Describing Pleiades

Matt Knutzen recently sent me a draft description of the Pleiades project and asked for my thoughts on it. Here's what resulted:

The Pleiades Project (http://pleiades.stoa.org) is a consortially developed, open-source, web-based platform for using, creating, improving and sharing historical geographic information about the ancient world. It employs a unique data model that adapts best-practice and standards in GIS and spatial computing to deal with the unique challenges of sparse, damaged and contested information about ancient places, spaces and names. The project began by adapting and publishing all the data gathered for the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, but is now working with partners to expand temporally and spatially into Late Antiquity, the Byzantine Empire, the ancient Near East, Egypt and beyond.