Challenges of Mapping the Classical World

Challenges of Mapping the Classical World collects together in one volume fourteen varied items written by Richard Talbert over the past thirty years. They cohere around the theme of mapping the classical world since the nineteenth century. All were originally prompted by Talbert’s commission in the late 1980s to produce a definitive classical atlas after more than a century of failed attempts by the Kieperts and others. These he evaluates, as well as probing the Smith/Grove atlas, a successful twenty-year initiative launched in the mid-1850s, with a cartographic approach that departs radically from established practice. Talbert’s initial vision for the international collaborative project that resulted in the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (2000) is presented, and the successive twice-yearly reports on its progress from 1991 through to completion are published here for the first time. A further item reflects retrospectively on the project’s cartographic challenges and on how developments in digital map production were decisive in overcoming them. This volume will be invaluable to anyone with an interest in the development and growing impact of mapping the classical world.

Table of Contents:
Preface and Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Walter Goffart’s Historical Atlases: The First Three Hundred Years, 1570–1870 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003). Review in History Today December 2003, p. 58 2 William Smith and George Grove (eds.), Atlas of Ancient Geography Biblical and Classical (1872–1874): Introduction to the 2013 Reissue (London: I. B. Tauris, 2013, pp. v–xii) 3 Carl Müller (1813–1894), S. Jacobs, and the Making of Classical Maps in Paris for John Murray (Imago Mundi 46: 1994. pp. 128–50) 4 A Forgotten Masterpiece of Cartography for Roman Historians: Pierre Lapie’s Orbis Romanus ad Illustranda Itineraria (1845) in H. M. Schellenberg, V. E. Hirschmann, Andreas Krieckhaus, eds., A Roman Miscellany: Essays in Honour of Anthony R. Birley on His Seventieth Birthday (Gdańsk: Gdańsk University, 2008, pp. 149–56 and maps) 5 Heinrich Kiepert, Formae Orbis Antiqui (1894–1914): Introduction to the 1996 Reissue (Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 1996, pp. V–VIII) 6 The Primary Classical Atlases and Map Series between 1870 and 1990 (1992) 7 Ségolène Débarre’s Cartographier l’Asie Mineure: L’orientalisme allemand à l’épreuve du terrain (1835–1895) (Paris: Peeters, 2016). Review in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2017.05.27 8 Classical Atlas Project: Narrative Description 1990 (unpublished) 9 Classical Atlas Project: Instructions for Compilers 1990 (unpublished) 10 Classical Atlas Project: Half-yearly Reports to the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities, August 1991–May 2000 (unpublished) 11 Maps for the Classical World: Where Do We Go from Here? (American Journal of Philology 118.2: 1997. pp. 323–27) 12 Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World: The Cartographic Fundamentals in Retrospect (Cartographic Perspectives 46: 2003. pp. 4–27 and 72–76) 13 Mapping the Ancient World (co-authored with Tom Elliott) in A. K. Knowles, ed., Past Time, Past Place: GIS for History (Redlands, CA: ESRI Press, 2002, pp. 145–62) 14 Anne-Maria Wittke, Eckart Olshausen, Richard Szydlak, Historischer Atlas der antiken Welt. Der Neue Pauly. Supplemente Band 3 (Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler, 2007). Review in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.07.22 Index