Suggested citation format:
Ciolek, T. Matthew. 1999-present. OWTRAD Notation System: a method for standardising and computerising geographical and logistical data about long-distance transportation/communication routes. Old World Trade Routes (OWTRAD) Project. Canberra: www.ciolek.com - Asia Pacific Research Online. Version 5.4 (Oct 2006).
www.ciolek.com/OWTRAD/notation.html

Old World Trade Routes (OWTRAD)
Notation System:

A method
for standardising and computerising geographical and logistical data about long-distance transportation/communication routes.

V. 5.4 (Oct 2006)

Dr T. Matthew Ciolek,

Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies,
Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia
tmciolek@coombs.anu.edu.au
http://www.ciolek.com/PEOPLE/ciolek-tm.html

Document created: 7 Jul 1999. Last updated: 29 Oct 2006

This document describes the notation used in data sets linked to the Old World Trade Routes (OWTRAD) pages.

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|| OWTRAD Home Page || Notation System || OWTRAD Dromographic Digital Data Archives || Gazetteer || Catalogue of Caravanserais/Khans || Catalogue of Georeferenced Travel/Trade Structures || Trade Routes Glossary || Sources and Bibliography ||

work in progress - tmc

This version of the document supersedes the recommendations of all earlier OWTRAD notations (see below), including the pilot scheme first suggested in Ciolek, T.M. 2000. Digitising Data on Eurasian Trade Routes: An Experimental Notation System (www.ciolek.com/PAPERS/pnc-berkeley-02.html).

Earlier editions of the notation:
V. 4.97 (04 Oct 2004) V. 4.95 (28 Jan 2004) V. 4.91 (03 Jan 2003)
V. 4.70 (12 Oct 2002) V. 4.60 (23 Mar 2002) V. 4.30 (22 Nov 2001)
V. 4.00 (23 Mar 2001) V. 3.00 (13 Feb 2001) V. 2.50 (03 Dec 2000)

The author gratefully acknowledges the advice and critique of (in alphabetic order):
Dean Blarer (Idaho State University, US), Monika Ciolek (University of New South Wales, Australia), Jack B. Owens (Idaho State University, US),
and the students of J. B. Owens' fall 2002 upper-division undergraduate and graduate course, History 360/560, The Spanish Empire.

The OWTRAD notation system - introduction

The OWTRAD Notation is a codebook, or a set of standard procedures for systematically extracting from historical and contemporary sources geo-referenceable information about traditional trade, transportation, movement, and communication routes. It inspects and collects a plethora of interrelated factual details reported in ancient as well as modern sources and publication and expresses the gleaned information in the form of an orderly list of well defined variables.

The analysed sources may include written accounts of various length and detail, as well as graphic materials such as maps, drawings, plans and situational sketches. The sources which are of use used to this codebook may be very general or very detailed. Also, they may distort geographical distances, or they may represent such information correctly. However, the OWTRAD Notation does not depend on the precision and accuracy of the materials it deals with. The OWTRAD methodology is focused on topological and logistical relationships between locations (both named and unnamed) mentioned in the sources. The Notation records these relationships in a standardised way. It does so in order to subject the collected information to subsequent geocoding and mapping procedures.

Users of the OWTRAD Notation should strive to faithfully and completly represent all trade routes' information present in the documents and publications they analyse. This means that they should limit themselves only to the exact transcription and reporting of the contents of the inspected material. At the same time, however, they are urged to signal (in the Notation's PROBL section) any ambiguities and errors spotted in the source. They are also asked to record (in the DATAQLTY section) their assessment of the overall quality of the extracted data. In short, electronic datasets they construct should explicitly remark on, but never repair, any of the source's ambiguities, or faults.

The reason for this injunction is simple. The OWTRAD Notation is only a tool for collection of research data. It is not a tool for data assessment, or data analysis. In short, the first three stages of research work, namely (a) data gathering, (b) data cleaning and evaluation, and (b) data interpretation should be kept well separate so that their results (or outputs) do not become confused with each other.

The Notation is intentionally conceived as a low-tech and low-cost methodology. While it ultimately aims at the full computerisation of clearly defined, and clearly stated data about trade routes, our data-extraction technique does not rely on any specific electronic device or software. The process of data extraction and standardization can be easily accomplished also with such simple tools as pen, pencil, typewriter and paper. In short, the OWTRAD Notation presented below encourages all researchers in all parts of the world to work in systematic and collaborative manner with each researcher doing the data collection, data sharing and data publishing according to his/her electronic circumstances and means, while each and every researcher supports and reinforces - as well is supported and reinforced - the work done by his peers.

This version of OWTRAD notation collects and summarizes data about 21 variables. These are:

The current issue of the OWTRAD notation includes latest addenda, modifications and clarifications. These are marked in the red.

The OWTRAD notation system - example

The notation handles information about routes' nodes, pathways, users, commodities, and a number of other variables, including specialised meta-data. For instance, the following brief expression referring to a line on a map "The economic life of the Roman Empire" (Stone 1989:91), from the "'Times' Atlas of World History":

Carthago,TN,Ostia,IT,nkn,trd,sl,maj,AF00,B000,C000,nkn,d000dd,shp,p004d, 150,230,QC4,Stone 1989:90-91,P000,tmcXMEm0200_030a

identifies and describes

The OWTRAD notation system - format

The objectives of the notation presented below are four-fold. The following OWTRAD terminology intends to capture information originally expressed in a variety of verbal (remarks, descriptions), as well as graphic formats (maps, plans, situational charts) and convert it into a parsimonious, standardised written expression which, vertheless, is still intelligible to human eye.

|| NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

1,2,3 & 4. Departure/Arrival Nodes

Place identifiers

Variable names: NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2
Meaning: a node, place or other reference point in the terrain which identifies a beginning and end of a given length of road or other communication link.
Example: Arabia Eudaemon,YE : a place in contemporary Yemen, referred to by the source as 'Arabia Eudaemon'.
No of characters used: several chars.
Further details:
This helps to distinguish nodes with identical names: e.g.: When nodes within the boundaries of the same country have identical names, they too need to be clearly distinguished, e.g. Ruda ,PL; Ruda (2),PL; Ruda (3),PL. Please note that for in this context arabic numerals are preferable, since they are easier to read than equivalent roman numerals: Ruda,PL; Ruda (II),PL; Ruda (III),PL.

Handling of missing data

Sometimes the source [usually a map, but occasionally a text] suggests the existence of a node, but does not name it. This makes subsequent identification of the place and determination of its long/lat coordinates somewhat more difficult.

In order to keep track of such nameless nodes the following system of description and unique numbering should be used

Example: loc004-tmc010213 (= un-named location no 4, abstracted from the source by a researcher indentified as 'tmc'. The work on compilation of the dataset was commenced on an unique date, say, 13 Feb 2001).
No of characters used: 15 chars.
Format: type of node, sequence number, hyphen, 3chars initials, date in YYMMDD format.
Further details:

  • The three lower case characters (e.g. 'iii', 'tmc', or 'mje') are used to indicate the person or data-production center. This is to help to distinguish between various unnamed locations' listed in data collected by various people on exactly the same date, say, 15 Aug 2003, that is on 030815. A time-stamp (i.e. a date stated in the format YYMMDD) is used to generate unique id numbers for each of the unnamed nodes. The three chars 'address space' is ample. It can accommodate simultaneous input from 17,576 individual researchers (26 chars * 26 chars * 26 chars).

  • All unnamed land nodes of a given type and consitituting a data set, regardless of the country in which they are located, are to be numbered consecutively, e.g.:
  • All un-named sea nodes (i.e. the sea waypoints) are to use a prefix "sea", and numbered consecutively, e.g.: It is assumed that one data set will have no more than 1,000 (in fact, 999) unnamed locations, unnamed road-forks, etc. Should, for some reason, the number of unnamed locations be higher, this would mean that the dataset itself is excessively large, and that it should be split in two (at least) smaller parts. Experience shows that datasets with information about more than 300 links between pairs of location are difficult to compile without excessive amounts of proofreading and checks, and are very difficult to correct or update. In casde of smaller datasets unnamed locations may be given shorter numbers, ones which fall within the range 1-99 cases. Thus, the place names such as continue to be valid OWTRAD names.

    For further details see also the DATAID variable (see below).

    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    5. Geographical detail of the link

    Variable name: DETAIL
    Meaning: Information about the layout, course of a particular link, or about the identity of one or both of the nodes in question.
    Example: along R.Seine : between staring and terminating node the communication link follows the course of the river Seine.
    No of characters used: several chars. Multiple details are to be separated by semi-colons. Note: commas "," are never used as separators within a variable. Commas are inserted only between variables.
    The range of values:

    Geographic details of un-named nodes

    Unnamed nodes are annotated, in terse but meaningful manner, observing the usual NODE,COUNTRY,DETAIL sequence of variables e.g. meaning: an unnamed road junction (identified here as frk01-abc000915) in a country called Poland. According to the digitised source, a node called Milcz is situated NE of the junction in question, Wroclaw is SW of it, and the third node (another unidentified node, this time the node no 7 [i.e. loc07-abc000915] is NW of the road fork in question.

    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    6. Usage details

    Variable name: USES
    Meaning: The use of the link in question, the reason why people are navigating it.
    Discussion: Trade routes "and urban supply routes are the sequences of pathways and stopping places used for the commercial transport of cargo. Trade routes connect public markets. They also link producers with such markets. Supply routes, by contrast, take products directly to individual consumers. Both categories of routes are best conceptualised as long-distance arteries, spanning tens or hundreds of kilometres, which are connected to countless smaller capillaries of both commercial and non-commercial transport. [...] When such activities are secret, so as to avoid paying custom duties, a smuggling route is created. " (Ciolek, 2005).

    Commercial networks such as trade and supply routes belong to a larger family of transportation and communication networks in general. These networks can be seen to arise because of the need to transfer cargo (objects, live animals, people, information) to a variety of destinations.

    In addition to trade routes and supply routes one can also distinguish:

    In addition to transport systems based on human activities there are also highly effective technical solutions, which intentonally minimize the amount of transport based on animals, vehicles or vessels. These are aqueducts, which bring water to cities; and irrigation canals, such as underground qanats and surface channels, which bring water to fields. The geography and uses of such structures can also be expressed by the means of this notation system.

    Example: plg : a route used by pilgrims.
    No of characters used: 3 chars.
    The range of values:

    The above distinctions are important. Messengers and traders will usually select the shortest or speediest routes; armiest will select routes which are strategically and logistically most advantageous; pilgrims will select pathways which are socially and religiously most meaningful, whereas explorers will select the least known routes, and the most challenging ones.

    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    7. Type of link

    Variable name: TYPE
    Meaning: Distinction between natural and artificial structures.
    Example: rd : a beaten path, a road, a highway.
    No of characters used: 2 chars.
    The range of values:

    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    8. Importance of link

    Variable name: ROLE
    Meaning: Importance or the role of the link, for the particular time-frame, as recorded by the source
    Example: min : secondary communication link
    No of characters used: 3 chars.
    The range of values: Note: When a source describes a network of communication links and does not indicate the hierarchy of their importance, it is assumed that all of the stretches of road rank as "maj". When there are two levels of importance of communication links, use "maj" and "min" terminology. For situations with the three explictly distinct levels of importance, use "maj", "min" and "loc" terms, as required.

    Naturally, use "loc" only when the source is clear that the given road/trail/passage is used solely in the context of movement in the vicinity of a given village, city or a valley. E.g. Fuller (1957:231-233) [following Aurel Stein's own field investigations from 1935-36] describes a hidden mountain path taken 331/330 BC by Alexander the Great, and a portion of his troops, to stealthily bypass defences of the Persian army which blocked the route through the "Persian Gates" (i.e. a mountain defile situated NW of Aliabad). Obviously, such a path should be rated as "loc". Finally, when in doubt, use the "nkn" value.

    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    9,10,11. Transported Commodities

    Variable names: GOODS1, GOODS2, GOODS3
    Meaning: Main goods which are shipped along the link in question.
    Example: AFDB, BLSG, CIBM : a route used mainly for transport of the dry foodstuffs in bulk (=FDB), but it is also used for movement of silver & gold bullion (=LSG), and construction materials (=IBM).
    No of characters used: 3 times 4 chars each (plus a possibility of the use of an additional 3 digit code to indicate the exact category of the commodity in question)

    The first character indicates which of the transported commodities is the most important one, next comes a three-letter code (or the three-letters plus a three number code) which identifies/describes the commodity itself.

    Commodity/Goods - importance

    Example:

    Commodity/Goods - contents The scheme explained below follows, to some extent, K. Polanyi's (1975:145-146) typology of the kinds of goods involved in trade.

    The range of values:

    See also : Superseded codes which were used in the earlier versions of the notation.

    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    12. Direction of link

    Variable name: DIR
    Meaning: Information about the direction in which the listed commodities or travellers flow. For instance, medieaval pilgrims travelled from Paris to Tours to Ostabal to Santiago de Compostela, but they did not necessarily take the reverse route on the way back home.
    Example: nkn (i.e. for a route linking a pair of nodes AAAA1 and AAAA2, there is no information on direction in which goods were transported.
    No of characters used: several chars.
    The range of values:
    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    13. Distance, length of the link

    Variable name: DIST
    Meaning: Information on the physical dimension of the link.
    Example: r017km : 17 kilometres, real measurement.
    No of characters used: 1+3+2(or more) chars.
    The range of values:

    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    14. Travel Mode

    Variable name: TRAVMODE
    Meaning: The main means of transport for the cargo at a given stretch of the route. Note that sometimes army baggage trains, caravans, or expeditions use a mix of various animals (e.g. ponies and camels), human porters, and wheeled vehicles. Also, portages goods which until now have been moved by a boat (code "shp") are manhandled by porters (code "por") to a point where they again can be put on the boat (the same as before, or a new one) and transported again in the "shp" mode.
    Example: wlk : walking.
    No of characters used: 3 chars.
    The range of values:

    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    15. Travel Time

    Variable name: TRAVTIME
    Meaning: Time needed to travel a given stretch of distance. This includes the actual time spent moving plus the time spent waiting (e.g. for fellow travellers, for faviyrable weather) and resting (e.g. overnight, between stages of the journey).
    Example: e008d : estimated measurement, 8 days.
    No of characters used: 1+3+1 chars.
    The range of values:

    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    16 & 17 Chronological context

    Variable names: EARLYDATE, LATEDATE
    Meaning: The earliest and latest time that given communication link was known by the source to be in use.
    Example: -300 : 300 BCE (BC); 423 : 423 CE (AD)
    No of characters used: 3-4 chars.
    The range of values:
    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    18. Data Quality Tag

    Variable name: DATAQLTY
    Meaning: Overall trustworthiness of the information in the opinion of the collator. This is a way to rank the credibility and precision of various sources. Better data and better sources suggest that such set of variables should be taken more seriously.
    Example: QA1 : information comes from a publication which gives ample (A) detail of its methodology and its own sources; the reported data pertain to a terrain which is under 100 km across.
    No of characters used: 3 chars.
    The range of values:
  • Letter Q ('q' for 'quality'), followed by a 2 digit alphanumeric code

    Sources vary in terms of the amount of detail they provide about their data (see Table 3). 

    Table 3
Four levels of generality in scholarly and popular publications
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Level of                 Range of                      Type of
generality              information                  publication
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

1st        data + source + context + methodology	   research papers, journal articles
2nd        data + source + context	                   monographs
3rd        data + source  	                           overviews, text books
4th        data 	                                   syntheses, maps, encyclopaedias
							     [also, newspapers & propaganda]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
For further discussion of issues of information quality and reliability

    see Ciolek 1999.

    Hence the following scheme:

    At the same time, data vary in terms of the amount of detail their offer, that is, in terms of their granularity. Hence the following scheme:

    These seven values, if intersected, create a twelve-fold matrix 
    				
				QA1 QA2 QA3 QA4
				QB1 QB2 QB3 QB4
				QC1 QC2 QC3 QC4
    In the above matrix lower values (i.e. A & 1), both for the sources and provided data, signal information of better quality. The coding scheme has a handy mnemonic function; the digit represents the number of zeros following a kilometer value for the overall span of the study area.

    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    19. Source of data

    Variable name: SRC
    Meaning: The publication from which the information was extracted. A short reference to the author's name, date and page of publication is given. The reference pertains to the bibliography associated with a given data set. This bibliography is explicitly stated in the set's meta-data section.
    Example: Runciman 1978:184
    No of characters used: several chars.
    Further details: all bibliographical details are provided in the meta-data section of the data-set

    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    20. Data problems flag

    Variable name: PROBL
    Meaning: A marker indicating whether a particular record is known to contain errors, ambiguities, illogicalities, anachronisms and other complications.
    Example: P004
    No of characters used: 4 chars.
    Further details:
    || NODE1, COUNTRY1, NODE2, COUNTRY2 || DETAIL || USES || TYPE || ROLE || GOODS1,GOODS2,GOODS3 || DIR || DIST || TRAVMODE || TRAVTIME || EARLYDATE, LATEDATE || DATAQLTY || SRC || PROBL || DATAID ||

    21. Record and data-set identifier

    Variable name: DATAID
    Meaning: The name of the data set is the name of its file in a particular subdirectory.
    Structure: Author:Geography:Chronology:[SubsetNumber]:RecordSequentialNumber
    Example: pltXMEm0200_001a
    No of characters used: 3+5+(from 3 to 5)+1 chars.
    Further details: The above procedure generates standardised records with factual information exctracted from historical and other sources. Such records then need to be linked to information about the geographical coordinates (longitude and latitude values, expressed in decimal degrees) of nodes they are identified by. These values are obtained by consultation either with specific raw data and/or by looking up gazetteers listed in this site's section called OWTRAD Gazetteer (www.ciolek.com/OWTRAD/gazetteer-00.html)

    End

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