Whether you are planning a trip to Greece, researching ancient civilizations, or simply exploring the geography of the classical world, you should enjoy the Archaeological Atlas of Greece.
I have a huge soft spot for historical cartography, especially when it involves rescuing data from “old-school” interfaces and making it more accessible. Which is why I’m drawn to the Archaeological Atlas of Greece – a beautifully designed interactive map that brings the ancient world into the digital present with impressive fluidity.
The project repackages data from L’AnticoPedie, a meticulous French educational resource by René Kauffmann, and makes it far more accessible. While the original site is exhaustive, it lives inside a standard Google My Maps embed and is entirely in French. By exporting the KML data, translating the entries into English, and building a custom interface, the developer has transformed what was largely a static dataset into a far more capable discovery tool.
Search & Discovery
The map features a clean, “Parchment” design that feels appropriate for the ancient historical subject matter. It catalogues 424 sites across four distinct categories, each represented by a color-coded marker:
- Archaeological Museums
- Archaic, Classical & Hellenistic Sites
- Mycenaean Sites
- Minoan Sites
One of the most useful features of the new map is the ability to filter the map by these four categories. If you are planning a trip to Crete, you can toggle off everything except Minoan sites to see the footprint of that civilization at a glance. Conversely, if you are researching Mycenaean fortresses, the map allows you to isolate those specific ruins across the mainland.
Clicking on any marker opens a sidebar that provides the site’s name, coordinates, and a translated description.
If you are interested in a more detailed tour of Greece’s archaeological wonders, it is also worth exploring Virtual Tours, a project from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The university has created immersive tours of some of the country’s most historically significant locations, including Athens, Ancient Olympia, Mycenae, and Marathon.
Each tour features a custom map of the archaeological site highlighting major buildings and landmarks. The Athens map, for example, includes the Parthenon, the Acropolis, the ancient Agora, and the Temple of Olympian Zeus. You can learn more about any of these ancient landmarks by clicking on the links in the map sidebar or by clicking on the markers on the map.
