Deciphering Egyptian Hieroglyphs: Towards a New Strategy for Navigation in Museums

This work presents a novel strategy to decipher fragments of Egyptian cartouches identifying the hieroglyphs of which they are composed. A cartouche is a drawing, usually inside an oval, that encloses a group of hieroglyphs representing the name of a monarch. Aiming to identify these drawings, the proposed method is based on several techniques frequently used in computer vision and consists of three main stages: first, a picture of the cartouche is taken as input and its contour is localized. In the second stage, each hieroglyph is individually extracted and identified. Finally, the cartouche is interpreted: the sequence of the hieroglyphs is established according to a previously generated benchmark. This sequence corresponds to the name of the king. Although this method was initially conceived to deal with both high and low relief writing in stone, it can be also applied to painted hieroglyphs. This approach is not affected by variable lighting conditions, or the intensity and the completeness of the objects. This proposal has been tested on images obtained from the Abydos King List and other Egyptian monuments and archaeological excavations. The promising results give new possibilities to recognize hieroglyphs, opening a new way to decipher longer texts and inscriptions, being particularly useful in museums and Egyptian environments. Additionally, devices used for acquiring visual information from cartouches (i.e., smartphones), can be part of a navigation system for museums where users are located in indoor environments by means of the combination of WiFi Positioning Systems (WPS) and depth cameras, as unveiled at the end of the document

Visual Analysis of Maya Glyphs via Crowdsourcing and Deep Learning

In this dissertation, we study visual analysis methods for complex ancient Maya writings. The unit sign of a Maya text is called glyph, and may have either semantic or syllabic significance. There are over 800 identified glyph categories, and over 1400 variations across these categories. To enable fast manipulation of data by scholars in Humanities, it is desirable to have automatic visual analysis tools such as glyph categorization, localization, and visualization. Analysis and recognition of glyphs are challenging problems. The same patterns may be observed in different signs but with different compositions. The inter-class variance can thus be significantly low. On the opposite, the intra-class variance can be high, as the visual variants within the same semantic category may differ to a large extent except for some patterns specific to the category. Another related challenge of Maya writings is the lack of a large dataset to study the glyph patterns. Consequently, we study local shape representations, both knowledge-driven and data-driven, over a set of frequent syllabic glyphs as well as other binary shapes, i.e. sketches. This comparative study indicates that a large data corpus and a deep network architecture are needed to learn data-driven representations that can capture the complex compositions of local patterns. To build a large glyph dataset in a short period of time, we study a crowdsourcing approach as an alternative to time-consuming data preparation of experts. Specifically, we work on individual glyph segmentation out of glyph-blocks from the three remaining codices (i.e. folded bark pages painted with a brush). With gradual steps in our crowdsourcing approach, we observe that providing supervision and careful task design are key aspects for non-experts to generate high-quality annotations. This way, we obtain a large dataset (over 9000) of individual Maya glyphs. We analyze this crowdsourced glyph dataset with both knowledge-driven and data-driven visual representations. First, we evaluate two competitive knowledge-driven representations, namely Histogram of Oriented Shape Context and Histogram of Oriented Gradients. Secondly, thanks to the large size of the crowdsourced dataset, we study visual representation learning with deep Convolutional Neural Networks. We adopt three data-driven approaches: assess- ing representations from pretrained networks, fine-tuning the last convolutional block of a pretrained network, and training a network from scratch. Finally, we investigate different glyph visualization tasks based on the studied representations. First, we explore the visual structure of several glyph corpora by applying a non-linear dimensionality reduction method, namely t-distributed Stochastic Neighborhood Embedding, Secondly, we propose a way to inspect the discriminative parts of individual glyphs according to the trained deep networks. For this purpose, we use the Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping method and highlight the network activations as a heatmap visualization over an input image. We assess whether the highlighted parts correspond to distinguishing parts of glyphs in a perceptual crowdsourcing study. Overall, this thesis presents a promising crowdsourcing approach, competitive data-driven visual representations, and interpretable visualization methods that can be applied to explore various other Digital Humanities datasets

Narrative-Based Visual Theology for Oral Learning Pastor Training

In the realms of popular education, literates hold the day, yet they are not the majority. Even in our highly-advanced world, non-literates or oral communicators, still comprise the largest class of potential learners awaiting an education. The problems they face are complicated and challenging. Physical and financial access to education stop most oral communicators before they even start. If they had access to a local educational institution, more massive hurdles await, including literacy itself followed closely by lack of attention to the learning styles of oral learners. Yet there is hope. When educators determine to address the unique needs and challenges faced by the non-literate world majority, new schemas arise. This paper examines some of those efforts while focusing on one segment of oral societies, those individuals in spiritual leadership, pastors. Oral learning pastors bear the significant burden of providing spiritual guidance in a field where this knowledge is usually gained through literate means. I will offer a clear explanation of the problems faced by these leaders, what means and methods have been attempted to reach them in the past as well as more recent efforts to address more appropriate andragogic methods. This paper will explore learning style preferences for oral communicators while giving attention to field tested methods examined in the last thirty years. A review of ancient oral communications brought into modern practice will demonstrate effective models of verbal and visual teaching and learning. An emphasis on theological accuracy and reproducibility will present compelling evidence that oral learners represent the largest untapped resource of the global church

THE LANDSCAPES OF RICHARD LONG: PERSPECTIVES ON PREHISTORY, SPACE AND SCULPTURAL FORM

This thesis examines the relationship between the work of Richard Long and prehistory. This is understood to operate at two levels. Firstly, Long's critical reception has repeatedly made connections between his work and prehistory, many of which are overly simplistic. Secondly, and underlying this response, it is proposed that we can point to a more productive understanding of Long's practice which frames his work within the concept of existential space. At this level of enquiry, more appropriate connections with prehistory can be made which help to explain both his working practice and the critical reactions to it. Chapter I, 'Introduction to Methodology', describes aims and objectives and locates the analyses in relation to the theoretical positions which are to be taken. Chapter II, 'Walking the Line: From Abstraction to Reality', establishes the trajectory of the research through an analysis of two contextual frameworks (20th century British art and prehistory and Land Art and prehistory) and identifies Long's practice with regards to specific transitions in sculptural activity. Chapter III, 'Mapping the Field of Possibilities: An Analytical Reading of the Critical Discourse', examines interpretative tendencies within Long's critical reception. It defines the extent and nature of his work's perceived correspondence with the ancient past and exposes certain phenomenological perspectives as a means for formulating further analyses. Chapter IV, 'Where the Walk Meets the Place: Archaeology and Technologies of the Self', reveals the role Long's art plays within archaeological discourse as a means for understanding megalithic monuments and correlates his practice with some philosophical approaches employed in archaeology. Chapter V, 'The Architecture of Sculpture: Existential Space and Being-in-the-World', furthers the concerns of earlier chapters by analysing Long's art through the concept of existential space to describe its spatial operation in the environment. This translates Long's landscape sculptures from abstract art into perceptual schemata, implicating them in the assimilation of environments. This has particular consequences for his art: by demonstrating its sculptural significance to the structuration of space, it offers the work as an equivalent to prehistoric structures. Chapter VI, 'Conclusion'

Public Memory: How Vietnam Veterans are using Technology to Make Private Memory Public

The narrative relationship of a group of Americans who served in the Vietnam War is the focus of this dissertation. This group is unique to veteran groups that have returned from serving their country in a time of war or conflict. My research is based on the rhetorical writings of recognized scholars, a knowledge base grounded in the historical tradition of rhetoric. Research is also included from interviews and correspondence with many Vietnam veterans, the writings of novelists and archive material provided by the Department of Defense, the United States Navy, and American Forces Radio and Television. This dissertation addresses questions of memory concerning emerging communities of memory among Vietnam-era veterans and will approach an emerging narrative from a rhetorical foundation in the philosophy and theory of memory. In part, the study will address the relationship between public memory and the challenges of ever-changing technology, a technology that makes possible public memory on several perspectives. There are driving forces that are motivating narrative stories of Vietnam veterans from across the country to participate in public memory. This conversation and discussion between veterans propels the textual writings and oral narratives that are created when memory of the veterans is driven by the conversation of a historical moment. These historic moments or reunions are now becoming more frequent and are being attended by larger numbers of Vietnam veterans every year. Interpretive research into these memory forms will produce a knowledge base sufficient to contribute to the scholarly work on memory, public memory and the community of memory. Additionally, the work may enrich the ongoing discussions among Vietnam veterans, their friends, and loved ones as well

Places of power and memory in Mesoamerica‘s past and present: how sites, toponymus and landscapes shape history and remembrance

This book provides a fresh look at the principles of power and the memory of places in Mesoamerica. Toponyms, boundaries and landscapes play an important role in shaping local politics and peoples life’s throughout past and present. Beyond structural and conceptual similarities in calendar, rituals and religion, Mesoamerica shares a devote preference for places, sites or urban centers as distinguishable feature for collectiveness, constantly reshaped and transformed according to the historical circumstances either political, economical or religious. Thus, more than a coincidence, the importance of places over recognizable or by natives documented cultural regions in Mesoamerica seems to be a cultural pattern with deep roots lasting until today

Communicating the Unspeakable: Linguistic Phenomena in the Psychedelic Sphere

Psychedelics can enable a broad and paradoxical spectrum of linguistic phenomena from the unspeakability of mystical experience to the eloquence of the songs of the shaman or curandera. Interior dialogues with the Other, whether framed as the voice of the Logos, an alien download, or communion with ancestors and spirits, are relatively common. Sentient visual languages are encountered, their forms unrelated to the representation of speech in natural language writing systems. This thesis constructs a theoretical model of linguistic phenomena encountered in the psychedelic sphere for the field of altered states of consciousness research (ASCR). The model is developed from a neurophenomenological perspective, especially the work of Francisco Varela, and Michael Winkelman’s work in shamanistic ASC, which in turn builds on the biogenetic structuralism of Charles Laughlin, John McManus, and Eugene d’Aquili. Neurophenomenology relates the physical and functional organization of the brain to the subjective reports of lived experience in altered states as mutually informative, without reducing consciousness to one or the other. Consciousness is seen as a dynamic multistate process of the recursive interaction of biology and culture, thereby navigating the traditional dichotomies of objective/subjective, body/mind, and inner/outer realities that problematically characterize much of the discourse in consciousness studies. The theoretical work of Renaissance scholar Stephen Farmer on the evolution of syncretic and correlative systems and their relation to neurobiological structures provides a further framework for the exegesis of the descriptions of linguistic phenomena in first-person texts of long-term psychedelic selfexploration. Since the classification of most psychedelics as Schedule I drugs, legal research came to a halt; self-experimentation as research did not. Scientists such as Timothy Leary and John Lilly became outlaw scientists, a social aspect of the “unspeakability” of these experiences. Academic ASCR has largely side-stepped examination of the extensive literature of psychedelic selfexploration. This thesis examines aspects of both form and content from these works, focusing on those that treat linguistic phenomena, and asking what these linguistic experiences can tell us about how the psychedelic landscape is constructed, how it can be navigated, interpreted, and communicated within its own experiential field, and communicated about to make the data accessible to inter-subjective comparison and validation. The methodological core of this practice-based research is a technoetic practice as defined by artist and theoretician Roy Ascott: the exploration of consciousness through interactive, artistic, and psychoactive technologies. The iterative process of psychedelic self-exploration and creation of interactive software defines my own technoetic practice and is the means by which I examine my states of consciousness employing the multidimensional visual language Glide

The Cultural Landscape & Heritage Paradox; Protection and Development of the Dutch Archeological-Historical Landscape and its European Dimension

To what extent can we know past and mainly invisible landscapes, and how we can use this still hidden knowledge for actual sustainable management of landscape’s cultural and historical values. It has also been acknowledged that heritage management is increasingly about ‘the management of future change rather than simply protection’. This presents us with a paradox: to preserve our historic environment, we have to collaborate with those who wish to transform it and, in order to apply our expert knowledge, we have to make it suitable for policy and society. The answer presented by the Protection and Development of the Dutch Archaeological-Historical Landscape programme (pdl/bbo) is an integrative landscape approach which applies inter- and transdisciplinarity, establishing links between archaeological-historical heritage and planning, and between research and policy. This is supported by two unifying concepts: ‘biography of landscape’ and ‘action research’. This approach focuses upon the interaction between knowledge, policy and an imagination centered on the public. The European perspective makes us aware of the resourcefulness of the diversity of landscapes, of social and institutional structures, of various sorts of problems, approaches and ways forward. In addition, two related issues stand out: the management of knowledge creation for landscape research and management, and the prospects for the near future. Underlying them is the imperative that we learn from the past ‘through landscape’