Customer Reviews

Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (with Map-by-Map Directory on CD-ROM)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Finally, after years in the making, this atlas is finished and I'm glad to have it.

This is a great work, all the detailed knowledge about location of cities, shrines, roads, etc, etc., etc., that has been gathered about Roman and Greek sites has been put together in just one atlas. Even individual estates are placed on maps, when convenient.

Seamlessly, from one map to another you can trace any route, find any name, and look into the neighboring area.

The map by map directory provides further insight into the sources of information, variant ancient names and modern place names (if any),

Obviously there's no such a thing as a telescope/microscope. You have to know what you are looking for, because details can sometimes shield the big picture. You need to know the original spelling of a name, or some variant. This book is invaluable when looking for names and places that are nowhere else printed in a map, at least a map that covers an area that places them in context.

Now, what else could be useful?

Basically, I would have liked three things:

- an 'inverse' gazetteer or 'name dictionary'. Look for modern place names and find ancient equivalents.

To look for a modern name is difficult. The book is not intended for this. You have to use the search engine in Acrobat, which means that you have to be using a computer. And scroll though the results. There is no straightforward way. So, a 'Modern Names Gazetteer' with ancient equivalents is something I'd like to have. Could a database fulfill this purpose? PDF formats do not allow data management, but the editor must have the data. Someone will provide this.

- a different altitude color-coded scale

As for the altitude color-coded tints, to my taste, there is at least a brown shade too many. The tinted scale is such, that some maps look a little brownish, because everything above 1000 feet has that background color. Of course, there are contour lines, but you have to look at them and read the numbers. Coding is not very useful in such a situation. Printed names over brown background are not easily readable.

- a heavy paper o plastic loose-leaf with the Map Key

The Map Key appears only on map 1, on the reverse side of the page, a good idea since the maps are not clogged with repetitive information and space is used for the essential purpose. But then you have to return to it for a reference. Thence, either it will wear out or hopefully you will remember usual references. Not for the casual reader. I've already photocopied it.

Overall, an outstanding achievement. Four stars, could have been five if some of the above items had been included.

There has never been an atlas of the ancient world to compare with this incredible piece of scholarship and mapmaking. At a cost of about five million dollars and over a decade in development, it contains highly detailed professional maps equivalent to the best atlases of our modern world. It goes beyond the Mediterranean world to include europe as far as Britain and the east as far India. The last atlas of this time period I purchased had a few dozen imprecise and limited small maps. There are 99 full-color large-scale maps in this volume. I haven't been this excited about a reference book for several years.

I bought this Atlas and cross checked its geography with common known things in the geography of Switzerland. Its geography is a mixture of modern and ancient items. The maps resemble nigher the ancient geography nor the modern one. E.g.:
- The Sihl-lake is maped: But it is a modern dammed lake build in the 1930ies.
- The Wägitaler-lake is maped: But it is a moder dammed lake finished 1924.
- The course of the river Linth is the going to the Walensee, thus showing its path after the Linth river control (1807-23).
- The ~1550 with rubble of the Linth filled up lake of Tuggen is missing.
- The Aare is shown before the correction of the Jura waters (1868-78) but:
- The River Kander is shown in its modern path of 1714 after the correction of the Kander flowing into the lake of Thun.
- The Lac de la Gruyère is present while being dammed 1944-48.
- The path of the roman road over the Kunkels bypass is missing.
- The place CCAA (modern Cologne, Germany) is placed westwards of is real position.

This are things that show that the authors of this atlas never took any look into a swiss map or secondary-level schoolbook. This is for the area i can judge, so I do have to suppose the rest isn't better either.

Map-by-Map Directory on CD-ROM is missing from the atlas.
this was sent as a gift to europe, so a return is not appropriate. please send the CD, if your procedures allow it. THANK YOU AMAZON.

this was my amazon experience. for 379.79 US dollars.

The amount of detail in this massive atlas is simply astounding.
Just the thing for the serious researcher of the ancient Greek and Roman world.
And...a handsome addition to any cocktail table (just make sure it's a big table, because this is one BIG atlas!)