Oh What A Time... - #152 Maps 1 (Part 2)

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed!This week we’re here with the first of two episodes on the history of maps! We’ve got 27,000 year old maps carved onto tusks, maps in ancient Egypt and, ...the big one, the Mappa Mundi.Elsewhere this week, we’re discussing that great underrated invention: the coat. Get ready for a potted history of the humble coat. If you’ve got anything on coats that we’ve missed, you know what to do: hello@ohwhatatime.comALSO! The comedy history podcast that has spent as much time talking about the invention of custard as it has the industrial revolution is here with its first ever live show! Thursday 15th January at the Underbelly Boulevard in London’s Soho. 🎟 Tickets are on sale now: https://underbellyboulevard.com/tickets/oh-what-a-time/On our Patreon you’ll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatimeAnd as a special thank you for joining, use the code CUSTARD for 25% off your first month.You can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 O Watertime is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else, ad free, plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access to live show tickets and access to the O Watertime Group chat. Plus if you become an O Watertime All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis, will riff on your name to postulate where else in history you might have popped up.
Starting point is 00:00:23 For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash O-Water Time. Hello and welcome to part two of Maps Let's get on with the show First bit of business Before we crack on with part two However I have to mention the fact that one of the bonuses
Starting point is 00:00:48 of being a know-what time All-timer is that you get to have your name postulated upon as to where it may have been in history by all of us and congratulations to Lloyd Hughes because you're up first this week
Starting point is 00:01:04 Lloyd Hughes where in history I think the L has to take that because that very much to me feels like a Welshman from the past non-conformist non-conformist chapel
Starting point is 00:01:16 preacher in sort of the late Victorian era and my God he was charismatic people would come from miles around to watch him preach and Aaron incredible voice and an absolute mastery of his audience. And what were these sermons have been about? What's the vibe? Oh, well, he would take a passage from the Bible, pontificate about it, but just the voice
Starting point is 00:01:41 and the oratory. Is it a rich oaky baritone by an oaky baritone in a really, really pious plain chapel? And everyone in there is a cold chapel and everyone in there is cold chapel and Everyone in there is cold, and his sermons are about suffering. But it looks lovely at Christmas. Oh, it looks lovely at Christmas. But the snow settles around it and the red berries are in the trees. Oh, what a place to be. Oh, another lovely sermon, Lloyd.
Starting point is 00:02:09 Oh, another lovely sermon. And then Jesus walked to Galilee. Oh, he's still going. Incredible. Well, there you go. Thank you, Lloyd. And congratulations on your walk. wonderful Oki Baratone.
Starting point is 00:02:25 If you want to support a show, here's how. Hello again, you horrible lot. Enjoying the show. Well, why not show the love by becoming a Patreon supported today? For a mere handful of farthings,
Starting point is 00:02:41 you can get ad-free shows, two bonus subscriber episodes each month, access to all the past bonus eps, first dibs on live tickets, and even help decide. what subjects the boys cover next. Your support makes everything possible, so sign up today at patreon.com
Starting point is 00:03:03 slash oh what's the time or oh what'satine.com. What are you waiting for? Stop dawdling. Okie Baratone is a lovely name as well. I'd love that. I'd love to be called Oki Baratone. That was my name.
Starting point is 00:03:22 What's your name? Oki Baratone. Very nice to meet you. I'll have to check the all-time list, see if O'K Baritone's on there. Good stuff. This week we're chatting maps. This is part two. I'm going to tell you about maps in the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt.
Starting point is 00:03:38 Brilliant. It's interesting because in part one, Tom, you were discussing how prehistoric people used maps to understand their surroundings, rivers, hills, hunting grounds. But by the time we reach Mesopotamia and Egypt, the purpose of these maps have changed completely. because now maps aren't just about where things are. Now it's about who owns what. Maps become instruments of power, territory, taxation and control. So whereas people are scratching onto your tusks, Tom, in the prehistoric world, they're effectively saying, this is where we are, this is us, this is our world.
Starting point is 00:04:15 In ancient maps, they're increasingly saying, this land is ours, it belongs to us. Interesting. And this is the start of the agricultural revolution, really, isn't it? This is like claiming land. I remember this from Sapiens. This is the movement towards civilisation becoming sort of more problematic. Some more issues sort of cropping up as we move towards possession and land grabbing. It's interesting point, Tom, because it does basically get more and more problematic from here on now.
Starting point is 00:04:43 Yeah. Right up until the invention of social media. Which sorted it all out. It's a straight line of problems. Through the earliest maps and Instagram and the Infinite Scroll. I suppose a map was an infinite scroll, I suppose. Very good. Thank you, Elef.
Starting point is 00:05:09 So let's go to the second millennium BCE, and we've got empires like Egypt and Babylon, and they're employing specialist land surveyors. So these are trained officials who use maths, standardised measurement and geometry to map land accurately. What are you in this? Sorry, this is when? The second millennium BCE. Okay.
Starting point is 00:05:29 Yeah, they're using, they're mapping the land accurately, but they're doing it for taxation, quarrying, irrigation, and to settle property disputes. It's mad to think of property disputes back in the second millennium BCE. Yeah. Whose fence is that? Yeah. Are you encroaching? Well, look. When we had the survey done, your dry stone wall didn't actually show up on the survey,
Starting point is 00:05:53 so I'm not actually sure you're allowed to build that there. Spear in the chest. Yeah. In the prehistoric world, the maps on the tusks were like symbolic doodles of where things were. But these maps now are increasingly, in the second millennium BCE, technical documents, they're used to run states and extract wealth. And one of the most remarkable ancient maps ever discovered, Now sits in the Museo Igizio in Turin, Italy, and it is known as the Turin papyrus map.
Starting point is 00:06:24 And dates to around 1,150 BCE. And this shows roughly 15 kilometres, about 8 miles, of the Wadi Hammamat, a desert valley that links Thebes to the Red Sea. So this route was vital for international trade with Arabia, East Africa, Persia, even India. But this map wasn't made to guide travellers. it was made for industrial exploitation. Pharaoh Ramesses the 4th commissioned it to locate sources of greywax sandstone. This is the stone that was used for monumental royal statues. Wow.
Starting point is 00:07:01 So the map was created to identify the different rock types, where the quarries were, the hills and the wadis, the transport routes, and it's topographically accurate. And it may stretch over two to three metres in length, but crucially, we don't really know because we can't measure its original length exactly because if there's a map survives in fragments. But experts estimate it would have stretched
Starting point is 00:07:26 to around two or three metres when fully unrolled. Quite tantalising, isn't it? Amazing. You know when it became fragments? Whose fault is that? Yeah. I always wonder this. There'll be these amazing documents,
Starting point is 00:07:40 but they'll only have a fragment of it. And I think, who chucked the rest out? Who was having a clear out? I mean, you know, your receipts from, like, I guess the equivalent would be old tax receipts from five years ago. Eventually, you're like, I don't, the storage of that isn't that important. So why aren't they checking all of it out? And also, yeah, at the time you're not aware that something's going to become
Starting point is 00:08:04 historically important, are you, I suppose? Why do you think Izzy is so unhappy all the time? I am creating not a home but an archive. We don't look after everything in our house now or the hope that in 2,000 years someone will go, why do you throw those adidas out? Our attic is an archive that I live under. I mean, no one will ever want to write my autobiography,
Starting point is 00:08:24 but should they want to, my house is an absolute treasure trope. You've basically just got to edit your house to get to the autobiography. So the Turin Papyrus map is effectively the world's oldest surviving geological survey map. sadly it's also the only Egyptian papyrus map ever found
Starting point is 00:08:46 as we mentioned papyrus doesn't tend to live very long it doesn't stay in one piece for any amount of time however land ownership records from as early as 3,000 BCE strongly suggest that many others once existed they obviously just haven't survived but Babylon gives us even you say that though Chris I made some in primary school in the 80s my mum still got it it's still looking perfect
Starting point is 00:09:09 I made a papyrus at primary school actually It's one of the main things you do in primary school Is it? Is that? Was that in the curriculum? Everyone did that. For overseas listeners, you should know that's my experience in primary school was sort of 50% country dancing, 50% papyrus.
Starting point is 00:09:23 That's what life in the cost was, basically. How do you make a papyrus? Is it? Like you're laying down leaves like cross stitch and then you wax it or something? I don't know. I have a feeling that maybe it was sort of like mock papyrus. It may have, I think it involved tea bags, which I don't think is exactly what the Egyptians would have done.
Starting point is 00:09:41 aged the papyrus. It might have just been the browning of actual, just normal A4. Oh, we browned A4. To make it look like an old treasure map. Give it tea bags. I give it a go under the grill. That was dangerous.
Starting point is 00:09:53 Under a grill? Yeah, I did that. Yeah. That's not okay. Yeah, set it. A light, panic, fire alarm goes off, chuck it in the sink. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:02 Congratulations, you've passed primary school. Dad, another tea bag, please. Amazing. But let's move on to Babylon, because it gives us even richer cartographic evidence. So now these maps are being created on clay tablets, which, as you will imagine, last far better than papyrus. We've got an architectural ground plan of a palace at Larsa near modern Basra,
Starting point is 00:10:28 dating to about 1850 BC. And this shows rooms, doorways, corridors in clear details. See, if they can do it, well, I can't Westfield. If they can show you how to get around the planet, Alice. Why can't they do that now? It's insane. Yeah, how have them up's got worse? That is the conclusion. Archaeologists have also found an iPad from 2000 BC which will allow you to locate J.D. Sports to within five meters.
Starting point is 00:10:58 They also found a field map from around 2000 BCU used to define... Loads of sandals in J.D. Sports, that read. Just row upon row. Yeah, robes. Antidast robes. Yeah, so they found a field map from around 2000 BCE that is used to define the land of a specific owner, a man called Abu Inimmaran.
Starting point is 00:11:19 And this tablet literally shows what belonged to him and what didn't. Like an early kind of boundary map. Love that. We also get irrigation and canal maps from the region around Nipur, around 200 kilometres south of modern Baghdad, dating from 1,500 to 1,400 BCE. But the canal maps weren't abstract exercises. They're listing, you can get your safe drinking water here.
Starting point is 00:11:41 This is marshlands where reeds grow, crop, field, settlements. But it also delineates clearly who owns what piece of land. And the reeds as well were not just decorative. They were essential for if you want to go out and make yourself a basket, some furniture, a roof, even writing tools. So these maps doubled as economic blueprints as well. And then interesting when it comes to land ownership, they're dividing the land ownership between the crown. what's priest and temples, what's wealthy elites and the municipal land for the general population.
Starting point is 00:12:12 There was even the Mesopotamian equivalent of Glebe land land specifically set aside to feed non-productive institutions like temples and medieval European universities would later operate in exactly the same way. Amazing. They really step it up, the Babylonians. It makes you feel it's almost something like a board game. That's what it makes me think of. You know, there's sort of like civilization-type board games
Starting point is 00:12:35 where there's different areas for crops and you can kind of sort it all together is all really demarked. I'm not articulating it very well, but it's really making me think of those sort of games. Like when I used to play a game called Civilisation back in the day on my computer. Yes, I remember that, yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:50 And you'd have your sections where the crops are grown and all the, this is the, it's all very just clearly marked and in a way that life is not that anymore, is it? I reckon being a cartographer must be quite a nice job, actually. But what about when the boundary disputes start booted off? Yeah, good point. Who drew this map? Oh, it was Ellis of Babylon.
Starting point is 00:13:08 Right. It's his fault. Yeah, yeah, good point. Yeah. Also, now I suppose we know what Norway looks like, don't we? You're not going to improve on it. Yep, that's definitely Oslo. Do you think anyone has the job of cartographer anymore?
Starting point is 00:13:23 There's a question. Well, I mean, it's like done on GPS and stuff, because obviously roads change. Yeah. We've discussed this before in this podcast. I know that this is a discussion we should really have had many, many, many years ago. But Satnav still blows my mind. How could it know where I'm meant to go? That was absolutely incredible to me.
Starting point is 00:13:40 The modern cartographer is the driver of the Google car, isn't it? Oh, yeah, I suppose. Not the Google, the Google Map car, that thing that sort of goes around. That's sort of the closest thing to cartographer. And also cities are changing. Cities are changing all the time. So you've got to do that. Yeah, absolutely.
Starting point is 00:13:57 That'd be a fun game. Like, who'd have the more accurate map of the world if we were just to draw it freehand now? Yeah. I reckon I could do a good African South America. Ellis would do a massive Wales. Wales would be huge. Like the size of Russia.
Starting point is 00:14:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah. My Australia would be all right. My Japan would and New Zealand would be okay. My Italy would be superb. My Italy would be superb. My Indonesia would be appalling. Yeah, I reckon I could do a pretty good Ireland. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:14:27 I could do Africa as a continent, but I'd struggle for the demarcation of countries. Oh, yeah. In an exact way. But if we're just looking at the outlines, areas of land masses, then maybe they'll be, I'll be do all right. I also think that we should agree, never to put this to the test. It could be the most humiliating thing we've ever done. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:14:48 That's quite a good game for the live show. Yeah, go on there. It's draw Ireland. Oh, okay. Yell out a country and then give it a bash. See how close it is. Okay. Yeah, you can get tracing paper.
Starting point is 00:15:00 Yeah. And you can get the actual map of the country and then we've got, yeah. What an embarrassing thing to revise Look at all the shapes I need to learn the shape of Ethiopia Just in case Another night in with the globe Pitch dark living room
Starting point is 00:15:18 And just a glowing globe And you're sat in the corner Turning it slowly Trying to memorize it Yeah Don't abed is he okay I'll follow you up I'm trying to memorize Iceland
Starting point is 00:15:27 Yeah Greenland is massive But currently that's all I know Oh dear So back to the ancient Babylonians. To reinforce the maps they were making on the ground, the Babylonians installed stone boundary markers called Kudurus, dating from roughly 1,600 to 1,200 BCE.
Starting point is 00:15:47 And the Kuduru recorded the owner of the land, past owners, the size of the territory, and the surveyor who mapped it. That's good, isn't it? Yeah. Like, if you've got an issue with this, speak to him. And together, the map and the stone marker formed a legal system. I guess it's kind of like your door number on your house, isn't it?
Starting point is 00:16:06 Yeah. So the map would show like ownership on paper, the other enforced it in the landscape. And this is the birth of mapped property law. And then let's go on to the most famous ancient map of all, the Babylonian map of the world, or Imago Mundi, which is now in the British Museum. And it dates to around 800 to 900 BCE, and it shows the Euphrates River at the centre, the city of Babylon, the city of Susa, the Zagros Mountains, great surrounding ocean called the Bitter River, believed to encircle the world.
Starting point is 00:16:37 Wow. And the map is accompanied by a creation text describing how the god Marduk separated land from sea and instructions on the reverse telling the reader how far different places lie from one another. Oh, that's interesting. It isn't just a geographical object, it's religious, political and educational all at the same time. But I love the fact they put themselves in the middle of the world because you frankly would, wouldn't you? If you're in ancient Babylon.
Starting point is 00:17:00 But to be honest, that has happened ever since. much more recently than that, maps give a biased view of your place in the world and the size of, you know, wherever you buy it from the world. Yeah, of course. It's only pretty only recently, it's become reflective of what the world is actually like. But what's most striking about the Amargo Mundi, the map of ancient Babylon, isn't just what's on it, but what isn't. So they don't mention the Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks. In fact, there are no neighbouring civilisations at all.
Starting point is 00:17:31 Babylon knew those cultures existed but the map chose to ignore them completely Baller move Very annoying if you ever got lost Where are we then Ah yeah Decided not to do this bit Yeah
Starting point is 00:17:48 So this is what's intriguing about the Babylonians Putting themselves at the centre of the universe They knew there were others around them But they're just on the map They're just unknown out to regions So it wasn't really a navigation tool It's not a practical travel map It's purely a statement of identity and power
Starting point is 00:18:05 Basically saying This is our world Everything else beyond this is a waste of time You don't need to know what's outside of this map So when you put all this evidence together The Quarry Maps, Field Maps, Canal Systems Kuduru Stones, the Cosmic World View tablets, a clear pattern emerges
Starting point is 00:18:20 which is that ancient maps had three purposes Economic to extract resources Territorial to define ownership Political and religious to assert who actually matters. And these were the tools of empire, not just instruments of geography. And although the Babylonian world map looks crude by modern standards, it sits at the peak of a tradition that was actually technically sophisticated, legally binding and administratively central to how ancient states functioned. And long before maps guided travellers,
Starting point is 00:18:51 they guided tax collectors, stone quarriers, priests and kings, they didn't just show the world, they decided and demonstrated who controlled it. Fascinating. Genuinely, fascinating. That's great. Yeah. Ancient Egypt is great, isn't it? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:05 It is one of the best bits of history. Ancient Egypt and ancient Rome. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And the Greeks. Great days out. Great days out for the one-day time machine. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:19:29 Right. takes me back because we're going to be chatting about the Mapper Monday in this section, which I remember studying when I was probably in year eight or year nine, I would say. So I don't know anything about this, which is probably no great surprise because it's me, but I'm excited to find out. Now, many of us would have seen medieval maps and been confused by them because of the image they portray. So there's the famous goth map. No one's quite certain when that was made, but at some point in the road,
Starting point is 00:20:00 reign of England's... And that shows you around Camden, does it? To all the shops where you can buy leather jackets. No, Gough. Not goth. In the 13th century. I'm not disappointed. They'd had amendments and copies made to it in later decades. So that map shows the entire landmass of the island of Great Britain
Starting point is 00:20:18 from Northern Scotland and Wales to the south coast of England and fits with Edward's creation of the first English empire. So Pembroke, Pembroke Castle, of course, is on there. So is Bristol and Gloucester, the River Avon, Oxford and Abingdon, even Basingstoke, Hull, the Humber, Dunblane, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Wick are all on there. So the geography's familiar to us, but the map doesn't look like modern Britain. So for one thing, it's viewed with the island to 90 degrees west. So Scotland points to the west, not the north.
Starting point is 00:20:47 Right. Wales is in the south, and England dominates all. So that is, basically, it's royal power being projected outwards. Interesting. So the map purposefully draws the eye to the centre of power on the island. in and around London, of course. You know, just like when I lived in Wales and they would do the weather
Starting point is 00:21:05 and they would concentrate on London. And you'd think, yeah, but I don't live in London. So tell me if it's going to rain in Haphaford West or come after, you complete goon. But if you look carefully, you'll see churches, castles, towns, rivers, basically the most important features of government in the medieval landscape.
Starting point is 00:21:23 So again, it was a reminder that this is a portrait of power. These are the important things. These are the things we need to notice. So part of the map for the... the time are cartographically accurate. Others are less so. Northern Scotland is just wrong. Right. I'd be sorry, lads, it's just wrong. I'm having flash forwards, by the way, to our live show now. Yeah, yeah. An indication that the original cartographer was probably English, not Richard Goff, by the way, who was the 18th century procurer of the map. There's some speculation
Starting point is 00:21:53 that the artist was from Yorkshire or Lincolnshire, since these areas are well drawn. So whoever did it, They nailed Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. I love that. It's super detailed. Leeds, Bradford, Doncaster. They're all perfect, right? Now, other areas of accurate detail include Oxfordshire. Was it you, by the way?
Starting point is 00:22:10 Or was it your friend? Maybe it's my wife's friend who, in her arts A-level exam, you had a certain amount of time. It was a life-drawing class, and you had like two hours, and she had spent far too much time on the penis and balls. And completely lost track at the time. And then the teacher was like, okay, you've got five minutes left. And then basically had to quickly do the rest of this person.
Starting point is 00:22:37 Oh, my God. Her A-level art piece was just like the most detailed penis and balls you've ever seen. And it's just a vague outline of something else. Do you know what she got? I don't know what she got. I just know about this. Because if it's a good penis and balls, surely you're in A territory, are you not? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:55 Well, I think if your job is to draw the whole person. The penis and balls have really got to work hard on that score. Yeah. I reckon I could draw a penis quite quickly and then there's nothing else I'd do to it. I reckon it would take me about a minute to draw penis. You can only go into so much detail, can I? Now, other areas of accurate detail include Oxfordshire and those where Edward's forces have been in military occupation.
Starting point is 00:23:19 So hence the appearance of Harlech, Cunarvon and Boumaris in North Wales on the map, although sometimes, as in the case of Anglesey, that association with military ownership led to an exaggeration in size because after all who wants to own something tiny so Anglesey on the map is too big which is quite funny so the Goff map was produced in much the same late medieval context as their other great guide to the English mind the map of Mundy which is in Hereford Cathedral
Starting point is 00:23:44 made in around 1300 AD or CE this details a known world with Jerusalem at its centre do you study the map of Mundy at school Chris have you seen it I've seen it but I don't I don't remember studying it at school? We studied it at school. We didn't. There was a sort of slight tongue-in-cheek rivalry between the geography kids and the history kids because you couldn't do both for GCSEs. We had to choose in year 9 whether you were history or geography. Right. I remember a friend of mine who was doing geography GCSE. It was like, what is the point of
Starting point is 00:24:13 history? Because when you see the map of Monday, it's like it's hilariously inaccurate. I remember her saying, you know, in geography, we study accurate maps. And in history, you study inaccurate maps, by what I want to spend my time. get a map that is just completely wrong. So it's a picture not only of Christendom and its neighbours, but also of faith as a form of power. So Jews and Muslims, the latter portrayed as Saracens, the enemy of the Crusaders,
Starting point is 00:24:39 are shown in a negative light. So attitudes to Muslims are explained by the Crusades. Edward I've been on Crusade in the Holy Land as a young man. And Jews had very recently been expelled from England by Edward I in 1290. And before that, I'd been compelled by the crown to wear yellow badges to identify them as different from the wider Christian population. So once again, the orientation, when you see it,
Starting point is 00:25:02 is very confusing to modernise. The east is the Levant and the wider Middle East occupies the northern part of the map, so that the Iberian Peninsula and the mouth of the Mediterranean is at the south. The eastern part of the map is therefore representative of North Africa, and the western part brings us to the British Isles. Hereford is on the map.
Starting point is 00:25:21 I love the idea that Herford's on him Or just now Left for the idea that You're like Oh my God If you're doing them up of the world We've got to put bloody Hereherford on there Three clocks on the wall
Starting point is 00:25:35 New York London Herrifford Put Herriffon on there For crying out loud Love it There's also so little sea That's what I remember Yeah
Starting point is 00:25:44 I'm just look at it now There's like There's the hardly It looks like a canal land It is all land That's what I remember from the Map of Mundy. Like there's laughably little water on Earth according to the Map of Monday.
Starting point is 00:25:58 I'm just looking at us now. When you zoom in as well, I don't know what this says about, like certain places will have like two devils in a sword fight or like two rabbits eating a man. Yeah. Or like a lizard deer thing like an upside down mermaid. That's all just a night out in Hereford.
Starting point is 00:26:19 If you live in the medieval world and someone hands you this map, where do you want to go? You're looking at all this stuff thinking, I'll stay here, thanks very much. Yeah, yeah, this is fine. It's kind of beautiful, though, isn't it? I'm looking at it now. It really is a real, it's a proper work of art. So Paris, Rome, Babylon are there.
Starting point is 00:26:33 London isn't, here if it is, of course. Other mistakes include the suggestion that the Caspian Sea was open and all enclosed. Yeah, that information was already available in Western Europe and had been for about half a century when the map was drawn. Given quite distant information is shown, including the river Ganges, the Indus, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile, it's Delta Crimea and the Ukrainian Don. Such a big mistake is quite surprising. But then again, not all of the inspiration for the map was scientific
Starting point is 00:27:00 nor is the idea to show the world as it truly was. This was a religious illustration, not a secular one. The most important information was derived from the Bible. So Eden is on there. So is the landing point of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat in Armenia. And Moses appears too. And because it's a medieval map, we also get the cultural hinterline land of myths and legends, stories, romances and ideas that were current in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.
Starting point is 00:27:27 So Greek myth points us to the location of Jason's golden fleece. He had a Patagonia golden fleece. That was the first coat, actually. It was the first coat, wasn't it? You're wondering what it was. A napapedgerie golden flee. And the pillars of Hercules, that is the rock of Gibraltar and his opposite, either Jabamusa or Montiatcho, both of which flank the mouth of the Mediterranean. Alexander the Great, who we've done a long series on,
Starting point is 00:27:53 if you're a no-waters-time full-timer, also on the map because the Alexander Romance was a medieval phenomenon. People were absolutely obsessed with Alexander the Great and still are. Yeah. But in particular at this time. So the shape of the map of Monday is notable because it recalls the O and the T design of the ancient Babylon map of the world, a cartographical projection that survived through ancient Greece
Starting point is 00:28:14 and Roman on into medieval Europe. And it's important that this projection is not confirmed, with medieval Europeans thinking the earth was flat because they didn't. Interesting. Knowledge of a round earth was again in general circulation by this point. Indeed, the map of Monday says as much in its description of Rome as the head of the world in the city which holds the reins of the round globe. So, you know, we haven't thought the earth was flat for a very long time.
Starting point is 00:28:39 So the map of Monday may not be ideal as a road map. Like, you know, you're not going to use it on a stand-up tour. Sorry, I'm running. I'm using the Map of Mundry. There should be a Map of Mundy setting on Google Maps or Ways. The Goff Maps is a little more useful in that respect, but like it's ancient and prehistoric predecessors, it's a very medieval illustration,
Starting point is 00:29:04 and it tells us a very great deal about our ancestors' perceptions of the world and their place in it. Genuinely fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. Yeah, we did a long time on the Map of Monday. I remember that vividly those lessons. Have you ever seen it? No, no, no, no. It's still in Hereford, I think, but I've never been. You ever seen the Mapper Tuesday?
Starting point is 00:29:24 Haven't that? Very good. That reflex, it's just always there. It really is. How do I get rid of it? That's a genuine question. Hereford United on Mappen Monday 9 football. Genuinely fascinating.
Starting point is 00:29:44 And it's a beautiful. It's a beautiful piece of art as well. I love the, you know, the, you know, the. The artistry and care in it, it's amazing. The thing I will not forget from this episode is your wife's friend ticking ages on a penis in her A-Level art exam. I'm going to go downstairs and say that to Izzy straight away because that's really, really funny. Super detailed. And if I could make one request of you, please just take away from this episode everything you learned about Bobby George's house. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:30:19 There we go. That was Maps. Thank you so much to Yvonne Jackson, who's a member of the Oh What a Time patron who suggested that idea. It's one of the benefits. Sign up at patron.com forward slash oh what a time and you can suggest an idea. But the greatest gift you can give this Christmas is not just an O What Time patron. It is tickets to see us tread the boards at the Underbelly Boulevard on Thursday the 15th of January, 2026. We'll be there. In London's Trendy Soho, we should say that. Oh, boy. And will Jeremy Bentham be there?
Starting point is 00:30:52 Well, if there's only one way to find out, buy a ticket, or go down to University College London, wherever he is, and drag him there yourself. Show you really care. Tickets are now on sale on the Underbelly Boulevard website, or you can go to Owatertime.com, or click on the link in this episode description. We'd love to see you there.
Starting point is 00:31:13 It's going to be a great night. But that's it for this week, so we'll see you again very soon. Bye. Bye. I'm going to be able to be. Oh, Watertime is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else. Add free.
Starting point is 00:32:24 Plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access to live show tickets and access to the Oh, What a Time group chat. Plus, if you become an Oh What a Time All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis, will riff on your name to postulate where else in history you might have popped up. For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash oh, what a time.

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