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Markus Breier
Department of Geography and Regional Research, University of Vienna
30.08.2013
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Markus Breier 220/09/2013
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Where could the historical road have been?
MODELLING HISTORICAL ROADS
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Algorithms to find most cost‐efficient path from start point to end point across a surface
METHOD: LEAST COST PATHS
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CASE STUDY I: BYZANTINE ROAD
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Late Byzantine Era (12th
– 14th
Century)
Written sources (documents)
1152: basilikos dromos (Greek): „emperor‘s road“
1336: veliki put (Old Slavonic): „big road“
1371: basilike hodos (Greek): „emperor‘s road“
1375/1376: veliki carski put (Old Slavonic): „the big road of the emperor”
Connection between Roman roads
Via egnatia
Via militaris (Via diagonalis)
THE ROAD IN THE STRUMICA VALLEY
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Historical geodata hardly available
River regulation
Confidential data
DATA SITUATION
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Physical Landscape
Rivers
Used data: Vector Map level 0, adjusted to DHM
Modelled as barriers
Relief
Used data: SRTM (90m resolution) ASTERDEM (30m resolution)
Height above sea level
Effective slope
INCLUDED COST FACTORS
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CASE STUDY II
Rinchen Zangpo (956 –
1055 CE)
Tibetan monk, translator
Travelled from Tibet to Kashmir and
back
Brought with him artisans
Started the “later propagation of
Buddhism in Tibet”
No exact travel route is known
Historical travel routes in the Western Himalayas
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WESTERN HIMALAYAS
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PRELIMINARY CALCULATIONS
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Integration of social landscape
Trade routes, trade centers, sacred sites (temples,
monasteries,..)
Data situation
Historical geodata
Evaluation
Visualization
MAIN ISSUES
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Promising method
Only approximation
Framework for other cases
Advocates the use of GIS and cartography in historical research
CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK
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Initiativkolleg
“Cultural Transfers and Cross‐Contacts in the Himalayan Borderlands”
(University of Vienna)
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine
Research, especially Dr. Mihailo
Popović
University of Vienna, Department of Geography and Regional Research
The Center
for Interdisciplinary Research and Documentation of Inner and South Asian
Cultural History (CIRDIS)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS