Digital tools and ancient empires: Using network analysis and geographic information systems to study imperial networks in hellenistic anatolia

Abstract

An increasing number of historians and sociologists have theorized empires as a series of interlocking networks of social and political interactions. Less attention has been paid to how digital techniques can be deployed to study the structure of those networks, their geospatial context, or their visualization, especially in the construction of maps. Advances in digital gazetteers, social network analysis (SNA) software, and historical geographic information systems (HIGS) are fundamentally altering this paradigm, enabling the discovery, modeling, and visualization of complex geospatial networks.