The Barrington Atlas

A weblog for members of the Canadian Cartographic Association and other individuals interested in all things cartographic

Published Wednesday, March 01, 2006 by CCAer | E-mail this post

Published in 2000, the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World is the first atlas of its kind to be published since 1875. It has 102 topographic maps and a 1,200 page “map-by-map directory” (is that an index?), also available on CD. It sells for a mere $225 US on Amazon.com but the Ancient World Mapping Center provides some of its map in pdf or jpeg format.

Also on the AWMC is some information about Pleiades, an open-content index of geographic information relating to the ancient world. “Pleiades will enable anyone — from university professors to casual students of antiquity — to suggest updates to geographic names, descriptive essays, bibliographic references and geographic coordinates.”

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Anonymous on 5:32 PM

Thanks very much for noting the Atlas. I'd like to address a couple of specifics:

* The Atlas does come with a CD-ROM, but the Atlas maps are not on that CD-ROM. Instead, you get the complete contents of a 1,500-page (two-volume) Map-by-Map Directory. It provides a compiler's introduction for each map (uniformity and completeness of evidence, problems and editorial decisions taken in compilation, etc.) plus a series of lists that provide additional information for each feature on the corresponding map:
** bingo grid coordinates on the map
** alternate ancient names
** periods of occupancy or attestation (within the 1,500-year span covered by the Atlas)
** modern names and, as needed, short location descriptions
** citations of published literature providing a convenient access point to the academic or literature on that feature at the most useful point

* The maps provided on the AWMC website are not the same as those included in the Barrington Atlas. These are special-purpose maps, mostly created for pedagogical purposes. Examples of BAtlas maps can be found at http://www.unc.edu/depts/cl_atlas
Anonymous on 7:51 PM

Thanks for the link to the free maps at the Ancient World Mapping Center. I'm studying the Roman Empire's presence in the Near East, so some of those maps are a god-send.