ΙΕΡΟΣ ΑΤΛΑΣ  ·  Olympus Estate

The Sacred Atlas of Greece

Every place, god, hero and myth in the Estate Library, drawn on one living map. Find where Apollo was worshipped, follow Heracles through his twelve labours, or walk the Sacred Way to Eleusis by torchlight.

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The map

Explore the Atlas

Choose a light on the map, a god, a hero or a journey. Every entry leads to the full story in the Estate Library.

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Journeys

The roads the myths took

Greek myth is full of travellers. Choose one and the route draws itself across the map, stop by stop, from the sources that tell it.

Heracles

The Twelve Labours of Heracles

Twelve labours set by Eurystheus, in the order Apollodorus gives them, from the lion of Nemea to the hound of Hades.

15 stops
Theseus

The Road of Theseus

From Troezen to Athens by the dangerous land road, then to Crete and the Labyrinth, as Plutarch tells it.

13 stops
Perseus

The Quest of Perseus

From the bronze chamber at Argos to the edge of the world and back, as the mythographers tell it.

7 stops
Jason and the Argonauts

The Voyage of the Argo

The outward voyage and the long return, following the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes.

10 stops
Odysseus

The Return of Odysseus

From the fall of Troy to the hall on Ithaca. Homer's wanderings themselves lie beyond any map.

6 stops
The initiates

The Sacred Way to Eleusis

Every autumn, in the month of Boedromion, the procession of the Mysteries walked about twenty kilometres from Athens to Eleusis.

4 stops
Constellation

The Oracles of Greece

Where the Greeks went to ask the gods, and in one case the dead, what to do.

6 oracles
How to read the Atlas

What the map can and cannot tell you

Myth and history share these places, but not in the same way. Every entry carries a label that says how we know where it belongs, so a palace dug from the earth is never presented with the same certainty as a hero's road.

Excavated

An ancient site known from archaeology. 24 places in the Atlas.

Ancient tradition

Placed here by ancient writers and local belief rather than by excavation. 14 places in the Atlas.

Debated

The identification is argued over by scholars. 3 places in the Atlas.

Living landscape

A landscape, island or town remembered for what happened there and what it still keeps. 24 places in the Atlas.

Regions

Thirteen regions, one sacred geography

From the oracle of the dead in Epirus to the island of the Sun in the Dodecanese, every region of Greece holds its own share of the myths.

5 places

Attica

Athens and its countryside, where the Mysteries of Eleusis, the bears of Brauron and the battlefield of Marathon all lie within a day's walk of the Acropolis.

2 places

Central Greece

The land of Delphi and of the narrow pass at Thermopylae, between the Gulf of Corinth and the mountains of Thessaly.

3 places

Thessaly

The great plain ringed by mountains, with Pelion of the centaurs on one side and the rock pillars of Meteora on the other.

2 places

Epirus

The mountainous northwest of stone villages and of the river Acheron, which the Greeks made a road to the dead.

1 places

Thrace

The northeastern edge of the Greek world, where one small city produced two of its boldest philosophers.

3 places

Saronic Gulf

The islands of the gulf of Athens, Salamis of the great sea battle and Aegina of the judge of the dead.

The Index

Every god, hero and road in the Atlas

ΑΤΛΑΣ

The Atlas grows with every story

Each new article in the Estate Library adds a place, a god or a road to this map. Begin anywhere, and let one story lead you to the next.

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