Mappa Mundi is a project that is run by Hereford Cathedral. The project is open to anyone with a laptop and internet access, and it presents a digital representation of the famous Mappa Mundi in such cathedral. The project allows the user to explore some of the locations, and it offers some information about the selected places.
Breaking Down the Project
As mentioned earlier, the project is based on the Mappa Mundi Hereford Cathedral. Such map has been studied and I can tell that the project required knowledge in different areas such as history, geography, archeology, and classical studies. The organization filtered the places in the map that they considered to be relevant and wrote pieces of information about them. Within this places we have Jerusalem (in the center, of course), Rome, and Babylon. We also get some places that are named after what would be there to make it easier for the user; for instance we have Labyrinth (referring to the mythological place where the minotaur lived) as a place. Finally, we also have some places named after myths like Golden Fleece.
The project allows the user to click in any of these places and they are offered information about the place and related places. Here is what I get when I decided to visit the Labyrinth
As the image shows, we can read about the Labyrinth, and we are suggested places related with Greek mythology like the Columns of Hercules.
In the image above, he icons by the related places are filters that the user can apply to search for places, these include “Myths and Legends”, “Bible Stories”, “Beasts of the World”, “Strange Peoples of the World”, and “Towns and Cities”. These are all useful tools in the display of the information as it allows the user to find what they are looking for, to read about related stories, and even to play around with the site if they are feeling curious.
Questions I Have
As I was breaking down the project, I started to wonder about some aspects of the project, mainly things I could not find during my research. For example, when did this project started? I also wonder what kind of filter was the Mappa Mundi subject to? I can understand that the organization would select the most famous places in order to attract the attention of the public. However, it seems like the process of the selection of places was completely arbitrary.
