Education

Ancient History Resources

Are you looking for some ancient history information and Google is not being specific enough to satisfy you? The following are some online resources I have found useful for my own research over the years. My interests lie mostly in the Roman world and these resources reflect that. However, as an advocate of life-long learning,  I encourage you to share any reputable resources about ancient cultures you know of with everyone else in the comments below.

Academic resources

The Perseus digital library is a resource I have used for all my ancient history studies and as an aid for learning Latin. This digital library has so many translations in one place it is no wonder everyone I know swears by it. Have a look through Perseus collections and I’m sure you will be equally impressed. Some other resources that bring together artworks, books, images, and video about ancient cultures are Europeana, Eagle Portal, Trafficking Culture, and Ancient History Encyclopedia.

Museum online collections are also great resources for studying art and architecture of ancient cultures. The two museums I have visited the most are The British Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Images

Visual resources really help to bring history alive and this is what makes image repositories like Flickr a gold mine. A simple ancient Rome search instantly provides you with dazzling images and helps you to understand the art and architecture of ancient Rome visually. I enjoy following the Flickr accounts of archaeological groups and projects; for example, check out the Flickr page of Wessex Archaeology and the Portus Project.

SquinchPix is another useful image repository. It is an archive of European imagery that not only provides a description of the image but a Google map location as well. If you are looking for a more interactive experience, though, check out these Roman artefacts artful displayed by Newcastle University.

Maps

A resource I found recently is the Pelagios map. The idea behind this map is the notion of being able to freely navigate a “sea of open data” and discovering treasures hidden in remote places and ancient times. Why not go have a play with their map? And lets not forget AHE’s map feature as well.

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Jade is editor of Ancient History et cetera. She is an aspiring librarian with interests in Roman and Greek architecture, Middle Eastern culture, open access to information and digitisation as a method of preservation.