In an earlier post, I tried visualizing the structure of Latin inscriptions from a particular time and place by turning them (some 30 or so, as I recall) into a kind of directed network graph, the theory being that a network analysis might reveal something of the underlying structure of inscriptions in general. It was the mental equivalent of doodling, but I wondered if the approach might have some sort of predictive power, eg for inscriptions that were incomplete. Just idle curiosity – the same idleness which drove me to run the following through Wordle (can’t get enough of that toy!) – from the Epigraphische Datenbank Heidelberg:
province: Britannia modern country: United Kingdom
find spot (ancient name): Aquae Sulis find spot (modern name): Bath (Avon)
find spot (street, etc.): Römisches Bad
literature: AE 1983, 0633.
M.W.C. Hassall – R.S.O. Tomlin, Britannia 14, 1983, 336, Nr. 3; fig.
33 u. 34 (Zeichnungen). – AE.
A-Text: Primurudem // Basilia donat in templum Martis ani/lum(!) argenteum si servus si liber / (ta)mdiu siluerit vel aliquid de hoc / noverit ut sanguin(e) et liminibus(!) ob(!) // omnibus(!) membris(!) configatur vel et/iam intestinis excomesis (om)nibus habe(at) / is qui anilum(!) involavit(!) vel qui medius / fuerit
…which gives the following wordle cloud:
…which may or may not be a useful exercise. Guess I’d best ask a proper epigrapher. But in the spirit of discovering tools for visualization of data in new and hopefully illuminating ways, the following page, a periodic table of visualization methods, might introduce you to some new approaches.