[HN Gopher] Itiner-e: the Google Maps of Roman Roads
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Itiner-e: the Google Maps of Roman Roads
Author : helsinkiandrew
Score : 170 points
Date : 2025-11-09 09:46 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (itiner-e.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (itiner-e.org)
| rclkrtrzckr wrote:
| Street view would be nice.
|
| (SCNR)
| zeristor wrote:
| "Home to Rome"
| larodi wrote:
| The title is wrong, as this is not Google's maps, but the
| beautiful and much more responsive Mapbox maps. Please fix your
| title.
|
| Also it is high time for everyone to understand that not every
| map out there is goog's and more importantly - there are at least
| 5 providers of mappings software that do it either better or
| likewise well, and these guys' work needs to be respected. In
| fact it is very likely that gmaps would rate very low if one is
| to rank it considering usability (APIs including), licensing,
| speed and quality of the render.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| The "the" and the "of" are of more importance in this
| particular sequence/structure: => "the X of Y"
|
| _the Google Maps_ is being used to frame or position the sites
| intent of a data rich maps site _of Roman Roads_
| isolli wrote:
| Fair point, but respecting the page's own title would have
| been better and avoided much confusion (just look at the
| comments here):
|
| "Itiner-e - The Digital Atlas of Ancient Roads"
| lysace wrote:
| I don't see many people being confused.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| This is partly the fault of the researchers themselves for not
| including any attribution to OpenStreetMap, even though they
| are using OpenStreetMap data to render everything but the Roman
| roads.
| larodi wrote:
| And this is important stuff, as people should respect and pay
| proper attribution to those working painstakingly to actually
| enable everyone with all the wonderful mapping libs and
| content.
|
| And Goog does none of this to deserve any credit.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Especially since their own licence for this project's data
| (the Roman roads), is CC-BY. Itiner-e:
| the digital atlas of ancient roads (c) 2024 by Brughmans,
| Pazout, de Soto and Bjerregaard Vahlstrup is licensed under
| CC BY 4.0
| INTPenis wrote:
| So much fun putting this map next to a modern one and looking at
| where I'm from in Croatia.
|
| West of Jajce in Bosnia there's a ring of roads that hasn't
| changed for 2000 years.
|
| I wonder if there's a missing roman settlement under Sarajevo,
| considering the roads there match so well and the size of the
| city.
| 9dev wrote:
| How far would I get when I planned a road trip using this? There
| are so many Roman roads still in existence (paved over of
| course), this might just be a usable map!
| consp wrote:
| Nice map, though it uses the current river and land layout. Half
| of what was Batavia was inpassable wetland and the rivers
| followed a different path likely more following the roads.
| noduerme wrote:
| Hug of death? I can't wait to explore the roads of Gaul tomorrow.
| I spent a great autumn in the village of Betaille, Lot, and to
| walk the local roads you could imagine Roman legions fighting the
| army of Vercingetorix in the fields.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Perhaps we can finally figure out the exact location of that
| one stubborn village which was never conquered. It should have
| a visible ring of roads linking the surrounding Roman outposts
| around it...
| em-bee wrote:
| SPQR - Sono pazzi questi romani!
|
| These Romans are crazy!
| stevage wrote:
| As someone who works in web mapping, I have to quibble with "The
| Google Maps of...". This is just an interactive map - it doesn't
| have features that particularly resemble Google Maps,
| particularly navigation.
|
| A bit of work on the UI would make this a really fun and
| interesting tool - currently it seems to be intended for people
| who know a lot about the dataset already.
| wichert wrote:
| Navigation is supported, with travel times given for walking,
| ox cart, pack animal and horse. The feature is a bit hidden:
| you need to click the place marker at the bottom right.
| mr_toad wrote:
| Travel advisory: possible disruptions on the road due to
| armies of vandals.
| countrymile wrote:
| Also worth looking at this very UK take:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44622543
| Freak_NL wrote:
| This project uses OpenStreetMap to render the (present day)
| natural features and (if enabled as a setting) the current road
| network.
|
| Unfortunately, Brughmans, de Soto, and Pazout neglected to
| include the legally required attribution for this use of
| OpenStreetMap data (via Mapbox). This is a shame, because these
| kind of projects are great to show people that there is more than
| just Google Maps.
| aarroyoc wrote:
| As always with this kind of stuff, there are so many
| inaccuracies, at least in the parts I know of. Roads are mostly
| ok, although some of them are more like "suppositions" that real
| roads we have found. Let's take a look at the area around
| Valladolid: https://imgur.com/xMW6yiY
|
| - Pintia is almost confirmed to be near the Duero/Douro river,
| much more to the south and to the east. It is one of the most
| explored pre-Roman settlements in the area and while there has
| not been a definitive proof, there are many hints that show that
| it's on the place I showed and not where it's shown on the map
|
| - Amallobriga is also, for most historians, located in Tiedra,
| but it shows Tordesillas. As you can see on the map, the actual
| location of Tiedra is also a road intersection. The location in
| Tiedra is consistent with archeological evidence and with route
| books that show the distance from Amallobriga to other cities we
| know.
|
| - Nobody really knows where Intercatia or Tela are. But note that
| a there's a big road intersection at the south. It is confirmed
| that there was a settlement but we do not know the name of it,
| several have been proposed. In any case, Intercatia is very
| difficult to be located as it is shown in the map with no roads
| going to it. Many archaeologists say it could be in the actual
| town of Paredes de Nava.
|
| - I don't think there's any real evidence of a bridge that
| crosses the Douro/Duero river there. What we know is that there's
| a medieval bridge closer to Septimanca and that it could have had
| a Roman origin, but according to the map there's no road there.
| SwiftyBug wrote:
| I was wondering the same thing about the road crossing the
| Douro between present-day Vila Nova de Gaia and Porto. Was
| there a bridge there during Roman times? Interestingly, it
| would be right where the Luiz I Bridge is now.
| aarroyoc wrote:
| After a quick research, there's no evidence of a bridge there
| and it seems difficult to do even for Romans. But there could
| have been some people with boats in Cale to help cross the
| river and still be considered part of the road.
| SwiftyBug wrote:
| I know that not too long ago there was a "bridge", which
| was a bunch of boats aligned from one margin to the other.
| Not sure if this counts as a bridge.
| mr_toad wrote:
| Fords and ferries were pretty common in Roman Britain,
| perhaps it was common to the provinces.
| joeyates wrote:
| The route for the Via Cassia is at odds with all the literature
| on the subject.
|
| Two macroscopic problems are:
|
| 1. The only variant given is between Bolsena and Fabro. There is
| nothing about later routes to the west of Valdichiana and to the
| left of the Arno.
|
| 2. The section between Arezzo and Cascia used the exact route of
| the modern Setteponti, which was certainly not the case.
|
| Beyond these errors, every section I have checked in detail for
| the Cassia contains inexact info.
| vinc wrote:
| Interesting, but it'd be even better if it was the OpenStreenMap
| of Roman Roads instead of Google Maps because like some already
| mentioned I could easily spot inaccuracies in my local area and a
| collaborative effort could fix that.
|
| You can click on a road segment and get some info about it so the
| first step would be to add a way to contact its author to suggest
| improvements.
|
| For example I know of some hidden ruins of a very ancient bridge
| where my local roman road crossed the river with two paths that
| show where the road on both sides would have been instead of
| where the road cross the river on the segment.
| b2ccb2 wrote:
| Relevant paper:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-025-06140-z (Itiner-e: A
| high-resolution dataset of roads of the Roman Empire)
| larodi wrote:
| Google is never mentioned in this paper.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| ? How did conversation about an interesting topic get this
| sidetracked
| Timwi wrote:
| It got sidetracked by the submitter themselves by
| mislabeling it as "Google Maps of Roman Roads".
| pcrh wrote:
| Nice! It's interesting to see the major travel hubs and how they
| can differ from modern ones, for example Durocortorum (Reims) and
| Augustobona (Troyes) in France, as well as Verulamium (St.
| Albans) in England.
|
| It would be nice to be able to use Streetview or similar to see
| how the roads look today (where they still exist).
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| This is a great thing to put next to e.g. voting maps, language,
| religion, etc - https://www.reddit.com/r/phantomborders/ is
| fascinating sometimes.
|
| For my part, the Romans never went more than halfway up the
| Netherlands, meaning the north ("above the rivers") is culturally
| somewhat different from the south, although the cultures did
| converge over time. But "below" the rivers is still generally
| Catholic wheras "above" is Protestant. For example.
| walthamstow wrote:
| The line on Great Britain is very clear. Scotland might not
| exist today if the Romans had conquered the whole island.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| It might sound dumb to say, but modernity has abstracted away
| mountains and rivers enough that when I look at a map like this,
| I find myself just kinda fixated on the topography, how it shaped
| history, and how people worked around it when dynamite and
| airplanes and steel bridges weren't Things yet.
| aswegs8 wrote:
| Every road I clicked on was categorized as "conjectured", so no
| direct proof exists.
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(page generated 2025-11-10 23:01 UTC)