Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World

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The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World , usually shortened to the Barrington Atlas , is a historical atlas of ancient Europe . It depicts the geography of Europe , North Africa and Western Asia from the Archaic Period to late antiquity . The editor is the ancient historian Richard JA Talbert .

Format and structure

The Barrington Atlas consists of 99 large-format maps, which are displayed in uniform scales of 1: 500,000 or 1: 1,000,000. Exceptions are the maps showing Athens , Rome and Constantinople : a larger scale was chosen for them in order to show the cities and their surroundings in more detail. There are also three overview maps of the provinces and dioeceses of the Roman Empire. The maps are based on aerial and satellite images , on the basis of which the ancient landscape was reconstructed in combination with historical and archaeological sources. The atlas also takes geological changes into account, such as the shifting of coastlines . The focus of the Barrington Atlas is on the classical studies of antiquity and thus on ancient Greece and the Roman Empire as well as their cultural contacts. It covers the period from approx. 1000 BC. Chr. - 640 AD from. The map series is structured chronologically. The historical development is not shown in several consecutive maps, as is the case with many other historical map series, but the entire observation period is shown on one map. Five epochs ( archaic , classical , Hellenistic or republican , Roman-imperial , late antique ) are color-coded. The Barrington Atlas lists all places and regions under their Latin names or ancient Greek names in Latin transliteration . Modern place names are only used where the ancient name of a site is not known. The modern place names can be looked up in the map-by-map directory , which is available online, on CD-ROM and as a 1500-page, two-volume print version. The directory provides brief information on each location and its time span, explains any difficulties in mapping and provides information on the relevant ancient sources and essential specialist literature. The accompanying scientific text is in English.

An app for iOS was published to accompany the atlas, providing all maps in a searchable form.

History of the project

The Barrington Atlas is named after the Barrington Foundation , a private family foundation based in Great Barrington that provided the start-up funding. The Classical Atlas Project began in 1988 on the initiative of the American Philological Association at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under the direction of Richard Talbert. Around 70 experts were involved; 4.5 million US dollars flowed into the project. The maps were designed by the mapping service MapQuest .

Since the publication of the atlas in September 2000, a follow-up project, the Ancient World Mapping Center , has continued work on the map series. It publishes its results on its website, including corrections to the printed atlas.

Reviews and Awards

The publication of the Barrington Atlas was recognized as an important project not only in the professional world but also in the wider public. For example, DJR Bruckner praised the comprehensive approach, attention to detail and print quality in the New York Times .

Kai Brodersen praised the Barrington Atlas as a pioneering work that would change the view of the ancient landscape permanently and without which classical antiquity would be significantly more difficult. He regretted the lack of a preoccupation with the ancient understanding of geography, as it was customary in historical atlases for a long time, and called the color representation of several time phases on a map an acceptable compromise.

The historian Paul Cartledge also emphasized the clarity and beauty of the cards and found the Barrington Atlas bring the cartography as a research field of archeology well advanced. It will probably never be surpassed in terms of scientific accuracy and will set standards for a long time, because so many new findings on ancient geography are no longer to be expected that a new edition will appear in the foreseeable future.

The geographer Robert J. Mayhew called the Barrington Atlas a model in the field of historical cartography. The main difficulty of the project lies in depicting historical developments over centuries on a map. Several accompanying works are required to show the development and relationships between places in a comprehensible manner.

In the year of its publication, the Barrington Atlas was recognized by the Association of American Publishers for the best multi-volume academic reference work in the humanities.

Sarah Pothecary wrote an extensive review of the iPad app, which she tested in three use cases. She predicted that the app would have more permanent relevance than the printed version, as it was able to always reflect the current state of research.

expenditure

  • Richard JA Talbert (Ed.): Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Princeton University Press, Princeton 2000, ISBN 978-0-6910-3169-9 .
  • Richard JA Talbert (Ed.): Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Map-By-Map Directory. Princeton University Press, Princeton 2000, ISBN 978-0-6910-4945-8 .
  • Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World for iPad. eISBN 978-1-4008-4876-8.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Kai Brodersen : Mapping (In) the Ancient World. In: The Journal of Roman Studies . Volume 94, 2004, pp. 183-190.
  2. ^ Mark Rose: Ancient Roadmap. An impressive new atlas charts the classical world from Iberia to Bactria. In: Archeology . Tape. 53, No. 6, November / December 2000, p. 75.
  3. ^ A b Paul Cartledge: Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World by Richard Talbert. In: The Classical Journal . Tape. 97, No. 2, December 2001 / January 2002, pp. 193-195.
  4. ↑ a b Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World from Princeton University Press, accessed August 1, 2018.
  5. ^ DJR Bruckner: Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. In: The New York Times . March 4, 2001, accessed August 1, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Robert J. Mayhew: Richard Talbert (Ed.) The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Pp. Xxix + 147. (£ 155.00 hardback) and the accompanying CD-ROM, The Map -by-Map Directory, Pp. 1383. In: Journal of Historical Geography, Volume 27, No. 4, 2001, pp. 597-613.
  7. ↑ Sarah Pothecary: Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World for iPad by RJA Talbert . In: Aestimatio. Critical Reviews in the History of Science. Volume 11, January 1, 2014, pp. 191-201.