The role of spatial visual analysis in historical religious studies

Abstract

This paper examines the possibilities and benefits of spatial visual analysis in exploring and answering a hypothesis proposed in a historical study of religions. The content was based on the GEHIR project, which studies the history of ancient Graeco-Roman religions using innovative methods applied in the study of complex systems. The first part of the paper describes three case studies and their hypotheses and input datasets. Relevant spatial methods are subsequently proposed and were implemented as a web-based map application deployed online (gehir.phil.muni.cz/map). Apart from certain constraints, the new option and benefit of using visual analysis brings a unique view to phenomena in historical research. This could open new discussions and contribute to the dissemination of geographic methods to, and overall knowledge of, historians.