Comments on: Ancient Routes

Ancient Routes

carter — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 10:58:29 -0800

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.

By: borkingchikapa

borkingchikapa — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 11:10:17 -0800

This is freaking awesome.

By: nyterrant

nyterrant — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 11:12:40 -0800

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!

By: davy

davy — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 11:37:49 -0800

Praise thirded!

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 11:41:24 -0800

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.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 12:03:51 -0800

Thanks, carter!

By: Julie

Julie — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 12:46:04 -0800

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.

By: stopgap

stopgap — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 13:17:53 -0800

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.

By: Busithoth

Busithoth — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 13:18:38 -0800

This really is quite excellent. thanks.

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 14:19:01 -0800

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!

By: languagehat

languagehat — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 15:04:51 -0800

Fantastic post!

By: ontic

ontic — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 15:20:15 -0800

Very cool. Love the explanation of the silk road.

By: jlkr

jlkr — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 16:00:09 -0800

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!

By: blahblahblah

blahblahblah — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 20:07:27 -0800

Terrific, terrific, fits well with the theme of my old post.

By: the cydonian

the cydonian — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 02:27:20 -0800

Baah! Interesting site of course, but still, rather disappointing in its focus on the Mediterranean Rim. Something that this 1st century account doesnt do.

By: carter

carter — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 08:30:13 -0800

[thanks for the links, everybody!]