History Seminar: Mustafa Erdem Kabadayı (Koç University)

HISTORY SEMINAR

MAPPING and SIMULATING TRANSPORT NETWORKS and TRAFFIC in SOUTHEAST EUROPE UNDER OTTOMAN RULE 

MUSTAFA ERDEM KABADAYI

(KOÇ UNIVERSITY)

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

15:40-17:30

FASS 2034 

Abstract: The presentation will be based on an ongoing project, in the framework of which we have devised novel methods to be used for historical GIS applications, such as digital elevation models, in order to simulate the traffic of people and goods on historical transport networks. Taking into special consideration the geographical features of a large terrain in Southeast Europe, the paper will be a case study about the movement of goods and people for a large segment (Istanbul to Belgrade and back) of the 1532 Ottoman military campaign. We have manually geo-referenced features of an historical transport network for around 300,000 square kms in Southeast Europe from a series of military maps dating to the 1900s.  

Bio: Mustafa Erdem Kabadayı received a BSc (Middle East Technical University, Ankara, 1995) and an MSc (University of Vienna, 1999) in Economics, and a Ph.D. from the University of Munich in 2008. He is currently an Associate Professor of History at Koç University. Until 2005, he worked mainly on the economic and labor history of the Ottoman Empire. As the principal investigator of UrbanOccupationsOETR, a major research project funded by a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (urbanoccupations.ku.edu.tr), he is currently pursuing his academic career as an economic historian focusing on the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, using methods of geospatial humanities.