Ancient History

I'm a history minor. As such, certain things, like old maps, interest me. I like looking at maps drawn before we had GPS and other tools that, while making life easier, completely remove the guesswork.

Seriously, what's the fun of looking at a map of North America and seeing everything in minute detail from Key West to Puget Sound? It is vastly more entertaining to roll out an old parchment and see, like above, Florida barely sticking out of the United States, or, instead of the Pacific Northwest, you have a river that is labelled "Northwest Passage," yet no one ever found it. My favorite is the ocean charts that have 'Here be Monsters" drawn on them. Obviously the work of a drunken sailor after a long shift in the Crow's Nest.

So last night I was talking to Robert, the founder of Skewed, and he told me about an old 2-volume history book he'd come across. It was published circa 1875 and had a map inside that labelled parts of Asia as "Nether Asia." This sparked a lively few minutes of jokes.
Jokes like:

"Yeah, it's like when Alexander and his men reached Afghanistan... and saw people. He probably turned to one of his men and said, "I say Marcus, doesn't the map say no one his here?"
"It does, sir."
"Well who the devil are these people?"
"I'm not sure, sir."
"Hang on, excuse me, good people... uh... um... who are you and why are you here? Our map clearly states this to be the edge of the Great River."
And then a tribesman approaches, "Well, we live here, see. Always have."
"No, the map says you haven't. We are Greek, our maps are never wrong."
"Let me see that. Well, here's your problem. You've got us listed as Nether Asia, this is Afghanistan. And you've got a giant river just beyond our border. And you've listed some fellow named Prometheus in the mountains."
"Which is there by the grace of the gods. And who was placed there by the gods for his insubordination."
"No it isn't. And no he wasn't. The only person in the mountains is Old man Herbert, he runs a ham radio station. And if you keep going east, just past Ackbar's fruit stand, you'll see a bunch of big mountains. Beyond those are more lands with lots of rice and people in funny hats."
At which point the Duke of Edinburgh popped in and said "Don't stay there too long or you'll get all slitty-eyed."

Ther you go kids. I know it was short, but remember, never pass up a chance to view an old map.