Lithodomos Ancient World Multimedia Guide

Description

The Ancient World’s most powerful storytelling partner.

Since its founding in 2016, Lithodomos has developed and continuously refined an academically rigorous, collaborative process to create detailed, high-resolution 360-degree reconstructions of legendary places alongside a multi-faceted, multimedia, easy-to-use platform already in everyone’s hands.

Discover custom itineraries with interactive, self-guiding maps of 360-degree reconstructions that automatically locate and orient the image with where you are standing. Uncover stories, myths and legends in selectable languages with closed captions. The split screen function allows you to see today side-by-side with its glorious past and the infographics provide fun facts from the location’s history.

Bath

The Roman settlement at Bath — known to the Romans as ‘Aquas Sulis’ (‘Waters of Sulis’) — is among the most spectacular and evocative Roman sites in the British Isles, providing insight into the fascinating interplay between local Celtic religion and the new imported Roman gods. While the Roman complex at Bath was initially constructed in AD 47, the site had long been used by earlier Celtic peoples who believed the natural mineral hot springs to have restorative properties. The Celts of the region believed the waters were a gift from the god Sulis, perhaps a solar deity. This Celtic connection with Sulis was not severed when Romans came to control and develop the site. Rather, Sulis was paired with the Roman goddess Minerva, the two being seen as different manifestations of the same deity. The heated waters were channelled into a large bath complex, but the spring itself remained sacred, with a temple complex constructed beside it honouring Sulis Minerva. Her elaborately decorated temple is an outstanding example of local craftsmanship. A statue of Sulis Minerva stood before her temple and alongside the Sacred Spring, presiding over the complex.

Our scene takes place in the early 4th century AD, in the evening light of the English summer, as the low sun casts warm shadows over the courtyard, and light filters through the lunette windows of the bathing complex. The complex is in its most developed stage and has not yet suffered the ravages of an empire in decline.

Stonehenge

Monumental earthworks at the site of Stonehenge are believed by archaeologists to have commenced as early as 3100BC, centuries prior to the construction of the pyramids of Egypt, but would not reach the design for which it is famed today until 1700BC, well over a thousand years later. The design of the site, and even the culture using it, changed over the centuries, but throughout the monument retained its significance. Stonehenge was one of many monumental earthworks within the landscape believed to have held religious significance to the peoples of the region. Many theories have been postulated to the function of the site, ranging from a ceremonial gathering place for the tribes of the region, to a site for sacrifice, to a celestial observatory, to a burial ground. Given its centuries of continued use, it is probable that the site varied its cultural significance and even function over the eons. The monumental stone circle at Stonehenge has long been a source of wonder, standing as a tantalising monument to a long-lost culture. While the site continues to draw huge numbers of curious visitors per year, the visible arrangement is only the final phase of millennia of development at the site.

Our scene takes place in the summer sun in mid-afternoon. Four periods of Stonehenge’s long history are covered, showing the major phases of the site, as well as a scene depicting the construction methods archaeologists believed the ancient builders of the site utilised to move the monumental stones.

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