Pleiades in the Oxford Handbook of Digital Classical Studies

Citations of, and links to, all three of these chapters have been added as separate entries in our Papers, Presentations, and Other Documents section. Citations and abstracts are repeated here for ease of review.

• Bond, Sarah E. “Digital Maps and Mapping.” In The Oxford Handbook of Digital Classical Studies, edited by Elton Barker, Olympia Bobou, and Rubina Raja. Oxford University Press, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197835210.003.0054.
  
  

  This chapter surveys the history, technological advances, and application of digital mapping within the field of digital classics. It looks at how geographers and cartographers define a “map” today, in all its complex spatial, political, and iconic dimensions. It then examines the history of tools and computer programs for spatial analysis, particularly the invention of geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS). Merging of these new technologies with burgeoning interest in Greco-Roman cartography in the late 1970s and 1980s set the stage for the development of digital mapping projects in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Geospatial projects in the early 2000s increasingly use linked open data standards, disseminate accessible file types, and use open-source tools. As a result, digital mapping and mappers often connect, share, and link datasets in a manner that promotes an allied digital ecosystem of both spatial and non-geospatial projects.

• Bouras, Catherine. “Digital Gazetteers.” In The Oxford Handbook of Digital Classical Studies, edited by Elton Barker, Olympia Bobou, and Rubina Raja. Oxford University Press, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197835210.003.0053.
  
  

  Digital gazetteers are an important component in many databases and digital projects: their role is to document, disambiguate and help visualize and map places. This chapter aims at presenting digital gazetteers as well as key information about what they are, how they are built and used and how they may interoperate. It will then provide information and ground rules about developing your own digital gazetteer (where to search, how to set it up)—in beginning a new research project and finding the existing ones don’t cover your needs. It also offers a selection of place-based resources—gazetteers and Web-GIS (geographic information system) resources that have similar purposes, such as iDAI.gazetteer, ArchaeoCosmos, the Mycenaean Atlas Project, PeriodO, Pleiades, the resources from the Dipylon Society, Archaeology in Greece Online, DARE, and some others, allowing you to explore possibilities and a variety of resources. The selection presented in this chapter, however, is not comprehensive and focuses mainly on Graeco-Roman antiquities.

• Dunn, Stuart. “Place.” In The Oxford Handbook of Digital Classical Studies, edited by Elton Barker, Olympia Bobou, and Rubina Raja. Oxford University Press, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197835210.003.0055.
  
  

  This chapter examines the role of mapping and Cartesian place in our understanding of the classical world, and the role of digital technologies in mediating that understanding. Through a critical historiography of the most significant phases in this process and their wider context, it examines the origins of “modern” mapping in the classical period, traces this evolution through the imperial/colonial ages of Europe, and examines how this led to the emergence of the toponym as a fundamental unit of classical studies. The arrival of the World Wide Web, and its subsequent evolution into a conversational and interactive space in the first two decades of the twenty-first century led to this approach being rethought, with open and collaborative approaches to place in the ancient world emerging. As well as these new ways of working, the coming of the digital age presents challenges for digital classics, with pseudoarchaeological and pseudohistorical spatial narratives gaining traction. This chapter summarizes this process, and argues that the time has come to rethink and expand digital classics as the digital world develops apace.