About Ruinscape

Who makes it

Ruinscape is built and run by Thinglet Marketing in Palm Desert, California. It is made for curious kids around ages 8 to 14, their families, and the teachers who bring history into the classroom. There are no ads and no accounts, and it is free to use.

How the lessons are made

Each entry has a short story, facts about daily life, wow facts, relics, how archaeologists know what they know, what you would see there today, and a teacher section with vocabulary, discussion questions and a quiz.

The lessons were drafted with the help of AI writing tools and then checked against encyclopedia articles and museum records. Every page links to its sources so students can check the facts themselves. Dates in the ancient world are often estimates, and experts sometimes disagree. When they do, the page says so.

We fix mistakes as soon as we learn about them. If you are a teacher, archaeologist, historian or just a sharp-eyed reader and you spot something wrong, please tell us.

Legends are labeled. Places like Atlantis and El Dorado are stories, not places archaeologists have found. Their pages are marked in purple and explain the real history behind the legend. Sites where experts still argue are marked as debated.

How Lyra and the AI work

Lyra Kael is a made-up character, not a real person. She is our guide, and she tells you about each place when you land.

• Her landing lines and stories come from the lessons on this site.
• When you ask her a question, your question and the lesson for that place are sent to an AI model (Grok, made by xAI) to write her answer. She is told to stick to the facts in the lesson and to say when she is not sure. AI can still make mistakes, so check anything important with the sources on each page.
• Her voice is made with ElevenLabs text to speech. If your device is quiet or offline, the words still appear on screen.
• If you use the microphone, your recording is sent to ElevenLabs only to turn your speech into text, then Lyra answers the text.
• Please don't tell Lyra your full name, address, school, or anything private. She doesn't need it.

Photos and pictures

Real photos come from Wikimedia Commons and are used under their open licenses. Each photo shows its photographer and license, and the full list is on the image credits page. The satellite view on the globe is Esri World Imagery.

Then & Now pictures are artist's reconstructions made for Ruinscape with AI image tools, then checked for mistakes like modern buildings or the wrong kind of ships. They are a best guess at how a place looked, based on what archaeologists have found, so some details are imagined. They are always labeled as reconstructions.

Privacy

• There are no accounts and no ads, and we don't sell or share data with advertisers.
• Your passport stamps, quiz stars, flashcards and settings are saved only in your own browser. Clearing your browser data clears them.
• We count how many times each place is visited so we know which ones to improve next. Those counts are totals per place. They do not include your name, IP address or anything that identifies you.
• To stop abuse, our server briefly keeps a scrambled, one-way code made from your internet address. It is deleted within a day.
• If you send feedback, we keep your message and, only if you give it, your email address so we can reply.
• Questions you ask Lyra are sent to xAI to write her answer, and voice recordings are sent to ElevenLabs to turn them into text, as described above.

For teachers

Every place page has a teacher section with key words, discussion questions, an activity and a quiz with an answer key. Use the Print lesson sheet button on any page for a clean handout. On the globe, the Journeys button gives you guided trips you can run with a class on a projector, and expedition links let you send students a set of places to visit.

Contact and feedback

Corrections, ideas and questions all come to us here.