Suchergebnisse

Rethinking the boundaries of Europe is an earnest exercise that calls for critical reconsideration of our existing spatio-temporal constructions. First of all, it should be established that this kind of an exercise does not only necessitate a re-mapping of the cartographical space within which "Europe" is placed, but more so a re-thinking of the intellectual space within which history is situated.

"Of all the illustrations depicting a section of the earth's surface, the first to resemble the actual circumstances closely are Medieval sea charts known as Portolan charts. These depictions appeared quite suddenly in the thirteenth century and exhibit a conspicuous chordal network, a linear system based on the point of the wind. Mathematical investigations of the coastlines shown on these sea charts have revealed an astonishing degree of precision in comparison to modern charts. It is not known what methods were used to determine the geodetic foundations for the Portolan works. The question of authorship leads back to Roman and Hellenistic antiquity, and it is not impossible to imagine a set of circumstances that could have allowed these mysterious documents to survive ancient times and be handed down through the generations to the Medieval period." (author's abstract)

Die Aufnahme und Bearbeitung von Quellen ist in der Geschichtswissenschaft in den letzten Jahren zunehmend mit Hilfe der EDV vorgenommen worden. Die Möglichkeiten von Expertensystemen sind jedoch in diesem Bereich noch eher begrenzt. Der vorliegende Beitrag stellt ein Forschungsprojekt vor, das die automatische Auflösung mittelalterlicher Zeitdatierungen in frei definierbare Subsysteme anstrebt. Bearbeitet und elektronisch gespeichert werden 9.000 Datierungen nach dem Heiligenkalender, da die Zeitschematisierung im Mittelalter nach Fest- und Heiligentagen geschah. (pmb)