New Worlds from Old Texts Revisiting Ancient Space and Place

Maps dominate the modern sense of place and geography. Yet, so far as we can tell, maps were rare in the Greco-Roman world and, when mentioned in sources, are mistrusted and criticized. Today, technological advances have brought to the fore an entirely new set of methods for representing and interacting with space. In contrast to traditional "topographic" perspectives, the territorial extent of economic and political realms is increasingly conceived though a "topological" lens, in which the nature and frequency of links among different sites matter more than the physical distances between them.

New Worlds from Old Texts focuses on the ancient Greek experience of space, conceived of in terms of both its literature and material culture remains, and uses this to reflect on modern thinking. Comprising twelve chapters written by a highly interdisciplinary range of contributors, this edited collection explores the rich array of representational devices employed by ancient authors, whose narrative depictions of spatial relations defy the logic of images and surfaces that dominates contemporary cartographic thought. The volume focuses on Herodotus' Histories--a text that is increasingly cited by Classicists as an example of how ancient perceptions of space may have been rather different to the modern cartographic view--but also considers perceptions of space through the lens of other authors, genres, cultural contexts, and disciplines. In doing so, it reveals how a study of the ancient world can be reinvigorated by, and in turn help to shape, modern technological innovation and methods.

Elton Barker, Reader in Classical Studies, The Open University,Stefan Bouzarovski, Professor of Geography, Manchester,Christopher Pelling, Professor of Greek, University of Oxford,Leif Isaksen, Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Southampton

Elton Barker is a Reader in Classical Studies at the Open University.

Stefan Bouzarovski is a Professor of Geography and Director of the Centre for Urban Energy and Resilience at the University of Manchester.

Christopher Pelling is Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford.

Leif Isaksen is a Lecturer in Archaeology and Co-Director of the Web Science Centre for Doctoral Training at the University of Southampton.

Introduction, Elton Barker, Stefan Bouzarovski, and Leif Isaksen
Part 1: Texts, Maps, Ideas: Ancient Greek Representations of Space
1. Greek Hymnic Spaces, Oliver Thomas
2. The Waters at the Ends of the World: Herodotus and Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, Donald Murray†
3. Map, Catalogue, Drama, Narrative: Representations of the Aegean Space, Paola Ceccarelli
4. An Uneasy Smile: Herodotus on Saps and the Question of How to View the World, Mathieu de Bakker
5. Mapping Spatial and Temporal Distance in Herodotus and Thucydides, Tim Rood
6. From Herodotus to a 'Hellenistic' World? The Eastern Geographies of Aristotle and Theophrastus, Kathryn Stevens
Part 2: The Hestia Project: Towards a Narrative Geography of Herodotus' Histories
7. Between East and West: Movements and Transformations in Herodotean Topology, Stefan Bouzarovski and Elton Barker
8. Telling Stories with Maps: Exploring Herodotean Geography through Digital Tools, Elton Barker, Leif Isaksen, and Jessica Ogden
9. Space-travelling in Herodotus Book 5, Elton Barker and Christopher Pelling
Part 3: Technologies, Methodologies, Theories: Contemporary Approaches to Mapping Space
10. Pots in Space: An Exploratory and Geographical Network Analysis of Roman Pottery Distribution, Tom Brughmans and Jeroen Poblome
11. Tracing Networks: Technological Knowledge, Cultural Contact and Knowledge Exchange in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond, Lin Foxhall and Katharina Rebay-Salisbury
12. Verbal Expressions of Geographical Information, Oyvind Eide
Epilogue: A View from the Boundary, Christopher Pelling
Bibliography
Index