The Island of Cyprus through the Eyes of Eighteenth Century Travelers: A Deep Map

Abstract

AbstractTraveling and recording the adventures lived abroad in travelogues was a common practice among European aristocrats in the eighteenth century. The travel journals are filled with descriptions of the places they visited, but also with characterizations of their impressions and emotions evoked by historical landmarks. This paper aims to explore the sensations of northern and central European travelers to investigate the identity and sense of place of Cyprus, as experienced by the travelers, through deep mapping. The exploration of impressions focuses on seven categories: places, points of interest, people, hospitality, accessibility, landscape, and food/drinks. The impressions expressed by words in the travelogues are coded in a five-point scale to be able to obtain statistics from the geodatabase created in GIS. The result is a bunch of maps that show the diverse level of pleasantness according to the various places and historical landmarks visited. Moreover, this paper demonstrates the importance of combining quantitative and qualitative data through digital tools in archaeological and historical research.