Spatial Configuration of Epigraphics

Table of Contents

What is an epigraphic?

An epigraph is any sort of text, and is a primary tool in archaeology when dealing
with literate cultures.

Data

The Epigraphic Database Heidelberg contains the find spots of ~ 25,000 ancient
Lain and bilingual (usually Latin and Greek) inscriptions Data Source.

Preparation

library(jsonlite)
library(ggplot2)
library(tidyr)
library(nominatim)
library(ggmap)
library(maptools)
library(raster)
library(tmap)
library(rgeos)

Load data and extract the coordinates of the epigraphics.

URL <- "http://edh-www.adw.uni-
heidelberg.de/download/edhGeographicData.json"

epi <- fromJSON(txt = URL)

names(epi)
## [1] "type" "features"

epigraphics_loc <- epi$features$geometry

head(epigraphics_loc)

## type coordinates
## 1 Point 23.451654999, 38.497692999
## 2 Point 22.992664000, 37.915851400
## 3 Point 22.876113, 38.435817999
## 4 Point 22.992664000, 37.915851400
## 5 Point 25.190000000, 37.049999999
## 6 Point 25.228999999, 37.408999999

In order to use the coordinates, we need to clean them up.

epigraphics_loc <- separate(epigraphics_loc, 2, c("x", "y"), ",")

epigraphics_loc$x <- gsub("[^0-9.-]", "", epigraphics_loc$x)

epigraphics_loc$y <- gsub("[^0-9.]", "", epigraphics_loc$y)

epigraphics_loc$x <- as.numeric(epigraphics_loc$x)

epigraphics_loc$y <- as.numeric(epigraphics_loc$y)

epigraphics_xy <- epigraphics_loc[,c(2,3)]

head(epigraphics_xy)

## x y
## 1 23.45165 38.49769
## 2 22.99266 37.91585
## 3 22.87611 38.43582
## 4 22.99266 37.91585
## 5 25.19000 37.05000
## 6 25.22900 37.40900

Spatial Distribution of Epigraphics

Now we have the coordinate points, let's get plotting!

Due to the number of points, it is is quite hard to discern areas that contain large
numbers of epigraphic find spots.
al1MAP + stat_bin2d(data=epigraphics_xy, aes(x= x, y= y), bins=100,
alpha = 0.8) + coord_map() +
scale_fill_gradientn(colours=heat.colors(4)) + labs(x = "Longitude", y
= "Latitude", fill = "Count of Epigraphics", caption = "Data from
http://edh-www.adw.uni-heidelberg.de")
From the above plot, we can see that one location in Britain has a higher quantity of
epigraphics relative to all other places in Britain. This is very likely the Hadrian's
Wall, however we will explore this further.

Hadrian's Wall?

spdf <- SpatialPointsDataFrame(coords = epigraphics_xy, data =

epigraphics_loc,
proj4string = CRS("+proj=longlat
+datum=WGS84 +ellps=WGS84 +towgs84=0,0,0"))

spdf <- spTransform(spdf, CRS("+proj=tmerc +lat_0=49 +lon_0=-2

+k=0.9996012717 +x_0=400000 +y_0=-100000 +ellps=airy +towgs84=446.448,-
125.157,542.06,0.15,0.247,0.842,-20.489 +units=m +no_defs"))

uk <- raster::getData('GADM', country='GBR', level=0)

uk <- spTransform(uk, CRS("+proj=tmerc +lat_0=49 +lon_0=-2

+k=0.9996012717 +x_0=400000 +y_0=-100000 +ellps=airy +towgs84=446.448,-
125.157,542.06,0.15,0.247,0.842,-20.489 +units=m +no_defs"))
uk_epigraphs <- spdf[uk,] # selects points of spdf inside UK polygon.
Uses overlay function from sp.

tm_shape(uk) +
tm_borders() +
tm_shape(uk_epigraphs) +
tm_dots(col = "red")

It does look like there a lot of find spots along Hadrian's Wall.
counties <- raster::getData('GADM', country='GBR', level=2)

counties <- spTransform(counties, CRS("+proj=tmerc +lat_0=49 +lon_0=-2

+k=0.9996012717 +x_0=400000 +y_0=-100000 +ellps=airy +towgs84=446.448,-
125.157,542.06,0.15,0.247,0.842,-20.489 +units=m +no_defs"))

pts_in_counties <- over(uk_epigraphs, counties)

pts_in_count<- as.data.frame(table(pts_in_counties$NAME_2))

test <- merge(counties, pts_in_count, by.x = "NAME_2", by.y = "Var1")

tm_shape(test) +
tm_polygons(col = "Freq", n = 5, colorNA = "gainsboro", breaks =
c(1,100,200,300,400), title= "Count of Epigraphs")
This is further exemplified when the count of Epigraphics per county is show.
However, this view doesn't take into account the size of the county. Therefore, we
should normalise by the number of epigraphics by the area of each county.
test$area = gArea(test, byid = TRUE) / 1000^2

test$epiperarea <- test$Freq / test$area

tm_shape(test) +
tm_polygons(col = "epiperarea", n = 5, colorNA = "gainsboro", breaks
= c(0,0.02, 0.04, 0.06, 0.08, 1), title= "Count of Epigraphs per km2")
The higher quantity of epigraphics found in Britain remain in the counties that
contain Hadrian's Wall. Interestingly, the normalisation by area also identifies
multiple small counties with a relatively large number of epigraphics per km2.