Be warned: these maps are not for the faint of heart!
These maps may have glimpses of nasty creepy crawlies or sweep us away to mysterious lands. Let’s see just how far these maps can take us… and be prepared for anything that flies, screeches, or goes bump in the night to make an appearance!
Sebastian Münster, Hans Holbein Typus cosmographicus uniuersalis (1532)
Decorated with sea monsters, mermaids, exotic animals, and cannibals, this wood cut map provides a marked contrast to the simplistic diagrams considered the earliest printed world maps. While early European world maps presented a world view based in Judeo-Christian theology, this uniquely ornamented map emphasized the occasionally dramatized discoveries of Europeans when exploring America, Africa, and Asia.
Most likely prepared by the geographer Sebastian Münster and decorated by the artist Hans Holbien the Younger. Underscoring Europeans' dilemma during the first quarter of the 16th century in understanding the “New World discoveries,” Münster's map showed the “newly discovered world” as a separate continent named America placed between two distinctly separate oceans.
Athanasius Kircher, Systema ideale quo exprimitur, aquarum per canales hydragogos subterraneos ex mari et in montium hydrophylacia protrusio, aquarumq[ue] subterrestrium per pyragogos canales concoctus (1668)
Created by Jesuit priest and scholar Athanasius Kircher, this intriguing map of the earth was included in his 1665 treatise “Mundus Subterraneus.” Kircher’s early theories combined religion and science, and looked to scripture for evidence in Earth’s formation.
This map depicts all bodies of water on Earth connected by a system of underground waterways. Oceanic whirlpools feed these channels, while mountain springs derive water from these resources, creating a cycle of water above and below ground. Kircher also placed a large ball of fire in the center of the earth, suggesting that this inferno causes lava and water to rise from Earth’s interior.
Boris Artzybasheff, World map of the major tropical diseases (1944)
Coming from Life Magazine in 1944, just after the US began fighting during WW2, this map shows locations of diseases around the world using text, illustrations and color. It also includes a description of each disease on the map. Disease coverage includes brief descriptions of 15 diseases, including malaria, yellow fever, dengue, typhus, plague, cholera, sleeping sickness, tularemia, Rocky Mountain fever, Japanese river fever, relapsing fever, helminthic diseases, yaws, leprosy, and leishmaniasis.
Jaro Hess, The land of make believe (1935)
A bit darker and more mysterious than we usually think modern fairy tales to be, this fantasy map is populated by figures from nursery rhymes, fairy tales and children's books circa the early 1900s. If you look closely, you can see “Jack the Giant Killer’s” beanstalk reaching up to the sky, the house where “the old witch lives”, and Humpty Dumpty sitting very close to the edge of his wall...
William Spooner, The journey, or, cross roads to conqueror's castle : a new and interesting game [ca. 1831–1836]
Filled with witches, giants, pipe-smoking frogs, and the undead, this game board is a map littered with roads, cross-roads and amusing illustrations. Starting from the bottom of the board, players spin the disk and move their marker in the indicated direction and spaces. Players lose or gain counters as they move along the roads to the castle. The first player to reach the castle wins!
Franklin Leavitt, Leavitt's map with views of the White Mountains, New Hampshire : 1871 (1871)
Though less rooted in fictional creatures like some of the other maps in this selection, this map acts as a showcase for one of the largest fears of nineteenth century New Englanders: the dangerous, wild predators!
Combining folk art with a schematic tourist map, this unusual map views the White Mountains from the northwest. In the center, the mountains were drawn in landscape format surrounded by vignettes depicting “Old Crawford Killing a Bear” and “Harry Crawford Shooting a Lynx”. Dangerous animals like the Lynx, Black Bear, and even Polar Bears are depicted as possible predators on the map. Leavitt, a laborer, mountain guide, and self-taught mapmaker, created this pictorial map. Reflecting his regional bias, he located Lancaster, his hometown, and the Connecticut River in the center foreground.
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