The world as known in 1531. VERY COOL!
Vitriola — Fri, 08/21/2009 - 06:12
This is a map drawn by Oronteus Finaeus in 1531. Its authenticity is not disputed seriously by anyone, which is unusual in itself.
For those whose Latin is a bit rusty, here is what the title says:
Nova, et integra vniversi orbis descriptio.
Nova: new
et: from. Think et = "out" as in 'out of'.
integra: We get integral and integrated from this word.
vniversi: universal. They used 'v' for 'u' to work their numerology. They used to add up the numeric values of words to get deeper meaning from them. 'V' is the number 5. 'U' is nothing.
orbis: literally orb but in this context it refers to the planet. It is a descriptive term, of course.
descriptio: description (duh)
So, the translation is that this is new and comes out of an integrating of universal planetary descriptions. Now, what does THAT mean? It means that Finaeus took works that said what the earth looked like and put them all together to make this new map of the world in 1531. It turns out that he used writings as far back as Alexander the great (around 335 B.C.). Very cool stuff!
Now, what does this mean to *us*? Here is where this map gets REALLY cool!
Take a look at antarctica. (That is the part on the right half for those in California.) You can see 4 things of note. 1. latitude and longitude lines. (very important) 2. A coastline 3. mountain ranges and 4. rivers
This is a good time to stop and think about what just that means.
Antarctica is what we like to call very very cold. The coastline is surrounded by ice packs that are HUGE! And yet, this coastline is drawn with amazing accuracy without interference from the ice.
To draw rivers, you have to know that there ARE rivers. To know that, you need to see them flowing. hmmm...
Last and certainly not least, the mountain ranges. Antarctica is under MILES of ice. We have only just developed the technology to see through that and find mountain ranges. This is BRAND NEW! And yet, this map shows with amazing precision just where the ranges were right down to the latitude and longitude.
How did they do that? Remember that this was drawn in 1531 but the sources from which the drawing came were over a thousand years old.
Well, it seems that they did it the old fashioned way and just looked at it. If it is under miles of ice how could that be? Well, it must be that there was not that much ice back then.
An entire continent, where the ice gets to be 4 miles thick, just did not have all that ice back in the day? Well, this map shows just that.
What are the scientists thinking about all this then? That, even if the ice were to mostly melt, the water would NOT drown us all because it did not drown us the LAST time that it was melted!
I think that puts the ZING in amazing! Very very cool stuff!
Misinformation
Tankard — Fri, 08/21/2009 - 12:34Before posting things like this as undisputed fact, it pays to do a little research.
http://www.intersurf.com/~chalcedony/FOG4.html
Tank i think the author of
shroom — Sat, 08/06/2011 - 08:17Tank i think the author of that Article is Missing a huge fact. This Map wasnt all drawn from one source of information, It was drawn from a compilation of sources, which means that some of those could have been from times when it was covered in ice, and some from times before it was fully ice-capped. That would explain why some things are present that you shouldnt see while other things are present, like the glaciated coast line while there are still islands above water.
Well you have to remember how
cromi — Sat, 08/06/2011 - 09:29Well you have to remember how terrible maps used to be drawn. England was known to be as large as America while Russia was the side of France. In fact, the reason America, is named America is because the most accurate maps drawn at the time were done by Amerigo Vespucci, which in all honestly was seriously lacking in every aspect of todays world. I mean, imagine you live in place your entire life, the farthest you have probably been is in Italy, Or England, the countries where you grew up if you have gone farther than those two countries it was probably only into France. You're drawing your map, and you think, hey I've walked England, England is fucking large. It took forever for me to walk it. So you draw England in porportion of how you see it. You're coastlines are bullshit, your porportions are lost, your roads are farmtracks, and you have krakens and seamonsters in your ocean (usually to show where trips are lost). This is why I don't trust any map which sources are from 300 years ago even.
research
Vitriola — Fri, 08/21/2009 - 20:59I saw that page when I read dozens of pages on this map. And I cannot think of anything that is completely undisputed. After all, the global warming people base their ideas on computer models that are so complex that they were written assuming the earth to be flat, no day or night or weather, just a constant haze of light.
I still think that this is very cool stuff.
To turn our notions
garreth — Fri, 08/21/2009 - 09:15To turn our notions completely on their heads for a moment: this map was created in 1531 by researching history. Think about that for a moment, to draw a world map people had to find old books that mentioned places they'd never been. Most of a planet that you can only guess and research from historical writings. Amazing.
Also, this is the new map for the next expansion.
After looking at the map for
Ewiges — Tue, 03/16/2010 - 04:00After looking at the map for about 20 minutes without blinking, then reading that webpage twice.. I think our only conclusions is A. Aliens, or B. Coast line is from a glaciated Anartica, and the rivers/mountains are from a nonglaciated Antartica furthur in the past. Most have been the proheathians.