It's been a couple of years since I stopped placing new sites on the Site of the Week page.  There are still plenty of great ones out there, but the time involved in updating this part of the site was just too great.  Maybe one day it will return! - DAW

There are plenty of great sites on the web dealing with Ancient Greece, but unfortunately you can spend weeks wading through mediocre links.  Maybe this selection of some of the best sites out there will help you cut down on wasted time.  I do not intend on selecting any of the really big sites (like Perseus), but instead will try to select those sites which fewer people may know about (mainly new sites, those by individuals, or sites that are less well known because they are in another language).

I have also just added links to the Ancient World Web's site rating system (a great compendium of sites on the ancient world).  Each of these are placed at the end of the site's description.  If you enjoy the site, give them a good rating. You can always rate my site too of course! Rate It!

If you would like to let me know about a site that you think is deserving of the award, please e-mail me .

May 23, 1999     Naissance de la Démocratie - Only in French for the time being, but an English version has been promised soon (sorry, the Babelfish at AltaVista for some reason cannot work with this site).  This site details the "Birth of the Democracy" in Athens as it takes place in the Athenian Agora.  There are some great sections within the site dealing with the physical site itself, the division of tribes before their reorganization into demes, the citizens themselves, and the history of the site and democracy in Athens in general.  There are also sections on the different monuments of the Agora.  The site is still under construction at certain places, but much of it is already online.  I was really impressed with the charts and maps that have been created for this site, detailing things like the breakdown of citizenship status among Athenians.  If you know any French at all, give it a look.  If you don't, bookmark it and visit it again in a few months.

May 16, 1999     The Shrine of the Goddess Athena - A frame enhanced site devoted to one of our favorite Olympians.  The Shrine is updated quite regularly, and inside you will find a museum with specific galleries for texts, coins, vases, and even temples.  There are excerpted essays (some lengthy) on different aspects of Athena, such as ones on Erechthonius, Hephaestus, her birth, etc.  There is also an encyclopedia in progress as well as a timeline and atlas in varying degrees of completion.  The whole site looks terrific, though I must admit I was a little unhappy that I could not open frames in new windows without having all the other frames automatically regenerate. Maybe we could look forward to a frameless version soon.  Don't worry about this one criticism though.  The whole site is terrific and if it is teaching more people about Athena, then I am all for it!

May 9, 1999      Everything You've Ever Wanted To Know About Sparta And More - A personal web page on Sparta, this site has a large bibliography, sections on poetry, women, and a timeline, among other things.  Also included is a list of links dealing with Sparta.   It is not as extensive as some of the other institutional sites I have listed here, but it is a great example of what someone can do on their own to further classical studies on the web.  Worth a look!

May 2, 1999       AERIA - Antikensammlung Erlangen Internet Archive - Though this site is mostly in German, a number of its pages have been translated into English.  Located at Friedrich Alexander university, Erlangen/Nuernberg, this huge site has just about everything.  There is a huge virtual museum of casts of famous sculpture (thematically arranged) as well as a museum of Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern objects.  There are four different research projects including an explanation of Mycenaean metal inlay techniques and a large number of special exhibits online.  They even have a photo gallery and special photo exhibitions like "Voyage in Egypt 1892."  Since there are no frames, you can easily browse with the Babelfish translator and read the German pages.  My only complaint is that on the English version, sometimes you run into German pages without having a warning first.  Still an absolutely terrific resource!

April 25, 1999       The Classics Pages - This site has over 500 pages of news, information, games, and controversy about the life, literature, art, and archaeology of the ancient world of Greece & Rome.  Written, designed, and maintained by Andrew Wilson, The Classics Pages are constantly updated, extremely thorough, original, and very educational.  Just take one look at their categories and you will see why the site is so praiseworthy.  I cannot begin to name all the specialty areas they cover, so see for yourself!!!

April 18, 1999       Greek Jewelry - 5000 Years of Tradition - An online version of a wonderful compilation of information on (mainly) ancient Greek jewelry.  There are more than a few pages describing the techniques used to make jewelry in antiquity.  The time period covered ranges from 6800 BCE to the present day (so I guess the title could have actually been "8800 Years of Tradition"!).  There is also a bibliography available.  Still, the best part of the site has to be the collection of close up photographs illustrating the techniques and ingenuity of the works' ancient creators.  There are even diagrams showing specific methods of decoration.  The photos are superb and I cannot remember seeing anything that can parallel them anywhere else online.  I have tried numerous times to photograph jewelry in museum collections throughout Greece, but the lighting never allows even a tolerable photograph.  We can only hope more guides like this are made available online.  Rate this site on the Ancient World Web!

April 11, 1999        Griechenland - Unfortunately this site is only available in German.  That may scare away many of you who do not know any German (mine is truthfully still quite bad), but you should still give it a try.  Besides being one of the two or three most beautifully designed sites I have ever seen, they have sections on Mythology, Modern Greek Culture, over 110 different site guides, a bulletin board, and they were one of the first sites to place 360 views online.  If you are looking for more information on a certain site and you do not speak German, you can always try and view that specific frame (and this is one of the best jobs of using frames I have seen in a while) through Alta-Vista's online translation program. It is the best we can do until they provide an English or French version of their site (hint-hint!).  Rate this site on the Ancient World Web!

April 4, 1999        Dr. J's Illustrated Sites of Greece - If you are looking for some of the best photos of Greek archaeological sites, this is the place to start.  Perseus may have more images, but that is just because they had a head start!  One of the great things about this site is the thumbnails (reduced in size for quicker loading).  If you are more interested in the picture, you can see the larger version and do it all more quickly than the interface allows at many other online sites.  There are also some terrific explanations of a large number of the sites.  Do not miss the hike up Mt. Olympos!! Rate this site on the Ancient World Web!

March 28, 1999        Metis -  I am a big fan of panoramic views and I became quite excited when I saw this site.  I have been waiting a while for the Metis site to get up and on its feet and it has really impressed me.  You will need the Quicktime plug-in, but it is worth it.  The ability to zoom in and out makes some of the views all the more breathtaking.  Great job! Update: They have just added a page about the Athenian Agora excavations the day after I placed this review online! Some of the objects at the museum are able to be viewed not only left to right, but all the way around the top and sides!  It is hard for me to express just how enthusiastic I am at the prospect of sites like this one dragging Classics and Archaeology into (not to sound too cheesy here) the next millennium.  This is the best site I have seen in a year. Rate this site on the Ancient World Web!