Introduction

The Roman Forum.  The Colosseum.  The Arch of Constantine.  These buildings and monuments are among the icons of Ancient Rome and represent some of the touchstones of an entire culture and civilization.  Yet, with only 300 original ruins still standing today, preserving the memory of this empire in new and imaginative ways has become essential to giving both current and future students opportunities to continue learning about Rome. With this principle in mind, Google has joined forces with the Rome Reborn Project and Past Perfect Productions to create the Ancient Rome in 3D layer, now viewable in Google Earth. The first 3D ancient city to be featured in Google Earth, the Ancient Rome in 3D layer will provide users with a truly unique opportunity to learn about the capital of one of history's grandest and most memorable empires.

What is Google Earth?

Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google’s search service to make the world's geographic information easily accessible and useful. There have been over 400 million unique downloads of Google Earth since the product's launch in June, 2005.

What is the Ancient Rome 3D layer?

Ancient Rome in 3D is a collection of more than 6700 3D buildings which can now be found in Google Earth.  The 3D buildings are based on a physical model of Rome in the year 320 AD created by students and scholars of history, archaeology and architecture working in collaboration for many decades.  Buildings are divided by "class", where "class I" buildings are those which scholars and historians know a lot about, and "class II" buildings are those where less information is known. You can even view the interiors of 11 of the buildings including the Colosseum, Forum of Julius Caesar and Temple of Venus and Rome.

What can I learn about Ancient Rome through the 3D layer?

The 3D realisation of the city enables you to see the ancient buildings of Rome in context as if you had traveled back in time.  Using Earth's unique navigation you can fly around exploring the city from street to street and column to column. You can learn more through the pop-up 'information bubbles' provided for more than 250 sites identified in the ancient city. The first 'information bubble' will provide basic information that school children can understand. A second click provides more advanced information including a topographical encyclopedia, ancient literary sources and bibliographical information about each building.  The information bubbles are available for the following languages (English, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Dutch).

Great - how can I view the Ancient Rome layer?

Anyone can access the layer through Google Earth.  If you have Google Earth installed, you can select the layer by clicking on "Ancient Rome 3D" which is located within the "Gallery" folder in the left hand panel of the Google Earth interface. 

What languages is the Ancient Rome 3D layer available in?

The Ancient Rome 3D layer can be viewed in any Google Earth client. The 'information bubbles' for the Ancient Rome 3D layer have been translated into English, German, Spanish, Portugese (Brazil), French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Dutch.

To download Google Earth and learn more about the layer visit: http://earth.google.com/rome