Gilbert Hach� wrote:
> After having a look at it, I mentionned some of the elements to a friend like "do
> you know where they put the Pisa tower on this map?" and he answer "you are talking
> about the one in France?" which is exactly one of the error shown on the map!
I'm shocked! I thought everyone knew it's in Marseilles.
> Is it funny or sad?...
It's just the way humans think. The study of "mental maps" (see
Google) can be very interesting, but most people's view of the
world boils down to "places near where I live" or "times in the
near past and future" and beyond those horizons, we tend to fill
in a mental "hic sunt dracones" (here be dragons.)
There is a mailing list on yahoogroups called BPMaps ("Body Part
Maps", see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps/) dedicated to
the study of the notion that in ancient times humans visualized
their lands as being defined by the outline of their god or
goddess as laid out like a map. The important ancient places were
named after words in the language that referred to parts of the
deity's body. If you think about it, this may even make some
sense in a practical way. If you are familiar with the geography
of the human body and its proportions (and who isn't?) and if you
know how the god is posed and where "Knee" and "Navel" are, then
you automatically know how far and in what direction "Head" and
"Hand" are. And if you are a barbarian invader, imagine the grief
you could cause your enemies by invading and cutting them off
from the region they call "Tonker." Of course, these places all
sound more believable when named in the original Assyrian or
Aramaic. Perhaps with a mental map such as this, ancient people
may have known their own geography much better than we know ours
today!
- Bill Thoen
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