This was a pilot project to retroactively create an online database from the (purposefully laid-out) volumes of The Place-Names of Fife. It was successful, and allowed the researcher, Simon Taylor, and the systems developer, Brian Aitken, to work together on a prototype of what will become the full Scottish Place-Name database for the future (based on older models, which underlie the survey volumes).
Iona is a site of exceptional historical, archaeological, and religious interest, and has been since its foundation as a monastery around AD 563. Despite the multiple ways in which Iona has been of interest to scholars and the general public, its complex legacy of place-names has never been the subject of sustained scholarly investigation.
This project, funded by the AHRC, interrogates the dynamics of the namescape, the historical and changing landscape of names, of Iona and its environs, shedding light on its past and its complex present, and proposing new ways of curating place-names as part of heritage management.
