Category: Maps and Cartography

The World is Flat: An ode to Columbus and all erroneous beliefs

The World is Flat: An ode to Columbus and all erroneous beliefs

The shapes of the world’s continents have changed ever since the time of the supercontinent, Pangaea. We’ve all seen the renditions of the continents shifting and South America unzipping from the edge of western Africa. Just looking at a map of the world it’s possible to see how the pieces of the earth fit together once. It may even be possible to conceive of how the continents might look millions of years in the future as the tectonic plates shift and move under and over each other. We think we know this now, but other ages of people thought they had the world’s shape figured out, too.

Contrary to popular belief, it didn’t take Columbus’s discovery of America to prove to the world’s thinkers that the earth wasn’t flat. Yes, in some parts of the world the belief was that the earth was a disc travelling on the back of a giant turtle, but back at the time of the Greeks and Egyptians and even before them, in China, great thinkers postulated that the world was round. They used logic and observation of the sun’s movement and shadows, as well as the way ships sink beneath the horizon to mathematically prove the earth’s general shape. What they didn’t know was the earth’s size. But that’s another story. They did, however, also theorize that the southern part of the earth were too hot for any human to inhabit. Happily for our friends south of the equator, they were wrong.

It was the Middle Ages that led to the belief that the world was flat. Maps became conveyers of religious dogma, as opposed to a representation of world. I’ll talk on this later, but as the world moved out of the Middle Ages into the Age of Discovery, the debate began about the shape of the solar system and whether it was terra centric (the sun and moon and planets revolving around the earth) or sol centric (the earth and all the other planets revolving around the sun). At the same time as these debates raged, people also debated the shape of the world’s continents. The prevailing belief seemed to be that Asia not only extended far to the east, but that it then hooked down and around the Indian Ocean to connect with the as-yet-undiscovered Cape of Africa, leaving the Indian Ocean as a land-locked sea.

What’s most interesting, is how human beliefs shaped the world around us. Think of the generations who grew up with these various beliefs. To them, the world WAS flat or the Indian Ocean WAS landlocked, or we really DID rely on a turtle to hold the whole thing up. That strength of belief colored all the beliefs of the early exploration of the east coast of whatever it was that Columbus discovered. first they believed it was the east coast of Asia. Then they believed it was a thin rind of a place, like a reef, that they could sail through. The maps show this. They show the ill-fated North West Passage, too – something that may finally exist if global warming continues its work.

In all of these cases it was the strength of their generation’s belief in what they’d drawn on their maps that kept explorers coming back to what became known as the Americas – and dying – again and again. When other beliefs gradually overtook the old ones, we gradually learned that what Columbus had really discovered was two new continents. Those layers of beliefs gradually reshaped the maps and thus the world we live in, much as my Cartos characters can believe and draw a new world into existence .

Which makes me wonder about the power of beliefs even today, when those who believe in a flat earth and those who believe in a round earth still wear away at each other like tectonic plates. Is it possible for such disparate beliefs to live side by side, or do these people actually inhabit two separate worlds?

And Columbus? He might have ‘proved’ that the earth was round, but he went to his grave believing that what he’d found was the backdoor to Asia, thus demonstrating that even an icon like Columbus could be blinded by his map of the world.

On Maps, GPS and Andre Gide

On Maps, GPS and Andre Gide

I never get lost, or only rarely. Few places turn me around, Portland Oregon being one of them. (I’m blaming the rivers and the volcanoes on creating a weird magnetic field that disturbs my sense of true north.) All my life I’ve arrived in a new place and managed to orient myself quickly, so that I’ve been able to get around with only my sense of direction and, when necessary, a map. These days, however, I’m beginning to feel like an anachronism every time I unfold my trusty, old fashioned paper map. In fact, I’m reminded of an episode of FRIENDS, when, in London, Joey had to place his map on the ground and step into it, in order to find himself.

Huinay Huayna, Forever Young, hung above the Urubumba River (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson
Huinay Huayna, Forever Young, hung above the Urubumba River (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Let’s face it, with GPS, Onboard computers in our cars, and smart phones, all of which will give you the best route to take from point A to point B courtesy of MapQuest, the art of map reading is certainly on the wane. Which makes me wonder what the loss of that art will mean to our world.

Sure it might mean less coffee-stained maps, probably fewer traffic accidents and certainly fewer arguments between couples lost on a Sunday drive, but what will it mean to how we see the world?

My fascination with maps has always existed. Travelling as I do, one of my first purchases for any destination is a map that is large enough that I can understand the relationship between places, and that I can see enough details so that I can also get off the beaten path. When I go travelling, I like to trace my route on the map as an indelible reminder of the places I’ve gone and the things I’ve seen. It also reminds of the immensity of experiences I haven’t had, and all the other corners and mountain tops and valleys and towns and people I haven’t seen or met. The map reminds me of the world out there that I’ve, ever so briefly, stepped into.

Thread seller - Marrakesh, Morocco
Thread seller - Marrakesh, Morocco

With the advent of GPS and TomTom etc. I wonder how that affects our relationship with the world around us. With a map we get context. We get how small we are in a much larger world, whereas the GPS and OnBoard Computers I’ve used reduce the world to one small computer screen that points us in one direction and that doesn’t foster those exciting tingles a map gives when you realize there’s an alternative route to the one you’d chosen—one that might be richer for the fact it isn’t the most direct route or the path that most people travel.

Maps have fostered my imagination since the first time one fell out of my parents’ National Geographic Magazine and since the first time I traveled with my parents from British Columbia to Quebec and my mom showed me a map of the continent. I was seven and the vastness of the landscape excited me with all the half-glimpsed things along our route. Maps gave me a sense of where we were in relation to where we’d been. Today they give me a sense of the greater world. Old maps show what the landscape once was and how it has changed. Maps even give a sense of how other cultures view the world differently than most North Americans do today

Path along the Yukon River, following the routes of explorers.

The French Author, Andre Gide wrote that “One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a long time.” That’s what maps are all about, a guide to discovery and exploring something vaster , whereas GPS seems to make a journey all about yourself moving from point A to point B.

So for me, though GPS and MapQuest are great for short trips, I’ll muddle through with a paper map and my own sense of adventure. I’ll live by Gide’s philosophy and take a chance on getting lost or perhaps, like Joey, finding myself in the map.

So how do you prefer to travel? Are you map challenged or a fan? Do you depend on GPS when you’re travelling? Why?

Recent Fantasy

Available HERE,

$1.99

Available HERE,
$3.99

Available HERE $1.99

 


Recent Mystery

 

 

Available HERE
$4.99

 

 

 

 

 

Available HERE,

$4.99

 

 

 

 

 

Available HERE,

$4.99

 

 

 

 

 

Available HERE,
$4.99

 

 

Recent Romance

Available HERE, $2.99