{"id":14,"date":"2026-08-19T09:50:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T08:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/?page_id=14"},"modified":"2026-08-19T09:50:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T08:50:26","slug":"hestia-phase-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/hestia-phase-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Hestia Phase 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The original&nbsp;<em>Hestia<\/em>&nbsp;project&nbsp;(September 2008 \u2013 July 2010)&nbsp;produced two innovative outcomes: the understanding of geographic space in Herodotus\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Histories&nbsp;<\/em>in terms of connections between places and peoples rather than as points on a map; and the development and use of web technologies for visualising and thinking about a narrative.&nbsp;<em>Hestia2<\/em>&nbsp;(July 2013 \u2013 June 2014) takes this experimental approach to analysing the geography of a written text&nbsp;and: (1) explores 4 key issues regarding big data in the humanities; and (2) consolidates the technological development in an innovative suite of tools&nbsp;for reading Herodotus\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Histories.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Big data in the humanities: 4 key issues<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With the digital medium rapidly transforming the ways in which information is viewed and processed, data visualisation is one of the key challenges to academic and non-academic groups alike. Cultural heritage groups, government agencies and firms working in the digital economy, all have to deal with the problem of presenting big data in ways that make sense to their users but that do not reduce the complexity of the data or give a misleading picture.&nbsp;<em>Hestia2<\/em>&nbsp;uses the key intellectual outcome of the original project\u2014the analysis of spatial relations embedded in literary texts\u2014to discuss humanistic approaches to data visualisation which, by virtue of being based on real content that is complex and messy, can help contribute to this debate. In a four-part seminar series,&nbsp;<em>Hestia2<\/em>&nbsp;considers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>network analysis techniques, methods and models used for data exploration \u2013 hosted by\u00a0the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/archaeology\/research\/groups\/archaeological_computing_research_group.page\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Archaeological Computing Research Group<\/a>, Southampton;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>digital visualisations of data, especially complex literary texts \u2013 hosted by\u00a0the<a href=\"http:\/\/cesta.stanford.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u00a0Stanford\u00a0Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis<\/a>;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the role of GIS in mapping texts \u2013 hosted by\u00a0the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.birmingham.ac.uk\/schools\/gees\/index.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Department of Geography, Birmingham<\/a>;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the extent to which digital technologies help non-academics access and comprehend research \u2013 hosted by the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/iet\/main\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Key discussion points and findings from the seminar presentations&nbsp;have been documented on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/blog\/\">the blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Seminar Leaders<\/h3>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hestia2_tom.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hestia2_tom-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"hestia2_tom\" class=\"wp-image-378\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/uni-konstanz.academia.edu\/TomBrughmans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Tom Brughmans<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/a>is a Postdoctoral researcher in&nbsp;the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.inf.uni-konstanz.de\/algo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Department of Computer and Information Science<\/a>&nbsp;at the University of Konstanz. His work explores the potential of network science for archaeology, such as in&nbsp;understanding tableware distribution in the Roman East. As a member of the HERA CARIB project he performs visibility analyses for Caribbean archaeology. (For more information, see Tom\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/archaeologicalnetworks.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">research blog<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hestia2_nicole.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hestia2_nicole-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Nicole Coleman\" class=\"wp-image-380\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/acomp.stanford.edu\/faculty\/atsp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Nicole Coleman<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/a>is co-founder and co-director of Stanford\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/hdlab.stanford.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Humanities+Design<\/a>&nbsp;group and co-investigator of&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/republicofletters.stanford.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mapping the Republic of Letters<\/a>. Her work experiments with the design of data models and interactive graphical interfaces that allow for uncertainty, ambiguity, and nuance in data-driven research in the humanities.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/jones-phil.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/jones-phil.jpg\" alt=\"jones-phil\" class=\"wp-image-379\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.birmingham.ac.uk\/staff\/profiles\/gees\/jones-phil.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Phil Jones&nbsp;<\/strong><\/a>is a cultural geographer based at the University of Birmingham. He has a particular interest in research methods and policy debates on place and belonging. His work considers the role of qualitative GIS, mobile interviewing and arts-based approaches to mapping texts.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hestia2_tony.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hestia2_tony-150x150.png\" alt=\"hestia2_tony\" class=\"wp-image-381\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/ouseful.info\/about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Tony Hirst&nbsp;<\/strong><\/a>lectures for the Department of Communication and Systems at The Open University. As an open data advocate and self-proclaimed mashup artist, he is interested in how to find stories in data using freely available web tools and the use of visualisation to make&nbsp;sense of complex data sets.&nbsp;(See Tony\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.ouseful.info\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">blog<\/a>&nbsp;for debates and reflections on open data and technologies).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Consolidating the technology: HestiaVis and the OpenLearn Herodotus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To promote wider engagement among researchers, students and general enthusiasts with the original project\u2019s re-imagining of the geography of Herodotus\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Histories<\/em>, Hestia2 consolidates its technological innovations in two ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First, building on a post-Hestia project called&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/googleancientplaces.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google Ancient Places&nbsp;<\/a>(itself inspired by Hestia), we have developed an&nbsp;intuitive user interface for reading text and maps alongside each other. This platform, called&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www2.open.ac.uk\/openlearn\/hestia\/index.html#index\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">HestiaVis<\/a>, allows users to explore the&nbsp;<em>Histories<\/em>&nbsp;in three ways.&nbsp;The&nbsp;<strong>Summary View<\/strong>&nbsp;gives you a big-picture perspective on what places occur&nbsp;in the book as a whole and where they appear in the narrative structure, so that you can grasp the total distribution of place references at a glance.&nbsp;The&nbsp;<strong>Reading View<\/strong>&nbsp;offers an interface for reading the text, including a narrative timeline and a map of recently-referenced places, so that you can&nbsp;move through the narrative and see locations appearing and \u2018fading from memory\u2019. The&nbsp;<strong>Place Detail<\/strong>&nbsp;view provides deeper information about a particular geographic location, including network maps of related places based on their&nbsp;reference together in the narrative&nbsp;(i.e. their textual, not geographic, proximity)&nbsp;and links out to data&nbsp;provided by other projects, so that you can find out more about the places you are interested in from other online resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Second, we have worked with The Open University\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.open.edu\/openlearn\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">OpenLearn<\/a>&nbsp;Unit to produce free and open educational resources that make use of our technologies. You can find out more about these materials by going to the OpenLearn site or by clicking on the button \u201cOpen Learn\u201d below. Why not try it out for yourselves and take up the challenge of Herodotus\u2019s Histories to go and pursue your own enquiry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.open.edu\/openlearn\/history-the-arts\/history\/classical-studies\/herodotus-the-histories\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Open Learn<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Hestia2 Developers<\/h3>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hestia2_kate.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hestia2_kate-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"hestia2_kate\" class=\"wp-image-325\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk\/kbyrne3\/\"><strong>Kate Byrne<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/a>is a research fellow in the School of Informatics at Edinburgh University, specialising in natural language processing. She&nbsp;has worked on related projects, adapting the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ltg.ed.ac.uk\/clusters\/Edinburgh_Geoparser.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Edinburgh Geoparser<\/a>&nbsp;for classical works, so that place names mentioned in the text can be&nbsp;recognised and given a spatial location. For Hestia, she has adapted&nbsp;the material to mesh with the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/googleancientplaces.wordpress.com\/gapvis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">GapVis<\/a>&nbsp;tools&nbsp;previously created.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hestia2_eric.jpeg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hestia2_eric-150x150.jpeg\" alt=\"hestia2_eric\" class=\"wp-image-326\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/alexandriaarchive.org\/about\/people\/\"><strong>Eric Kansa<\/strong><\/a>&nbsp;directs&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/opencontext.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Open Context<\/a>, a data publishing venue for archaeology. His research interests explore web architecture, service design and policy issues relating to intellectual property. In June 2013, Eric was honoured, along with 12 other researchers, by the White House as a \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.neh.gov\/divisions\/odh\/featured-project\/neh-grantees-honored-white-house-open-science-champions-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Champion of Change<\/a>\u201d in promoting open science. Eric has adapted the GapVis platform for ensuring robustness, usability and functionality.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hestia2_adam.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hestia2_adam-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Rabinowitz, Adam 2011 - Classics\" class=\"wp-image-327\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.utexas.edu\/cola\/depts\/classics\/faculty\/atr253\"><strong>Adam Rabinowitz<\/strong><\/a>&nbsp;is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin and works on exploring ancient social relations in the archaeological record. With a keen interest on using digital tools to visualise information about the Classical past, Adam has created&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/geodia.laits.utexas.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">GeoDia<\/a>, an interactive spatial timeline of Mediterranean archaeology. Adam has been trialling&nbsp;Hestia\u2019s resources in his undergraduate classes.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/ole-profile-small.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/ole-profile-small-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-152951\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Beverley Daley-Yates<\/strong>&nbsp;works as a freelance consultant to develop online learning resources. She has been involved in several projects for OpenLearn, some based on BBC TV productions, in collaboration with academics from the Classical Studies, Science, Modern Languages and Social Science Faculties. Beverley helped create the OpenLearn Herodotus materials.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/enrico-daga.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hestia.open.ac.uk\/hestia-data\/uploads\/2013\/07\/enrico-daga-148x150.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-152956\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"http:\/\/kmi.open.ac.uk\/people\/member\/enrico-daga\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Enrico Daga<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/a>is Project Officer in Linked Data at The Open University\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/kmi.open.ac.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Knowledge Media Institute<\/a>. His&nbsp;main duty is the maintenance and evolution of http:\/\/data.open.ac.uk, while doing a PhD on linked data integration, maintenance and reuse. Enrico helped developed the new HestiaVis platform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The original&nbsp;Hestia&nbsp;project&nbsp;(September 2008 \u2013 July 2010)&nbsp;produced two innovative outcomes: the understanding of geographic space in Herodotus\u2019s&nbsp;Histories&nbsp;in terms of connections between places and peoples rather than as points on a map; and the development and use of web technologies for visualising and thinking about a narrative.&nbsp;Hestia2&nbsp;(July 2013 \u2013 June 2014) takes this experimental approach to analysing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_unity_news_pull_enabled":false,"_unity_news_feed_url":"","_unity_news_items_per_page":10,"_unity_pubs_pull_enabled":false,"_unity_pubs_orocus":"","_unity_pubs_project_group":"","_unity_pubs_items_per_page":10,"footnotes":""},"unity_related_person":[],"unity_sdg":[],"unity_research_theme":[],"unity_strategic_priority":[],"unity_enabler":[],"unity_general_category":[],"unity_stem_unit":[],"unity_related_project":[],"unity_related_archived_project":[],"unity_related_event":[],"class_list":["post-14","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"unity_related_person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/unity_related_person?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"unity_sdg","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/unity_sdg?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"unity_research_theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/unity_research_theme?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"unity_strategic_priority","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/unity_strategic_priority?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"unity_enabler","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/unity_enabler?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"unity_general_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/unity_general_category?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"unity_stem_unit","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/unity_stem_unit?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"unity_related_project","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/unity_related_project?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"unity_related_archived_project","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/unity_related_archived_project?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"unity_related_event","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.stem.open.ac.uk\/hestia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/unity_related_event?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}