
Mapping Ancient Rome - mstats
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/will-mapping-ancient-rome-save-western-urbanism-and-civilization/
======
orliesaurus
Off-topic but somewhat relevant: When I was in college (ca. 2009) I worked on
a project whose aim was mapping ancient Rome in 3-D so that students could
explore the city as if they were living in it. We were a team of three
including our supervisor who was the expert in ancient Rome and we managed to
recreate about 9000 buildings including temples in points of interest. Most
recently I have discovered [0] that one version of assassins Creed that was
based on ancient Greece is free to download, You can't play the game but you
can explore the city with its really high quality renderings/interactivity and
learn through quizzes

[0] [https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/10/assassins-creed-odyssey-
ge...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/10/assassins-creed-odyssey-gets-an-
educational-mode-complete-with-quizzes/)

~~~
pugworthy
I worked with that data on an ill-fated educational game a bit before that
time...

------
SamBam
I don't know whether I'm reading into this with a bias given that it's
published in The American Conservative, but the conclusion of the article
definitely reads as an homage to when "Western Civilization" was nice and
homogeneous, and everyone could trace its lineage back to Rome.

> The importance of classical Rome to the conscious and unconscious customs of
> later Western urbanism cannot be overstated. Today, as cultures cross-
> pollinate, and as technologies topple timeless ways of living, it is an open
> question whether the familiarity of Rome’s ancient forms will be felt much
> by those who live in the future, beyond the next horizon. [ ... ] Perhaps
> this time—our time—is really the end of the ancient world.

I read this as "all of the 'other' people who come into the West won't share
this unifying history of the city that was the pinnacle of civilization."

Highly ironic that the article in the carousel directly above this one was
"Why Identity Politics Kills Democracy."

~~~
al_form2000
You are reading it with the bias you mention, and, as a consequence, you are
attaching overbroad significance to a sentence that weighs in at about 3% of a
text dedicated to the discussion of an archaelogical atlas of Ancient Rome.

~~~
gpvos
Well, they suggest it in the title as well, so it appears like they find it
important.

------
jaclaz
>In fact, the editor describes the Atlas as a virtual museum of the city
(which has no brick-and-mortar institution devoted to its ancient topography).

Just in case: [https://www.romereborn.org/](https://www.romereborn.org/)

The actual brick and mortar museum (and model) does exist however:
[http://www.museociviltaromana.it/](http://www.museociviltaromana.it/)

[http://www.museociviltaromana.it/it/collezioni/percorsi_per_...](http://www.museociviltaromana.it/it/collezioni/percorsi_per_sale/plastico_di_roma_imperiale)

Since the model was realized between 1933 and 1955 it may be somehow less
accurate or missing some later discoveries/whatever, still it remains
impressive, here is a short video that doesn't actually provide a sense of its
size and detail:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jMEN3zOQ5E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jMEN3zOQ5E)

------
PorterDuff
The book is a bit expensive, although I'd like to have a copy.

Given the turn that modern politics has taken, I guess all that matters was
this sentence:

"Today, as cultures cross-pollinate, and as technologies topple timeless ways
of living, it is an open question whether the familiarity of Rome’s ancient
forms will be felt much by those who live in the future, beyond the next
horizon."

It's not a bad question really, with 'Rome' as a stand-in for all the well-
worn bits of culture. Are 500 year old nursery rhymes still in practice and
will they be? You can certainly see the change in the teaching of literature
in schools. Latin or Greek are scarcely taught anymore. No doubt there are
100's of examples. 'Rome' of course is an imaginary construct that is really a
later Anglo-American version of historical matters.

I doubt I'll live long enough to see the results of states that knock out the
underpinnings of common culture. Perhaps they'll build their own fresh ones,
perhaps it never mattered.

~~~
madhadron
> I doubt I'll live long enough to see the results of states that knock out
> the underpinnings of common culture. Perhaps they'll build their own fresh
> ones, perhaps it never mattered.

I think the elites of the world are steadily converging toward a common
culture, which is exactly what gave the Roman empire its identity.

------
FranzFerdiNaN
I bought the book for my wife, who has a phd in Roman history. Its an
absolutely gorgeous book containing a wealth of information. Its also
incredibly dense material. Its really made for specialists, but for them its
completely worth the price. Im glad people are creating works like this.

------
wnissen
Lots of good Roman mapping resources previously on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146055](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8146055)

I personally really enjoyed
[http://orbis.stanford.edu/](http://orbis.stanford.edu/) which maps between
cities, even telling you how many dinarii it would have cost via various
methods. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a layer with modern city
names, so you have to know that, e.g., Budapest was Aquincum in Roman times.

------
madhadron
What a strange article. A very workmanlike review of a very interesting book
bookended by two paragraphs each of filler verging on nonsense.

------
ngcc_hk
After going to the city buried under volcanic ashes, always under the
impression of sewage issue of Roman city. And prostitution.

Not as clean and romantic.

