Tawantinsuyo was the Quechua name for the Inca Empire, the pre-Columbian empire that ruled present Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and parts of Colombia, Argentina and Chile, before the Spanish arrived to America.

A free interactive historical map it’s something hard to find in Peru, so a young engineer made the first map of this kind for the Inca Empire. I interviewed him to find out his motivations and goals with this project. Apart from that I talked with an archaeologist friend to know about his views on the potential of this kind of maps for historians and other academics.

I would post the whole article here but it is a bit too long, so I am copying the first three parragraphs and then putting the link to the Medium post, you can read it complete there. Thanks!

Mapping the Tawantinsuyo in OpenHistoricalMap

A few days ago I found about the existence of a platform called OpenHistoricalMap and that someone there had made a Tawantinsuyo map. Given my interest in historical issues, especially if they are related to the Inca Empire, I decided to contact whoever had this interesting idea.

That was how I virtually met Rubén López, a young systems engineer, graduated from the University of Huamanga, who works -like other local people- in Development Seed, a global company that provides geospatial solutions and has an office in Ayacucho, Peru, and where this Peruvian team develops map applications.

One of the projects they support is precisely OpenHistoricalMap, and Rubén sees the part of server architecture through docker and kubernetes technologies in AWS. The project is similar to OpenStreetMap, with the difference that OpenHistoricalMap stores historical data. This data is accessible with a free license for its use, that is, any person or organization can use this data for jobs, websites or others.

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Kiwirail Networks opened the deviation of the Main North Line between 262 and 263 km (Tunnel 21) and announced it on the 2021-05-25 on their website. A way has been added to OHM showing the closed section of track.

I’m new to OHM but have extensive experience drawing my own maps in a GIS so this is the first edit I have made to OHM.

so something has gone away in the real world, and rather than just deleting it from OpenStreetMap, you’d like to move it to OpenHistoricalMap.

That’s a great idea, but don’t rush.

OHM and OSM have different licensing philosophies. The entirety of the OSM database is licensed under the ODbL and content in the database is licensed under the Database Contents License.

OHM has a mixed licensing philosophy. The license tag should be set on entities in the DB (high level relations or ways, no need to tag everything). Using CC0 (about the same as Public Domain) is preferred. Somethings may be licensed CC-BY-SA.

Because of this, there are steps you need to take.

First you need to examine the history of the object and find out who edited it (could be more than one person). Sometimes you’re fortunate and there is only one editor, which makes it easier. You will need to reach out to them, probably using the OSM messaging system, to find out if they object to their work being moved. Be respectful and nice, and explain clearly what you are doing. Emphasize that yorr goal is to preserve their work. Explain that it will need to be relicensed, preferably under CC0 (failing that, CC-BY-SA). You will find that many (most?) mappers are happy with this and will grant permission.

You will then need to hone your map editor skills, exporting the .osm file from OSM and importing it to OHM. Do not forget to add the extra OHM tags - license, source, start & end dates. Make sure you give credit.

Some things may be approached differently. For example, you may find that something predates the license change. In this case, it may well be available from the planet at fosm.org. If, for example, it is unmodified TIGER then it was originally public domain and is up for grabs. But if it’s unmodified TIGER, there is a fair chance an improved copy exists on the Census Bureau website so consider sourcing it there.

First in a series about ways to find imagery.

[https://www.oldmapsonline.org/]

Old Maps Online is not so much a source, as a map enabled directory for maps. You go there, find the place you want using the map, and look at the panel on the right side of the browser for old maps.

None of these maps are hosted on Old Maps Online. They are in various repositories world wide. This makes it important to check copyright and licenses for the sites before using the imagery.

Some may have URLs that are usable in JOSM or iD already. Others simply have a way to retreive the map. In the later case you can use [https://mapwarper.net] - see my diary entry with links to a number of youtube videos on Map Warper.

i put together a couple of things on youtube showing various scenarios for using mapwarper. for folks new to OHM who want to know how to bring in source material that isn’t already geo referenced, this should help a bit.

1) In this one, i take a 1834 survey map of the Albany terminus of the Erie Canal, load it into mapwarper, rectify it, and then bring it into JOSM for editing:

[https://youtu.be/az4HPJztcW0]

2) In this one, i take an aerial image from 1952 which in theory contains the footprint of Clearview Speedway in South Westerlo NY (from USGS earthexplorer), bring it into mapwarper and align it. the scenario is a little different from the survey map, the image is much larger and a few issues show up that need to be addressed:

[https://youtu.be/u2pYjFgOND8]

3) In this one, I look at what can be done to deal with the case where there is more than one map on a single scanned image, in this case something already scanned in on the NYPL website, but not quite usable as is:

[https://youtu.be/CLQ-9ZPgYUQ]

Greetings from the cloud! (and SF, CA, USA, NA, Earth)

Lots going on here at OHM and we’re very excited about it all. Please take a look through the items below and let us know if you have any questions. As always, we’re looking for help from interested parties in organizing and managing this effort. Ping us on the maillist (historic@openstreetmap.org), OSM-US Slack #openhistoricalmap, OSM World Discord #openhistoricalmap.

OSM-US Mappy Hour - 8 Jul, 8:30pm ET

July 8, 8:30pm ET, 5:30pm PT Richard Welty will be leading This will be a great time for new users to get up to speed and to see who else in the community is interested in historical mapping. It’s a great way to get connected to OSM-US, as well. It’s a great group.

TeachOSM - July, tbd

Steven Johnson, the coordinator of TeachOSM is a huge proponent of OHM and has put together some instructional tasks for OHM using the TeachOSM tasking manager. We’ve talked about having a combined event in July, but have not nailed down the date and time yet. He’s already posted some cool OHM tasks here: https://tasks.teachosm.org/contribute?difficulty=ALL&text=historic (this reminds me… we need to get the OHM tasking manager back up!)

New videos

Richard Welty is doing all the heavy lifting these days - he just posted a couple of how-to videos. First one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az4HPJztcW0 Second one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2pYjFgOND8 These are very well-paced, easy to understand, but certainly not slow. Richard covers a lot of ground with some great examples.

Tagging

Just a reminder, the following tags are highly encouraged for your ways & relations:
* start_date = YYYY-MM-DD
* end_date = YYYY-MM-DD
Without one of these tags in that exact format, OHM will not render those ways or relations properly. iD has a form entry that makes it easy for you - it doesn’t look like it uses YYYY-MM-DD, but it does.

… See full entry

Hi everybody -

We’re back online, but working through quite a laundry list of items to fix.

Please bear with us as we hammer through them: - Slow rendering of edits - it may take a while (a long while) for your edits to show up on the site. - Timeslider issues. These may be related to the prior item. - Logging users out - sessions may be cut short or the site may forget you are you. - Nominatim is working, kind of… some of the links may not work properly.

As always, your patience is very much appreciated & the dev team is working as fast as it can to resolve everything.

Now, for the good news… what is working: - Saving edits - you can work offline and upload your edits to the site.

Stay tuned… more updates on the way, Best wishes & keep on mappin’! Jeff

A power shutdown of the machine room for pre-semester maintenance will occur tomorrow. The length of the shutdown should be less than the window and services will return gradually afterwards. Overpass API may be slower due to processing issues.

Please see https://github.com/OpenHistoricalMap/ohm-website/issues/41

1. All OHM services are now available over https
2. Next week, the main https://www.openhistoricalmap.org/ login will now only work over HTTPS.

The http page will redirect to the https page; please be sure to update the url in your applications.

I am currently working on a project using Enclosure, Tithe and old OS maps to examine land ownership in sampled Norfolk villages. I am partucaly interested in loss of land access, loss of Common Rights and the creation of “landless labourers” as a result of the Enclosure Movement of the C18 & C19th.

As I already maintain the NZ Rail Maps project at http://www.nzrailmaps.nz then adding the historical data from these maps is my current focus.

Most of the survey map I am working from were generated between 1825 and 1855. These are the result of a 30 year effort to produce an accurate and reasonably complete set of surveys for the territory/state of Florida. Survey’s were conducted in the field by a 4 or 5 man crew consisting of a Deputy Surveyor, two chain-men, and an ax-man. These were rugged and inhospitable virgin woods. The crew was paid $4-$6 mile to do the field work. Payment computations are on the margins of the plat sheets.

Surveyors working in the field were required to leave physical indicators of township, range and section corners. They may have been an iron pipe, and a heavy wooden stake. Because of the high probability that the survey markers would be disturbed, or degraded with time, trees in the immediate area of the corner were designated witness trees. Their exact position relative to the corner was documented and recorded in the field notes. The witness trees were usually marked with a cat-face, or chevrons, to positively identify them. Some of those marked trees survived beyond 100 years of age, and a rare few made it to 200 years. One tree, was documented as germinating several years before the constitution was signed. It was inadvertently cut down around 1981.

The initial result of the field surveys was a hand written note book, giving dates, measurements, compass headings, etc. This information was being calculated in the field using basic equipment, which was state of the art for the day. The completed field notebooks were returned to the land office responsible for that part of the state. There, the numbers would be verified, and a drafts-person would generate a visual survey document. That would have to be rechecked for errors, before being approved by the surveyor general, or one of his deputies.

… See full entry

I have now begun mapping historical data along the Florida Nature Coast. This will be primarily based on historical BLM land surveys. How and where this data fits into modern features is vastly of interest to me.

I would like to plot the historical items I have found in the local area. I started with the local history of early Ordnance Survey field work (1795-1809 & 1848/9) but this has grown into water use & waste disposal, and I would like to include changes to roads, particularly the local Turnpike.

Durant la invasió napoleònica de la Península Ibèrica, Santa Coloma de Gramenet va servir com exemple de repressió per part de les tropes napoleòniques…

The intention of the the project is to realize a map, like modern web map, of Bologna between year 1495-1505, with its Palaces, Towers and other point of interest. Follow the bibliography. Basic Map Data from “(c) Open Street Map Contributor” The main data are provided by www.originebologna.it

Others data from dati.comunedibologna.it www.consorzireno-savena.it www.beweb.chiesacattolica.it From the image of ancient maps

Bologna Editore :  Matteo Florimi forma (Siena) Data di edizione :  1500-1599 Public domain https://gallica.bnf.fr

Bononia : Vero Ritratto de la città de Bologna, co tutti gli nomi dele cose principali di essa como al presente si ritrova / per Claudio Duchetto, nepote di Ant. Lafreri. 1582 Data ed 1581-1602 Public domain https://gallica.bnf.fr

I have started to map all the old railway lines, tramways and mineral railway lines in Ayrshire and Glasgow and facinated how many lines there used to be. This would be a great project for others to get involved with. The map I am using is the OS County Series mapping at Six-Inch to the mile / 1:10,560 for the 2nd edition, dating between 1888-1913 http://nls-0.tileserver.com/fpsUZbqQLWLT/{z}/{x}/{y}.jpg

Anyone wanting to help get in touch, maybe we can expand the area once the inital area is complete.

The good thing about using OHS is its specifically for subject concerned and not a mix of things that are not of interest. Yes, roads and the occasional building can be added but main objective is to record every single rail line and once complete have a slider view with google/bing that can overlap and compare old and new.

As the Open Historical Map stabilizes into new hosting, there is finally time to breathe a little and look forward to improvements in the front-end.

Earlier this week, the data uploaded in Changeset 1430 about the Battle of Vimy Ridge was pushed into a map rendered by the WikiWar Guys and partially derived from data gathered from the Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group.

I would like to see the OHM have a Linked Open Data aspect to it’s API to push out more data in a machine friendly way to make it easy to integrate with other data sources. That renderer project to have a time slide option for the tile server is still something that I would like to see realize.

Interestingly, the OWL-TIME standard is being worked on at the W3C which has some interesting ideas for us to look at in using time notations for objects.

Well, it appears that this project never really got of the ground! That is a real shame.

The editor’s need a lot of work. If this is a historical mapping project why in god’s name is there tag references to “malls”, “motels”, and other modern amenities and structures but nothing for something as obvious as a mill (wind, water, steam). These were around for hundreds of years, most of which have done with time, and no way to add them to the map properly.

There is no quick and easy “help” for using the site/project as a contributor. This I find is the case with these projects nowadays. Project developers assume everyone has a Phd. in computing technology and leave it all to guesswork by the end user. Some features simply do not work. Open the in-house editor, add a node (point of Interest [POI]) and try to save it using Ctrl s. Well, if the developers actually used the editor they would find out that Ctrl s is trapped by the browser first and tries to save the web page (html). Oops!

The person/people who set this up are either very lazy or have no clue how to do a project like this. How do I contact them to help fix the project tools? It would be more important to do that before plowing ahead with frustrating dead ends for the users/contributors!

I was thinking of reviewing all the BBC Time Team programs (~160) to catalogue all the sites they worked and their discoveries at each location. The results should be placed in a project like this. However, I would be very reluctant to do so if the project platform is not likely to survive.

Regards; Joe Rose

Proposing linked data tagging scheme:

Mapping the Past with Linked Data in OpenHistoricalMap