Aphrodite became a map

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 or feature under that part. This produced a scale 1:1 map-without-paper on which the name of a place automatically indicated its approximate location and direction with respect to all other places on the same map whose name was derived in this manner.

The linguist Dan Moonhawk Alford (deceased) and the anthropologist Stan Knowlton described the maps of Napi (aka The Old Man, creator of the Blackfoot Indians) and his wife (The Old Woman) in Alberta, Canada. I have described similar maps in Asia minor (Hermes) and north Africa (Aphrodite). Each proposed toponym - body part correlation on these maps is a record in the databases on the BPMaps discussion group website at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps/

You are cordially invited to join this very quiet group (about 2 emails / month). Read message #7 entitled "Attributes of body part maps". Examine the Aphrodite database to fully understand this limerick.

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,
The Romans left nary a trace.
But her hair is still there,
In Sahara, that's where.
And her chin's a Tunisian place.

Mt. Atlas is her first verTebra.
Her backbone is now Gulf of Sidra.
Her heart is in Libya,
Her left leg, Somalia.
Her breast is in Chad wearing no bra.

The Greeks called her liver Egypt, an'
Her kidney was Biblical Goshen.
She's bent at her waist,
Now Misr-ably placed.
The Red Sea was her menstruation.

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
His "zaiyin" does still lie.
It's known as the desert of Zin.

Best regards,
Israel "izzy" Cohen
cohen.izzy@gmail.com
BPMaps moderator
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps/