Loca Lingo Multicultural

An historical bridge between East and West, West and East, a constant exchange throughout History. “A concept that illustrates the way that commodities, empires, religions, and even music, have traveled throughout Eurasia for thousands of years”.

This time map (pop-ups to be allowed) shows how many ways / routes existed when going from one side to the other ; an evolution from the Roman Empire, Alexander the Great, Marco Polo, Sir Aurel Stein (?), Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo, Anthony Jenkinson, Benedict Goës,… Only European explorers were mentioned - what about Asians ? There must have certainly been some (Genghis Khan ?).. Arabs used as well to extensively travel the world. (A pity the only information taught in (Belgian) school is mainly about “national progress for humanity”, forgetting the foreign ones. When history is about politics…)

From a cultural point of view, the same organization (ECAI Berkeley) made up a similar map concerning music instruments… very interesting

When you give a closer look to the map, you can notice the importance of Persia (currently Iran) in this global transportation network : a compulsory gate controlling two seas,… I can just imagine the cultural heritage 2500 years+ of caravans must have left to this country.

Between the 13th and the 15th Century, Grenada got ruled by the Muslim Nasridi princes. During that time, before getting kicked out by the Catholic Kings who wanted to reconquer the rest of Spain (”La Reconquista”), they built up these fortress and palaces on the Sabika hill.

The interesting point is these Catholic Kings decided to not destroy this fine piece of art, but instead let it intact, sometimes adapting it (mosks were of course transformed into churches, sometimes destroyed, sometimes rebuilt).

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from Maps of War

From the Kingdom of Egypt, through the Hittite Empire, the Kingdom of Israel, the Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Sassanid Empire, the Caliphate, the Seljuk Empire, the Cruisader Kingdoms, the Saladin’s Empire, the Mongol Empire, the Ottoman Empire, European Colonialism, Israel, to the Era of Independance.

Well, very enjoyable maps. If you have any remarks from a cartography / date interpretation point of view, please abuse from the comment form below - moderated, but I approve easily. On the Internet, we should always be careful on freely available materials (especially about religion, and Middle-East topics).

Très chouettes cartes,… si vous avez des remarques, ou voudriez exprimer une différence d’interprétation d’un point de vue cartographique ou de date, faites-m’en part (commentaires).