Euratlas-Info 15

) Thurn and Taxis Post Roads Map in Germany 1786
The Torre e Tasso family, from Val Sassina, owned several courier services in Lombardy from about 1290. From 1490 on, Francesco de Tassis, called Franz von Taxis, was granted the right to carry government and private mail throughout the Empire and in Spain. Thus, the Thurn & Taxis family operated for 350 years, postal services in the major part of western Europe, from Spain to Hungary. This map, by Homann's Heirs, presents the 1786 Thurn & Taxis post-roads in the German Empire and in the neighbouring countries. Be aware that some roads, especially in the ecclesiastical principalities are missing.Johann Baptist Homann (1664 - 1724) was imperial geographer from 1715 in Nurnberg and his work was continued by his son Christoph under the name Hommänischen Erben.
http://www.euratlas.net/cartogra/deutschland_1786/index.html

2) Road Map of England and Wales, ca. 1779
This map, from the Modern Universal British Traveler, one of the first travel guides in English, written by Charles Burlington and David Lewellyn Rees in 1779 is a very useful document. You will discover the main XVIIIth century travel roads in the southern part of the British Islands with the distances in miles. However these roads must not be compared to the continental post-roads because in Britain, the postal service was a royal monopoly.
http://www.euratlas.net/cartogra/england_wales/index.html

3) Europe Photos
The Europe Photos section has been increased again and displays now more than 950 pictures of European towns and countries. You will find new photos especially in the Rome, Paris, Southern Germany, Austria and Swiss Plateau sections. Next month Croatia and Slovenia will be added.
http://www.euratlas.com/Atlas/rome/

4) Geschichtsatlas von Europa
Inform your German-speaking friends that the Periodical Historical Atlas of Europe has been translated in German by Mr Thomas Höckmann. The maps are now available online or as an Experten Version by direct download. Note that the layout of the online German version will be soon adopted for the English version too.Moreover, we are preparing an enhanced software vector version with a chronology and provinces, countries and cities databases of the Periodical Historical Atlas of Europe but it will not be ready before 2008.

5) Euratlas-Info Member's Area
A protected area for Euratlas-Info subscribers only has been created. You will find in it the vector maps of Roman Western Europe and Dalmatia and several high resolution .jpg blank maps. Check this section regularly because new maps and high resolution pictures of Europe will be added.You can access to the protected pages by typin

Euratlas-Info 13

1) The Mons Porphyrites in the Eastern Desert
The deep purple porphyry of Egypt was known as the Imperial Stone and was used in the building of many structures throughout Europe. The emperors of Constantinople born during the reign of their parents were called porphyrogeniti, because the imperial delivery room was fully panelled with porphyry slabs. The original porphyry quarries have been deserted for more than 1500 years but some ruins can still be seen in the Eastern Desert: the Roman castellum, the temple of Serapis, antique wells and unfinished porphyry blocks.
http://www.euratlas.com/mons_porphyrites/index.html


2) A plan for the cartography of the Roman roads
We are working on a general map of the 1st century Roman roads. Of course, some minor details like scale, information to be shown etc., have to be defined but you can already see a sketch of this future Euratlas map.

http://www.euratlas.com/viae_romanae/index.html



3) The Itinerary Map of France 1783
The highly detailed Carte Itinéraire de France, based on Cassini's works and engraved in 1783 is now available in the Euratlas Shop. The 35 sheets of the original map are offered in .jpg format and presented also in smaller sections on html pages to make searching and navigation easy and fast. Moreover a short chronology and a clickable index of nearly 950 place names have been added so that the user has a direct access to the location he is searching.
You can download now a demo version of this fast and useful map. The full version of France 1783 is available at the price of 12 € + V.A.T. http://www.euratlas.com/shop/a_fr1783.htm