map

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:

The city of Cahokia is the latest ancient site to go virtual, thanks to a reconstruction and online map published.

Ancient Cahokia was a Mississippian city that flourished between 1000 -1400 AD. At its peak, in the early 13th century, it had a population between 10,000 and 20,000 and covered nearly six square miles. This makes it larger than London ca. 1250 AD.

It had about 120 mounds during this time, some used for burial, others for religious purposes. It also had palisades, communal plazas, houses and fields full of crops.

A stone tablet discovered 16 years ago has been announced as the world's first known map, say experts. The prized artefact, found in a cave in Abauntz in the northern region of Navarra, Spain, was first located in 1993 - yet its intricate tangle of lines and swirls confounded archaeologists. Now however, the University of Zaragoza team who first found the tablet believe they've cracked its use. And team leader Pilar Utrilla believes its would have been used as much more than a mere A to Z: "We can say with certainty that it is a sketch, a map of the surrounding area," she tells the Telegraph. "Whoever made it sought to capture in stone the flow of the watercourses, the mountains outside the cave and the animals found in the area.

Atlantis has got to be one of the world's most longstanding myths. Devised by Plato over 2,500 years ago, its popularity has rarely waned, and has been the birthplace for some of humanity's most truly bizarre theories. From Gibraltar to the Aegean, it seems everyone's had their say on the whereabouts of the mysterious island, that was supposedly created by Poseidon. Not all of Atlantis' proponents, it must be said, are total crackpots. There's logic, bathymetric studies and topographical data to back their claims - however spurious they may frequently seem. Others most definitely do fit the conspiracy theorist bill, however, and you'll see from some of these possibilities that Plato's baby has been stretched to within an inch of its life to squeeze some credibility into a hopeless hunch. Yet despite all this hot air - or because of it - Atlantis still manages to capture the imagination of people the world over, and is rarely out of the news across the globe.

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