In 102 full-color maps spread over 175 pages, the Barrington Atlas re-creates the entire world of the Greeks and Romans from the British Isles to the Indian subcontinent and deep into North Africa. It spans the territory of more than 75 modern countries. Its large format (13 1/4 x 18 in. or 33.7 x 46.4 cm) has been custom-designed by the leading cartographic supplier, MapQuest.com, Inc., and is unrivaled for range, clarity, and detail. Over 70 experts, aided by an equal number of consultants, have worked from satellite-generated aeronautical charts to return the modern landscape to its ancient appearance, and to mark ancient names and features in accordance with the most up-to-date historical scholarship and archaeological discoveries. Chronologically, the Barrington Atlas spans archaic Greece to the Late Roman Empire, and no more than two standard scales (1:500,000 and 1:1,000,000) are used to represent most regions.
Since the 1870s, all attempts to map the classical world comprehensively have failed. The Barrington Atlas has finally achieved that elusive and challenging goal. It began in 1988 at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, under the direction of the distinguished ancient historian Richard Talbert, and has been developed with approximately $4.5 million in funding support.
The resulting Barrington Atlas is a reference work of permanent value. It has an exceptionally broad appeal to everyone worldwide with an interest in the ancient Greeks and Romans, the lands they penetrated, and the peoples and cultures they encountered in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. Scholars and libraries should find it essential. It is also for students, travelers, lovers of fine cartography, and anyone eager to retrace Alexander's eastward marches, cross the Alps with Hannibal, traverse the Eastern Mediterranean with St. Paul, or ponder the roads, aqueducts, and defense works of the Roman Empire. For the new millennium the Barrington Atlas brings the ancient past back to life in an unforgettably vivid and inspiring way.
Map-by-Map Directory
A Map-by-Map Directory to the Barrington Atlas is available online (http: //assets.press.princeton.edu/B_ATLAS/B_ATLAS.PDF) and in a separate two-volume print edition of close to 1,500 pages. The Directory is designed to provide information about every place or feature in the Barrington Atlas. The section for each map comprises:
- a concise text drawing attention to special difficulties in mapping a region, such as extensive landscape change since antiquity, or uneven modern exploration.
- a listing of every name and feature on the map, with basic data about the period of occupation, the modern equivalents of ancient placenames, the modern country within which they are located, and brief references to relevant ancient testimony or modern studies.
- a bibliography of works cited.
The Map-by-Map Directory is an essential accompaniment to the
Barrington Atlas. As a uniquely rich, comprehensive, up-to-date distillation of evidence and scholarship, it has no match elsewhere and opens the way to an immense variety of further research initiatives.
