The Archaeologist

View Original

'Discovering Sparta': A Unique Digital Representation of Ancient Sparta based on Pausanias Descriptions!

In 2021, a uniquely wonderful 3D animation video was posted on the internet entitled: ‘Discovering Sparta’, in which its creator under the pseudonym flipped prof, based on the descriptions of the traveler Pausanias, makes a digital representation of ancient Sparta, with the form of a trek, presenting the city, its monuments and heroes.

See this content in the original post

FlippedProf is a multidisciplinary multimedia platform curated by Italian professor Marco Mellace, lecturer at the IIS Technical Institute Luca Paciolo, who is also the creator of animation video for the needs of digital support of students' learning processes.

Tomb of Leonidas

In the middle of the 2nd AD. century (period of decline of Sparta), the traveler Pausanias, although he records, as he states, only the most remarkable monuments of the city, the number he mentions is impressive:

Amyclae of Sparta - The Altar of Apollo

"In the area of ​​the city within the walls it mentions 63 temples, sanctuaries and mosques, 20 heroes, 22 tombs of important men, 24 statues of gods and statues of heroes, 2 galleries, the Agora with its buildings, many squares and public spaces, etc.

Statuses of Thanatos (Death), Hypnos (Sleep) and Aphrodite. The Greek poet Hesiod established in his Theogony that Thánatos is a son of Nyx (Night) and Erebos (Darkness) and twin of Hypnos (Sleep).

So the stereotype of the militarized city could be overcome and through my three-dimensional reconstruction I can now get a real idea of what Sparta might have been like (…) I might not have imagined it that way as a child, but I always suspected that Sparta was an amazing city!'“