Gethin Rees | Kings College London (original) (raw)

Papers by Gethin Rees

Journal of Map & Geography Libraries, 2024

The six Legal Deposit Libraries of the UK and Ireland (LDLs) have been collecting digital maps un... more The six Legal Deposit Libraries of the UK and Ireland (LDLs) have been collecting digital maps under legal deposit regulations since 2016. The LDLs collect a subset of the totality of digital maps published each year and this article explores a rationale for deciding what to collect. The collection is made accessible in reading rooms through a web-map interface that facilitates visual use. Technical and regulatory restrictions preclude the ability to download data or perform analysis. Thus the viewer is suited to the use cases of the primary users, personal or independent researchers. However, legal deposit guidance outlines that the collection should also be representative of the use of digital maps in the UK's wider economy and society, so that future users can gain insights into contemporary publication. Balancing archival value with access is therefore critical to a collecting rationale. This article examines how the value, license and type of digital maps influences decisions and ends by offering a set of criteria for collecting that also includes publisher engagement. In evaluating the differing and complementary roles of libraries as archives and as points of access, the article has implications for understanding curatorship and the public purpose of libraries.

DH Conference Abstracts, 2024

This presentation offers a critical evaluation of the use of the Web Mercator projection to visua... more This presentation offers a critical evaluation of the use of the Web Mercator projection to visualise and present humanities and heritage data. How can a consideration of the historical processes that formed collections inform the design of web maps? To address this question, the collection amassed by Hans Sloane in the eighteenth century acts as an example. Including botanical materials, antiquities, books and manuscripts, amongst other items, the collection was gathered together from across the globe by a broad set of intermediaries that included colonial administrators, traders and the enslaved. Digital records of these objects are the subject of the Sloane Lab project, funded by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council. The Sloane Lab's knowledge base (SLKB) is a rich and interconnected knowledge graph representation of this vast collection that 'models collecting practices that often systemically silenced the voices and methods of knowledge production of people and cultures that were collected' (Nyhan et al. 2023). Ongoing research as part of a Sloane Lab community fellowship links and visualises records of British Museum and British Library objects using web maps. The aims here are twofold:

Information, Communication and Society, 2022

with Alex Hunt, Valeria Vitale, John Horgan and Peter Strachan. Identity is a critical influence... more with Alex Hunt, Valeria Vitale, John Horgan and Peter Strachan.
Identity is a critical influence on the public’s engagement with cultural heritage. This article emphasises the role of geographical scale in this relationship examining how the presentation of local heritage can foster meaningful engagement with collections. The geographical information embedded in digital collections – such as where objects were made or the locations they depict and describe – can help varied audiences to discover digital heritage records that are significant to them. Yet the interactive web maps used by cultural heritage organisations have not presented the breadth of collections effectively. Audience research conducted by the Locating a National Collection project offered insights into how the presentation of local heritage using web maps can broaden engagement. A survey explored the values, motivations and identities of the UK public in relation to geography and web technologies. ‘Pretotypes’ or sketches of interfaces prompted focus groups to offer insights into interface design and the suitability of collections. The public were not only interested in heritage connected to the area where they reside but also a range of familiar locations drawn from memory, genealogy and community, termed their ‘own places’. Only particular collections offer geographical information of suitable quality and distribution to support engagement with familiar locations at a local scale. This user-centred approach can help organisations to design web maps that help audiences discover the parts of collections they find meaningful. The article offers the first step in a pathway to achieving social impact such as community building through digital collections.

Digital Humanities, 2022

DH 2022 long paper abstract

Towards a National Collection, 2022

Rees, Gethin; Gadd, Stephen; Horgan, John; Hunt, Alex; Isaksen, Leif; Morris, Victoria; Muss... more Rees, Gethin; Gadd, Stephen; Horgan, John; Hunt, Alex; Isaksen, Leif; Morris, Victoria; Musson, Anthony; Simon, Rainer; Strachan, Peter; Vitale, Valeria. For co-author details see https://zenodo.org/record/7071654#.YyNjCXbMI2w

Locating a National Collection helps cultural heritage organisations to use geographical information — such as where objects were made and used or the locations they depict and describe — to connect collections and engage the public. Through workshops, audience research and software development the project has developed a set of recommendations for using location to enhance the discovery of digital records across diverse collections. A set of thematic and technological case studies have connected site records from historic environment organisations with objects from galleries, libraries, archives and museums virtually. The Pelagios Network of researchers, scientists and curators has developed a methodology that uses geographical information to connect research data with considerable success. LaNC built on their methodology by exploring methods of accessible and meaningful presentation to the public in collaboration with the National Trust and Historic Royal Palaces. The engagement work package encompassed survey and focus groups to understand the attitudes, behaviour and motivations of audiences such as community groups, heritage visitors and schools towards cultural heritage and location-based technologies. Our infrastructure work package created two web apps: a curation tool, Locolligo, and a web-map interface that can be embedded in organisational websites, Peripleo. LaNC encourages cultural heritage organisations to take up a common approach to creating and presenting geographical information with the ultimate aim of spear-heading a movement beyond text-based searches in cultural heritage.

Archaeological Research in Asia 28, 2021

Trade is frequently cited as the primary influence on the florescence of rock-cut Buddhist monast... more Trade is frequently cited as the primary influence on the florescence of rock-cut Buddhist monasteries in the Western Ghats mountains, India between 200 BCE and 400 CE. Yet the monasteries have been foci of art-historical scholarship without detailed investigation of archaeology and geography. The relationship between monasteries, trade routes, ports and urban centres are examined using GIS cost-surface analysis. Interpreted alongside inscriptions, the results demonstrate that not only merchants but craftspeople, royalty and members of monastic communities were important to monastic development. This diversity calls the monasteries' archetypal position for the study of Buddhism and trade into question.

Culture, Tradition and Continuity: Disquisitions in Honour of Prof. Vasant Shinde, 2021

Whilst many rock-cut Buddhist monasteries in Maharashtra have been documented in detail, those lo... more Whilst many rock-cut Buddhist monasteries in Maharashtra have been documented in detail, those located in the southern Konkan have not been published. Between the second century BCE and the fourth century CE several monasteries were cut close to the western edge of the Western Ghats mountains to the south of the better known rock-cut monasteries at Kuda and Mahad. This article documents the locations, dates and landscape contexts of the monasteries at Chiplun and Khed alongside detailed descriptions of individual caves. The article finishes with a reassessment of the dates of the early phase of cave cutting at Panhale Kaji. The region of the southern Konkan, and the town of Chiplun in particular, is significant to the present volume as Professor V. Shinde grew up in this area. By documenting the caves in full it is hoped that the archaeology of the area will feature in art-historical and historical debates about the ancient Deccan.

https://www.nationalcollection.org.uk/Interim, 2021

Locating a National Collection (LaNC) aims to help cultural heritage organisations to use locatio... more Locating a National Collection (LaNC) aims to help cultural heritage organisations to use location data — such as where objects were made and used or the places they depict and describe — to connect collections and engage audiences. Through scoping, workshops, audience research and exploratory technical work, the project is establishing best practice and providing technical recommendations for a national approach to using location to discover collection items from diverse cultural heritage organisations.

Buddhism: Origins, Traditions and Contemporary Life, 2019

S.S. May and J. Igunma eds. (London: British Library, 2019)

This project will help cultural heritage organisations to use geospatial data-references and repr... more This project will help cultural heritage organisations to use geospatial data-references and representations of location, such as where objects were made and used or the places they depict and describe-to connect diverse collections and engage research and public audiences in new ways. Through scoping, workshops and audience research the project will establish best practice and provide technical recommendations for the development of a national discovery system whereby objects about a topic of interest can be readily discovered from a variety of sources, represented in the context of their historic environment, and referenced in time and landscape. At present, discovering collections across multiple institutions and collections can be problematic in terms of user experience, requiring complex text-box searches or commercial search engines. However in the field of Classics The Pelagios Network of researchers, scientists and curators has developed a methodology that uses gazetteer referencing to link research data across diverse collections with considerable success, building a community of partners and stimulating new research perspectives. Similarly, the Collections Trust's prototype aggregator demonstrates that searching across cultural heritage collections using geographic location is feasible. This project builds on these methods, scoping improvements to the aggregator's results and exploring ways to present location in an accessible and meaningful form for public consumption. A key question is how the place-based Pelagios methodology can best be integrated with space-based cultural heritage data resources brought together by the Collections Trust aggregator. To test and scope this ambition, participating organisations will work on a set of thematic and technological case studies that will test the technical feasibility and appeal of the approach to potential users, ultimately developing an understanding of scalability. The project aims to understand the requirements of stakeholders, institutional, academic and public, in order to inform content selection, technical decisions and maximise impact. It will investigate how we can use location to build a common infrastructure that links collections and render this content accessible and meaningful to different audiences. The objective is to understand the technical components required, the current and potential options available and to make recommendations for potential solutions, all of which will be described in the project report. The report will constitute a strategy, offering pathways for progress and outlining potential barriers to inform developments in the next phase of Towards a National Collection and across the cultural heritage sector more broadly. It will encourage cultural heritage organisations to take up a common geospatial approach and will provide a roadmap to enable diverse organisations to enrich their metadata and expose this in a consistent and joined-up way. Pelagios has had success with a decentralised, 'opt-in' model of partner engagement. Our project will explore whether distributed or centralised models of integration and cooperation are relevant to the integration of cultural heritage organisations. It will develop understanding within the cultural heritage sector of how location-based interfaces can be used to make

Journal of Map & Geography Libraries, 2020

One of the British Library Digital Scholarship team’s core purposes is to deliver training to Lib... more One of the British Library Digital Scholarship team’s core purposes is to deliver training to Library staff. Running since 2012, the main aim of the Digital Scholarship Training Program (DSTP) is to create opportunities for staff to develop the necessary skills and knowledge to support emerging areas of scholarship. Recently, the Library has been experimenting with a new format to deliver its training that would allow flexibility and adaptability through modularity: a “season”. The Digital Scholarship team organized a series of training events billed as a “Season of Place”, which aimed to expose Library staff to the latest digital mapping concepts, methods and technologies, and provide them with the skills to apply cutting-edge research to their collection areas. The authors designed, coordinated and delivered this training season to fulfill broader Library objectives, choosing to mix and match the types of events and methods of delivery to fit the broad range of technologies that constitute digital mapping today. The paper also discusses the impact that these choices of methods and content has had on digital literacy and the uptake of digital mapping by presenting results of an initial evaluation obtained through observation and evaluation surveys.

The profusion of humanities and cultural heritage datasets made available over the last decades h... more The profusion of humanities and cultural heritage datasets made available over the last decades has created considerable demand for user interfaces to aid discovery. Web map interfaces provide a method of discovering data within and across datasets, as well as to visualise data to stimulate research insights. All geographical data can be temporally situated one way or another, and time-sliders have often been integrated within map implementations to help refine search. There has been some excellent work in this area however implementations remain disparate and unconnected. We believe that a standardised, inclusive approach to the visualisation of geospatial and temporal Linked Open Data is required and would offer great benefits. Taking on this challenge, Pelagios Commons1 kindly funded a working group and two-day workshop at the British Library – Web Maps-T hack – coordinated by Gethin Rees and Adi Keinan-Schoonbaert.

In A. Zerbini and J. Yoo (eds.) Migration, Diasporas and Identity in the Near East from Antiquity... more In A. Zerbini and J. Yoo (eds.) Migration, Diasporas and Identity in the Near East from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. London: Ashgate.

South Asian Studies, 2014

World Archaeology 45.2 The Beginnings of Life, 2013

Care for pregnant women constituted an important aspect of interaction between monastic communiti... more Care for pregnant women constituted an important aspect of interaction between monastic communities and the laity at the Jetavana Buddhist monastery. Figurines found at the monastery date to the first millennium CE and portray a deity with both maleficent and beneficent attitudes toward the unborn. The deities that such figurines depict have previously been interpreted as precursors to the Brahminical pantheon. However, archaeological evidence from the Jetavana monastery suggests that figurines were also drawn into Buddhism. As members of monastic communities were celibate, it is argued that figurines played a role in interaction with the laity. The beneficent attitudes of the deities complemented the medical care that Buddhist monasteries offered pregnant women and the unborn. Examining figurines in their archaeological contexts highlights the diverse character of Buddhism. This study has implications for understanding the religious dimensions of care offered during pregnancy and childbirth and the concept of syncretism in ancient religions.

History of Ancient India, 2014

Digital Humanities Conference Abstracts 2012, 2012

Journal of Map & Geography Libraries, 2024

DH Conference Abstracts, 2024

Information, Communication and Society, 2022

Digital Humanities, 2022

DH 2022 long paper abstract

Towards a National Collection, 2022

Archaeological Research in Asia 28, 2021

Culture, Tradition and Continuity: Disquisitions in Honour of Prof. Vasant Shinde, 2021

https://www.nationalcollection.org.uk/Interim, 2021

Buddhism: Origins, Traditions and Contemporary Life, 2019

S.S. May and J. Igunma eds. (London: British Library, 2019)

Journal of Map & Geography Libraries, 2020

South Asian Studies, 2014

World Archaeology 45.2 The Beginnings of Life, 2013

History of Ancient India, 2014

Digital Humanities Conference Abstracts 2012, 2012

The ‘Mapping the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Empire’ project aims to integrate literary, ... more The ‘Mapping the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Empire’ project aims to integrate literary, epigraphic and archaeological data within a Geographical Information System (GIS). GIS offers an innovative interpretative framework to study Jewish communities and provides an efficient method for distributing this information across the world-wide-web. Attributes of communities such as population size, religious divisions and living arrangements can be depicted and interpreted spatially. Social, political and economic factors had an effect on Jews and our project will use GIS to model these relationships. Comparative analyses will develop an understanding of the importance of issues as varied as trade, identity and migration. The GIS will be made freely available to the general public. It will be possible to search the website to generate maps that are tailored to the requirements of the individual. The presentation will provide an introduction as to how the website will work. As the project is at an early stage of development, data that will be presented comes from two pilot GIS projects only: Jewish communities living on Crete and those mentioned in the travelogue of Benjamin of Tudela (mid-12th century). The two studies have raised methodological issues that are of significance to the use of computing for the study of history generally, for example, database design and spatial analysis.

This presentation will investigate the relationship between Buddhism and the development of India... more This presentation will investigate the relationship between Buddhism and the development of Indian Ocean trade in Early Historic South Asia. Ports located on the western coast of South Asia provided access to the Indian Ocean and in order to reach these ports from the Deccan interior, the Western Ghats mountain range had to be crossed. Over fifty rock-cut Buddhist monasteries situated within the mountain range date to the Early Historic period and by examining literary, archaeological and epigraphic evidence, this presentation will evaluate the patronage of merchants to these monasteries.

Indian Ocean trade during the Early Historic period has become a focus of historical scholarship ... more Indian Ocean trade during the Early Historic period has become a focus of historical scholarship in South Asia. Although the role of this trade in state formation has been questioned in recent years, there is no doubt that it was an influential component of the economy of the Western Deccan. In order to access ports on the Western coast of South Asia that were associated with this trade, the Western Ghats mountains had to be crossed. In the first instance, this presentation will attempt to identify the direction of the main routes which led through this mountain range. The main constraints on movement through the mountains were provided by topography as there are few valleys through which the coast can be accessed. The position of the main ports required natural harbours and so can also be identified from topography analysed in conjunction with historical sources and archaeological data.

Secondly, the presentation will attempt to assess the intensity of movement along the different routes. This will be carried out using three types of data. First, the relative cost of moving from the plateau to the port sites will be evaluated. Second, the settlement pattern on the eastern side of the Ghats will be examined in order to determine the areas from which trade may have originated. Third, the position and elaboration of the various rock cut cave sites will be assessed. A link between patronage at these sites and the people who travelled through the Ghats will be established and the elaboration of rock-cut monasteries used to provide some indication of the intensity of movement along the different routes. The presentation will close bu discussing the implications this study has for studying the impact of Indian Ocean trade on South Asia.

(Delhi: Jaico), 2017

This guidebook focuses on the rock-cut Buddhist monasteries near Nashik and Junnar, and at Karla,... more This guidebook focuses on the rock-cut Buddhist monasteries near Nashik and Junnar, and at Karla, Bhaja, Bedsa, Kondane and Kanheri. Co-authored by George Michell and Gethin Rees, and illustrated with splendid, newly commissioned photographs by Surendra Kumar, this is the first guidebook to describe the sites listed above.
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Buddhist_Rock_cut_Monasteries_of_the_Wes/KSSVtQEACAAJ?hl=en

ULIS stands for University Learning in Schools. The model is based on the Brilliant Club (http://... more ULIS stands for University Learning in Schools. The model is based on the Brilliant Club (http://www.thebrilliantclub.org/) model of partnering PhD researchers with schools. Schemes of work have been produced by teacher-researcher pairs to enrich the Key Stage 3 curriculum. Download at http://res.afa3as.org.uk/ulis/rehome/html5.html

Zenodo https://bl.iro.bl.uk/concern/datasets/c9551e1f-85af-492b-90c9-c294bf77b50e, 2017

CSV files containing basic information on early Buddhist rock-cut monasteries in the Western Ghat... more CSV files containing basic information on early Buddhist rock-cut monasteries in the Western Ghats and Konkan coast regions of India. Only the caves cut between second century BCE and the early fifth century CE are included: from the earliest period of cutting up until just prior to the introduction of the Buddha image. Data featured are geographical groupings of caves alongside the number of caves and sculptures with descriptions.

Zenodo https://bl.iro.bl.uk/concern/datasets/272b8709-6f16-4ab1-8398-6bdd72c33300, 2017

CSV files containing locations of early Buddhist rock-cut monasteries in the Western Ghats and Ko... more CSV files containing locations of early Buddhist rock-cut monasteries in the Western Ghats and Konkan coast regions of India. Only the caves cut between second century BCE and the early fifth century CE are included: from the earliest period of cutting up until just prior to the introduction of the Buddha image. Data included are the long/lat, height in meters, name and group of monasteries so the file is suitable for importing into a GIS. A second csv file contains locations of the Early Historic settlements located close to the rock-cut monasteries. The settlements are located on the Deccan plateau, the eastern edge of the Western Ghats and the Konkan coast. Data included are long/lat, height in meters, name and region of the settlement so the file is suitable for importing into a GIS.

Uploaded to Zenodo https://zenodo.org/record/1009560

Unpublished Ph.D Thesis, University of Cambridge., 2010

Between 200 BC and AD 500, fifty-three Buddhist cave monasteries were cut from the Western Ghats ... more Between 200 BC and AD 500, fifty-three Buddhist cave monasteries were cut from the Western Ghats Mountain Range of South Asia and adjacent hills. The monasteries are distributed over an area that features varied topography including coastline, mountains and plateau. They have been subject to art-historical and theological scholarship for over a century although, thus far, there has been little attempt to study the socio-economic context of these monasteries in detail.

Donations made by members of the laity supported the cutting of caves and the day-to-day needs of communities that inhabited these monasteries. The wider economy was therefore an important influence. Previous studies have prioritised the influence of trade on the distribution of rock-cut monasteries on the basis of limited archaeological evidence. This thesis examines this relationship and interaction with other aspects of the Early Historic economy. Comprehensive documentation of the distribution of monastic architecture through extensive fieldwork forms the basis of interpretation. A discussion of settlement archaeology and topography provides evidence of the economic context of individual monasteries. Finally, the process of donation and other forms of interaction with wider society are evaluated on the basis of literary and epigraphic evidence.

The thesis suggests that donations made to monastic communities that lived in the Western Ghats and on the Konkan Coast were an important influence on the distribution of rock-cut architecture. Variation in monastic architecture is linked to differences in economic context through a study of the landscape that surrounded monasteries. Diversity in monastic architecture and in the economic contexts in which architecture is found is indicative of the adaptability of Buddhism and, more specifically, the process of donation. Assessment of the economic context in which rock-cut monasteries functioned can help to develop an understanding of processes of religious interaction throughout South Asia.