google earth

The Ancient Greeks gave us many things which western civilisation is built upon - democracy, cartography, astronomy, mathematics and the fundamentals of classical architecture. And the home of the finest example of classical Greek architecture is at the site of the Acropolis in Athens - the wonder that is the Parthenon.

Westworld, starring Yul Brynner, has been one of my all-time favorite movies since it was released back in 1973. Envisioned by Michael Crichton, Westworld was a fictional theme park where tourists could go to experience life in another historical period.  The park had a medieval world, a Roman world and, of course, Westworld, a recreation of the old American west.

Each world was populated with carefully programmed androids who behaved as people from each time period would have during their normal daily activities. Guests of the park were given appropriate clothing and instructed to assume the role of a character from the period. The inevitable malfunctions occur, and the droids run amok and gun down real people rather than their fellow robots, with real bullets.

First of all google sent a man on a bicycle around Stonehenge to capture the ancient site in virtual mode for Street View. Now it's the archaeological site of Pompeii that's online, allowing Internet users to take a 360-degree tour of the ancient Roman town destroyed by Vesuvius's eruption in 79 AD.

The town's statues, temples and theatres, as well as close-up views of individual houses and shops are all now visible on Street View, allowing armchair tourists - if that is you, did you try King Tut Virtual already? - to satisfy some of their curiosity about the site without falling prey to the hot Campanian summer days.

Archaeologists from USC, UCLA and the Middle East have developed a searchable online map that details 7,000 archeological sites on the West Bank and Jerusalem - many of them never publicy disclosed. The map - an effort to identify Israeli archaeological activity since 1967, when Israel took over the West Bank and East Jerusalem - is freely accesibly online at the USC's Digital Library.

Built over several years through hundreds of hours of research, bolstered by freedom of information requests and, when necessary, a lawsuit in Israeli courts, the Web site provides interactive satellite maps showing locations of about 7,000 archaeological sites in the region, including:

Experts using a combination of cutting-edge technology and old-fashioned archaeology have made a startling discovery, as a cache of important historical items was unearthed at a NASA base in Mississippi. The revelation, at the agency's Stennis Space Centre near Bay St. Louis, emerged following a 11-year program of digging. It affirms archaeologists' using the US space program can find objects much closer to home, with hi-tech satellite systems.

Workmen may just have downed tools after laser scanning the Sphinx, but a new Egyptian-Japanese venture aims to seek out even more archaeological hotspots along the Nile, using technology at the bleeding egde of science. The far-flung team, headed by Egypt's National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences, hopes to reach areas in the river's western Delta and nearby El-Beheira governorate, whose geography has resisted conventional techniques thus far. The team has already employed satellite imaging and remote sensing devices to map heritage sites in the area, and experts are confident more will appear when a second phase gets under way next February.

Digital Digging - run by Henry Rothwell -  is a resource for anyone with an interest in archaeology, history, cartography and ... digital reconstructions! Digital Digging's 'Model Room' is where they store their virtual reconstructions, created especially for you to explore yourself using Google Earth. It holds a selection of the timber and stone circles of Wessex and Somerset, including Durrington Walls South Circle, Woodhenge, Stanton Drew and the Sanctuary at Avebury. You can look at the image page of each reconstruction or download the associated .kmz file and download the model into Google Earth, where you can get inside it, and look at it from any angle you choose. 

London is a massive metropolis, buzzing with energy and bags of history to boot. Well now you can see the city's top ancient sights, all handily presented in our custom Google Earth flyover. For there's plenty more to London than its monstrous museums - though they're all pretty good too - and this map gives you the chance to plan a first-time visit, tell a friend or just take a day out to explore London's proud heritage. There's no shortage of events either; check our calendar page for the pick of the city's listings, which include this year's British Archaeology Festival. In short London's a fantastic place to get your fill of the ancient world, and our map makes seeing all its ancient nooks and crannies just that bit easier.

The tour below utilises aerial photography with 3D models to give a realistic and innovative look at how the ancient world still exists in our very modern world. The tour is complete with clickable Heritage Key logos, which will link you to articles on this website, as well as photographs from our Heritage Key Flickr photo pool.

Last week I used Google Earth to show you a tour around the ancient relics of Rome, flyover over the city and looking at all the 3D models with clickables to get extra information from Heritage Key. This week, I've decided to spruce up Jon's tour of the Acropolis of Ancient Greece so you can have a look at one of the most magnificent relics from the ancient age, as well as the New Acropolis Museum.

Again, the tour utilises aerial photography with 3D models to give a realistic and innovative look at how the ancient world still exists in our very modern world. The tour is complete with those clickable Heritage Key logos once again, which will link you to articles on this website, as well as photographs from our Heritage Key Flickr photo pool.

Google Earth allows us here at Heritage Key to take your bog-standard map and bring it to life by flying over the still standing ancient wonders of the world, and allowing us to explore them through aerial photography and 3D models. Satellite imagery has proved to be invaluable in archaeology, used to locate features which may not be spotted from the ground. Such aerial images, when combined with models created by budding enthusiasts, allow for anyone to explore an environment with a real feel for the area and its historical features.

Lets face it - your standard tourist map with little pictures of famous relics don't cut it in a modern world where we can find numerous photographs and articles on pretty much any historical artefact and building we want.