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Platform Independent Perseus Help Pages |
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This chapter is intended as a general introduction to the data, tools and resources of the Perseus environment. So that you may start exploring Perseus right away, the topic Some Perseus Basics: Tasks has been written to provide quick-entry operating instructions with specific targets in the text, vase catalog, atlas and history portions of the Perseus library. These same targets are included in Guided Tour 1 of Perseus, described below. Three additional Guided Tours are included with the intent to demonstrate both the new interface and the philological and archaeological features of Platform Independent Perseus. These tours are described in the chapter on Paths. Both newcomers and users familiar with HyperCard and Web Perseus will want to take advantage of these online Help Topics. Information on the motivations underlying the development of the Perseus Project and the expectations accompanying the use of the Perseus resources may be found under the topic Goals & Expectations. Some Perseus Basics: TasksN. B. It is assumed that you have installed Platform Independent Perseus on your computer and started it up according to the brief procedure described in the printed liner notes accompanying your CD set. When you start up Perseus by double-clicking the icon, a "splash screen" with the Perseus Project logo appears for a few seconds. When the start-up process is complete, the two windows appearing on the screen are the Perseus Gateway and Navigator. The standard menu bar appears at the top of the screen for Mac users, or at the top of the Gateway window (and most other windows) for Windows users. The Perseus Gateway provides entry to the various parts of the Perseus library. The Navigator has control buttons for moving through Perseus. The Links and Perseus menus on the menu bar contain more controls enabling you to make links. You gain access to the various Perseus resources by descending through several levels of the interface. (The "interface" is simply what appears on your computer screen to access and display information.) The first or uppermost level is the Perseus Gateway. By clicking a button on the Gateway, you can enter one of the resource areas: the Atlas, Art & Archaeology Catalogs, Primary Texts, etc. Between the Gateway and the actual data (i.e., images, text) is an intermediary level consisting of one or more Indexes, which further direct your search for information. From the Index level you can choose a specific resource, e.g., a Vase Catalog entry, including description and pictures, for a specific vase. In this case, the route your inquiry will follow is:
If you were looking for primary texts in Greek and in English translation, the route would be:
The following tasks have been designed to familiarize you with the Perseus environment. You will bring up the catalog entry for a vase painted by Douris, then explore links from the Historical Overview, An Overview of Classical Greek History by Thomas Martin. You will next access the text of Homer's Iliad, go to the passage describing Achilles' shield, analyze the verb form ´ato, and search for Homeric uses of the word pñliw. The final task will take you to the Atlas to plot the site of Athens on a color map. Perseus users often achieve good results working in groups. You may find that a cooperative effort works well here, with you operating the computer controls and a partner reading from the User's Guide. Art & Archaeology ImagesTask: Bring up images of a kylix painted by Douris (Berlin F 2285). From the Perseus Gateway, click the Art & Archaeology button. The Art & Archaeology Index appears. This window contains five resources: Sites, Architecture, Sculpture, Vases, Coins. Scroll down to the Vases resource. Click Index by painter. A new index window, the Vase Index, appears, with an alphabetical list of painters in the field at the left. Scroll down and click Douris. A list of 36 vases in Platform Independent Perseus attributed to the Athenian painter Douris appears in the field at the right. Note that vases are listed in Perseus by museum inventory number. Click Berlin F 2285 and Perseus will take you to the Vase Catalog entry for this vase. Double-click one of the 19 Views listed at the bottom to see an image of the vase. Photo credits appear along with the image. You may find the view "Side A: teacher and student with writing tablet" of particular interest. One of Perseus' strengths is its ability to display objects in detail with multiple images. From the Vase Catalog window, scroll down and double-click on the following images: Tondo: Staff; Side A: man on stool; Side B: teacher and student with stylus; Side B: school. To read a description of the vase, return to the Vase Catalog window. To return to the Gateway, click on the Gateway (temple icon) button on the Navigator. You can look at several images at one time, but be aware that images consume memory. Keeping many images open on your screen may slow down your machine. For further information on the Vase Catalog, follow the link.
Task: Learn about Pericles' Acropolis from the Historical Overview. From the Gateway, click on the Historical Overview button. An Index window with a topical outline to An Overview of Classical Greek History by Thomas R. Martin appears. Scroll down the outline to item 9.4.4, Pericles' Acropolis, and click it. Perseus will take you to the corresponding section of Martin's narrative history. The text contains links with other resources in the Perseus library; links are indicated by blue text. To see the links, move the cursor over the blue text, which will become highlighted, turning red, and click the mouse down. Find the phrase Athenian Acropolis in the text and keep the mouse clicked down on it. A pop-up menu appears offering three choices. Release the mouse on the first choice, Acropolis Aerial View [View]. Along with the image, Perseus will display the photo credits. To return to the Historical Overview, make it the active window by clicking on it. Try the second choice from the Athenian Acropolis link, releasing the mouse on Paus. 1.22.4-28.3 [Text]. Perseus will take you to the start of the relevant passage in the Greek-English text of Pausanias Book 1. To page forward and backward in the Overview, use the <== and ==> arrows on the right of the Navigator. In the interest of saving screen space and memory, please be sure to close any images before moving on. For further information on the Historical Overview, follow the link. Greek Primary TextTask: Bring up the text of Homer's Iliad. From the Gateway, click the Primary Texts button. The Primary Text Index appears with a list of authors in the field to the left. Click Homer. The Iliad and Odyssey are now listed in the field to the right. Click Iliad. Perseus will take you to Hom. Il. 1.1. Page forward by clicking the right-pointing arrow on the far right of the Navigator. Page backward by clicking on the left-pointing arrow next to it. The example will continue with further illustrations from the text of the Iliad. Task: Go to a target passage, Iliad 18, Achilles' Shield.With the Primary Text window open and displaying any part of the Iliad, use the Go to: box to find a target passage. The Go to: box always displays your current location in the text, using standard author and work abbreviations, and numerical references to chapter and line number. From your current location in the Iliad, change the chapter and line number to 18.509 in the Go to: box (so it reads "Hom. Il. 18.509") and press Enter. Perseus will take you to the point in the passage where Homer describes the City at War. Note that the currently displayed line numbers (490-526) are listed, under Reference. Scroll up or down in the Greek or English texts to see more of the passage. Some Philological ToolsTask: Use the Morphological Analysis tool to parse the form of and define the verb ´ato. In this exercise, you will be opening new windows for the Morphological Analysis Tool and the Lexicon. Having followed the previous example, go to Iliad18.509 and select (i.e., either double-click it or click-drag with the mouse) the word ´ato. Click the button Analyze, upper right. Perseus' morphological database will analyze the form. If you do not know the meaning of ¸mai, select ¸mai and then choose Greek-English Lexicon from the pop-up menu Related Tools, upper right. The definition, which appears in a new window, is supplied by a database drawn from the Intermediate edition of the Liddell-Scott lexicon. Task: Use the Greek Word Search tool to find occurrences of pñliw in Homer. It will be necessary to obtain the nominative form of this word in order to do the search. Returning to Iliad 18.509, follow the Morphological Analysis procedure given above: select the word pñlin from line 509. Click the button Analyze. From the Morphological Analysis window, select pñliw and release the mouse on the item Greek Word Search under the pop-up menu Related Tools, upper right. In the new window, instances of pñliw are listed alphabetically by form on the left. Citations in Homer are shown on the right. To go to a citation, select it and click the button Go to Text. With the Greek Word Search tool, you can call up all occurrances of a particular Greek word in a particular author in Perseus. You can then link directly to the text in order to see how an author uses the word. Note that ambiguous forms are indicated with a dagger. In this case, pol¡ess' is daggered because it might come from polæw as well as from pñliw. Follow the links for further information on Primary Texts and Philological Tools. AtlasFor the following Atlas tasks, put away the text and text tool windows and return to the Perseus Gateway by clicking the Gateway (temple) button on the Navigator. Task: Plot Athens on a color map. From the Gateway, click the Atlas button, or choose Atlas from the Links menu. The entry window for the Atlas is the Small Outline map. The Small Outline map appears along with a new floating window called Atlas Tools. Find the button Graphic Index of Maps on the Atlas Tools window and click it. The Graphical Map Index, a black and white outline map of the Greek world with active tiles, will appear. The fifteen tiles or rectangles superimposed on the map are actually pop-up menus. Observe that the rectangles become highlighted when the mouse is passed over them. Locate the mouse over Attica (second row from top, second rectangle from right). Now hold down the mouse, and a pop-up menu appears offering a variety of color maps. Release the mouse on the top choice, Digital Elevation Map. Perseus will bring up a color map, Digital Elevation Map 500 mpp: SE Greece. The abbreviation mpp stands for "meters per pixel." Find the Show Tools toggle button located in the lower right corner of the Atlas Tools. Click on it to expand the selection of Atlas Tools. To plot the site of Athens, scroll down the list of Sites in Region, click Athens, then click the button Plot Sites, top, and Perseus will plot the site. To plot additional sites, repeat the above procedure. For further help on the Atlas, follow the link. More Perseus Basics: Search ToolsUse the Browser and Lookup Tool to search and organize data in Perseus. BrowserThe Browser may be described as an interactive catalog, a tool that enables you to quickly locate and sort information from the Perseus art and archaeology catalogs. With the Browser tool it is possible to choose a catalog (Vases, Sculpture, Coins, Sites, or Architecture) and sort it based on a certain search context (for example, Collection, Shape, Ware, Context, Painter, Potter, Period, Region or Keywords). Thus, in the example below, you will do a search for Vases sorted by Collection. Task: Use the Browser tool to explore the vase collection of University Museums, University of Mississippi. From the Gateway, click on the Browser button. Perseus brings up the Browser interface on which you will see in the upper left toggle buttons for choosing one of the five catalogs mentioned in the paragraph above (Vases, Sculpture, Coins, etc.). By default, the Browser displays Architecture by Site when it is brought up. Click the button to the left of Vases so that it becomes highlighted. Now choose the item Collection under the pop-up menu, upper middle. Scroll down to University Museums, University of Mississippi and click anywhere on that line. Perseus will display the results of the search, 48 vases from this collection, in a three-column list, sorted by Name. Read across each line of the list for information on each vase. Click on any line in any of the three columns, and Perseus will take you to that vase's Catalog entry. Each of the three columns is headed by a pop-up menu. You can customize the display of search results by selecting the desired attribute (e.g. Name, Shape, Ware, Summary) from the pop-up menus. If some information in the columns is cut off, grab the side of the Browser window with the mouse and expand it. A good vase to start with might be Mississippi 1977.3.69, attributed to the Theseus Painter, a skyphos depicting Dionysos in a donkey-cart, preceded by a man and a goat. To go to the Catalog entry for this vase, scroll down, looking in the Name column for Mississippi 1977.3.69, and click it. There are 33 views of this vase; to see a view, double-click it. You can also use the Browser to search for one of the 1,437 Keywords linked with the objects, such as "Athena," "spear," or "dancing." When you choose the Keywords from the pop-up menu, upper middle, a further pop-up menu appears to its right with 22 categories of Keywords from which to search. Many users find that the Keywords feature not only provides the most fruitful starting point for investigations, but that it is the part of Perseus which is "the most fun to play with." Further information on the Browser may be found by following the link. To find out how to save the results of your search, click here to see the discussion on the Search Saver tool. Your search will remain in the Browser until you make another search, close the Browser, or quit Perseus. You do not need to return to the Gateway when navigating from one place to another in Perseus. From any location you can directly access the Browser by choosing Browser from the Links menu. (The other Perseus resources and tools can be accessed directly from the Links menu as well.) LookupLookup Overview The Lookup tool, reached via the Links menu, is a quick way to search for a particular topic directly in Perseus. Lookup often will be among the first tools you use to start your research; it is certainly the easiest to use: just type in a word or lookup string, press Enter, and Perseus will list a number of options; click an option and Perseus will take you there. (A lookup string is the unique or canonical designation used by Perseus to find a text or object. Examples include "Mississippi 1977.3.69" for a vase at the University of Mississippi and "Hom. Il. 18.509" for book 18, line 509 of the Iliad. The lookup string may be found in the Go to: box in texts and in the upper left of Catalog windows.) The Lookup Tool draws on a database consisting of all English words indexed in Perseus, about 77,000 unique words. Built into the Lookup tool is a list of alternate spellings, such as Clytaemnestra/Klytaimestra or Aegina/Aigina, to help you reach the desired target. Task: Use the Lookup tool to locate information about Akragas contained in the various Perseus resources. From anywhere in Perseus, release the mouse on Lookup under the Links menu. A floating window appears. The cursor is on the left and blinking. Type Akragas and press Enter. The Lookup window will now expand. Displayed on the left under Could be... is akragas, the canonical listing for this word in Perseus. Below are the various alternate spellings or names for Akragas. Resources in the Perseus library containing Akragas are displayed on the right. Note that alternate spellings or names may be used in some places in the Perseus library, in addition to the canonical name. Click on an alternate name to see if any Perseus resources are listed for it in the right column. Click on Akragas, the canonical listing, again. Then scroll down and click "in Site Catalog" on the right. Perseus will display the entry for Akragas in the Site Catalog. From the Site Catalog window you can see views of Akragas by double-clicking one of the lines at the bottom. To read the description of the site, scroll through the text in the upper scroll box. To bring up thumbnail images of the Akragas pictures, or to go to the Site Index, click one of the buttons in the upper right. Return to the Lookup window and try some of the other options Perseus has listed for Akragas. If it has disappeared, select Lookup from Links menu, type in Akragas again and press Enter. Note that Lookup is not case sensitive, i.e., it is not necessary to distinguish upper from lower case letters. If you have a specific text or object in mind, you do not have to go through the various index levels to access it. Select Lookup from the Links menu. Type in what you want to find and press Enter. Note, however, that you will need to be mindful of the canonical lookup string when looking up texts and objects: hom. od. 10.45 will obtain results, but not homer od X 45; for Primary Texts, see Authors of Primary Texts, Works and their Canonical Abbreviations. More Perseus Basics: Direct and Indirect LinksFrom this introduction to Perseus tasks and tools, you will have noticed the power of linking from resource to resource in the Perseus library. Some links are direct, and easy to identify; they are highlighted when you pass the cursor over them, for example. Other links are indirect, but equally useful. Direct LinksDirect links appear in many parts of the Perseus library. For example, words appearing in blue in the Historical Overview are direct links to other resources in Perseus. In the Art & Archaeology Catalogs, underlined text indicates direct links, usually to full bibliographic citations, other related objects in the Catalogs, or primary text references. Similarly, underlined, direct links appear in the Primary Texts, frequently in footnotes, referring to other texts. Direct links also connect buildings in the Large Site Plans with their entries in the Architecture Catalog. Indirect LinksThough not specially marked as links, many words in each part of Perseus can serve as indirect links to other resources in the library. For instance, return to the Vase Catalog entry you read in the example above, Mississippi 1977.3.69. You can do this quickly by choosing the Lookup Tool from the Links menu, typing in Mississippi 1977.3.69, and pressing Enter. The Vase Catalog entry will open in a new window. Many words in this Vase Catalog entry can serve as indirect links to other resources. Try double-clicking on the word Skyphos, the Shape listed for this vase. With Skyphos highlighted, choose Encyclopedia from the Links menu. The Encyclopedia entry for Skyphos opens in a new window, and features a drawing of a skyphos, along with a description of the shape. (If you scroll down in the description, you will see a direct link, to a primary text.) Now, from the Encyclopedia entry for Skyphos, try double-clicking on the word drinking, which appears in the first sentence. With drinking highlighted, choose the Lookup Tool from the Links menu. The Lookup tool returns the information that drinking is a keyword for both Vases and Coins; click on Keyword for Vases to link to the Browser and find vases which depict scenes of drinking. Try making other indirect links. You might link from an English word in a Greek-English text to the English Index. You might link from a word in a picture's caption in the Sculpture Catalog to the Encyclopedia (click and drag to highlight the word in a caption; double-clicking on it will open the view, instead). It is even possible to link from the name of an ancient geographic place, in an Essay or the Sources Used, to the Atlas, to plot the site on a map. Not all the indirect links you try will work, of course, since the Perseus library is not comprehensive. Experiment with making these and other indirect links among the resources in the Perseus library. Linking, both direct and indirect, is a powerful tool for uncovering and exploring Perseus' wealth of information. Return to TopReturn to Perseus Help Topics Index |