# VIA — Ancient World Explorer
"The world's oldest unsolved mysteries. Go find them."
A map-based application that layers the ancient Roman world onto the present. Explore roads, cities, ports, and fortresses across the full Roman Empire — and discover historical quests waiting to be completed by travelers today.
- ANCIENT / MODERN toggle — switch between a Roman-era map and modern satellite/street view, with all sites staying pinned in place
- Quest markers — sites with missing photographs or unverified coordinates in the Pleiades scholarly gazetteer are flagged as open quests
- ORBIS travel cards — each site shows how many days it took to travel to Rome in the 2nd century AD (powered by the Stanford ORBIS model)
- Roman road network — 14 major roads plotted across the empire
- 95+ sites — from Britain to Mesopotamia, with rich historical descriptions
- Mobile responsive — bottom-sheet panel on phone, side panel on desktop
| Source | What it provides |
|---|---|
| Pleiades | Authoritative ancient place IDs, coordinates, scholarly records |
| Stanford ORBIS | Roman road network; travel time & cost model |
| Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire | Ancient map tiles |
| Open Context | Archaeological excavation data |
| Color | Type | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 🟡 Gold | Documented | Well-photographed, verified location |
| 🟠 Orange | Photo Quest | No portrait photo exists in Pleiades |
| 🔴 Red | Location Quest | Coordinates unverified in Pleiades |
No build step required. Clone the repo and open index.html in a browser:
git clone https://github.com/danielkorr/ancient-world-explorer.git
cd ancient-world-explorer
open index.html # or just double-click the fileDeployed via GitHub Pages: https://danielkorr.github.io/ancient-world-explorer
- Stage 2 — Backend API, ORBIS route calculations, user accounts, GPS near-me
- Stage 3 — PWA / offline mode, push notifications, expedition planning
- Stage 4 — Community contributions, verified discovery pipeline back to Pleiades
This project is in active early development. If you're a classicist, archaeologist, or digital humanist interested in the scholarly layer, please get in touch.
MIT — open source and free to build on.
Built with Leaflet.js, Pleiades, Stanford ORBIS, and DARE tiles.