Google Earth Recreates Ancient Rome

thefickler writes "Google Earth now includes ancient Rome circa 320 AD, thanks to Google, the University of Virginia, and Past Perfect Productions working together to bring the historical city to life. Clicking on Ancient Rome in 3D, users can revisit Rome from a bygone era and view highly detailed reconstructions of 250 buildings, as well as 5,000 other lesser detailed buildings. 'Pop-up windows provide information on the monuments and visitors also can enter some of the most important sites, including the Senate and the Colosseum, to observe the architecture and marble decorations.'"

Comments

First Post!

[Lissajous]

Would that be Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian??

Re:First Post!

[ColdWetDog]

Would that be Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian??

Dunno, It's all Greek to me...

Re:First Post!

[$0.02]

Could someone translate that in Latin for me?

Re:First Post!

[danbert8]

Ego operor ignoro est totus Cupiditas volo.

Re:First Post!

[$0.02]

Gratias ago vos summopere.

Re:First Post!

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I call Slashdot home. Never will you find a more perfect nexus of horrid punnery and sheer nerd-ism.

You magnificent bastards...

Re:First Post!

[$0.02]

You just described an antisocial networking site.

Re:First Post!

[BrokenHalo]

Never will you find a more perfect nexus of horrid punnery and sheer nerd-ism.

I wish. But in this case, the poster who said Dunno, It's all Greek to me... in response to the parent was being entirely informative. Except, of course, that Greece as such didn't exist then, it was more or less a collection of generally hellenic city-states.

In any case, what's wrong with nerdism? This kind of thing matters. Believe me.

Re:First Post!

[PearsSoap]

Never will you find a more perfect nexus of horrid punnery and sheer nerd-ism.

Slashdot: you will never find a more wretched hive of nerds and punnery. We must be cautious. - Obi-Wan

Re:First Post!

[david@ecsd.com]

Unnoday tisay lalay Eekgray ootay eemay...

Hope this helps...

Re:First Post!

[Whiteox]

Shouldn't that be:
EGO operor ignoro , Is est totus Cupiditas volo.

Anyway:
Romanorum vado domus.

Re:First Post!

[julesh]

Never will you find a more perfect nexus of horrid punnery and sheer nerd-ism.

They exist, if you keep looking.

I'm not going to link, because I don't want to attract trolls.

Re:First Post!

[danbert8]

Actually, if you want to be pedantic... All the letters should be capitalized, there should be no punctuation, and the verb should be at the end of the sentence. Also there should be no "u"s.

EGO OPEROR IGNORO TOTVS CVPIDITAS VOLO EST

Happy now?

Re:First Post!

[Whiteox]

Pedantic eh?

EGOOPERORIGNOROTOTVSCVPIDITASVOLOEST is more corrector! (snigger)

And thanks to one semi-autistic Google programmer

[Anonymous Coward]

Rome was in fact built in a day.

Re:And thanks to one semi-autistic Google programm

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Rome wasn't sacked in a day.

Can I send in Visigoths from Second Life?

Is this wise?

[Waffle Iron]

What would happen if this tool fell into the use of the wrong hands? What if Barbarians were to get a hold of this information?

Re:Is this wise?

[needs2bfree]

This is true. Maybe they had some help from ITC

Re:Is this wise?

[FooAtWFU]

Maybe they'd visit, and learn to shave or something....

Re:Is this wise?

[BrokenHalo]

What if Barbarians were to get a hold of this information?

The Romans were barbarians.

Re:Is this wise?

[e9th]

You sound like a Carthaginian.

come on, why stop at Rome?

[Anonymous Coward]

At that time, there was another developed culture of similar size on Earth, although at that time Han China had already split into three kingdoms. There were also other civilized peoples with developed cities in the Middle East, India and Mexico. It would be interesting to see all of them on Google Earth.

Re:come on, why stop at Rome?

[Guido von Guido]

At that time, there was another developed culture of similar size on Earth, although at that time Han China had already split into three kingdoms. There were also other civilized peoples with developed cities in the Middle East, India and Mexico. It would be interesting to see all of them on Google Earth.

I think it has a lot to do with preservation. Remember, the Romans did a lot of their building with stone and Marble. Rome is strewn with buildings from the ancient Roman empire like the Colliseum and the Pantheon. The Chinese, however, used a lot of wood in their cities. Very little of the Han cities survive, making them a bit harder to reconstruct.

I certainly hope this isn't the last, though. I personally would like to see Babylon or one of the Mayan cities like Palenque or Tikal.

Re:come on, why stop at Rome?

[lysergic.acid]

and then convert Google Earth into an online RTS game that lets you pit these ancient armies against one another!

as a side note, i wonder if it'd be possible to create an MMO RTS game given the huge server farms Google has at their disposal.

Re:come on, why stop at Rome?

[Petrushka]

It would, but I think one good reason to prioritise Rome is because the layout of the city changed in infuriatingly complicated ways during the centuries it was at its peak. The enormous building works instituted under some emperors (e.g. Augustus and Nero) make it very tiresome trying to work out what was where. It's basically impossible to represent that on a paper map: you need layers of maps. Such things are available, but an electronic version would be very nice.

If it weren't for that complexity, I reckon a single paper map would be just fine. In the case of classical Athens, say, a single paper map is basically fine, as the city's layout was fairly constant during its heyday. (Sure, they built a new acropolis, but it just occupied the site of the old one, mostly.) Conversely, studying archaeological sites whose history spans centuries or millennia -- say, Troy -- would be much easier with a diachronic map of the kind I envisage.

Unfortunately, what they've done isn't actually a diachronic map: it's focussed just on one period (320 CE). So, while glad of this for what it is, I for one am left annoyed at what might have been ...

Re:come on, why stop at Rome?

[CheshireCatCO]

The flip side of using a lot of marble and good stone in building is that a lot of Roman buildings were cannibalized for their stone. The Colesseum has been stripped, for one. (The best example I can think of is Piazza dell'Anfiteatro in Lucca, Italy, where the entire original amphitheater is totally gone, but the fossilzed shape remains in the piazza.)

As a result, most of what we still have is from places that were buried (a la Pompeii), were converted to other uses (the Pantheon is now a church, for example), or places that were abandoned (Ephesus, for instance).

Re:come on, why stop at Rome?

[je ne sais quoi]

It's not just construction materials. The population of Rome (the city) at its height was ~1 million (around 0 CE IIRC). After Rome, no other city equaled that until London in 1800!

Re:come on, why stop at Rome?

[ChameleonDave]

The population of Rome (the city) at its height was ~1 million (around 0 CE IIRC).

There was no "0 CE". Try 1 AD.

Re:come on, why stop at Rome?

[ChameleonDave]

Or, better still, AD 1.

History Goggle Earth

[Doc Ruby]

I want to visit the real Rome with overlay goggles tuned to Google Earth's reconstructions, with GPS. So when I look at the ruins, there's overlay of the original sites. With animations of recreated everyday scenes, and famous scenes (like Senate arguments and speeches, revolts, Coliseum battles, etc) running for my amusement.

In fact, I'd love to see these overlays in goggles in any museum showing artifacts. They're always in crappy shape in their cases (the intact articles are probably all in private collections, the broken ones sold off to finance them). Goggles showing them in their original condition, and in their original usage, would turn those displays from mere trophy cases of booty into actual demonstrations of history and our global heritage.

Re:History Goggle Earth

[JaredOfEuropa]

In fact, I'd love to see these overlays in goggles in any museum showing artifacts. They're always in crappy shape in their cases (the intact articles are probably all in private collections, the broken ones sold off to finance them). Goggles showing them in their original condition, and in their original usage, would turn those displays from mere trophy cases of booty into actual demonstrations of history and our global heritage.

In that case, why bother to visit Rome and these museums? Just keep a case of beer and some pizza handy, pop on the goggles, and watch the spectacle of Rome unfold, whilst sitting right there on your couch at home (in your underwear, no doubt...)

Re:History Goggle Earth

[Doc Ruby]

The home version is exciting for that reason. But actually being there is still a blast. The point is not just the VR, but "bringing the scene to life". Actually being there, after actually going there, swings all kinds of human wetware into actually connecting with the scene. And connecting it with the current scene there. All of which connects the person to the history, with the actual artifacts as the base props that encourage the suspension of disbelief that is the most powerfully convincing special effect.

Re:History Goggle Earth

[misterthirsty]

see mona lisa overdrive by william gibson for an interesting fiction involving such goggles.

Re:History Goggle Earth

[melikamp]

Where are you getting your weed, man?

Re:History Goggle Earth

[Doc Ruby]

Gibson's _Virtual Light_ even more so. Stephenson's _Snow Crash_ is even better (as gadget, as story and as writing), and was written (just months) before VL was.

Re:History Goggle Earth

[PearsSoap]

Goggles showing them in their original condition, and in their original usage, would turn those displays from mere trophy cases of booty into actual demonstrations of history and our global heritage.

Whereas beer googles turn things into trophy cases of booty.

Re:History Goggle Earth

[Doc Ruby]

Orbital Rastas.

Re:History Goggle Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you want "Google Time Goggles"?

Re:History Goggle Earth

[Doc Ruby]

The analog is the reverse of the digital :).

Re:History Goggle Earth

[harry666t]

Already doable.

This thing is called imagination and human children usually unlearn to use it as soon as they start seriously thinking about "growing up".

Re:History Goggle Earth

[Doc Ruby]

I have a good enough imagination to both imagine the application I just described, and to enjoy its augmentation of my senses.

But indeed, most adults don't. Which is why goggles like these would be popular.

Re:History Goggle Earth

[weetabeex]

Do they home deliver?

Re:History Goggle Earth

[Doc Ruby]

You've gotta meet them halfway, mon - irie heights.

Re:History Goggle Earth

[harry666t]

I have a good enough imagination to both imagine the application I just described, and to enjoy its augmentation of my senses.

:)

But indeed, most adults don't. Which is why goggles like these would be popular.

That's right. But while one cannot grow a replacement arm if they lose one, having artificial implants to make up for the lost imagination is a step in wrong direction. Oh wait, TV and the other Media of Mass Manipulation are already setting us up on this path...

Well, people could use such goggles to boost their creative processes (eg. I'm a "retired" map designer, and I could imagine myself now tweaking all the details of my maps using similar tech). I really wouldn't like to sound pessimistic here, but I'm almost certainly sure that such technology would simply become "HDTV+1" of some sort and will be mainly used to spoon-feed people with even more crap. We easily get addicted to TV and the intertubes even when there's still that barrier of the screen and input devices.

Re:History Goggle Earth

[Doc Ruby]

I notice that you're using the crutch of an actual Internet, rather than just daydreaming it. Or I'd notice (or rather, I wouldn't have).

Re:History Goggle Earth

[harry666t]

Are you saying that I am saying that I think that imagination should replace the technology altogether, and people should live in caves of their own minds?

I'm stating that I'm worried with the current tendency to do exactly the opposite - to replace the imagination with tech and make people brainless zombies (which is also sitting in caves). The TV is a brainwashing machine, yet even people who admit it still spend their days watching it. Going HD, then VR, then $whateverthenewtechofthefuture, isn't actually any progress, it's just getting better at standing still.

Tech should be used as a tool to help us express ourselves, and to help in our daily lives. I can imagine a house that I'd want to live in, and then use a CAD program to design it, hand the project over to an architect that would revise it, and later see my new home becoming real. Much different from simply daydreaming, isn't it?

Re:History Goggle Earth

[Doc Ruby]

You do realize that the "Google Earth goggles" I described will be used by real people to communicate with each other, right? I recommended that they travel to important sites and experience them in person, which is one of the biggest stimuli to human imagination. But even if they're used as others have suggested, to visit these places virtually (goggles only, no travel to the enhanced artifacts), they will stimulate the imagination.

And indeed that tech will be used by other people to dress up the rest of the world we look at through them. The flipside of this tech, implicit in it, is the creation of the images projected in the goggles. People have to create them, using their imaginations. Google Earth has SketchUp, and an open modeling format (KML). More and more modeling is created by people in open archives, hosted by Google and among independent people. That makes Google Earth, and supporting SW and HW, into a medium. It's only a matter of time before either Google Earth hosts a SecondLife, or SecondLife is as open to modeling as is Google Earth, or there's some merger, or an alternate source of a merger - people interacting with people, rather than just viewing or interacting with objects. That is very clearly a medium. Media require imagination to create content, whether the scenarios or the conversations and relationships between people in them.

A lot of people complained about computers, and especially PCs, as "crutches for the mind" that would destroy imagination by making us lazy and dependent on machines. That wasn't true even before networking's popularity, but traditional imaginative works were different, and the people whose imaginations were harnessed were different (engineers rather than artists). But once PCs evolved into network terminals, that prejudice against "imaginative computing" was possible only among the most elite traditionalists (and the ignoramuses they can fool). Which eventually gave us Google Earth. And which will eventually give us "VR goggles". And indeed converge all our independent media into interactive ones, interacting with each other among tremendous and complex amounts of content.

These machines are levers for the mind. Whether they make us fat and lazy or muscular and athletic depends on culture, societal and personal. They will have each kind of effect on different people in differing degrees. What's important is to grow people with skills of imagination, which requires learning to guide the natural impulse, rather than just decide they're robotic, shallow traps and choose to live with them that way. Either path is one that is indeed chosen in the imaginations of people, either in those influential on culture or in each person in the culture. The way to feed the imagination is to embrace the technologies, imagine them growing our imaginations, and then act out our dreams.

And since the tech is upon us with the fiercest momentum, we have little choice except whether to use it well or to use it poorly. Just rejecting it is pure fantasyland.

Re:History Goggle Earth

[Stephen20x6]

Spook Country by Gibson actually discusses the current state of virtual art installations and features radiation, popstars, nutropic meds, and what is by all appearances an amoral magical acrobat.

No directions?

[$0.02]

Never mind. All the roads lead to Rome anyway.

Re:No directions?

[Captain Splendid]

No directions?

Sure! Let's assume, like a majority of geeks, you're in SoCal...

1. Build Time Machine (0 mi.)
2. Travel Back to 320 AD (-0 mi.)
3. Walk to the East Coast of the US (3782 mi.)
4. Build boat (0 mi.)
5. Paddle to Italy (4890 mi.)
6. Head NE to Rome (45 mi.)

See? That was easy!

Re:No directions?

[Anonymous Coward]

"like a majority of geeks, you're in SoCal..."

Say what? Down there they've got, what, Qualcomm and... uh... um... well, I dunno. I guess there are some technology-centered employers in SoCal but I couldn't name any other than the one. The other 300 or 400 I can think of are in northern California, in the Bay Area.

Re:No directions?

[Anonymous Coward]

in order for a time machine to work properly it would also be able to travel in space, so once you have the working time machine you would just travel there... think earth rotation around the sun and the sun's rotation in the galaxy...

Re:No directions?

[impaledsunset]

Given the velocity of the Sun and the Solar system, Ancient Rome should be about an light year away, and you fail to take that into account in your calculations.

Re:No directions?

[dacaldar]

you forgot:

7. ...
8. Profit!

SPQR game back in 90's

[HighOrbit]

This was sort of done before. There was a myst-style game set in Ancient Rome. It came out circa 1996. You walked aroud acient rome in a myst type environment solving mysteries and puzzles. It was supposed to be geographically realistic. I think there was actually a web-based rpg type version in the 90's too.

Re:SPQR game back in 90's

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember that! The CD even had a QTVR reconstruction of the Roman Forum.

Not really!

[ohell]

I know from multiple sources that all the buildings were actually painted in bright colours (before the fell into disrepair, obviously), and archaeologists know what the colours were, from the remnants of pigments. I was hoping this reconstruction would be more than just white and beige marble veneer...

Re:Not really!

[the_other_chewey]

The buildings themselves probably weren't (there are some surviving richly-coloured - i.e. non-faded - murals
depicting buildings in the classical "mediterranean" colour scheme), as bright, monochromatic piant was rather
expensive (ground semi-precious stones aren't cheap) - the statues however were, and we can indeed detect very
faint remnants of different pigments on them today. Last I heared it is still debated what pigment stands
for what colour though, but "bright" is consensus amongst scholars by now.

Re:Not really!

[Jason Levine]

Not as geeky as posting an xkcd comic, but here's some related Sheldon comics on the subject:

http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/080523.html
http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/080524.html

Re:And thanks to one semi-autistic Google programm

[zappepcs]

That's exactly what would happen if this was done on Second Life! And it would be funny too

Obligatory

[$0.02]

Ego exspectata nostrum Romanorum desparatus.

Re:Obligatory

[Whiteox]

EGO exspectata nostrum Romanorum vinco

There, fixed that for you.

Visit a modern city.

[Anonymous Coward]

Visit a modern city here (Windows only).

Pity it doesn't work in certain cases..

[Anonymous Coward]

Old Version of GE (Linux or Windows), setup of 4.3: no "Ancient Rome" menu in the Gallery.
Also uninstal/reinstall: no luck yet (where does GE hides its f#&$@ gallery links?). Brand new setup in a new client: the menu voice is available!

Then yet, pity it is so heavy to manage kill a 3G Core2Duo/Nvidia to no use. Anyone wants to cluster?

Re:Pity it doesn't work in certain cases..

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Same here.

I just get lots of yellow markers, I cannot expand "Ancient Rome in 3D".

Re:Pity it doesn't work in certain cases..

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Got it now.

Click on one of the yellow markers, in the box that opens click the link "Ancient Rome Buildings".

It's AD 320

[kevmeister]

Yes, this a a nit, but one that I am seeing more and more often.

The entry refers to Rome in "320 AD". This is simply wrong. It is AD 320. Any of you who posted Latin comments are aware of this modern mangling. 320 Anno Domini simply does not make sense. (See Wikipedia article on "Anno Domini".)

As with all issues involving time, it's pretty bogus, anyway, so perhaps /. should just use CE (Common Era).

Re:It's AD 320

[j_sp_r]

Maybe we should use bue and aue (before/after UNIX epoch) from now on

Re:It's AD 320

[Crazy Taco]

As with all issues involving time, it's pretty bogus, anyway, so perhaps /. should just use CE (Common Era).

Nah, I think not. AD has been good enough for everyone for 1500 years (it was devised in AD 525), and I don't see any reason to give it up just for political correctness. There's enough politically correct garbage going on now as it is without adding dates to it.

Re:It's AD 320

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right, we should quit trying to appease people and just call it by the correct year:

3018.

Oh - we're not using the Chinese calendar? Why not? Some lame form of political correctness?

I suggest you think about your concept of "everyone" ... and with that thinking, you may discover that "political correctness" often has value.

Re:And thanks to one semi-autistic Google programm

[Anonymous Coward]

There actually is an ancient rome sim in SL:

http://www.rikomatic.com/blog/2007/01/real_world_plac.html

Roman Detective Novels

[Simonetta]

Anyone even remotely interested in this should be aware of the novels of David Wishart. He is a Classics scholar who writes pop fiction detective novels set in ancient Rome @30 CE.
    He has too modern references and word clichés for my taste, but the three novels that I've read of his have been detailed, engrossing, and amusing.

Re:Roman Detective Novels

[SoapBox17]

Dude that's awesome, thanks for the recommendation.

Re:Roman Detective Novels

[Anonymous Coward]

try these authors:
Steven Saylor
John Maddox Roberts
Lindsey Davis

Saylor being most 'serious', Davis lightest.

  - Jake

Re:Roman Detective Novels

[niktemadur]

Anyone even remotely interested in this should be aware of the novels of David Wishart. He is a Classics scholar who writes pop fiction detective novels set in ancient Rome @30 CE.

Now that is a fascinating idea. Knowing nothing about these novels, I'm visualizing something along the lines of an ancient version of Sherlock Holmes, relying on Aristotelian logic to crack the case, and I'm gonna get a bit silly here, I'm sure the narratives are much more sophisticated:

A much-loved Roman general and nobleman, in charge of the construction of the Pompeii aqueduct, has been found dead in the bath of his villa, with slit wrists. The authorities dismiss it as a suicide, but the grieving widow believes otherwise and hires our intrepid hero. The main suspect is an embittered rival general who was turned down for the aqueduct project by Caesar himself, but the mastermind turns out to be a double-crossing best friend, secretly allied with a Herculaneum consortium, having paid a pound of salt and promising citizenship for the children of a Spartan slave to bribe him into carrying out the dirty deed. The Spartan, of course, was the deceased general's majordomo (butler).

Re:Roman Detective Novels

[Gavagai80]

Sounds like Lindsey Davis' Falco: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Didius_Falco

Oooh...

[Anonymous Coward]

You just gave me an orgasm.

Paitence

[Urger]

Rome wasn't rendered in a day.

Shakespeare

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not that Google loved Caesar less, but that they loved Rome more!"

Et tu Sergey? :-)

La plume de ma tante!!!

[Mateo_LeFou]

La plume de ma tante!!!

Ancient Art of War?

[Mateo_LeFou]

Just kidding.
AAW ruled, though

Google Earth, heck...

[FlyByPC]

...I want to see it reconstructed as an Ayleid city add-on pack in TESIV:Oblivion!

Google Time

[YourExperiment]

How long before Google Earth simply features a slider, whereby you can not only view any part of the Earth's surface, but view it at any point in history? Drag the slider back a few centuries and watch the development (and destruction) of major population centres. Accompanied, no doubt, by a sidebar of discreet text ads offering to whisk you back via time machine to the era you appear to be interested in. Just be careful not to step on the butterfly.

I was there last week

[xynopsis]

I just went to visit the ruins of ancient Rome last week! I didn't like the smell of candles and old churches though. I also almost got stuck in the place because of the Alitalia strike. Virtual tours should be better solution for those planning to go there physically :)

Onlinezeitung Hohen Neuendorf

[LogoPATE]

http://www.finanz-duell.de/ Onlinezeitung Hohen Neuendorf Versicherung

GOOGLE GOGGLES!

[spoonist]

GOOGLE GOGGLES!

Goat, Girl, Goo Goo Goggles, G... G... G...

Re:And thanks to one semi-autistic Google programm

[Anonymous Coward]

Except instead of Visigoths it would by flying penises.

Sooo...

[Caboosian]

Where's the "orbital ion cannon" button?

Rome?

[jandersen]

Who bloody cares about Rome? It is in many ways an unpleasant city, with rubbish lying around on display and where the major part of peope seem to be out to cheat as much money out of you as possible. I can think of any number of places I would rather see both in real life and on screen.

I, for one...

[ChameleonDave]

Ego saltem nouos Romanos dominos nostros saluere iubeo.

Re:I, for one...

[Petrushka]

Ego saltem nouos Romanos dominos nostros saluere iubeo.

nonne scribere vis, "salvere volo"? quod scripsisti intellegitur, "I for one command our new Roman overlords to say hello" ...

Re:I, for one...

[ChameleonDave]

I wasn't sure how to say "to welcome", so I looked it up. It literally means that I order them greeted. I don't know it is an authentic idiomatic expression, or a mistake in the dictionary. Either way, take it up with Collins. ;-) Perhaps we could just go with "salueo".

Re:I, for one...

[Petrushka]

Please forgive my brain-fart. I was thinking of salvere as being "greet" rather than "be greeted". You were right, I was wrong. D'oh!

Wow

[sootman]

And I thought the imagery in my area was out-of-date. :-)