Iris charity

Teaching ancient history can be difficult. You are dealing with what can seem a remote and lofty world which has little in common with ours, very often you are dealing in abstracts or people who at first glance have little in common with us. This is not true but it is a perception.

I remember someone once saying to be that seeing a temple for real helps it make sense. It is one of those things which always stuck in my head and resonated when I thought about my own experiences of travelling ancients sites.

Ok, so what we are talking about here is not quite the same as actually seeing something for real, but it is pretty close.

I remember when I first heard about the Hestia project, through an announcement on a Classics news list, on a rather long Monday morning. It immediately jumped out and grabbed my interest – what could be more exciting for any lover of texts from the ancient world to explore them through a new, digital medium? As a childhood lover of books and also a fan of computer exploration games, to me, this project is taking these two fascinating and enjoyable things, and merging them together so that one enhances and illuminates the other. I had read some of Herodotus’ Histories, and loved its meandering process of discovery, so the idea of mapping out the text captured my imagination.