The Armchair Alien authors both love maps—old maps, star maps, subway maps—all things maps. So naturally that seemed like a good idea for our next conversation (or three).
Christine: I think one of the reasons I love maps is because I want to see the world, I want to go to all the places unknown, but I know I can’t go everywhere. Also, I was the child who read the encyclopedia in the summer. For fun. Maybe my love of maps started there.
Part 1 - Star Charts
Jeannette: If we didn’t live with so many lights, i.e. light pollution, the sky would appear so different—so in ancient times when all you had was a campfire, the sky above would have been amazing and unknown. Why wouldn’t we try to make sense of it?
There’s even paleolithic cave paintings that some researchers believe are ancient star charts.
Not quite as old, the Nebra sky disc from 1800-1600 BCE Germany is clearly a star chart of some sort—it has what might be the sun or full moon, a bunch of stars and a measuring arc between solstices. The cluster of seven stars could be the constellation Pleiades.
Christine: It might seem surprising, looking at this paleolithic rock art, to think it represents stars. However, as you say, the night sky would have been so much more present. Anyone who’s able to get away from civilization today can see the difference. And the movement of the stars, the moon, the sun were important to understanding the change of the seasons. Also, total tangent, there’s some evidence that children participated in some of the early cave art.
Jeannette: It must have been comforting to look up and know what you are seeing. Also, it seems logical that kids would have wanted to take part in the art making.
Christine: But also really useful. One theory for some ancient Egyptian maps is that they were night-time clocks. This theory may not hold up, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
Jeannette: It makes sense the ancient Egyptians would use the stars as a clock—no doubt other groups did that too. Many years ago, I did night shifts outside away from civilization—and I watched how the stars moved to pass the time (and keep myself awake).
Christine: We also have numerous examples of sites with astronomical alignments—not actually maps but also kind of. They map the movement of the stars, sun and moon in their structure. One example is the Bighorn Medicine Wheel.
2 - Which leads to more recorded history
Jeannette: The ancient Babylonians were into astronomy (also base 60 numbers, which is why there’s 60 minutes in an hour, 360 degrees in a circle…there might be a whole other conversation here).
But they combined religion with their science and considered the task more of tracking the gods moving through the heavens.
Christine: That’s really cool, how this ancient civilization still has such an impact on our daily—hourly—lives.
Jeannette: That’s why I hate time math.
Christine: But there was a reason. The theory that I saw was that it was easier for fractions. You can divide 60 into 3 and 4 more easily than you can divide 10. It’s actually kind of smart.
3 - Fictional star charts
Jeannette: Enterprise opening credits—star charts everywhere!
Christine: I don’t know if the one ship in that sequence is meant to be a Polynesian vessel but their ability to navigate was phenomenal, including the use of memorized star charts.
Jeannette: They also had other ways that are fascinating.
Christine: Like te lapa—light patterns under the surface of the water.
I first became fascinated by Polynesian navigation techniques after reading Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse, who based the sea navigation in her book on Polynesian techniques, which led to me reading the Sea People, a non-fiction book on their exploration of the Pacific, which led to studies on pre-Colombian contact between Polynesia and South America. I really think their spread over the Pacific is one of the greatest ages of exploration in human history.
Jeannette: What about The Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White—a key part of the plot revolved around a star chart as a treasure map—and I love a story revolving around a treasure map.
Jeannette: Another fiction example is the Stargate TV show. They were mapping where the star gates were going to which turned into a star chart of sorts. Also, I recently watched The Skeleton Crew (the most recent Star wars show), it revolved around finding a lost place in space. And, all of Star Trek uses star charts.
Christine: Also, what about The Lost Star Chart by … Jeannette Bedard 😄?
Some fun extras:
Jeannette: Recent XKCD comic—https://xkcd.com/3039/—shows how far we’ve gone from Earth.
Christine: I bought the solar system map you can see in this blog post.