Ancient Routes

February 20, 2005 10:58 AM

Ancient Routes Illustrated gazetteers of old trade and communication routes, such as the King's Highway from Egypt to Syria and the Way of the Sea from Egypt to Damascus. Also, an illustrated compendium of ancient Mediterranean cities.
posted by carter (15 comments total)

This is freaking awesome.
posted by borkingchikapa at 11:10 AM on February 20, 2005

Agreed. This is an amazing link. I'm fascinated by ancient trade routes and cities. It's been a long-time dream of mine to walk some of these ancient routes, especially the Silk Road and the route across the Sahara to Timbuktu. This is going to take up hours of my day!
posted by nyterrant at 11:12 AM on February 20, 2005

Praise thirded!
posted by davy at 11:37 AM on February 20, 2005

I read a fascinating article in The Sciences magazine (NY Academy of Sciences no longer publishes this, unfortunately) about how resonance mass spectrometers and other scientific tools are now so accurate as to be able to distinguish the "fingerprints", or unique characteristics of different samples of material. So when a Roman shipwreck with a cargo of lead was discovered in the Aegean, scientists could determine precisely where that lead was mined, and reconstruct the trade routes. Archaeology meets Physics.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:41 AM on February 20, 2005

Thanks, carter!
posted by homunculus at 12:03 PM on February 20, 2005

Thanks for sending this wonderful site.

Here's another well worn road and a fine, sad, traveling song about yet another.

Long may you run.
posted by Julie at 12:46 PM on February 20, 2005

In The Road to Ubar they discovered an ancient trade route across the Arabian desert by using satellites. The compacted dirt under the sand had a different reflectivity I believe.
posted by stopgap at 1:17 PM on February 20, 2005

This really is quite excellent.
thanks.
posted by Busithoth at 1:18 PM on February 20, 2005

I swear I made this comment earlier:

Looks to me that the UK needs to open an embassy there - we're missing from the map, and missing out on opportunities that Ukraine offers us!
posted by dash_slot- at 2:19 PM on February 20, 2005

Fantastic post!
posted by languagehat at 3:04 PM on February 20, 2005

Very cool. Love the explanation of the silk road.
posted by ontic at 3:20 PM on February 20, 2005

Very neat. I did a couple of undergrad level research papers on ancient/medieval trade routes, and it's always cool to find new stuff.

Thanks!
posted by jlkr at 4:00 PM on February 20, 2005

Terrific, terrific, fits well with the theme of my old post.
posted by blahblahblah at 8:07 PM on February 20, 2005

Baah! Interesting site of course, but still, rather disappointing in its focus on the Mediterranean Rim.

Something that this 1st century account doesnt do.
posted by the cydonian at 2:27 AM on February 21, 2005

[thanks for the links, everybody!]
posted by carter at 8:30 AM on February 21, 2005