Travel Aesthetica Tuesday – Maps

I have always loved Geography. One of my earliest childhood fascinations was the enormous map of the world that I found hanging in my dad’s study. Underneath the huge depiction of planet earth was a list of all the countries with their flags. Being the little nerd I was, I tried to memorize them all and made a neat little catalogue (with their capitals of course) in my spare time.

Le Monde

Since then maps have always been a thing of admiration for me. Some of my most prized possessions in my book collection back home include an atlas of the royal necropolis of the New Kingdom Pharoahs in Luxor, a vintage atlas from my grandfather and a portfolio of renaissance maps I got from my best friend a few Christmasses ago. The Christmas in question was particularly dramatic, and pouring over the beautiful maps helped me forget about all the politique that was going on.

Waset, modern Luxor, Egypt’s seat of power

I love looking at old maps, and how explorers and people started making sense of the world. I don’t know what it is about them, if they make us know where we fit in in the grander scheme of things, if they show the promise and lure of what is still unseen or perhaps the pleasing realisation that there is a logical way to find yourself out of a conundrum with the help of a map. It is also fun to giggle at how wrong ancient scholars had it, or at the monsters they thought influenced weather, or interesting to see how once massive empires have crumbled to fragmented nations.

1689

A map from the time of Ptolemy, when the world was still flat

How the “holy” have fallen

What will a world map look like in a few years? Will there be one Korea instead of two? Probably not, but all I know is that if I ever have a child like Tilda Swinton in “We need to talk about Kevin” , who sprays red paint all over my old maps turned wallpaper, we won’t need to talk about Kevin, we will need talk about burying Kevin.

Oh Tilda, how I felt your pain