The Project

The Periegesis Hellados is the title of a work by a certain Pausanias of Magnesia, who was writing in the second century CE/AD. Known in English as the Description of Greece, the term periegesis derives from the verb periēgeisthai, “to lead or show around”. It is this double sense of movement (through space) and description (of place) that we wish to explore in this digital periegesis. Read more

The research project is hosted by the Centre for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences at Uppsala University. The team consists of researchers currently located at Uppsala University, Sweden, the Swedish Institute at Athens and Open University, Great Britain. Read more about the research team.

Introducing the Digital Periegesis

Such in my opinion are the most famous legends (logoi) and sights (theorêmata) among the Athenians, and from the beginning my narrative has picked out of much material the things that deserve to be recorded.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.39.3

Sometime over the course of the 2nd century CE, a certain Pausanias of Magnesia set out to write a detailed account of a journey (or, better, journeys) through mainland Greece. The result is the Periegesis Hellados (Description of Greece), a ten-volume survey of the human footprint on that landscape, which presents a wealth of information about the towns, buildings, monuments and artefacts from Attica to Phocis, taking in a counter-clockwise route through the Peloponnese along the way.