Welcome to the LatinNow project’s webGIS

GIS is a Geographic Information System. It is a way of spatially visualising and analysing data. This is the web-version of the team’s QGIS which was used to create the maps and analyses for our publications: latinnow.eu/publications-and-online-resources/. Naturally the web-version will not provide all the functionality of the full QGIS software. If you would like to use the data in your own GIS, please visit our GitHub repository where you can find the GeoJSON files for every layer: github.com/LatinNow. You can also download the full dataset of inscribed objects in various formats, with information about how to reconstruct the LatinNow relational database.

Here are some tips for how to navigate the webGIS:

1. Ensure the GIS layer options are showing by clicking the double chevron in the top left of the map. The layers on the left will become active on the map when the left-hand checkboxes are clicked (the early provincial boundaries and the terrain view are enabled by default). Multiple layers can be activated at the same time. Many layers have drop-down options to refine what data should be shown. Clicking the info icon (🛈) next to the layer name will provide information about the origins of the data.
2. When any point data is visualized on the map, the icons on the map can be clicked and information about the data point will appear in the ‘Results’ panel on the right-hand side of the map, underneath the filtering section. Click the double chevron in the top right of the map if this sidebar is not currently visible. Some layers provide additional functions in the results panel, such as viewing references, locating associated sites and, for the main ‘inscribed objects’ layer, viewing the full database record.
3. The project’s core datasets of ‘LatinNow’s inscribed objects’ and ‘Writing equipment’ appear in the layers on the left. Once activated, these can be filtered by a range of attribute values on the right-hand side. Info icons next to the filters provide further information for the attributes. Click the double chevron in the top right of the map if this sidebar is not currently visible. You can toggle between the two filter panels using the tabs at the top. Both can be active at the same time.
4. Filtered results will show automatically on the map, and the total matching number of records will be stated at the bottom of the filtering panel. Click the ‘Reset filters’ button to see the full dataset again.
5. There are a total of nearly 130,000 inscribed object records. It is hard to represent such high numbers of data points at a zoomed-out scale. These appear as red circles with darker colour representing high density of finds. The counts of inscribed objects per location can be switched on and off by clicking on ‘show find counts’, though these will only be legible at a sufficiently zoomed-in view. Additionally, when hovering over a map icon from this layer with a mouse pointer, a summary will appear about the objects found nearby.
6. You can zoom into the map using the + and – buttons, the scroll wheel of a mouse, or the usual pinch-to-zoom gesture when using a touchscreen. The provincial boundaries will disappear at a certain zoom level, because though they are based on detailed research they are still relatively impressionistic and are meant simply for orientation. The GeoJSON files for all the boundaries can be downloaded from the GitHub repository, if retaining them is useful.
7. You can search by Place by typing in the search bar above the map. When you start typing, suggestions will populate a drop-down list. It will show both modern and ancient place-names. You can clear the place-name annotations by clicking the ‘clear’ button on the final layer in the left-hand panel.
8. If you have the LatinNow unique ID number for an object, you can also use this in the search bar at the top.
9. Note that whilst the texts for many of the inscribed objects are present in the records when they have been provided by the feeder projects or the LatinNow team, the project was not designed to offer textual editions, so we have not provided a text searching service. The links in the records should be followed to access further information about the texts.
10. You can export maps of your results by clicking the printer symbol in the top left of the map. This will provide a rendering of the map with a scale bar and north arrow included, which you can download in a range of formats. Please acknowledge the source ‘LatinNow project’ when you use it.

The LatinNow project (2017­–2023) was funded by the European Research Council under grant number 715626, and the ongoing hosting of the webGIS is supported by the School of Humanities, University of Nottingham. Details of the collaborators on the project can be found here: academic.oup.com/book/58982/chapter/494566191. The webGIS was developed by Bart Noordervliet of MMVI. Please contact alex.mullen@nottingham.ac.uk to report any problems.