From the Pillars of Heracles to Ecbatana

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Chiara Palladino; Cian Colgan

Published:

2025

This chapter examines the application of GIS and landscape-oriented methods for the analysis of ancient travel narratives and geographical information transmitted through texts. Dynamic modeling approaches, such as agent-based modeling and least-cost path analysis, have been very popular in Archeology but have limited application in the study of primary sources due to the conflicting nature of qualitative, textual information. Despite their limitations, however, they can contribute new insights, supporting close-reading with a more dynamic representation of human interactions with the material environment. In the second part of the chapter, we introduce the project Tracking the Ten Thousand, which seeks to model the journey through Persia described by the Anabasis of Xenophon using a combination of text annotation, close reading and landscape-oriented approaches. In the case studies, we explore how the interaction between GIS and narrative can provide unexpected challenges but also uncover new insights and perspectives on the text and its author.

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