Pleiades alignment — coverage and upstream candidates¶
The find-site gazetteer (src/aegean/data/bundled/geo/site_coordinates.json)
aligns each site to a Pleiades place id for
linked-open-data work. 33 of 56 sites are aligned; every id is verified by
coordinate (the Pleiades representative point is within a few km of ours and
the place description matches the site), never guessed — the verification caught
several false near-matches (e.g. Kannia is not Gortyn; Ugarit's own name search
surfaces only neighbouring places).
Recently aligned (2026-06-11)¶
Seven sites gained a verified id, taking coverage from 26 to 33:
| Site | Pleiades | Identification |
|---|---|---|
| Iouktas (Mt Juktas) | 589826 | "Gioukhtas" mountain + peak sanctuary |
| Arkhalokhori | 220781958 | the Arkalochori cave sanctuary (the bronze axes) |
| Syme sanctuary | 589805 | Hermes & Aphrodite sanctuary, Kato Syme Viannou |
| Psychro cave | 589675 | Aigaion Antron (the putative Diktaean cave) |
| Apodoulou | 119143959 | the Apodoulou tholos tomb |
| Kardamoutsa | 589839 | BAtlas 60 D2 Kardamoutsa (our coordinate corrected) |
| Tel Haror | 687907 | Gerar (the standard identification) |
Candidates to contribute upstream¶
These sites returned no matching Pleiades place when searched and verified by coordinate. Most are minor findspots, peak sanctuaries, or caves that legitimately aren't yet in Pleiades — good candidates to contribute upstream (a Pleiades place submission), which both fills our nulls and improves the shared gazetteer:
- Crete: Pyrgos (Myrtos Pyrgos), Vrysinas, Kophinas, Larani, Poros Herakleion, Kannia (the Minoan villa — distinct from nearby Gortyn), Nerokourou, Platanos, Sitia (ancient Eteia), Skoteino cave, Traostalos, Trypiti, Armenoi, Fourni (Knossos cemetery), Troullos, Papoura, Prassa, Selakano, Schinias, Kalo Chorafi.
- Mainland: Hagios Stefanos (Laconia).
- Levant: Ugarit / Ras Shamra — a major site, but its own name search did not surface a distinct Pleiades place; pending manual confirmation rather than a guessed id.
"Crete (unspecified)" is a region placeholder, not a place, and is intentionally left null.
ToposText cross-ids are a possible future addition, but ToposText has no clean id API, so they are out of scope here.
Method¶
For each unaligned site: search Pleiades (/search_rss?portal_type=Place),
fetch each candidate's /places/<id>/json, and accept only a place whose
reprPoint is within ~5 km of ours and whose title/description matches the
site. This page records the verified result.