The SELECT Atlas contains evidence of the languages and cultures of Ancient Europe before Rome.
Research can be carried out on the written records that these ancient populations left us and the macroscopic aspects of their material cultures (facies).

In the Atlas, you can find:

– List and location of all the written records (epigraphy) of European pre-Roman cultures. Images and texts of single inscriptions are not available.

– List and positioning of ancient sites, distributed by type: settlements, necropolises, cult places, harbours.
The records referring to the archaeological cultures do not pretend to be exhaustive. The list of sites is not intended to be complete. They provide information on the macro-periods and archaeological cultures related to the populations who have left written documents. Only sites that have been confirmed with certainty are shown on the map. Due to the scarcity of archaeological sites in Poland, we have included surface finds in the map and only in a few specific cases settlements or necropolises. These attestations, belonging to the Latenian culture, do not necessarily indicate the settled presence of Celts on the territory of ancient Poland but may show contacts with the Celtic world.

– Modern toponyms

– Ancient map with coastlines

– Modern map

– Clickable pop-up windows appear on the maps with the search results displaying the most important archaeological or epigraphic information for each record in the list.

– Chronological determination for each record, given as a coloured bar: centuries are highlighted in different colours

– Referring infographics samples for each epigraphic or archaeological culture are given. In the epigraphic infographics, we have added some translations of texts. The sign '?' indicates unsure text content. In languages of fragmentary attestation, translations of texts are often subject to revision, so we encourage users to consider them only as a starting point rather than an endpoint for understanding them.

 

 

The European Regions included in the Atlas are:

Spain

France

Slovenia

Italy

Poland

For some Eastern European countries, we have very poor epigraphic documentation and different kinds of information: personal names, place names, people names, and glossae (annotations) of ancient authors.
These regions include Bulgaria, Albania, North Macedonia, and European Turkey.

The SELECT Atlas considers the civilisations of ancient Europe from the earliest written records of the 8th century B.C. to the age of Romanisation. The stage of Romanisation varies from region to region, so the upper chronological limit may also vary. In some areas, local populations continued to produce written documents in their language or use the Latin alphabet until the 1st century AD. In others, Rome’s conquest was more radical; from the 2nd century BC, no more writing was done.

 

The ATLAS consists of two parts: the map library (EXAMPLES), consisting of selected thematic
cartography, and the Map Manager, the tool for building the desired map.

The Map Manager offers three possibilities:

– Wizard: By entering a keyword, you can get all results contained in the Select database and select the one(s) of interest

– Advanced Search: Here, you can select the type of data (Epigraphy or Archaeology) and then select the fields of interest in the box below. Different kinds of layouts are available for background maps: modern and ancient. In the Advanced Search, you can also select specific record types (e.g. site type or epigraphic support type).
In both cases, it is possible to activate the geographical filter on the right of the screen.

 

 

The ancient peoples considered are listed in alphabetical order. In most cases, their names (ethnonyms) are
given by Greek and Latin authors.
The ancient peoples registered in the Atlas are:

Brettians
Campanians
Camunians
Celtiberians
Cisalpine Celts
Daunians
Elymians
Etruscans
Gauls
Iapigians
Iberians
Latins (only of the archaic times)
Ligurians
Lucanians
Lusitanians
Messapians
Oenotrians
Peucetians
Picenes
Phoenicians-Punics
Rhaeti
Sabines
Samnites
Sabellians (Oscans and Umbrians)
Sicanians
Siculians
Umbrians
Venetians
Volscans
Populations of the Southwestern Hispanic Peninsula