Brian Garthwaite over at 52 Monsters has written another clever post related to rpgs yesterday, this time on the subject of crap maps. Incomplete or faulty in some way, crap maps offers an interesting challenge to players, as well as being, in fact, more realistic of what one could expect of most non-modern, non-professionnal maps.

I really haven’t much to add to Brian’s post other than to go the « did you know » path and offer this tidbit of information that was lingering uselessly in my slush pile, these images of the oldest « crap map » (which might be a bit unfair to its babylonian author, I let you decide) with pieces missing and it’s highly symbolic depiction of the world as the babylonians thought of it.

Or depicted more clearly below:

And if you’re really into this subject I highly recommend that you listen to this british gentleman, historian and museum curator Irving Finkel, who offers us wonderful insights into the challenges of decipering such an amazing artefact.