Chinese scientists have released a high-resolution map of the Moon based on images from the Chang’e 2 spacecraft; the maps are at a resolution of seven metres (MoonViews, Universe Today). Phil Stooke compares the Chang’e 2 images with those from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC). Meanwhile, and speaking of the LROC, Jeffrey Ambroziak is making 3D anaglyph maps based on LROC data; he’s launched a Kickstarter campaign to create a 3D digital map of the entire Moon.
Month: February 2012
An Ancient Map of the Mesopotamian World
I’ve encountered plenty of claims for something to be the “world’s oldest map” (most of which depend on how broad or narrow your definition of “map” is). One I wasn’t aware of until recently is this Mesopotamian map on a cuneiform tablet, which dates from between 700 and 500 BC, currently held by the British Museum. “The map is sometimes taken as a serious example of ancient geography, but although the places are shown in their approximately correct positions, the real purpose of the map is to explain the Babylonian view of the mythological world.” More at Visual Complexity. Via Cartophile.
For other claims to the world’s oldest map, see the following Map Room entries: Engraved Rock Is 14,000-Year-Old Map: Researchers; Candidates for the World’s Oldest Map; The Other World’s Oldest Map; The Western World’s Oldest Map.
Update, Feb. 20: John Padula points to this reconstruction.
How Readers Use Fantasy Maps
It occurs to me that how readers use fantasy maps should be another line of inquiry for my science fiction and fantasy maps project. Take, for example, Donald Petersen’s comment on the Boing Boing post about Victoria Johnson’s map essay (posted here last week).
One of the few downsides to reading Game of Thrones for the first time on a 2nd generation Kindle was that it was inconvenient to flip to the map every now and then to reorient myself when the action moved to a new city or battlefield. Like books with lots of footnotes, I think I’ll do most of my map-heavy fantasy book reading on dead trees.
My father experienced the same thing reading A Dance with Dragons on the Kindle. The insight here may not be particularly profound, but it is useful: fantasy maps may be largely illustrative, but they’re also referred to when reading the text. They may be an intrinsic part of the reading process—at least as far as “fat fantasy books with maps” are concerned. (Will electronic versions of said books need to have their text georeferenced, so that you can push a “map” button at any point and be placed at the proper position on the map? I have to admit that that would be kind of cool.)
What do you think? How do you use maps when reading fantasy fiction?
‘The Maps We Wandered Into as Kids’
Over on The Awl, Victoria Johnson has an essay about maps of fictional places, which of course is relevant to my interests. Johnson has chosen some very unique and distinctive maps to discuss—Winnie-the-Pooh, The Phantom Toolbooth and The Princess Bride among them—rather than the sort of standard fantasy maps you get in standard fantasy (which, I suppose, aren’t worth discussing unless you like the fantasy world being mapped; certainly not as maps). Via Boing Boing (which sends a link in this direction).