Hello,
Does anyone know of a publically available database (or some form of digital file, e.g. shapefile) of all Roman forts and camps within the UK?
I need this information for a GIS project - so location info important.
I've spent a couple of days hunting for such a beast and, obviously, failed. There are a number of sources online which hold individual references to forts etc. but the thought of collating all of those into one database is very discouraging - would take months!
At the moment I'm thinking of taking ROMAN TEMPORARY CAMPS IN BRITAIN by ALAN F. LESLIE 1995 and OCR'ing the PDF to extract the listed sites but maybe you know of someone who has already done this?
There is or was a website with good info on the forts and camps, not sure if that is what you are looking for. It is certainly as good as anything i have seen..
Visne partem mei capere? Comminus agamus! * Me semper rogo, Quid faceret Iulius Caesar? * Confidence is a good thing! Overconfidence is too much of a good thing.
[b]Legio XIIII GMV. (Q. Magivs)RMRS Remember Atuatuca! Vengence will be ours!
Titus Flavius Germanus
Batavian Coh I
Byron Angel
I've already parsed that site's html for forts etc and have a database. Problem is that the coords are limited to 1km accuracy and I don't know if the data is definitive, i.e. based on scholarly, peer-reviewed work. It is a cracking site though: the work that has gone into it is immense.
Gosh! if a man with 12414 posts writes this is "as good as anything I have seen" then I suppose I should not expect anyone else to know of other databases.
Ha ha!! That means little....just my own limited trawling of the net used to return that one site for every combination I put in. I notice there are a lot of informative sites discussing the various forts and camps now. I wrote the comment before I searched for the site this time(just lazy posting I'm afraid!)
I'm pretty sure there are others with better sources! :wink:
Visne partem mei capere? Comminus agamus! * Me semper rogo, Quid faceret Iulius Caesar? * Confidence is a good thing! Overconfidence is too much of a good thing.
[b]Legio XIIII GMV. (Q. Magivs)RMRS Remember Atuatuca! Vengence will be ours!
Titus Flavius Germanus
Batavian Coh I
Byron Angel
Quote:Hello,
Does anyone know of a publically available database (or some form of digital file, e.g. shapefile) of all Roman forts and camps within the UK?
I need this information for a GIS project - so location info important.
Pretty certain you should be able to get a shapefile from the NMR (now English Heritage Archive) for England and presumably the NMRS & NMRW will have similar data if you talk to them. The English version is all scheduled monuments but you may be able to get a tailored subset. May cost you, though (doesn't everything?).
Mike Bishop
You know my method. It is founded upon the observance of trifles
I've downloaded the English heritage shapefiles for battles and scheduled monuments. The NMR battles file contains 44 records while the Battlefields Trust equivalent has 202 (some duplicates). The NMR scheduled monuments shapefile is not very useful for my purpose as it does not contain, for example, 'type' or 'name' or 'age' attributes, i.e. you can't meaningfully search or sort the database.
The English Heritage PastScapes site does allow meaningful searches on 'Legionary forts' 'Temporary camps' etc. and lists them all BUT you can't download the data as a collection of simple attributes, e.g. location, type, age etc..
'Roman Camps in Wales and the Marches' by Jeffry L. Davies and Rebecca H. Jones University of Wales Press 2006. seems to have the sort of information you are after but just covering that region.
One would therefore have assumed that Jones' other book 'Roman Camps in Britain' would have had everthing you needed but it appears to be aimed more at the general reader.
However there is also a 'Roman Camps in Scotland', by Jones, perhaps that is more like the Camps in Wales volume and perhaps another volume dealing with 'Roman Camps in England' is planned.
Graham
"Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream" Edgar Allan Poe.
"Every brush-stroke is torn from my body" The Rebel, Tony Hancock.
"..I sweated in that damn dirty armor....TWENTY YEARS!', Charlton Heston, The Warlord.
I've downloaded the English heritage shapefiles for battles and scheduled monuments. The NMR battles file contains 44 records while the Battlefields Trust equivalent has 202 (some duplicates). The NMR scheduled monuments shapefile is not very useful for my purpose as it does not contain, for example, 'type' or 'name' or 'age' attributes, i.e. you can't meaningfully search or sort the database.
The English Heritage PastScapes site does allow meaningful searches on 'Legionary forts' 'Temporary camps' etc. and lists them all BUT you can't download the data as a collection of simple attributes, e.g. location, type, age etc..
Speak to the NMR directly - they may be able to filter the data for you based on keywords (there is a fixed EH set of keywords that includes temporary camps). If they can't do this there isn't much point in having a database, really ;-) The assumption is that all temporary camps are scheduled (so far as I am aware they are) but some of the newer discoveries may take time to get scheduled.
Mike Bishop
You know my method. It is founded upon the observance of trifles
Quote:'Roman Camps in Wales and the Marches' by Jeffry L. Davies and Rebecca H. Jones University of Wales Press 2006. seems to have the sort of information you are after but just covering that region.
One would therefore have assumed that Jones' other book 'Roman Camps in Britain' would have had everthing you needed but it appears to be aimed more at the general reader.
However there is also a 'Roman Camps in Scotland', by Jones, perhaps that is more like the Camps in Wales volume and perhaps another volume dealing with 'Roman Camps in England' is planned.
Dead-tree flat-file technology. As someone who put all the Northumberland temporary camps onto Google Earth using the Welfare & Swan book as a source, you can take it from me that it is very time-consuming to geolocate this stuff. If the files already exist, it's always best to use 'em!
Mike Bishop
You know my method. It is founded upon the observance of trifles
Graham Sumner post=317182 Wrote:'Roman Camps in Wales and the Marches' by Jeffry L. Davies and Rebecca H. Jones University of Wales Press 2006. seems to have the sort of information you are after but just covering that region.
One would therefore have assumed that Jones' other book 'Roman Camps in Britain' would have had everthing you needed but it appears to be aimed more at the general reader.
However there is also a 'Roman Camps in Scotland', by Jones, perhaps that is more like the Camps in Wales volume and perhaps another volume dealing with 'Roman Camps in England' is planned.
Dead-tree flat-file technology. As someone who put all the Northumberland temporary camps onto Google Earth using the Welfare & Swan book as a source, you can take it from me that it is very time-consuming to geolocate this stuff. If the files already exist, it's always best to use 'em!
Mike Bishop
Graham, thanks for the references to the books but Mike is right - hand-cranking data from discarded trees is a terrible job. Now, if only all authors would publish online, digital versions of their tables, lists etc as well as the book .... some now do but not enough.
Mike, I have written to the Pastscape people asking if there is a way to get a full-download. Thanks for the suggestion. Fingers crossed.
I decided that Alan F. Leslie's Ph.D. 1995 thesis, Roman temporary camps in Britain, contained much of the data I need. Damn fine piece of scholarly work and available as imagery within a PDF here.
I've scanned and converted the lists of camps into machine readable code and have created shapefiles and KMZ files (for Google Earth) - all available in the following ZIP file.
Leslie split his list of camps into definite, probable, possible, doubtful and disproved - categories I've maintained. Some camps do not have location information and are not included in the Zip files. I've also left out much of the references and notes (too much pain to parse all that).
The shapefiles are referenced to British Grid OSGB36 but the original NGR coordinates are still present. Of course, the KMZ files are referenced to WGS84.
Below is a simple TEXT file of all the original text of the list of temporary camps - it contains all the original notes and references.
Quote:I'm pretty sure that he didn't. But I'll ask him.
As I thought, he didn't, as other researchers had taken on the task of cataloguing the camps in England, Wales, and (most recently) Scotland. Still, he's pleased to hear that someone has found it useful.
"Still, he's pleased to hear that someone has found it useful."
Ah, the old joke about the Ph.D. thesis!
Supervisor to Ph.D. student, "If you are lucky three people will read your thesis. Me, the external examiner and .... you! And the Prof will pretend he's read it."
