An Interactive Map of Ancient and Medieval Scholars

This project aims to produce a map-timeline tool for visualizing significant figures in the history of science. With this interactive tool, users can explore the temporal and geographical distributions of the most important ancient and medieval scholars. In designing this tool, we have made an effort to represent these two dimensions in an integrated fashion. To facilitate the pedagogical goals of this project, we have provided direct links to open-access online resources that offer information about each historical figure.

A group of researchers selected some of the major ancient and medieval scholars, with special attention to scholars who made noteworthy contributions in the mathematical sciences. To the extent possible, given the innate limitations of the historical sources, we aimed to highlight female scholars, as well as scholars from geographic peripheries that are often overshadowed by scholars active in major intellectual centers.

A marker is dedicated to each scholar on the map. For this, a date and a locality is associated to each scholar. The date is taken as the scholar’s flourish date. The locality is the place most frequently associate with the scholar in historical sources. To avoid any historiographical misinterpretation, these data are not represented explicitly on the map and no modern place name is mentioned in the map. These data, which are mainly taken from secondary historical sources, are only intended for the purpose of visualization. For precise historical information and further detail, users are encouraged to refer to the cited sources. Users are able to see the available online resources about each scholar by clicking on the relevant marker on the map.

Directly beneath the map, users can find a number of tools. The time period represented on the map can be adjusted by changing the start and end limits. The scholars shown on the map can be filtered according to male or female, or the categories of scientific activity for which they are most known (Mathematician, Astronomer, Chemist, Physician, Geographer, Philosopher, Musician, Ruler, Patron of Science Education, and Poet). Users can also search for scholars by name. The map also offers an animation feature that advances the displayed time span at increments of 50 years, showing how the localities of scholarly activity change over time.