The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World by Richard J.A. Talbert (ed.), (Princeton University Press, 2000, ISBN: 0-691-03169-X), is a comprehensive atlas spanning the entire period and spatial spread of Greek and Roman civilization. The double-folio-sized atlas contains 102 color topographic maps (many double spreads) and covers a vast arc of territory, from the British Isles and the Azores eastward across Europe and North Africa, up the Nile valley and through the Near East to Afghanistan and western China. Temporally, it covers the period from 1,000 BC/BCE to AD/CE 650. The atlas includes a CD-ROM version of the Map-by-Map Directory, which contains an introduction, bibliography and detailed listing of every feature appearing on every map. The detailed listing includes periods of cultural activity, modern names and locations, and bibliographic citations for each feature. The Map-by-Map Directory is also available separately in a two-volume, 1,400-page hardbound edition.
The atlas is the product of a 12-year project involving nearly 200 scholars and cartographers that was financed by over $4.5 million in federal and private donations. It rectifies the long-standing lack of a comprehensive Greek and Roman historical atlas: a tremendous impediment to research and teaching that had not been successfully addressed since the publication of Wm. Smith’s An Historical Atlas of Ancient Geography, Biblical and Classical (London: John Murray, 1872-1874).
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