Walked through the water channels -
there's a lot to explore in Greece. Ruins
tell the story of what this place looked
like long ago. Caitlin Conlon took these
photos on a recent visit to the country.
We hiked on top of ancient Acrocorinth
like to the top of it, and to the top of
the fort and everything. Now she's
beginning to realize how her field
experience studying abroad will
complement her summer research project. I had just finished like making a map of
Acrocorinth and it's like ah, I know
exactly how tall this place is and it
was really exciting. Conlon is working
with Professor John Gruber-Miller to
research content for the creation of a
free online interactive textbook for
second-year Greek students. This is
really intended to be their first
experience looking at an authentic text
and Palsanius is this Roman travel
writer, and we think that that's sort of
the ideal text because what student
doesn't love to travel on the one hand,
at the same time it's also why not
explore the world that you want to go
visit sometime. And this gives you a
great opportunity to learn about
mythology, archaeology, history, religion,
and everything in between. Conlon's main contribution to this overall project is
map creation. I've made a topographical
map on matte box showing like ancient
Corinth and that area and Acrocorinth
which is right above ancient Corinth and
working on, recently just started working
on geo referencing maps onto like
modern-day images of ancient Corinth in
the Roman Forum. Professor Gruber-Miller
says this new text expands the body of
work already available for students and
virtual explorers interested in ancient
Greece. While many texts focus on Athens,
this one will feature information on
Olympia, Sparta, and of course Corinth.
Ancient Corinth is where St. Paul was, was preaching and it's got sort of an
inherent interest for people across the
whole world. On the one hand it's very
interesting as an archaeological site.
It's also a place where Julius Caesar
refounded the city as a Roman colony and put some of his army veterans there.
For the Cornell Summer Research
Institute they're bringing ancient
Greece into the modern world with
options to interact with the information
and learn something new online. So
hopefully like it'll make people more
excited and want to learn because it's
not just like words on a screen, it's a
lot more than that. And they hope their
work inspires others. What are they going
to take away with it? Hopefully a super
excitement about, like, looking at ancient
Greece and trying to figure out, wow, this
is a place that I want to go see. This is a
place I want to learn more about, this is
the place that I want to read some more
about in ancient Greek. This is just one
story detailing all of the summer
research projects going on at Cornell
College. Watch for others on the Cornell
College News Center or follow us on
Facebook for more information.
