Friday, February 1, 2008

Where's the "You Are Here" Sticker?

Cruising around the web, I found a reference to this 14th Century map (click to enlarge) on Blue Crab Boulevard.

The map is the oldest ever found of Britain, and shows more than 600 cities, towns and villages, almost 200 rivers, and a road network marked with thin red lines and extending some 3,000 miles. Distances are marked in roman numerals

Along with thousands of hills, mountains, lakes, abd forests - including New Forest and Sherwood - is Hadrian's Wall, labelled with its more popular name at the time, Murus Pictorum, or the Picts' Wall.

The Gough Map, named after Richard Gough who bought it in 1774 for half-a-crown, is drawn in pen, ink and coloured washes on two skins of vellum (animal skin) and measures almost 4ft long by 2ft wide.

The map is surprisingly accurate until you get to Scotland, which is a total mess because it was so distant and remote as to be considered a virtually foreign country.

To see what terrier work looked like 200 years after this map was made, click here.
.

No comments:

Post a Comment