Since Monday, the #PleiadesGazetteer editorial college published 15 new and 81 updated place resources, reflecting the work of 8 people. The usual Monday blog post will summarize a full week's worth of such work, but meantime here's a #SneakPeek at 11 place resources for bath/spa facilities, together with associated features like villas, pools, and springs: https://pleiades.stoa.org/search?getFeatureType%3Alist=bath&getFeatureType%3Alist=spring&getFeatureType%3Alist=swimming-pool&modified%3Alist%3Adate=2026%2F05%2F07&modified_usage=range%3Amin&portal_type%3Alist=Place&review_state%3Alist=published

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory #archaeology #classics #DH #gazetteers #HGIS

The Ancient World Mapping Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has refurbished and relaunched their digital map of places mentioned by Hierokles.

https://awmc.unc.edu/maps-for-texts-series/#Hierokles

Over on BlueSky, AWMC Director Gabriel Moss announces:

> Exciting news for folks interested in #LateAntiquity and GIS. AWMC's map of Hierokles' Synekdemos (offline since 2023) has now been refurbished and relaunched. Special thanks to Grace Bell for *lots* of heavy lifting on this project.

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory

Last Week in the #PleiadesGazetteer (4-11 May 2026): Over the past week the Pleiades editorial college published 20 new and 118 updated place resources, reflecting the work of Jeffrey Becker, Catherine Bouras, Anika Campbell, Tom Elliott, Greta Hawes, Daniel C. Browning Jr., Noah Kaye, Brady Kiesling, Gabriel Mckee, R. Scott Smith and Enes Yılandiloğlu.

A list of all new and changed resources, complete with titles, descriptions, bylines, change summaries and links to the actual gazetteer entries, as well as an overview map, may be read on the blog at https://pleiades.stoa.org/news/blog/last-week-in-pleiades-4-11-may-2026

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory #archaeology #classics #DH #gazetteers #HGIS

Since Monday, the #PleiadesGazetteer editorial college published 12 new and 20 updated place resources, reflecting the work of 7 people. The usual Monday blog post will summarize a full week's worth of such work, but meantime here's a #SneakPeek at one of the new ones. Authored by Gabriel McKee (@SecretTerror), we now have a place for the Katoghike Tsiranavor Church of Avan, the oldest surviving church structure within the boundaries of modern Yerevan, constructed in the late 6th century CE: https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/375489070

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory #archaeology #DH #gazetteers #HGIS

"Catching up with the daughters of Atlas". #PleiadesGazetteer managing editor Tom Elliott delivered this paper in the Presidential Panel of the Association of Ancient Historians Annual Meeting 2026 in Iowa City, Iowa, on Thursday, 16 April 2026: https://pleiades.stoa.org/docs/papers-and-presentations/conference-paper-catching-up-with-the-daughters-of-atlas-2026-1/conference-paper-catching-up-with-the-daughters-of-atlas-2026

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory #archaeology #cartography #classics #DH #gazetteers #HGIS

Last Week in the #PleiadesGazetteer (27 April - 4 May 2026): Over the past week the Pleiades editorial college published 13 new and 165 updated place resources, reflecting the work of Jeffrey Becker, Anika Campbell, Tom Elliott, Brady Kiesling and Enes Yılandiloğlu.

A list of all new and changed resources, complete with titles, descriptions, bylines, change summaries and links to the actual gazetteer entries, as well as an overview map, may be read on the blog at https://pleiades.stoa.org/news/blog/last-week-in-pleiades-27-april-4-may-2026

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory #archaeology #classics #DH #gazetteers #HGIS

Alexander Free (LMU -> Freiburg) now presents "Hearing the holy voice of Memnon, I missed you …”. The Memnon Colossi and Material culture" https://dmratzan.github.io/2026-nyu-lmu-materialities/papers.html#free

He will treat "... some of [the Roman-era] inscriptions [related to the oracular use of the statues] and raise the question of how the objects themselves influenced the texts left on them. ... how the Colossi of Memnon “speak” and how their visitors engage in dialogue with them."

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory #classics #MATW2026

Now, after the day's first #MATW2026 coffee pause, we have Moritz Hinsch (LMU): "Letters to the Gods? The Materiality of Writing Oracles" https://dmratzan.github.io/2026-nyu-lmu-materialities/papers.html#hinsch In which he considers the materiality of the lead oracle tablets from Dodona for what they reveal about literacy, writing, and religious belief

#ancientGeography #ancientReligion #archaeology #classics #epigraphy

Michael Hahn (LMU) takes the podium at #MATW2026 with "Empire and individual on sherds of clay": https://dmratzan.github.io/2026-nyu-lmu-materialities/papers.html#hahn

> The paper investigates the eastern desert between the Nile and the Red Sea in the Roman Imperial era as a laboratory for examining the relationship between empire and individual through the materiality of writing. Its central evidence consists of inscribed ostraca, mostly recovered from Roman military forts, quarries, and desert waystations.

#ancientHistory #ancientGeography #archaeology #classics #RomanEmpire #ancientWriting #ostraka #epigraphy #papyrology

Kicking off today's program at #MATW2026 is Matthias Stern (LMU): "The Things We Leave Behind: Papyri, Materiality, and Documentary Practice Across the Greco-Roman World" https://dmratzan.github.io/2026-nyu-lmu-materialities/papers.html#stern

> Papyrus is widely regarded as a key writing medium across the Greco-Roman world, yet its archaeological survival is strikingly uneven. While Egypt has yielded vast quantities of papyri, evidence from other parts of the Mediterranean is comparatively sparse. Without denying the importance of environmental factors, this paper reconsiders whether climate alone offers in fact a satisfactory explanation for these patterns of transmission.

One aspect: Drawing on evidence of clay sealings and their relationship to papyri in Egypt to assess patterns of surviving sealings elsewhere as indirect evidence for papyri elsewhere.

#ancientGeography #ancientHistory #papyrology #classics #archaeology