Friday, August 22, 2014

Mapping Strabo's Geographica


Recently Google Maps Mania reviewed the Hestia Project's Herodotus Timemap. Herodotus, sometimes known as the Father of History, was a fifth century Greek historian. In his 'Histories' Herodotus recounts the origins of the Great War between the Greeks and Persians and the rise of the Persian Empire.

The Hestia Project's Herodotus Timemap connects the text of the Histories with a Simile timeline to allow users to visualize geographical references in the Histories on a Google Map. Using the application you can read through the chapters of the Histories and view the locations of all the place-names mentioned in the text on the accompanying map.


If Herodotus was the 'Father of History' then the title 'Father of Geography' could be given to the Greek philosopher, historian and geographer Strabo. In the early days of the Roman Empire Strabo's 'Geographica' described the cultural and geo-political world of that time.

To accompany the publication of Duane W. Roller’s new English translation of Strabo’s 'Geography' the University of Cambridge Press has released an interactive map of all the locations mentioned in Strabo's Geographica.

The Strabo Map uses Mapbox to add place-name mentioned in the Geographica to an interactive map. If you purchase the e-text of the new translation you can click through on place-name links in the text to view the locations on the map. However the map itself is free, so you can explore the world as documented in Strabo's Geographica to your heart's content.

The map tiles used in the map are the same AWMC map tiles, as used in the Pleides gazette of ancient places.

1 comment:

Mueue said...

This map is full of errors