Scope note for the class Place  Back

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Scope note

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In Pleiades, places are conceptual entities. They are objects of thought, speech, or writing, not tangible, mappable points on the earth’s surface. Even though they are usually tied closely to some aspect or feature of the physical world — a sea, a bay, a river, a mountain range, a pass, a road, a settlement, or an ethnic region — They have no spatial or temporal attributes of their own. [...] A place can be known only through a name mentioned an ancient source, without any surviving material correlate; conversely, an archaeological site can be understood as a place even if we do not know what it was called in antiquity. [...] Places may be no larger than a family dwelling or as big as an empire, be temporally enduring or fleeting. They may expand, contract and evolve over time. A place may be unnamed, unlocated, falsely attested or even mythical.

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en

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