Sasanian TMView User Guide

By Jeanette Zerneke
February 2002
PDF Version

Overview

A Sasanian Seal Collection in Context: Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative Publication of the Edward Gans Collection at University of California, Berkeley is a good example of the ECAI methodology and the TimeMap interface capabilities. The publication demonstrates how through collaboration with scholars digital resources from a variety of sources can be organized in the time and space interface to enhance teaching and research potential. The publication includes:

• Several types of geographic information
• Time display capabilities
• Multiple methods of linking to related information and documentation

The geographic information includes GIS data (polygons, lines, and points) and bitmap images of scanned maps. The publication includes time specification for the whole project and for individual elements. Associated information includes data tables describing attributes for polygons, lines and points. Links to related web resources include a link from a polygon used as a footprint for to a complex website and links from individual points to specific web resources.

To download, install and run the TimeMap software and the Sasanian publication in TimeMap, please see TimeMap information for the ECAI publication series.

Opening Screen

When you open the publication several geographic layers are visible and more are listed in the legend on the left. Initially visible are:

• Background layers displaying the current country boundaries and the location of rivers for orientation
• Topographic map showing details of the area within the empire
• Blue border indicating the approximate extent of the empire
• Red points indicating the location of archeological sites with links to descriptions and images

 

Associated Resources

The first layer listed, the Sasanian Seal Collection, is linked to the publication website and seal search. The points in the Sasanian Empire Sites layer are each linked to web pages with descriptions and images. To access the related web resources, use the 'i' button in the black circle. The Mints, Temples, Offices, Gazetteer, Rivers of the World and Countries-Southwestasia layers have associated data in an attribute table (use the red arrow tool). The remaining layers do not have linked resources. All layers have associated documentation pages (green page button).

Gans Seal Collection

The seals in the Gans Seal Collection have no individual provenance. Since they are known to be from the Sasanian Empire, the approximate extent and time period of the empire are used to provide a footprint on the earth for the Seal Collection.

Click on the 'i' within a circle on the toolbar below the title. This allows you to navigate from objects on the map to related web resources. With this tool highlighted, clicking within the blue boundary will open a browser window for the Sasanian Empire Website. The Website allows web browser navigation of most of the resources in the publication. It includes information about the Gans Seal Collection, the focal point of the publication, and provides a tool for searching the seal collection. User documentation for the seal search function is included on the table of contents of the search page .

 

Sasanian Sites

Clicking on the individual red dots navigates to web pages describing the specific sites. Using your mouse to choose a box containing several red dots will give you a menu of the sites including a thumbnail and the site name from which you can navigate to the individual sites.

Sasanian Gazetteer Layers

When you zoom into the Mapspace the layers in the legend that are initially inactive and displayed with a ‘magnifying glass and plus sign’ to the left will become active.

Click on the magnifying glass with a ‘+’ to the right of the ‘i’ tool on the toolbar. Then click in the middle of the map until a layer of colored dots appears. You will see on the left in the legend that the layers for mints, state temples, offices, and the gazetteer are now active.

The Sasanian Gazetteer was developed from a map of the Sasanian Empire in the Tübinger Atlas. The mints, temples and office layers are all subsets of the Gazetteer data. For documentation of the gazetteer, including certainty information and classifications, click on the green documentation button on the toolbar above.

If you click on the ‘red arrow’ pointer tool on the left of the toolbar, then outline a collection of the colored dots with your mouse, this will display the attribute information for each of the dots chosen.

The attribute table box will have several tabs on the top describing the attributes for each of the layers within the set of dots you selected. For instance, if you choose the state office tab, you will see indicated the latitude and longitude, office codes, and the name of the location within the Sasanian Empire for the dots chosen.

Notice: You may highlight one of the rows in the table; then, choosing the light bulb tool it will show you on the map the location of the specific site.

Returning to the opening screen

Whenever you like you can zoom back to the original starting screen by clicking on the ‘globe with magnifying glass’ tool.

Sasanian Empire Extents and using the Time Bar

You'll notice on the legend that there are two items displaying the Sasanian Empire Extent at different time periods. Clicking on the items you will see two polygons displayed. If you use the time bar at the base of the map you can shrink the time zone displayed on the map. Click on the right side of the bar and drag it to the left. This selects a subset of the time period of the whole publication. The layer describing the empire in approximately 570ce will disappear. On the legend a small clock will appear to the left of the legend item for the Empire Extent ca.570ce. This indicates that the layer is now outside of the time being displayed on the map. If you click on the time bar and drag the entire bar to the right you'll see that the 570ce time layer will reappear and the ca. 220ce Empire Extent will become inactive with small clock to the left of the layer in the legend.

Sasanian Empire Extent in 270ce

 

Sasanian Empire Extent in 570ce

*Notice: When you change the time period this changes the display of the red dots for the Sasanian Sites, but does not de-activate the whole Sasanian Site layer. The individual sites each have a specific time, but the collection of sites includes the whole empire period.

Sasanian Empire Map

Click on the Sasanian Empire Map layer to activate display of the Sasanian Empire Map. This map is a jpeg image downloaded from a large MrSid file image stored on the ECAI server. The image is a scan of the map from the Tübinger Atlas used to create the Sasanian Gazetteer. Using the magnifying glass tool on the tool bar you can zoom into the map area and see the original map displayed behind the dots and read the map labels for the locations.

Background Layers

The background layers included in the Mapspace do not have linked web resources. The country and river layers have attribute tables showing object names. The topographic map has no attributes or linked resources. Place names on the topographic map are visible when the map is zoomed in and can be used for orientation relative to the other map resources. Documentation of the layers’ sources can be viewed using the green documentation button on the tool bar.

Further information about the content and design of the online publication is documented in the Sasanian Empire Project -- Technical Summary.