just precisely how bad was 1500s jerusalem at making maps, you ask? well,
this…is a fidget spinner
Reblog if you believe in fidget spinner earth.
Ok so a couple of really important things for understanding what’s going on with this map. First, it’s not from 1500s Jerusalem. This is the Bünting Clover Leaf Map from 1581 Hanover, Germany. This turns out to be super important for understanding the map. Why? Because it was made by a Christian.
This is a stylized map. It’s derived from a very popular kind of map called a “T and O map”, which first are found in Iberia around ~600 CE and then became very popular in Europe. Here’s an early one (12th century edition of a 7th century book describing them):
A larger, later, and more detailed one (1300):
And a modern map with the outlines of the T-and-O superimposed:
So what is a T and O map? They were a way to conceptualize the world. Pre-1492, conventional wisdom was that there were three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. Asia was the largest and went at the top, with Europe to the bottom left and Africa to the bottom right. The shaft of the T was the Mediterranean, the left side of the crossbar was the Don River, and the right was the Nile River. And at the center? Jerusalem.
Here’s the thing: For most of human history, most people haven’t needed maps to get around. They were either travelling between locations they or someone in their party knew, or they were moving slowly enough (i.e. on foot or by cart) to be able to stop and ask directions. So maps weren’t navigation–they were either for education (Ptolemy’s 2nd cent CE description of the world, which was turned into many, many maps in the Middle Ages) or, far more common, for religious symbolism. Between ~500 and ~1700, the purpose of most maps was to show Christians their place in the world. T and O maps put Jerusalem at the center because it was where Jesus was crucified, and they put Asia at the top because that was where it was believed the Garden of Eden was located.
8th century T and O map from Italy. Adam and Eve are visible in the center top:
The really interesting thing about T and O maps, imo, is that they’re deliberately not accurate. People were certainly capable of making recognizable maps of the world, but they were choosing to go with this more stylized version.
1482 world map based on Ptolemy’s writings:
T and O maps, then, are deliberate. They include only what the map maker thought was important, and that is almost always a religious function.
Our modern maps, meanwhile, evolved out of a combination between the Ptolemaic maps and portolan charts. Portolan charts are navigational maps. They frequently only featured the coastline and ports, but overlaying the map is a set of rhumb lines, or paths with constant bearing with respect to true north.
One of the earliest surviving portolan charts, from 1325 Italy:
Portolan charts, by modern standards, are vastly more accurate than T and O maps, and are visibly a better representation of the Earth than a Ptolemaic map. But from the concerns of a medieval cartographer, they’re very bland and boring. There’s no representation here of important cities, religious locations, or classical allusions. It’s just a map of coastlines.
Back to the Clover Leaf map. In 1492, Columbus changed (among other things) map making. The assumption until 1498 (when it became apparent that this was not Asia and it was not a minor collection of outlying islands) was that the world had three continents–at least three accessible to human explorers. After 1500, mapmakers engaged in a race–sometimes a war–to represent the new discoveries first and most accurately. The result was a series of increasingly recognizable world maps.
There are a ton, and thanks to that and (mostly) accurate records about who went where when, you can start to date post-1492 maps based on what areas of the world they do or do not show. But the most relevant one for this post is this one:
This is a 1582 world map, which depicts a reasonably accurate Europe, Africa (including Madagascar, discovered by Europeans in 1500), and most of Asia. Japan is still difficult, as is southeast Asia; Australia is missing entirely. Over in the Americas, while most of South America is decent, North America has some struggles in the northern and western regions. Baja California is an island and everywhere north of that is missing entirely. In the south, there’s hints that the cartographer was thinking about Terra Australis Incognita–a long theorized ‘counterweight’ to the Northern Hemisphere continents. In the 1500s, various voyages attributed Tierra del Fuego, Indonesia, and Australia to the continent. Its relationship to Antarctica seems to be completely coincidental.
This is a pretty typical late 1500s map.
It’s drawn by the same cartographer as the Clover Leaf map.
Heinrich Bünting wrote a book, called Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae (Itinerary of Sacred Scripture), in which both maps are featured, along with many, many others. The book uses current knowledge along with the Bible to talk extensively about the Holy Land–which explains why Bünting put such an allegorical map in his book to begin with.
The Bünting Clover Leaf map isn’t an accurate representation of the world–but it does show a 16th century audience how the world was constructed in medieval theology.
This is all utterly fantastic work on T-maps. I can add one tiny tidbit: not only could Bünting draw a reasonably accurate world map if he felt like it, but also, the reason his fidget spinner map isn’t quite the standard medieval T-map shape is because he was being clever. The caption across the top, translated:
“The whole world in a cloverleaf, which is the crest of the city of Hanover, my beloved fatherland.”
This sounds like a shitpost but people should be allowed to be horny. As in, sexuality is just part of life for most people and there’s no reason for consensual sexual behavior to be punished. A celebrity getting “caught” at a sex club shouldn’t be a scandal. No one should be fired for having a fetlife profile outside of work. Nudes getting leaked shouldn’t be career-ending. Denying and hiding (consensual) sexual interests doesn’t make anyone more professional, it just makes everyone more repressed. And sterilizing ourselves to be better work drones isn’t productive, it’s just creepy. I’d rather my surgeon get absolutely railed on camera and come to work in a good mood, frankly.
12 frames of animation I made using knitting! I spent a long time on this and I’m so pleased with the results, really looking forward to trying more ‘yarnimation’ in the future. Process video out now too! 🐑
“Stop motion animation doesn’t take long enough already, let’s add textile arts.”
[video description: an animation in yarn of a row of sheep all jumping over a fence in a grassy field. /end description]
THE EARTH IS THE MOON AND THE MOON IS THE EARTH AND WE ARE ACTUALLY MOON-MEN, STARING AT A MIRROR OF OUR OWN PLANET!!!! WHY DID THEY DO THIS?? I HAVE A FEW ANSWERS:
WE NEED TO BREAK THE SPHERE AND KILL THE GOD OF THE COMPUTER. WE NEED TO LEARN HIS NAME AND SPEAK TO HIM THROUGH HIS SYSTEM!!!!
Ok.
Actually I thought about it a little longer and changed my mind. The Earth is normal.
It also has swappable casings and one of them is one of those translucent atomic purple casings but I realised i dont even know where to start drawing that :pensive:
If you catch a linguistics student bent over a book of strange symbols, holding their throat in one hand and making a bunch of strange, disconnected sounds, leave them alone!! They’re studying
I think this is just a trend everywhere but I’ve been very frustrated this week by how much admin work is being outsourced to me as the patient/customer.
My orthodontist tells me I can make an appointment with the surgeon. I call the surgeon. They tell me I need a new referral. I call the orthodontist. They do a referral. I call the surgeon. Referral didn’t come through. They tell me about their special unique system we have to use. I call the ortho again and walk them through the referral. I call the surgeon. They say the referral was missing some details so they have to do it again. I call the ortho.
The insurance company calls me about repair shops. I give them the name of the repair shop which I already gave them yesterday. They say they’re not in their system but I can use them, but I have to call the repair shop to ask them to contact the insurance company. I call the repair shop and they say the insurance company is supposed to email them.
I feel like at a certain point these constant fetch quests become unreasonable?? Is it too much to expect these groups to communicate with each other instead of making me run back and forth between them???
Made this post and then the new property manager (who started on Monday and only finally emailed us today because I sent a vaguely professionally hostile email to her boss because I hadn’t heard anything and was not convinced she existed) asked for a list of open action items which her predecessor should have had but apparently wasn’t keeping track of, which I learned when I met her boss and provided her with the list of open action items, which I guess tragically died in a fire in the last 2 weeks since she was sitting at my kitchen table, being menaced by the skull. How many people’s jobs am I doing now
I think this is just a trend everywhere but I’ve been very frustrated this week by how much admin work is being outsourced to me as the patient/customer.
My orthodontist tells me I can make an appointment with the surgeon. I call the surgeon. They tell me I need a new referral. I call the orthodontist. They do a referral. I call the surgeon. Referral didn’t come through. They tell me about their special unique system we have to use. I call the ortho again and walk them through the referral. I call the surgeon. They say the referral was missing some details so they have to do it again. I call the ortho.
The insurance company calls me about repair shops. I give them the name of the repair shop which I already gave them yesterday. They say they’re not in their system but I can use them, but I have to call the repair shop to ask them to contact the insurance company. I call the repair shop and they say the insurance company is supposed to email them.
I feel like at a certain point these constant fetch quests become unreasonable?? Is it too much to expect these groups to communicate with each other instead of making me run back and forth between them???
Made this post and then the new property manager (who started on Monday and only finally emailed us today because I sent a vaguely professionally hostile email to her boss because I hadn’t heard anything and was not convinced she existed) asked for a list of open action items which her predecessor should have had but apparently wasn’t keeping track of, which I learned when I met her boss and provided her with the list of open action items, which I guess tragically died in a fire in the last 2 weeks since she was sitting at my kitchen table, being menaced by the skull. How many people’s jobs am I doing now
i just think i should have the power to control thousands of knives, swords, or perhaps shards of glass synchronously with my mind. i will use this ability purely for culinary endeavors. you can trust me
I completely believe you
thank you for your trust 🙏☺️ 1000 blades vortex attack
Wow you sure diced those onions so fast! Now I can do the rest of the prep without worrying about it, thank you!
i just know i can be the best sous chef in all San Bernardino
Mephistopheles and Margaretta, A Double Statue - medium: sculpture, sycamore wood, sculptor unknown, 19th century. Currently located in the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad, India.
i’ve reblogged posts featuring these two separately, but they go great together
Mephistopheles and Margaretta, A Double Statue - medium: sculpture, sycamore wood, sculptor unknown, 19th century. Currently located in the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad, India.
i’ve reblogged posts featuring these two separately, but they go great together
Women throughout (American and English) history worked. The idea that in the past the sole responsibility of women was domestic labor and childrearing is largely inaccurate for the majority of women in these societies. Women were expected to do domestic labor like cooking and cleaning and raising children AND work to bring income to their family, this was true for the average woman, excluding the upper middle class/wealthy. If a woman’s husband owned a tavern or restaurant, she also cooked and kept bar and did the duties associated with the business. If a woman’s husband was a (small scale/subsistence/tenant) farmer, the woman did farm labor. Often a woman was expected to do labor related to her husband’s job.
Women also had vocations and forms of income unrelated to their husband. The nature of these jobs changed over time but many women did things like weaving, embroidery, crafting, beer brewing, chicken tending and laundress work to bring income. Women with skills were seen as better marriage candidates because they’d make money for their husband.
My great-great-great-great grandmother told fortunes and did farm labor, my great-great-great grandmother was a midwife, my great-great grandmother worked in a textile factory for most of her adult life and my great grandmother was a school lunch lady.
This is why it makes me irate when women on the right say things like “feminism forced me to get a job instead of being allowed to stay home with my children” before feminism you would have had to tend house, raise your children and bring income to your husband. Now, at the very least, the money is hopefully your own. Women were always in the workforce, their work was not recognized.
There's a squat little bright yellow car in my apartment building carpark with a numberplate that could, with no-to-minimal stretches of the imagination, be approximating "teaboot". It's not, because I'm not Canadian. But it's jumpscared me at least twice.
I did find another sex shop story in my mind vault! Get ready for the most embarrassed I ever got at work.
When I first started my manager was this really cool guy and he set a matter-of-fact no nonsense tone to working there that I emulated. So as part of my training he brought me to a display case full of glass toys.
These are stunning solid glass pieces that just so happen to be shaped into gentle curves. Honestly several were abstract and beautiful enough to be displayed on a mantelpiece. They can be used with any kind of lube, they’re easy to sterilize and overall they’re excellent sex toys.
But I, like every other person, am the culmination of my lived experience. Glass breaks. I know this to be true, I’ve dropped glasses and plates and the fear of glass breaking was all I could see looking into that display.
My manager was well aware. He calmly informed me that I was looking at triple fired borosilicate and he pulled one out and banged it on the counter with all his might making me jump ten feet in the air. But there was the glass toy, triumphant and unscathed in his hand, after leaving a new dent on the counter. Forget sex, these things were viable murder weapons.
Over the years I worked there I did the exact same demo he did hundreds of times, smacking the solid glass onto the unyielding counter and showing off how sturdy the glass was. “Theres nothing your vagina can do to harm this,” I’d assure people.
So one day I had a group of three ladies looking at them, tittering nervously to each other. I assured them that these were extremely safe and they smiled skeptically.
“Really,” I said, pulling out an example, “our bodies are soft and wet, we have no way of damaging these.” I lifted it and brought it down onto the counter like I had a thousand times before. Like I’d seen countless times from my coworkers.
Except this time. The toy decided it must give up its grip on the mortal coil. It rebelled against its treatment of smacking the counter with a display of explosive protest. It shattered.
The women screamed and flinched back as I stood frozen in absolute perplexity as my mind tried to make sense of what had just happened. The toy had broken in huge safety glass sized chunks, leaving me a nub in my grip while it’s former glory lay in pieces all around me.
I looked back up at the ladies, speechless. They all broke into hysterical laughter. “Your face!” They gasped while clutching each other to stay on their feet.
“I- I’ve done this demo hundreds of times- it’s- it’s never broken!”
They crowed even harder as I sweeped up the mess, still in disbelief and horror at what I’d done. “Well. I at least know your bodies can’t provide that much force to a toy… I can’t believe this, it’s never broken before.” I babbled on in embarrassment to their obvious disbelief.
They looked back at me with the certainty of three women who will never in their life trust a glass toy not to shatter inside their bodies after watching the worlds most explosive demo.
I love this story because it is a hilarious and fantastic demonstration of a concept I must routinely explain to people when they hire me to do inspections: Objects don’t heal.
This isn’t a slight to anyone, it’s just that I run into this constantly and it is so so important to remember, when it’s involves things that are not the power of a vaginal spasm versus triple fired borosilicate sex toys.
Like whenever someone says “this was built to last” Yes - true, but, it does not heal. If you do not inspect and maintain said thing (e.g., an I-beam clamp), one day the exact same force you have applied to it for the past X years will cause it to fail.
Sometimes in spectacular (read: catastrophic) fashion. Other times in mildly annoying ways.
People - remember this story. Remember how funny it is because no one got hurt [besides OP’s pride] and how novel due to the setting, and remember the lesson: Objects don’t heal.
OP I truly appreciate your recollection. Even if the reason the toy broke was because of the *exact* *precise* angle of force applied that one time, it may still stick in someone’s mind that they need to inspect their hardware / software (or call someone in to inspect it).
Demonstrating load cycling at the dildo display
We love a dildo story with a lesson at the end
cyclical loading fatigue failure dildo problem in Shigleys when
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