Anthropomorphic Maps
On December 4th, 2008, Izzy Cohen published a note about anthroporphic maps to The Humanist discussion group. I have requested Mr. Cohen’s permission to repost the entry here, so that others interested in the imaginative dimension of historical maps can be introduced to this concept and to the challenge of dealing quantitatively with maps of this kind. Examples may be viewed here: Holy Land & European Queen.
Mr. Cohen writes:
I learned about anthropomorphic maps from the linguist Dan Moonhawk Alford (deceased) and the anthropologist Stan Knowlton. They described the maps of Napi, the creator of the Blackfoot Indians (aka The Old Man) and his wife (The Old Woman) in Alberta, Canada. I “found” similar Phoenician maps of a male body (Hermes?) in west Asia and a female body (Aphrodite) in north Africa.
Anthropomorphic Maps
Anthropomorphic maps were generated by configuring the body of a god or goddess over the area to be mapped. The name of each part of that body became the name of the area under that part. This produced a scale 1:1 map-without-paper on which each place name automatically indicated its approximate location and direction with respect to every other place on the same map whose name was produced in this way.
You are cordially invited to join the BPMaps discussion group on this topic, a very quiet list that averages less than 2 messages per month. The URL is:http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps/
The Challenge: To produce computer software that will find additional body-part maps elsewhere in the world. Available inputs:
(1) geographic databases with ancient place names (e.g., the Perseus project).
(2) body-part names on Swadesh lists. Unfortunately, the navel is not included.
Attributes of Anthropomorphic Maps
(1) The navel is the center of the body, the center of the map, and usually the center of the map’s language community.
(2) Place names (toponyms) may be reversed, metathesized, misspelled or euphemized for various reasons.
(a) The same part in the same language exists on another map of a different body. [...] Aphrodite is looking backwards over her right shoulder. She is bent at her waist (Misr/Mitzraim = MoSNaiM).
(b) The left (sinister) part is altered in names for left-right pairs (arms, legs, eyes, ears). [...] SHvK = thigh with a T-sound for the letter shin = TvK reversed to Kuwait. [...]
(c) Names that represent taboo body parts or functions are reversed or euphemized.
Semitic PoS (female pudenda) reverses to yam SooF = sea of reeds (Red Sea).
[...]
ZaYiN = weapon (a euphemism for male member) is in Sinai as the desert of Zin.
(3) Names may be loan-translated due to conquest or language-change.
Roxolania (Semitic Ro[chs]SH = head) => Rus *( Ro@SH) => Ukraine (Greek kranion)
* Caused by a change in the sound of the aleph from CHS to a glottal stop. [...]
(4) Rivers and bodies of water may be named after bodily excretions.
[...] Gulf of Aqaba (Semitic QaVaH = digestion/defecation)
(5) Internal body parts may represent subdivisions of external parts.
[...] Goshen exported Arabic QuTN = cotton => Latin Gossypium (English gossamer = cotton-like) [...]
Atlas mountains < atlas = first cervical vertebra that supports the cranium.
(6) Islands near a body’s hands may be named for weapons.
[...] Sicily (< VL *sicila < Latin secula = sickle to harvest wheat; compare Semitic SaKiN = knife). [...]
Best regards,
Israel “izzy” Cohen
cohen.izzy@gmail.com
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps
–Kelly Searsmith
January 15, 2009 at 10:35 am
Contact me by email (below) if you want to receive a more complete list of the bodypart – place name correlations on the Blackfoot maps of the Old Man & Old Woman in Canada and on the Phoenician maps of Hermes in west Asia and Aphrodite in north Africa.
Aphrodite as an Anthropomorphic Map
The goddess we call Aphrodite
Is not just an old Grecian deity.
The Phoenicians did make
Her a map. It’s not fake.
Her body is cartograffiti.
The Punic war destroyed her face, (1)
The Romans left nary a trace.
But her hair is still there,
In Sahara, that’s where. (2)
And her chin’s a Tunisian place. (3)
Mt. Atlas is her first verTebra. (4)
Her backbone is now Gulf of Sidra. (5)
Her heart is in Libya, (6)
Her left leg, Somalia. (7)
Her breast is in Chad wearing no bra. (8)
The Greeks called her liver Egypt, an’ (9)
Her kidney was Biblical Goshen. (10)
She’s bent at her waist,
Now Misr-ably placed. (11)
The Red Sea was her menstruation. (12)
As a kid I did think the Red Sea
Was an English map typo: lost E,
From Reed Sea in Hebrew.
But that could not be true,
Mare Rubrum ’twas Latin, B.C.
Aphrodite with Hermes did sin,
We know this is true ’cause within
Her “snatch” we call Sinai (13)
His “zaiyin” does still lie. (14)
It’s known as the desert of Zin.
Footnotes:
(1) The Romans destroyed Carthage during the 3rd Punic War. In Hebrew, “face” is PaNim.
(2) In Hebrew, “hair” is Sa3aR (using 3 for the letter aiyin).
(3) Tunis is a reversal of SaNTir, the Hebrew word for chin.
(4) The Atlas is the first cervical vertebra that supports the skull.
(5) In Hebrew, SHiDRa is spine, backbone.
(6) The Semitic term for “heart” is LeB.
(7) In Hebrew, “left” is S’MoL.
(8) In Hebrew, “breast” is SHaD.
(9) As in ancient Greek hepato- “liver”.
(10) The ancient shin had a T-sound, e.g., SHoR = ox was ToR as in Taurus. The gimel often has a K-sound in other languages, e.g., GaMaL = camel. So, GoSHeN sounded like QTN, as in QiTNiot = beans. Goshen was her bean-shaped kidney. Ashkenazi Jews do not eat beans on Passover. Cotton was exported from QTN / Goshen. The Latin genus for cotton is Gossypium. Compare English gossamer.
(11) Both Arabic Misr and Hebrew MiTZRaim are derived from the Semitic term for narrow, TZaR. The waist is (or should be) the narrow part of the body.
(12) In Latin, the Red Sea was called Mare Rubrum. In Hebrew, the Red Sea is called “Yam SooF” = Sea of Reeds. SooF is a reversal of the sounds in peh-sof PoS, Hebrew for the female pudenda.
(13) In Hebrew, Sinai is spelled SINi without an aleph. But it is pronounced as if had an aleph after the nun. It seems that the ancient sound of aleph changed from CHS/GHT => T => a glottal stop. Treating aleph as CHS, Sinai sounded like SNCHs, a reversal of K’NiSah = entrance (to her body).
(14) Zaiyin means “weapon” in Hebrew. It is also a euphemism for the male member.
Best regards,
Israel “izzy” Cohen
cohen.izzy@gmail.com