-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Re: If there was a god(dess) of mapping...
Date:   Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:01:16 -0800
From:   wheate <[log in to unmask]>
To:     Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship
<[log in to unmask]>



I think the group is missing 50% of the possibilities - gender-wise that is.
We named our GIS server Ninkasi after the _Goddess_ of Beer. But if you
look at her picture:
http://www.goddessaday/mesopotamian/ninkasi
you will see she is carrying a clay tablet ... just like the earliest
world maps, and indeed the hymn it contains effectively describes the
early map of the Tigris-Euphrates confluence.
http://www.piney.com/BabNinkasi.html

Roger Wheate, UNBC

On 12-01-17 11:45 AM, Angie Cope, American Geographical Society Library,
UW Milwaukee wrote:
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: If there was a god of mapping...
> Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:42:28 -0500
> From: Michael Holt <[log in to unmask]>
> To: Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship
> <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
>
> Thanks for the wonderful links. This kind of question is my favorite
> type.
>
> St Christopher was reduced to a "local cult" in the Great Purge of 1969,
> but his cult lives on undiminished. None of the other saints appear to
> have been assigned mapmakers or cartographers by those names. I found
> two sources that identified St Thomas the Apostle as the patron of
> surveyors (http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-thomas-the-apostle/) but he's
> usually called the patron of architects; some judgement may be in order,
> as surveying in context may be more civil engineering than mapmaking.
> He's the one relevant saint I could find whose symbol is a tool of
> measurement (the T-square) -- the others were builders or associated
> with buildings. Perhaps it's time to petition for a proper saint for
> cartographers (no, I don't know how to do that, but if anyone's
> interested, send me a note).
>
> Saint Thomas the Apostle is celebrated on July 3.
>
> Aerial photography is addressed by the Vatican. St Veronica is
> patroness of photographers, and aviation is covered by three: Joseph of
> Cupertino, Our Lady of Loreto, and Therese of Lisieux.
>
> I'll check my Greek and Roman references, and see what else there
> might be.
>
>
> Michael Holt
> Retired and bored
> --
>
> ...And they lived happily ever after.