THE EMBER ATLAS

History's wildest journeys, mapped. Interactives and extras that go deeper than the videos can.

Interactive Maps

Real terrain, rebuilt in 3D from elevation data. Drag to orbit the mountains, pick a route and watch each army march — or walk a campaign landmark by landmark, city by fallen city.

Hannibal's troops and elephants crossing over the Alps

218 BC. 46,000 soldiers and 37 elephants. Pick a pass and watch the march.

Alexander The Great over the Hindu Kush

329 BC. ~40,000 soldiers over snowbound passes. Pick a route, watch the crossing.

Attila the Hun and the walls that held

AD 441–447. «More than a hundred cities» fell — one wall didn't. Walk the Balkan wars stop by stop.

The Silk Road — the roads that moved

Six eras, ninety places, a network that lights up differently in each. Trade your way across Asia oasis by oasis.

Conquerors’ Map

Alexander, Hannibal, Attila. Pick one and scrub their life, or pick an era and see everyone at once.

More comingBrowse maps →

Faces of the Atlas

The people behind the journeys — each life told start to finish, illustrated with the artefacts they left behind.

More comingBrowse faces →

Myths & Legends

Stories older than the maps, drawn on real coastlines and badged honestly.

Map

The Odyssey — the long way home

Twelve ships, ~700 men, ten years. Sail the traditional route, stop by stop.

Face

Gilgamesh

first told c. 2100 BC

Legend — A figure of story, not of the record. The page says where history touches the legend.

The king who went looking for a way not to die

Probably a real king of Uruk around 2700 BC — the Sumerian King List names him — but the epic is not his biography.

Face

Odysseus

first told c. 700 BC

Legend — A figure of story, not of the record. The page says where history touches the legend.

The trickster who took ten years to get home

A real Odysseus? Unproven and probably unprovable. Troy was real, and it burned — more than once.

Story

Legend — A story set in the real world, in a real place, with history somewhere under it.Greek

Atlantis

The island that sank in a single day and night

More comingBrowse legends →