web development & design for archaeology

Necessary Reunions

Digital research platform remarrying 17th-century VOC maps with textual archives to reconceptualise histories of early modern Kerala.

Institution: Huygens Institute / University of Amsterdam
Role: Researcher, Interface Design and User Experience
Duration: March - December 2025
Tools: Next.js, React, IIIF, Computer vision (MapReader, Meta AI Segment Everything), HTR (Loghi toolkit), Georeferencing, AnnoRepo
Year: 2025
Location: Netherlands / Kerala, India

Objective

Reconnect Dutch East India Company (VOC) maps with textual archives, annotate 30 Kerala maps from the Leupe collection, and create a comprehensive gazetteer linking historical and modern place names.

Challenges

Integrating historical handwriting recognition with cartographic analysis across 30 maps
Building interfaces for complex archival research spanning multiple institutions and countries

Target Group

Historians and humanities researchers studying colonial-era South Asia
Cultural heritage professionals and archival specialists
Researchers working with the GLOBALISE project and colonial-era archives

Outcome

re:Charted viewer for 30 annotated and georeferenced VOC maps, GAVOC historical thesaurus with LOD URIs, and a searchable gazetteer of Kerala place names. NWO XS funded. Published on Zenodo.

Impact

NWO XS grant-funded research project at the Huygens Institute
Platform, datasets, and code published on Zenodo and GitHub for open access
Connects 30 historical VOC maps with textual archives, feeding into the larger GLOBALISE project

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