Greece's rich ancient cultural heritage, along with its mythical and historical locations, has been accessible through a free app called "Topos Text."
The app is the brainchild of Brady Kiesling, a former ancient historian and archaeologist from California, who returned to scholarship after two decades of diplomatic service for the U.S. State Department in Israel, Morocco, Greece, and Armenia.
Topos Text offers information on 5,000 places relevant to the ancient Greek world, spanning ancient cities, shrines, medieval castles, towers, modern museums, and excavation sites. The app covers primarily Greek locations but includes major places from Spain to the Caucasus. It connects these places to ancient authors who wrote about them in Greek or Latin, utilizing a vast library of ancient texts integrated with a detailed gazetteer.
The app's index list, filterable by date, genre, and relevance, allows users to access the full text of over 240 ancient Greek works in English translation, some with the original Ancient Greek. This feature enables users to quickly grasp the historical and cultural significance of a place by reading relevant passages from ancient literature.
Key features of the Topos Text website include:
- A portable library of ancient texts with over 530 sources on Greek history, mythology, and geography in English.
- A database with more than 5,350 ancient locations, modern museums, and archaeological sites, covering the entirety of the ancient Greek world.
- An interactive map and index linking every location to the ancient source with a reference to it.
- An index of thousands of proper names.
- Specific coordinates allowing users to zoom in on the map to see ancient ruins.
An event introducing the application to the public took place on December 7 at the Historical Library of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation. The app, developed by IT company Pavla AE, received support from the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation. It is expected to be a valuable resource for millions of visitors to Greece, including history and archaeology enthusiasts, researchers, students, and ordinary travelers.
