relations”, while Johannes Preiser-Kapeller spoke on “Topography, Ecology, and (Byzantine) Power in Early Medieval Eastern Anatolia and Armenia, 700-1050”.

In September 2015 Stefan Eichert was invited by the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague to present a paper on “Digital Humanities in History and Archaeology”. David Schmid and Mihailo Popović took part in the workshop “Migrationes gentium” at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in September 2015 and gave an account on “Vlachen – umtriebige Nachbarn?: Zwei Fallstudien des Projektes Digitising Patterns of Power (DPP) zum byzantinischen Makedonien im 14. Jahrhundert”. Johannes Preiser-Kapeller was invited to the University of Hamburg in November 2015 to present a paper on “Well-Connected Domains: Armenian Mobility and Networks Before, Within and Beyond the Early Islamic Empire, 500-900 CE”.

At the 1st ICA (International Cartographic Association) European Symposium on Cartography in Vienna in November 2015 Markus Breier spoke on behalf of the Team Department of Geography and Regional Research of the University of Vienna (Karel Kriz, Alexander Pucher) on “Digitising (Historical) Patterns of Power”.

Finally, Mihailo Popović was invited by Princeton University (USA) to present DPP within the framework of the “PIIRS Climate and History Initiative” with a paper entitled “Digitising Patterns of Power in Macedonia (12th-14th C.): What do Nomads, Pasture, Camels and Hydrography Have in Common?”.

In 2016 we are also aiming to spread the word about our case studies, their common research question and software-related innovations.

Database Engineering in 2015

In the first year of the Project DPP, Stefan Eichert and Alexander Watzinger finished the first version of the OpenAtlas Software, which enables a Database System for Object Oriented Modelling of the Past. A database backend was designed in PostgreSQL and PostGIS, using CIDOC-CRM for the data model. Additionally, a web interface for inserting and editing data was created using standard technologies such as HTML5, PHP and JavaScript.

As of now, the software offers functionality to record information on actors, places, sources and events as well as the connections between these. To enable users to work with spatial data a map interface was implemented, using the Leaflet library and OpenStreetMap data.

The next features to be developed will be:

functionality to draw geometries directly in the browser for the localisation of places
graphical visualisation of the entities’ respective networks
file upload and display of image data
advanced queries and searches as well as import and export of data

Promotion of Young Scholars

Accompanying to the project DPP research will be conducted by a student assistant of the project, David Schmid, which will lead to the composition of a BA thesis. This BA thesis will have the title “Transhumanz im historischen Makedonien des 14. Jahrhunderts. Symbiose und Konflikte zwischen Vlachen und Slawen” and will be written under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Marija Wakounig at the Institute for Eastern European History of the University of Vienna.

Data will be deriving from the case study “The Historical Region of Macedonia (12th-14th Cent.) The Transformation of a Medieval Landscape” in collaboration with Mihailo Popović. Based on medieval Serbian charters from the 14th century and the renowned compilation of law entitled Zakonik of Stefan Dušan the relationship between nomadic Vlach herdsmen and sedentary Slavic farmers in the historical region of Macedonia (i. e. Prilep and surroundings as well as the region of Skopje) will be highlighted. In addition, possible Vlach routes of transhumance between Skopje and the Chalcidice peninsula will be reconstructed.

Publications and Workshop
on Medieval Slavonic Charters

In the first year of DPP two scholarly articles were published in accordance with the research question of DPP. In May 2015 Mihailo Popović led a workshop entitled “Digitising Patterns of Power (DPP): Altslawische Urkunden des Mittelalters – eine bekannte schriftliche Quellengruppe neu betrachtet” at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, which was attended by students from History, Byzantine Studies, Slavonic Studies and Balkan Studies of the University of Vienna.

The aim of the workshop was to introduce the students to the vast field of research on medieval Serbian charters, which form one of the main groups of sources within DPP. These future young scholars were trained in diplomatics, the historical background of the sources and their translation.

Outlook 2016 - Leeds

In the year 2016 we are looking forward to two highlights. The first will be the International Medieval Congress in Leeds. Four out of four sessions of the DPP team have been accepted by the organisers. They are as follows:

Session DPP I – Lordship, Landscape and Agriculture in Medieval Mountain Regions
Session DPP II – Frontier, Contact Zone or No Man’s Land? The Morava-Thaya Region from the Early to the High Middle Ages
Session DPP III – Flocks, Farms and Frontiers
Session DPP IV – Reconstructing Historical Landscapes: Conceptualization, Mapping and Geocommunication

These sessions will take place on Tuesday, 5 July 2016, starting at 9 am. Further details will be announced in our forthcoming newsletter.
Moreover, we plan as the second highlight a DPP workshop on methodological issues in September 2016.