This unique book critically evaluates the virtual representation of the past through digital media. A distinguished team of leading experts in the field approach digital research in history and archaeology from contrasting viewpoints, including philosophical, methodological and technical. They illustrate the challenges involved in representing the past digitally by focusing on specific cases of a particular historical period, place or technical problem.

Contents: Introduction, Mark Greengrass; Part I The Virtual Representation of Text: The imaging of historical documents, Andrew Prescott; Virtual restoration and manuscript archaeology, Meg Twycross; Representations of sources and data: working with exceptions to hierarchy in historical documents, Donald Spaeth. Part II Virtual Histories and Pre-Histories: Finding Meanings: Finding needles in haystacks: data-mining in distributed historical datasets, Fabio Ciravegna, Mark Greengrass, Tim Hitchcock, Sam Chapman, Jamie McLaughlin and Ravish Bhagdev; Digital searching and the re-formulation of historical knowledge, Tim Hitchcock; Using computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software in collaborative historical research, Caroline Bowden; Stepping back from the trench edge: an archaeological perspective on the development of standards for recording and publication, Julian D. Richards and Catherine Hardman. Part III The Virtual Representation of Place and Time: Which? What? When? On the virtual representation of time, Manfred Thaller; In the kingdom of the blind: visualization and e-science in archaeology, the arts and humanities, Vincent Gaffney; Using geographical information systems to explore space and time in the humanities, Ian Gregory; Spatial technologies in archaeology in the 21st century, Paul Cripps. Part IV The Virtual Representation of Historical Objects and Events: Digital atrefacts: possibilities and purpose, David Arnold; 'Oh, to make boards to speak! There's a task!' Towards a poetics of paradata, Richard Beacham; Electronic corpora of artefacts: the example of the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, Anna Bentkowska-Kafel; Conclusion: virtual representation of the past: new research methods, tools and communities of practice, Lorna Hughes; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.

About the Editor: Mark Greengrass is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Sheffield, UK and Lorna Hughes is Manager of the AHRC ICT Methods Network, Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College, London, UK.

Reviews: 'In an age when the objects of scholarly analysis in the arts and humanities are rapidly moving from the physical world to the virtual realm, researchers from all disciplines need a better understanding of the possibilities and potential of computational theory and methods. The fascinating essays in 'The Virtual Representation of the Past' explore the cutting edge of new techniques enabled by the digital age – from data- and text-mining to search to spatial technology – while remaining firmly rooted in the humanistic tradition. The book is approachable and thought-provoking.'
Daniel Cohen, George Mason University, USA

'This excellent volume, by established and younger scholars, offers a definitive overview of the current landscape from a multidisciplinary perspective. The transformative opportunities that technology has to offer humanities researchers are highlighted, together with the scale of the challenges in an age of where so little thought is given to interoperability and long-term issues such as sustainability.'
Jane Ohlmeyer, Trinity College, Ireland

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Full contents list

Introduction

Index