Foundation
Contributing an original map to GC’s newest Shelter: An Atlas was very appealing to me for a couple of reasons: One, as an independent map illustrator, it would give my work wide exposure. Two, it would put me in good company with other talented mapmakers. Suggestions for this particular project were “from housing legislation and homelessness to shelters of flora and fauna in nests, caves, tree canopies and under the sea; from historic house forms to psychological shelter.” It was the “under the sea” idea that grabbed my attention.
Inspiration
My Sunken Cities map idea came about in a rather unconventional way. I like to listen to ambient music when I create, and it was around the time of GC’s Call for Maps that I had stumbled upon a new album called The Spectral Isle, recorded by UK artist Mark Burford (recording under the moniker Field Lines Cartographer). Burford explained that the concept of his album was inspired by the legend of the phantom isle of Hy-Brasil.
Hy-Brasil in Petrus Plancius’s Orbis Terrarum Typus de Integro Multis in Locis Emendatus (Amsterdam, 1594)
“Situated in the Atlantic, approximately two hundred miles off the west coast of Ireland, the island of Hy-Brasil was featured on maps from around 1325 until the mid 1800s. Legend has it that it was surrounded in mist, appearing only every seven years. It was long thought to be the home of an advanced mysterious ancient civilization.” [Bandcamp.com]
I had never heard of this legend before, but like the lost island of Atlantis, the story completely fascinated me. I was compelled to learn more about it, and I did, along with other mythical phantom islands, such as Antillia (Spain & Portugal), Baralku (Australia), and Aeaea (Greece).
However, because many of these islands were based in myth and folklore, and did not have precise geographic coordinates, I realized that plotting them on a map would prove rather tricky. There were, though, plenty of real islands and ancient civilizations that had been wiped out due to a cataclysmic event of one type or another. I thought this would make a very compelling and intriguing thing to map! I could plot various long-lost locations from around the globe and use them to illustrate a concept of shelter — how fragile and impermanent it is. And also how vulnerable human habitation is to the movements of land and sea. The message of my map would be: It doesn’t matter how large or fortified or long-lasting a city may be, every one, throughout human history, has ultimately yielded to nature.
Research
My first step was to take a census of the most well-known and/or prominent cities and settlements that disappeared due to natural disaster. There are plenty of resources on this topic, and I learned there were many! I knew my map would need to be a global projection, but plotting every lost city would prove unworkable. So I decided to include the most renowned sites, 15 in total. Investigating each of the sunken cities was like going down a rabbit hole, each of them leading me from one website to another. I was led ever deeper into journals and videos and expedition reports. The process of discovery was exciting for me — I learned about past civilizations, archaeological expeditions, cultural artifacts and ruins, plate tectonics, climate instabilities, sea level changes, etc. For each site I wanted to know the following information: 1) the name of the city; 2) the city’s location; 3) the estimated year it disappeared; 4) the suspected cause of its disappearance; and 5) the ruins or artifacts that had been discovered and when.
There were seemingly limitless online resources about each site, so I limited myself to five or six to cite the generally agreed-upon scientific consensus for each of these data points. I could have easily limited my map to the Mediterranean region, but I really wanted to use a broad brush and sample from around the globe. I decided to represent each location with a numbered circle (to correspond with the legend) and a simplified illustration of one thing that represented the lost city. Adding in tectonic plate boundaries was a last-minute decision, as I felt it would add to the story of how and why some of these cities had succumbed to earthquakes.
Process
With all my data compiled, I proceeded to plot each city on my Robinson Projection. I chose to crop the global map so as to exclude those areas not relevant to the plot points. Most of the sunken cities on my list were clustered around the Mediterranean Sea, one of the most complex, geologically active regions on earth. It took me multiple rounds of trial-and-error in plotting all the points and illustrations in this relatively small region in a way that was visually pleasing and understandable for the size at which this map would be printed. I found the use of arrows to be the best way to make clear associations between the icon illustration and the sunken city it belonged to.
In another attempt to keep the map comprehensible and visually pleasing I chose a simple and muted color palette and traditional, unassuming typography. Due to their size and complexity, the illustrations needed to be very simplified. The artifacts or ruins which I chose to illustrate were those I found most commonly mentioned or photographed in my research. The only sunken city on my map without evidence of its existence is Atlantis. There is no agreement or documentation whether or not Atlantis was a real place, but I was compelled to include it because, well, no other sunken city of antiquity can compare to its mystery and mythology.
Result
My map went through many revisions but in the end it turned out pretty much as I’d envisioned it. I am very pleased with the final outcome. I do wish I had more room to show more sites and additional details, but I tried to include as much information as possible while not being too crowded or confusing. I hope my illustrations add an extra layer of interest and perhaps arouse an interest to further explore the mysteries surrounding these sunken cities.
