Digital Approaches to Chinese History

Merrick Lex Berman

China Biographical Database, IQSS

ABCD-TIE, 17th Sep 2018

General goals of Digital Humanities

• access to cultural / historical information

• tools to find, browse, mashup, query, map, and analyze this info

• communicate the resources, topics, and findings of digital scholarship

• utilize digital resources and methods for teaching and learning

• connect communities (across disciplines, institutions, and with the public )

Trend of Digital Humanities projects

movement from

introverted projects by individual scholars ->

to collaborative cross-disciplinary projects ->

to exposing data and methods to wider academic communities & the public.

• access to cultural / historical information

• tools to find, browse, mashup, query, map, and analyze this info

• communicate the resources, topics, and findings of digital scholarship

• utilize digital resources and methods for teaching and learning

• connect communities (across disciplines, institutions, and with the public )

how to bridge the gaps between

(a) primary sources

(b) scholars with domain expertise

(c) technical implementations

Challenges of Digital Humanities

http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub151/pub151.pdf

CBDB Overview: Methods and Technologies

CHGIS Overview: From Datasets to APIs

Prospects for Digital Humanities Infrastructure

CBDB :: China Biographical Database

CBDB :: Creators and Contents

Contributing research centers:

Harvard University, Academia Sinica, Peking University

Contains detailed biographical data on historical individuals:

420,000 individuals (mainly 7th through 19th century)

relational database

relationships between individuals are specified as types:

“parent of”, “student of”, “planned to assassinate”, “wrote letter to”

Over 400 distinct types of social relationships modeled

Many other types of data included on Kinship, place of registry, place

of civil service examination, place of official posts

CBDB :: Development Stack Issues

Original Version Future Version

CBDB :: Data Entry Methods - Markup

Lü Zuqian, whose style name was Bogong, was a

grandson of the Right Assistant Director to the Imperial

Secretary Haowen. His family had lived in Wuzhou since

his grandfather's generation. The learning of Zuqian was

based on family [tradition], and embodied the textual

transmission from the Central Plain. When he grew up,

Zuqian studied with Lin Zhiqi, Wang Yingchen, and Hu

Xian respectively. Then he also befriended Zhang Shi and

Zhu Xi, and his explication and inquiry became more

sophisticated.

First he obtained official rank by way of the protection

privilege. But later he obtained his Jinshi degree and also

passed the special decree examination for "Erudite

Learning and Exceptional Literary Composition." Then he

was appointed to the School for the Imperial Clan in the

Southern Outer Office. During the mourning period for his

mother, when he stayed in Mt. Mingzhao (in Wuyi), literati

from all directions raced there. He was appointed Erudite

in the National University.

呂祖謙字伯恭，尚書

右丞好問之孫也．自

其祖始居婺州．祖謙

之學本之家庭，有中

原文獻之傳．長從林

之奇、汪應辰、胡憲

游，既又友張栻、朱

熹，講索益精．

初，蔭補入官，

後舉進士，復中博學

宏詞科，調南外宗

教．丁內艱，居明招

山，四方之士爭趨

之．除太學博士

CBDB :: Data Entry Methods - Automation

BIOG ADDR

地址

Person ID

Addr Type ID

Place ID,

etc

POSTINGS

任官

Person ID

Postings ID

Office ID

Start Date

End Date,

etc

SOCIAL STATUS

社會區分

Person ID

Status ID,

etc

BIOG_MAIN

基本資料

Person ID

Name

姓名Born

Died

Index Year

Choronym ID

Dynasty ID,

Etc

ASSOCIATIONS

社會關係

Person ID

Assoc Relation ID

Associate ID,

etc

ALT NAMES

別名

Person ID

Name Type ID

Alt Name,

etc

KINSHIP

親屬

Person ID

Kin Relation ID

Kin ID,

etc

ENTRY

入仕

Person ID

Entry ID

Year,

etc

WRITINGS

著述

Person ID

Text ID,

etc

POST ADDR

任官地

Postings ID

Place ID,

etc

CBDB :: Foreign Keys are Person IDs

CBDB :: ACCESS ER Diagram

CBDB :: ACCESS ER Diagram Yikes!

CBDB :: ACCESS Database User Interface

https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/cbdb

CBDB :: ACCESS person query Place

CBDB :: ACCESS person query Date

CBDB :: ACCESS entry into service query

CBDB :: ACCESS export to GIS

CBDB :: ACCESS kinship query

CBDB :: Graphing Content by Type

Circa 2013

CBDB :: Graphing Age at Death - Male

Age at Death-CBDB data Tang through Qing - 22270 persons

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36 41 46 51 56 61 66 71 76 81 86 91 96 101 106

Age

Re

co

rds

CBDB :: Graphing Age at Death - Female

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67 69 71 73 75 77 79 81 83 85 87 89 91 93 95

Age at Death of the 3072 Women in CBDB with Death Ages

number

CBDB Overview: Methods and Technologies

CHGIS Overview: From Datasets to APIs

Prospects for Digital Humanities Infrastructure

Source texts for Chinese Local Gazetteers

Compiled into “Dynastic Gazetteers”

“Historical Atlas of China” (８ volumes)

⚫ find admin units in existence at a particular time

⚫ search by placename

⚫ filter by admin status (feature type)

⚫ determine the administrative hierarchy for a particular place instance

⚫ show how a particular admin unit changes over time

Requirements for the CHGIS Data Model (2001)

Maximize Point Locations

Record each change of Placename, Unit Type, or Location

Digitize changing boundaries based on printed maps annotated by scholars

For each set of changes, detailed source citations are stored

Relational Database for administrative hierarchy, sequence in time, sources

How CHGIS was compiled

CHGIS database of all historical instances

CHGIS relational database (circa 2003)

~40,000 towns & villages

CHGIS Version 5 (2012)

~10,000 county seats

~3,500 prefecture capitals

~3,000 prefecture polygons

Time Series data - CHGIS Version 5 (2012)

v5

Time Series data - CHGIS Version 6 draft (2016)

v6

CHGIS Datasets – Publication and Archiving

⚫ General Project Info

⚫ Papers and Presentations

⚫ Sample Maps

⚫ Gazetteer Research

CHGIS website(s) DataVerse archive

⚫ Shapefiles

⚫ ACCESS database

⚫ DEM and Supplements

⚫ Scanned Historical Maps

⚫ Reports and Documentation

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~chgis/

https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/chgishttp://yugong.fudan.edu.cn/

Learning Curve – Managing Expectations

Steep learning curve

False assumptions based on other common geo-spatial technologies

Providing GIS Layers for Browsing: Worldmap

ChinaX (Teaching resources for HarvardX)

China’s History in Maps (General historical data)

Chinamap (modern China Data)

G. W. Skinner Archive (Regional Systems Analysis)

CHGIS case study Buddhist sites: 大清一統志

大清一統志 (Da Qing yitongzhi)

[Qing Dynasty National Gazetteer]

Jiaqing 嘉慶 (560 juan) Beijing, 1842

臺灣商務印書館 11 v. (7036 p.), Taipei, 1934

Digitization of Buddhist Sites Index

中国の寺院 Chugoku no ji’in.

[Temples of China]

矢島玄亮 Yajima, Genryo, editor.

Tōhoku Daigaku Fuzoku Toshokan , Sendai, 1966. [1941] 264 p.

Geocoding Temple locations with CHGIS data

Geocoding Temple locations with CHGIS data

Mapped locations of all 2,400 temple sites

COUNT density of temples at geocode locations

Comparison of Yizhongzhi and Qinghai Temples

甘青藏传佛教寺院 (Gan Qing Zang Chuanfojiao Siyuan) [Buddhist Traditional Monasteries in Gansu, Qinghai, and Tibet] Xining, 1990.

Greater Tibetan region monastery sites

Heat map of Tibetan sites and Yitongzhi sites

Heat map of Qing exams & Ming courier routes

Ming Courier Routes Network Model

http://maps.cga.harvard.edu/chinapostoffice/

Animation of events -- Ming Examinees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLLchSgVcXo

CBDB Overview: Methods and Technologies

CHGIS Overview: From Datasets to APIs

Prospects for Digital Humanities Infrastructure

CHGIS Gazetteer XML Webservice (2006)

CHGIS XML to Temporal Gazetteer (2013)

CHGIS Gazetteer Web Service Temporal Gazetteer Web Service

Existing System Proposed System

Temporal Gazetteer System Architecture (2014)

TGAZ API launched (2014)

TGAZ test: Russian Gazetteer (2014)

TGAZ RDF interchange format (2015)

TGAZ RDF ingested into Pelagios (2015)

<http://chgis.hmdc.harvard.edu/placename/hvd_1> a lawd:Place ;rdfs:label "Ba Zhou"@en ;lawd:hasName [ lawd:primaryForm "霸州"@zh-Hant ] ;lawd:hasName [ lawd:primaryForm "霸州"@zh ] ;lawd:hasName [ lawd:primaryForm "Ba Zhou"@en ] ;geo:location [ geo:lat 39.10154 ; geo:long 116.39525 ] ;gn:countryCode "cn" ; dcterms:description "河北霸县" ; dcterms:temporal "start=1820; end=1820;" ;dcterms:subject "department 州" ;

. <http://chgis.hmdc.harvard.edu/placename/hvd_2> a lawd:Place ;

rdfs:label "Zhenghuangdengsiqi Muchang"@en ;lawd:hasName [ lawd:primaryForm "正黃等四旗牧廠"@zh-Hant ] ;lawd:hasName [ lawd:primaryForm "正黄等四旗牧厂"@zh ] ;lawd:hasName [ lawd:primaryForm "Zhenghuangdengsiqi

Muchang"@en ] ;geo:location [ geo:lat 41.21478 ; geo:long 113.89422 ] ;gn:countryCode "cn" ; dcterms:description "内蒙古兴和县北大井洼东北" ; dcterms:temporal "start=1820; end=1820;" ;dcterms:subject "pasture land 牧场" ;

.

Dump of database to RDF71,000 records

Ingested gazetteerInto Pelagios system

http://pelagios.org/recogito/

Integration of CHGIS data with MARKUS (2015)

APIs and Federated Search: biogref.org

http://biogref.org/mm.pl?method=search&person_name=王維

Points for consideration

• Customized databases are only useful to specialist users

• Publishing in GIS format or ACCESS limits the potential user base

• Publishing in web-based applications has wider audience

• Even web-based applications are siloes

• Open APIs provide machine-actionable access to content

• APIs and LOD will outlive our web-based applications & portals

Lex Berman Institute Fellow IQSS

CBDB: http://fas.chgis.harvard.edu/cbdb/

CHGIS: http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chgis/

Merrick Lex Berman: mberman@fas.harvard.edu