In sdam-au/sdam: Digital Tools for the SDAM Project at Aarhus University

knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo=TRUE,error=TRUE)
knitr::opts_chunk$set(comment = "")
library("sdam")

options(width = 96)

Preliminaries

Install and load one version of "sdam" package.

install.packages("sdam") # from CRAN
devtools::install_github("sdam-au/sdam") # development version
devtools::install_github("mplex/cedhar", subdir="pkg/sdam") # a legacy version R 3.6.x

# load and check version
library(sdam)
packageVersion("sdam")

Built-in datasets

Package "sdam" comes with a suite of datasets and external data to execute different functions available in the package and to perform analysis.

For a list of built-in datasets in "sdam" use the "utils" function data() or utils::data() with the 'package' argument.

The CRAN distribution has four built-in datasets, while the development and legacy distributions add three more built-in datasets.

# pop-up a new window
data(package="sdam")

print(data(package="sdam"))

# Data sets in package 'sdam':
# 
# rp        Roman province names and acronyms as in EDH
# rpcp      Roman provinces chronological periods
# rpd       Roman provinces dates from EDH
# rpmcd     Caption maps and affiliation dates of Roman provinces

# Additional built-in datasets in 'sdam':
#
# EDH       Epigraphic Database Heidelberg Dataset
# rpmp      Maps of ancient Roman provinces and Italian regions
# retn      Roman Empire transport network and Mediterranean sea

A description of each dataset is available in the manual that from the R console is accessible as e.g. the EDH dataset in a non-CRAN distribution.

# Epigraphic Database Heidelberg Dataset help
?EDH

Ancient Mediterranean built-in datasets

The EDH dataset in "sdam" has information about Latin epigraphy retrieved from the Epigraphic Database Heidelberg API repository from the Roman world during the antiquity period.

A list of Roman provinces and regions in this dataset is available in dataset "rp", and use again function data() to load this built-in dataset to look at its internal structure with utils::str() function.

• Dataset "rp" is a named list with Roman provinces and regions with acronyms according to the Epigraphic Database Heidelberg.

# load dataset
data("rp")

# obtain object structure
str(rp)

edhw() interface with "rp" dataset

• Function edhw() is a wrapper to extract and transform the records in the EDH dataset that invokes "rp" dataset to retrieve the records from a specific Roman province or region in EDH.

# Armenian records in 'EDH'
edhw(province="Arm")[1]

The Warning messages from edhw() are first because there is not an explicit input in x, it is assumed that the input data is from the EDH dataset. The second warning message just tells the type object to return is always a list for argument province alone.

EDH in data frames

All records in the EDH dataset have a list format and it is possible to transform this information into a dataframe format with the wrapper function edhw(). For instance, displaying the first record from Arm as a data frame in argument 'as' is made by the record 'id' number.

# record HD015521
edhw(id="15521", as="df")

However, it is easier to visualise in the screen only the variables related to people.

# record HD015521 with explicit variables
edhw(id="15521", vars="people", as="df")

suppressWarnings(edhw(id="15521", vars="people", as="df"))

# record HD015521 with more explicit variables
edhw(id="15521", vars=c("people", "province_label"), as="df")

suppressWarnings(edhw(id="15521", vars=c("people", "province_label"), as="df"))

Obtaining all people variables

Start by looking at the people variables in the EDH dataset for the Roman province of Armenia.

Armenia

plot.map("Arm", cap=TRUE, name=FALSE)

Transformation of the entire province from the EDH dataset requires extracting first a list with the province content. Function edhw() is to obtain available inscriptions per province from EDH and all data attributes from people variable. The default outputs are a list and a dataframe for the first and the second instance of the function.

# people in Armenia
edhw(province="Arm") |> 
  edhw(vars="people")

edhw(province="Arm") |> 
  suppressWarnings() |> 
  edhw(vars="people") |> 
  suppressWarnings()

People attribute variables in inscriptions for Armenia are age: years, cognomen, gender, name, nomen, person_id, praenomen, and, status, but any inscription with tribus or origo as in the case of other provinces.

For Armenia, two inscriptions have people variables and all people scripted are male, where record HD015524 spans two rows because there are two persons where one have nomen, cognomen, and name ineligible.

Datasets for cartographical maps

The plotting of the Roman province in the previous section requires other datasets. Apart from "rp". In "sdam", there are other three datasets invoked for plotting cartographical maps related to the Roman Empire and the Mediterranean basin, which are "rpmp", "rpmcd", and "retn".

Function plot.map() calls dataset "rpmp" for the shapes and colours in the plotting of the cartographical maps of different regions of the Roman Empire. For the caption and province dates with this function shapes and colours are in dataset "rpmcd".

• Dataset "retn" bears the shapes of places and routes of an ancient transportation system in the Mediterranean region and political divisions of the Roman Empire. It also has it contours and parts of the European continent.

# land contour around Mediterranean
plot.map(type="plain")

# display settlements and shipping routes
plot.map(type="plain", settl=TRUE, shipr=TRUE)

Vignette Cartographical maps and networks has more about transportation networks in the ancient Mediterranean.

Datasets with dates

There are built-in datasets in "sdam" related to dates as well that are either displayed in a cartographical map or used for other computations.

• Dataset "rpd" that has dates for provinces from the EDH dataset. It serves for performing a restricted imputation on data subsets in EDH or in another dataset.

# dates from EDH
data("rpd")

# three provinces in object structure
str(rpd[1:3])

From this set of three Roman provinces in the EDH, the longest timespan is for Aem, and on average Ach has the oldest incriptions, while Aeg has incriptions with the newest dates.

• Dataset "rpcp" with chronological periods for regions with early and later Roman influence per province.

# periods for Roman provinces
data("rpcp")

# object structure
str(rpcp)

The early and later Roman influence in the 45 ancient provinces and regions are timespans with a terminus ante quem and a terminus post quem.

Vignette Dates and missing dating data has the visualisation of these and other dates.

External data

Apart from the built-in datasets, it is attached as external data the semi-colon separated file StraussShipwrecks.csv with the Shipwrecks dataset for performing analyses: Reference and documentation in

Strauss, J. (2013). Shipwrecks Database. Version 1.0. Accessed (07-12-2021) from oxrep.classics.ox.ac.uk/databases/shipwrecks_database/

Built from Parker, A.J. Ancient Shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and the Roman Provinces (Oxford: BAR International Series 580, 1992)

Details about the access to the database are in:

• Shipwrecks network in the Mediterranean Basin (23-June-2022)

• Vignettes Dates and missing dating data and Cartographical maps and networks also use the Shipwrecks dataset.

See also

Vignettes

• Re-encoding people in the EDH dataset

• Dates and missing dating data

• Cartographical maps and networks

Manuals

• sdam: Digital Tools for the SDAM Project at Aarhus University
• "sdam" manual

Project

• Release candidate version
• Code snippets using "sdam"
• Social Dynamics and complexity in the Ancient Mediterranean project

 

sdam-au/sdam documentation built on Sept. 13, 2022, 7:15 a.m.