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Description

This is a map of Crete in the Minoan Age that I created for a client during April and May of 2021.

MAP SIZE

Due to Crete’s unusually slim shape, this map was designed with a custom size in mind to cut out water and focus on the island. The dimensions of this map (420x198mm) means that this map can be printed three times on a single sheet of A2 paper, making it a convenient size for map publishers who are looking to print and sell the map multiple times over.

MAPPING COASTLINES AND RIVERS

The coastline and river polylines are derived from the European Environmental Agency’s ‘EU-Hydro’ dataset. The most important rivers in Crete are tapered using width profiles to imply the direction of flow. Whether I classed the river as important depended in whether the river appeared in the dataset published the Greek Ministry of Productive Reconstruction, Environment, and Energy. I felt that if a river appeared in this dataset, then it was probably important enough to be classed as a major river. The names of these major rivers are based on how they are named this government dataset.

NAMING MINOAN CRETE

Toponyms are derived from various sources. The names of Minoan locations are based on what they were labelled as in the Atlas of the Greek and Roman World in Antiquity, the Atlas of Classical History, and The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece.

ANNOTATIONS

Important locations such as Knossos and the Mesera Plain were annotation with short walls of text describing their significance to Crete.

DATASETS USED TO CREATE MAP (ATTRIBUTION REQUIRED IN FINAL PRODUCT)

European Environmental Agency, ‘EU-Hydro – Coastline, version 1.3’, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (2020) <land.copernicus.eu/imagery-in-… [accessed 9 April 2021]

European Environmental Agency, ‘EU-Hydro – Rivers, version 1.3’, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (2020) < land.copernicus.eu/imagery-in-… [accessed 9 April 2021]

European Environmental Agency, ‘European Digital Elevation Model, version 1.1’, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (2016) <land.copernicus.eu/pan-europea… [accessed 11 January 2021]

EMODnet Bathymetry Consortium, ‘EMODnet Digital Terrain Model’, EMODnet Digital Bathymetry (2018) <doi.org/10.12770/18ff0d48-b203… [accessed 11 January 2021]

MAPPING MINOAN LOCATIONS

I compiled a dataset in QGIS featuring all the locations listed in the Atlas of the Greek and Roman World in Antiquity, the Atlas of Classical History, and The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece. When adding each location, I made a note of the name of the site, the type of the site, the source where I discovered the site, and if Linear A or Linear B texts were discovered at the site. The dataset was copied over into Illustrator to be incorporated into the map properly.

In the dataset of Minoan locations, each location that was mentioned in the three atlases was classified as one or more of the following site types:

Cave dwelling

Mentioned in Linear B text

Minoan-influenced settlement (outside of Crete)

Mountain sanctuary

Palace (major sites only)

Port

Sacred cave

Settlement

Sub-Minoan refuge city

Tomb

Villa (includes minor palaces)

Some of these locations could be classed as two or more types of Minoan site (many villas had nearby tombs, for example). Where a site could be classed as a cave dwelling and a tomb, it was labelled as a cave dwelling. Where a site could be classed as a place mentioned in a Linear B text, villa, and a settlement, it was labelled as a place mentioned in a Linear B text. Where a site could be classed as a mountain sanctuary and a tomb, it was labelled as a mountain sanctuary. Where a site could be classed as a palace, place mentioned in a Linear B text, and a settlement, it was labelled as a palace. Where a site could be classed as a palace and a settlement, it was labelled as a palace. Where a site could be classed as a palace, villa, and a settlement, it was labelled as a palace. Where a site could be classed as a settlement and a tomb, it was labelled as a settlement. Where a site could be classed as a sub-Minoan refuge city and a tomb, it was labelled as a sub-Minoan refuge city. Where a site could be classed as a villa and a settlement, it was labelled as a villa. Where a site could be classed as a villa and a tomb, it was labelled as a villa. When labelling ports, the symbol denoting a port was placed in the water, and a symbol denoting the type of site was placed on land.

CREATING THE SHADED RELIEF

Representing topography is especially important for this map, as high mountains and deep valleys were home to sanctuaries, shrines, and settlements in the Minoan period. The topographical data used to create this map’s shaded relief is derived from EU-DEM tiles that were reprojected to EPSG:2100, resampled, and rescaled in QGIS. Following the process described on Daniel Huffman’s blog, I imported the reprojected tiles into Blender, where I rendered several greyscale shaded reliefs at different scales, before deciding on a scale which featured shadows deep enough to understand the rocky topography of the island but not so deep that the map’s text and history-focus was obscured. I repeated the rendering process again when creating the shaded relief for areas of sea just off the coast of Crete, using EMODnet tiles that were also reprojected to EPSG:2100, resampled, and rescaled in QGIS. In Photoshop, I placed the shaded relief for the land placed on top of the shaded relief for the ocean by changing the blending mode of the land shaded relief to multiply. I created a curves layer mask to remove mid-tones of the shaded reliefs. I applied a soft Gaussian blur and noise reduction filter to the ocean relief to give it a soft, watery appearance and hide the visual artefacts present on the EMODnet tiles. The combined and edited shaded relief covering both the land and sea was placed atop the bathymetry and elevation ramps in Illustrator. This, set to a multiply blending mode, showed deep shaded relief atop the map so that the map reader could visualise the topography of the island, while also still allowing the pleasant elevation colours to shine through beneath.

CREATING SYMBOLOGY AND TYPE

Symbols for Minoan sites were designed to be distinctive from each other and indicative of what they represent. The symbols representing sacred caves are inspired by the Minoan snake goddess figurines found at the palace of Knossos. The symbols representing ports are inspired by the boats depicted on the fresco found in Akrotiri, Santorini. The symbols representing tombs are inspired by the shape of Minoan beehive tombs. Symbols are also designed with visual hierarchies in mind. The smallest of the symbols represents the least important sites, and vice-versa.

This map makes heavy use of type knockouts. Type knockouts, a process I picked up when reading Daniel Huffman’s blog, creates an invisible outline surrounding every label that cuts out any part of a vector or shadow that falls beneath it. Though subtle, this makes the text considerably clearer, especially in places where text runs over roads, coastline, mountainous regions, or rivers.

The typeface used for cultural labels (such as Minoan sites) is Gill Sans Nova. Its boldness makes it legible at small sizes. Gill Sans was inspired by Roman inscriptions and has connotations of the classical world which makes the font fit well when mapping ancient civilisations. The typeface used for physical labels (such as rivers, islands, and seas) is Adobe Calson Pro. The lightness of the Calson makes it pair exceptionally well with Gill Sans.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ancient World Mapping Center, ‘Coastline’, Ancient World Mapping Centre <awmc.unc.edu/wordpress/map-fil… [accessed 21 April 2021]

Ancient World Mapping Center, ‘Rivers’, Ancient World Mapping Centre <awmc.unc.edu/wordpress/map-fil… [accessed 21 April 2021]

Atlas of Classical History, ed. Richard J.A Talbert (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 1989), pp. 2-4

Atlas of the Greek and Roman World in Antiquity, ed. Nicholas G.L. Hammond (Park Ridge, New Jersey: Noyes Press, 1981), plates 3a-3b

Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, eds Richard J.A. Talbert and Roger S. Bagnall (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000)

EMODnet Bathymetry Consortium, ‘EMODnet Digital Terrain Model’, EMODnet Digital Bathymetry (2018) <doi.org/10.12770/18ff0d48-b203… [accessed 11 January 2021]

European Environmental Agency, ‘EU-Hydro – Coastline, version 1.3’, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (2020) <land.copernicus.eu/imagery-in-… [accessed 9 April 2021]

European Environmental Agency, ‘EU-Hydro – Rivers, version 1.3’, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (2020) < land.copernicus.eu/imagery-in-… [accessed 9 April 2021]

European Environmental Agency, ‘European Digital Elevation Model, version 1.1’, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (2016) <land.copernicus.eu/pan-europea… [accessed 11 January 2021]

Grant, Michael, The Routledge Atlas of Classical History, 5th edn (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 4-5

Huffman, Daniel, ‘Adding Shaded Relief in Photoshop’, SomethingAboutMaps (2014) <somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.c… [accessed 20 April 2021]

Huffman, Daniel, ‘Creating Shaded Relief in Blender’, SomethingAboutMaps (2014) <somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.c… [accessed 20 April 2021]

Huffman, Daniel, ‘Even Fancier Type Knockouts in Illustrator’, SomethingAboutMaps (2016) <somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.c…

Ministry of Productive Reconstruction, Environment, and Energy, ‘Rivers’, Geodata.gov.gr (2015) <www.geodata.gov.gr/en/dataset/… [accessed 4 May 2021]

Morkot, Robert, The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece (London: Penguin Group, 1996), pp. 24-5

Pendlebury, John D., The Archaeology of Crete: An Introduction (London: Methuen & Co., 1939)

Robert Bagnall, et al., ‘Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places’, <pleiades.stoa.org/places> [accessed 22 April 2021]

Toreador Fresco (Heraklion: Archaeological Museum, c. 1550bce) <odysseus.culture.gr/h/4/eh430.… [accessed 22 April 2021]

Description

This is a map of Crete in the Minoan Age that I created for a client during April and May of 2021.

MAP SIZE

Due to Crete’s unusually slim shape, this map was designed with a custom size in mind to cut out water and focus on the island. The dimensions of this map (420x198mm) means that this map can be printed three times on a single sheet of A2 paper, making it a convenient size for map publishers who are looking to print and sell the map multiple times over.

MAPPING COASTLINES AND RIVERS

The coastline and river polylines are derived from the European Environmental Agency’s ‘EU-Hydro’ dataset. The most important rivers in Crete are tapered using width profiles to imply the direction of flow. Whether I classed the river as important depended in whether the river appeared in the dataset published the Greek Ministry of Productive Reconstruction, Environment, and Energy. I felt that if a river appeared in this dataset, then it was probably important enough to be classed as a major river. The names of these major rivers are based on how they are named this government dataset.

NAMING MINOAN CRETE

Toponyms are derived from various sources. The names of Minoan locations are based on what they were labelled as in the Atlas of the Greek and Roman World in Antiquity, the Atlas of Classical History, and The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece.

ANNOTATIONS

Important locations such as Knossos and the Mesera Plain were annotation with short walls of text describing their significance to Crete.

DATASETS USED TO CREATE MAP (ATTRIBUTION REQUIRED IN FINAL PRODUCT)

European Environmental Agency, ‘EU-Hydro – Coastline, version 1.3’, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (2020) <land.copernicus.eu/imagery-in-… [accessed 9 April 2021]

European Environmental Agency, ‘EU-Hydro – Rivers, version 1.3’, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (2020) < land.copernicus.eu/imagery-in-… [accessed 9 April 2021]

European Environmental Agency, ‘European Digital Elevation Model, version 1.1’, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (2016) <land.copernicus.eu/pan-europea… [accessed 11 January 2021]

EMODnet Bathymetry Consortium, ‘EMODnet Digital Terrain Model’, EMODnet Digital Bathymetry (2018) <doi.org/10.12770/18ff0d48-b203… [accessed 11 January 2021]

MAPPING MINOAN LOCATIONS

I compiled a dataset in QGIS featuring all the locations listed in the Atlas of the Greek and Roman World in Antiquity, the Atlas of Classical History, and The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece. When adding each location, I made a note of the name of the site, the type of the site, the source where I discovered the site, and if Linear A or Linear B texts were discovered at the site. The dataset was copied over into Illustrator to be incorporated into the map properly.

In the dataset of Minoan locations, each location that was mentioned in the three atlases was classified as one or more of the following site types:

Cave dwelling

Mentioned in Linear B text

Minoan-influenced settlement (outside of Crete)

Mountain sanctuary

Palace (major sites only)

Port

Sacred cave

Settlement

Sub-Minoan refuge city

Tomb

Villa (includes minor palaces)

Some of these locations could be classed as two or more types of Minoan site (many villas had nearby tombs, for example). Where a site could be classed as a cave dwelling and a tomb, it was labelled as a cave dwelling. Where a site could be classed as a place mentioned in a Linear B text, villa, and a settlement, it was labelled as a place mentioned in a Linear B text. Where a site could be classed as a mountain sanctuary and a tomb, it was labelled as a mountain sanctuary. Where a site could be classed as a palace, place mentioned in a Linear B text, and a settlement, it was labelled as a palace. Where a site could be classed as a palace and a settlement, it was labelled as a palace. Where a site could be classed as a palace, villa, and a settlement, it was labelled as a palace. Where a site could be classed as a settlement and a tomb, it was labelled as a settlement. Where a site could be classed as a sub-Minoan refuge city and a tomb, it was labelled as a sub-Minoan refuge city. Where a site could be classed as a villa and a settlement, it was labelled as a villa. Where a site could be classed as a villa and a tomb, it was labelled as a villa. When labelling ports, the symbol denoting a port was placed in the water, and a symbol denoting the type of site was placed on land.

CREATING THE SHADED RELIEF

Representing topography is especially important for this map, as high mountains and deep valleys were home to sanctuaries, shrines, and settlements in the Minoan period. The topographical data used to create this map’s shaded relief is derived from EU-DEM tiles that were reprojected to EPSG:2100, resampled, and rescaled in QGIS. Following the process described on Daniel Huffman’s blog, I imported the reprojected tiles into Blender, where I rendered several greyscale shaded reliefs at different scales, before deciding on a scale which featured shadows deep enough to understand the rocky topography of the island but not so deep that the map’s text and history-focus was obscured. I repeated the rendering process again when creating the shaded relief for areas of sea just off the coast of Crete, using EMODnet tiles that were also reprojected to EPSG:2100, resampled, and rescaled in QGIS. In Photoshop, I placed the shaded relief for the land placed on top of the shaded relief for the ocean by changing the blending mode of the land shaded relief to multiply. I created a curves layer mask to remove mid-tones of the shaded reliefs. I applied a soft Gaussian blur and noise reduction filter to the ocean relief to give it a soft, watery appearance and hide the visual artefacts present on the EMODnet tiles. The combined and edited shaded relief covering both the land and sea was placed atop the bathymetry and elevation ramps in Illustrator. This, set to a multiply blending mode, showed deep shaded relief atop the map so that the map reader could visualise the topography of the island, while also still allowing the pleasant elevation colours to shine through beneath.

CREATING SYMBOLOGY AND TYPE

Symbols for Minoan sites were designed to be distinctive from each other and indicative of what they represent. The symbols representing sacred caves are inspired by the Minoan snake goddess figurines found at the palace of Knossos. The symbols representing ports are inspired by the boats depicted on the fresco found in Akrotiri, Santorini. The symbols representing tombs are inspired by the shape of Minoan beehive tombs. Symbols are also designed with visual hierarchies in mind. The smallest of the symbols represents the least important sites, and vice-versa.

This map makes heavy use of type knockouts. Type knockouts, a process I picked up when reading Daniel Huffman’s blog, creates an invisible outline surrounding every label that cuts out any part of a vector or shadow that falls beneath it. Though subtle, this makes the text considerably clearer, especially in places where text runs over roads, coastline, mountainous regions, or rivers.

The typeface used for cultural labels (such as Minoan sites) is Gill Sans Nova. Its boldness makes it legible at small sizes. Gill Sans was inspired by Roman inscriptions and has connotations of the classical world which makes the font fit well when mapping ancient civilisations. The typeface used for physical labels (such as rivers, islands, and seas) is Adobe Calson Pro. The lightness of the Calson makes it pair exceptionally well with Gill Sans.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ancient World Mapping Center, ‘Coastline’, Ancient World Mapping Centre <awmc.unc.edu/wordpress/map-fil… [accessed 21 April 2021]

Ancient World Mapping Center, ‘Rivers’, Ancient World Mapping Centre <awmc.unc.edu/wordpress/map-fil… [accessed 21 April 2021]

Atlas of Classical History, ed. Richard J.A Talbert (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 1989), pp. 2-4

Atlas of the Greek and Roman World in Antiquity, ed. Nicholas G.L. Hammond (Park Ridge, New Jersey: Noyes Press, 1981), plates 3a-3b

Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World, eds Richard J.A. Talbert and Roger S. Bagnall (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000)

EMODnet Bathymetry Consortium, ‘EMODnet Digital Terrain Model’, EMODnet Digital Bathymetry (2018) <doi.org/10.12770/18ff0d48-b203… [accessed 11 January 2021]

European Environmental Agency, ‘EU-Hydro – Coastline, version 1.3’, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (2020) <land.copernicus.eu/imagery-in-… [accessed 9 April 2021]

European Environmental Agency, ‘EU-Hydro – Rivers, version 1.3’, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (2020) < land.copernicus.eu/imagery-in-… [accessed 9 April 2021]

European Environmental Agency, ‘European Digital Elevation Model, version 1.1’, Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (2016) <land.copernicus.eu/pan-europea… [accessed 11 January 2021]

Grant, Michael, The Routledge Atlas of Classical History, 5th edn (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 4-5

Huffman, Daniel, ‘Adding Shaded Relief in Photoshop’, SomethingAboutMaps (2014) <somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.c… [accessed 20 April 2021]

Huffman, Daniel, ‘Creating Shaded Relief in Blender’, SomethingAboutMaps (2014) <somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.c… [accessed 20 April 2021]

Huffman, Daniel, ‘Even Fancier Type Knockouts in Illustrator’, SomethingAboutMaps (2016) <somethingaboutmaps.wordpress.c…

Ministry of Productive Reconstruction, Environment, and Energy, ‘Rivers’, Geodata.gov.gr (2015) <www.geodata.gov.gr/en/dataset/… [accessed 4 May 2021]

Morkot, Robert, The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece (London: Penguin Group, 1996), pp. 24-5

Pendlebury, John D., The Archaeology of Crete: An Introduction (London: Methuen & Co., 1939)

Robert Bagnall, et al., ‘Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places’, <pleiades.stoa.org/places> [accessed 22 April 2021]

Toreador Fresco (Heraklion: Archaeological Museum, c. 1550bce) <odysseus.culture.gr/h/4/eh430.… [accessed 22 April 2021]