BBC mapping tool Dimensions creates unique mashups

Ever wondered about the size of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome? Or the how long the infamous Running of the Bulls route is in Spain? The BBC has a great new mapping tool, called Dimensions, to help give visitors and interesting perspective on these unique sights, historical marvels and famous events. Dimensions drops the outline of famous cities, tourist hot-spots and historical points of interest onto a Google Maps view of any postal zip code, creating a uniquely personal context for these well-known places.

To give Dimensions a try, stop by the BBC’s new website, over at www.howbigreally.com. You’ll be presented with nine different topics to map, pulled from a mix of news topics and places: The War on Terror, Space, Depths, Ancient Worlds, Environmental Disasters, Festivals, The Industrial Age, World War II Battle of Britain and Cities in History. As you browse the various choices, dropping the maps onto your hometown, unique insights come to light. For instance, who knew the camp at Nevada’s Burning Man Festival was bigger than the Chicago Loop? Or that the circumference of the Moon is about as big as the entire United States?

BBC Dimensions isn’t just a fun toy. Taken in the larger context of journalism and travel, it represents an innovative way to put news stories and tourist destinations in perspective. Our experience of the world is ultimately derived from what we know. By helping us understand important places in a new way, BBC Dimensions makes the abstract something more than mere stories in a newspaper or photos in a guidebook. A new type of map to help us make sense of the world.

Mystery hitchhiker becomes poster child for National Library of Wales

Have you seen this man?

This is Islwyn Roberts, who was photographed in 1958 by Welsh newspaper Y Cymro as he set off to hitchhike around the world. It was a different world back then–flying was only for the rich, and many countries were sealed off behind the Iron Curtain. Mr. Roberts would have seen traditions and cultures that have all but died out today.

It must have been an amazing journey. The only problem is, nobody seems to know what happened to him. There are no other reports of his trip, so it isn’t known if he achieved his dream or gave up before he even got to France, which according to his sign was his first destination.

The National Library of Wales wants to know. It’s launching an exhibition on October 16 called Small World–Travel in Wales and Beyond and it’s made Roberts the poster child in the hope that someone remembers his tale. The exhibition, which is located at the library in Aberystwyth and will last until 2 April 2011, will look at the history of travel from a Welsh perspective. Some of the treasures on display include maps, diaries, and old railway posters, including rare 16th century maps by Welsh explorer Humphrey Lhuyd.

I hope they find out more about Roberts. Just looking at this photo I know I’d like him. He’s got a quirky, determined air about him as he sets off into the unknown, nattily dressed in a jacket and tie, with the practical addition of a pair of sturdy boots. One of the biggest mysteries of this photo is–did this guy have any luggage?

[Photo courtesy The National Library of Wales]

The East Highland Way day four: Pictish forts and empty wilderness


Views like this reassure me that I’m doing the right thing with my life.

It’s day four of my trek along the East Highland Way in Scotland, and the terrain is getting increasingly rugged. My trip today will take me through the most remote part of my walk. But before I go, I have an archaeological wonder to see first.

I head to a hill overlooking the village of Laggan to visit Dun-Da-Lamh, a fort built by the Picts. These people dominated Scotland in the murky years at the very beginning of recorded history. They were Celts like their neighbors, but with a distinctive art and culture. History first mentions them when they fought the Romans in the third century AD. It’s from a Roman writer that we get their name, which means “tattooed people”, referring to the complex blue tattoos said to cover their bodies. The Romans found Scotland more trouble than they could afford and eventually pulled back to Hadrian’s Wall, leaving the Picts to expand their power over the Highlands. These were rough times and the Picts were the fiercest warriors in the region, except for a brief period when they got their asses whooped by the Vikings. The Picts defended their land with massive hilltop forts.

After a pleasant ramble through a sunny valley of farmer’s fields and a sparkling stream, I start a grinding trudge up a steep hill. The trail coils around the hillside, it being far too steep to walk up directly. After a sweaty climb I make it to the top and on a rugged summit see the remains of the fort. It is deceptively simple in design–a single thick wall–but when new it would have been virtually impregnable. Most approaches to the summit are almost too steep to climb, especially if you have angry blue warriors throwing spears and rocks down at you. The one easy route is barred by the thickest point in the wall. Here the stones are piled 23 feet thick, and in the days before artillery nothing could have broken through. A few ravines that allow passage to the top also have strong points defending them.

%Gallery-100245%The stones are of moderate size and I don’t see any that I couldn’t lift, yet there must be tens of thousands of them. The effort required to build this place boggles my mind. It’s obvious why the Picts chose this spot. It gives a clear view down two valleys and a sweeping vista of the surrounding countryside. No army could approach without being seen.

In the tenth century the Picts united with another people, the Gaels, and founded the first true kingdom of Scotland. Even before this momentous merging of cultures they did much to create a Scottish identity. Their material remains gave later peoples something to be proud of. How could the Scottish, looking at these massive forts, the Picts’ intricately carved stone monuments of warriors and animals, and their glittering hordes of gold, not feel proud of their past? This heap of stones where I’m standing did the same for the Scots that the Parthenon did for the Greeks. It gave them a sense of identity distinct from the stronger nations that later ruled over them.

I’ve sat on this hill thinking of the past long enough. I have 15 miles to walk to get to my next stop, the village of Newtonmore, and dark clouds are gathering on the horizon. I set out.

The land between Laggan and Newtonmore is the best part of the East Highland Way. I step off a paved road onto a dirt track leading into a seemingly endless landscape of fields, streams, and hills, silent save for the wind. The track soon dissolves into nothing and I’m walking across short grass and heather. Now my compass comes in real handy. According to the maps I have to go north through a pass between two steep hills, then turn east at a stream and follow it across a broad valley surrounded by grim peaks of gray stone. While the topography is pretty clear, it’s reassuring to do some reckoning courtesy of the magnetic pole to double check where I am.

Where I am is nowhere, and that’s just where I want to be. I don’t see a soul. The few old stone cottages appear to be long abandoned. A see a few sheep grazing, so somebody must come here occasionally, but how often? My only other companions are some grouse and partridge. Rain spatters down on me as I negotiate streams that have never seen a bridge and squish along sheep’s trails that happen to go in my direction.

One peak catches my eye. Silhouetted against the gray sky is a strange shape. It appears to be either a cairn or a single standing stone. Perhaps some prehistoric marker or a monument of the Picts? It doesn’t appear on my Ordnance Survey map, which is so detailed it even marks the old crofts that have lain abandoned for three centuries. That doesn’t mean the stone is a natural feature. The land is so vast that the cartographers could miss something, even though it’s so visible from the valley below. It’s visibility hints that it is man-made, a marker of some kind. What could it be?

I don’t have time to find out. While the rain has stopped the sun is beginning to sink towards the horizon. Scotland’s summer evenings seem to last forever, but the wouldn’t last the hours it would take me to get to that summit and back down. I continue across the valley and up a hill and see Newtonmore nestled next to the River Spey. I leave the mystery of the stone behind for the next hiker to solve.

Coming up next: Exploring Scottish heritage!

Don’t miss the rest of my series on hiking the East Highland Way.

Scientists explore “Robin Hood’s prison”

Scientists in Nottingham, England, are studying nearly 500 man-made caves under the city and surrounding countryside. Some of the caves, hewn into the soft sandstone by generations of laborers, date back to the early Middle Ages. They were used for businesses, storage, shelter, and one is reputed to have been the prison of Robin Hood.

The Nottingham Caves Survey is mapping the caves with a 3D laser scanner that measures the interior surfaces with millions of data points. These “point clouds” are then converted into a 3D image, spruced up with video animation software, and made into short videos that take you through the spaces.

This is as close as you can get to a complete tour because most caves are closed to the public for safety reasons. When the Luftwaffe bombed Nottingham during World War Two, locals hid out in the caves. Better to risk an unstable cave than a German bomb!

Some caves are open, like the City of Caves, with reconstructions of a medieval tannery, bomb shelter, and “enchanted well”. Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, which dates back to the 12th century and is a serious contender for the coveted label “oldest pub in England”, has a network of caves that are used as cellars. There used to be a cockfighting pit down in the cellar, but in this more humane era it serves as a nice cool place to store ale. The staff say they sometimes see the pub ghost down there.

Nottingham owes its popularity as a tourist destination to its association with Robin Hood. But did he exist? And did he do time in the prison cave? There is no certain proof that he ever existed, but medieval England had no shortage of arrow-shooting outlaws hiding out in the woods. Sherwood Forest, being close to a major town and important roads, would have been prime real estate for someone like Robin Hood.

Robin Hood is first mentioned in Piers Plowman, written around 1377, and the first books dedicated to him don’t appear for another generation. By then he was already a popular folk figure and a lot of his adventures were simply the invention of imaginative authors.

A tantalizing entry in court records from 1225 mention an outlaw named Robert Hod. Records from 1261 and 1262 mention an outlaw named William Robehod, but one historian theorizes that this name had already become synonymous with outlawry. In fact, numerous Robehods and Robynhods crop up in court records after the mid-13th century. Apparently outlaws liked using a legendary name to give their robberies a touch of glamor. In the U.S., several second-rate gunslingers did the same with the name Jesse James.

If there ever was an original Robin Hood, he’s now so buried in legend it’s impossible to find him.

Public domain image by Louis Rhead (1912) via Wikimedia Commons.

First map to name America goes on display at Library of Congress

Visitors to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., have a rare opportunity to see the first map that used the name “America” for the New World.

The Library has the only surviving copy of the famous Waldseemüller map, created in 1507 by Martin Waldseemüller, a German cartographer living in France. The map was a major departure from earlier maps in that it relied less on the received wisdom of Classical geographers like Ptolemy and more on reports by the many explorers of the time.

Waldseemüller studied reports by Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci and decided Columbus was wrong in thinking he had reached India. Waldseemüller favored Vespucci’s theory that the lands they were exploring on the other side of the Atlantic were actually part of a previously unknown continent. Waldseemüller rewarded Vespucci by naming the continent after him. America is the feminized Latin form of Vespucci’s first name. All other continents had Latin feminine names, so it fit.

The map is not only correct about the New World, but also portrays other parts of the globe far more accurately than other maps of the time. It’s a fine work of art too, with detailed depictions of terrain and portraits of Ptolemy and Vespucci.The map is on display as part of the exhibition “Exploring the Early Americas.”


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