Interactive HGIS platform union of lublin (1569): A geomatic solution for discovering the Jagiellonian heritage of the city

Abstract

• Lublin Historical GIS is the first www platform in Poland developed with object-oriented approach dedicated to present historical narrations. • The portal is based on four-pillar types of data: events, places, people and sources linked in multirelational matrix. • The developed CMS is integrating various multimedia so that the portal editors (journalists, historians - generally humanists) dont have to have technological skills to develop attractive, deep spatial narratives. • The case presented is so far the deepest and the most accurate historical reconstruction of Lublin in the 16th century. • The users visiting teatrnn.pl/unia-lubelska can explore the vast digital world of 16th-century Lublin at their own pace and with the individual intrests. Lublin in the period of the Lublin Union (1569) is an interdisciplinary research project conducted by the “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre” Centre in Lublin as a part of the celebration of the 450th anniversary of signing the Union of Lublin Act - one of the most important historical events in 16th-century Europe, during which the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was constituted. This paper aims to present the research process by which an innovative Historical GIS web platform, based on an object-orientated database design, was tested and refined. The portal uses four pillars of spatial-temporal databases (events, people, places, sources) to collect data and develop historical narratives presenting various events in the history of the city and the region. The idea behind the project was to develop an Internet portal that would acknowledge modern users with the historical event of the Union of Lublin from the perspective of the then resident of Lublin. What is known about the 16th-century Lublin? What did the city and its surroundings look like? Who lived in Lublin? Who used to visit it? What architectural elements and traces of cultural heritage have been saved to this day? The reconstruction of the 16th-century urban space was carried out using the retrogression method of 11 early plans and maps of Lublin, verified and supplemented with the latest archaeological findings, accurate architectural research (geo-radar, laser scanning) and an extensive archival query. Thanks to the Historical GIS technology, the research results have been published in the form of a universal platform ( www.teatrnn.pl/unia-lubelska ), with an interactive web-map of 16th-century Lublin (Google Maps API implementation) and modelling urban facilities with 3D technology (SketchUp & Unity). The designed technological solution is scalable, making it possible to search and combine individual records (e.g. person-event-address) as well as entire groups of records on higher hierarchical levels (social groups - sequences of events - multifaceted maps). The portal editing panel is dedicated to humanists (historians, journalists, sociologists, etc.) without specialist knowledge of GIS. The functions integrated with the CMS facilitate mapping the content collected in the database and embedding the narration in an adequate context of the historical space. As a result, editors preparing a thematic article have a searchable set of documents, facts, people and places at their disposal, and their task is to fill the narrative with descriptive content. This is a universal model for building deep maps and spatial narratives.