ArcheoFOSS 2022
ArchaeoloGIS A QGIS processing toolbox for archaeologists spatial analysis

Panel: Moving in the past: open solutions for data set design, spatial analysis and geo-statistical methods to investigate movement in Antiquity

The purpose of the paper is to present the QGIS plugin ArcheoloGIS. ArcheoloGIS is a ‘processing toolkit’ developed in PyQgis and tested by the community of Una Quantum inc. (Italy). In the toolkit there are 3 algorithms named Tabula Peutingeriana, Eratosthenes and Darius respectively working on the Roman, Greek/Hellenistic and Persian road network. The “Tabula Peutingeriana” algorithm is the first one programmed and its principles are reflected in the others. The algorithm will return points instead of lines of the road, positioning the milestones (eventually helping to find them or their original position), counting the roman miles from the center of the network and the mileage. So in this way it is primarily possible to prove whether the reconstruction of the road network corresponds to the indications of ancient sources (in particular the Tabula Peutingeriana) but it is also useful to find informations about the recurrence of the mail or horse-exchange stations, taverns, and reaching other statistics. The other two algorithms are quite similar: Eratosthenes works with the unit of measurement of the ‘Greek Stadia’ in the Hellenistic era, while Darius works with the Persian Parasangas.

After showing the code, the plugin construction workflow and its evolution, some case studies and reflections on two areas of the ancient Mediterranean will be presented during the paper.

The plugin is available here: https://github.com/archeorosati/archaeoloGIS.

Licence

Text: CC BY 4.0, Paolo Rosati Image: CC BY 4.0, Paolo Rosati