Anthropomorphic maps were made by configuring the virtual body of a god or goddess over the area to be mapped. Areas under each part of that body received the name of that part. This produced a scale 1:1 map-without-paper whose place names automatically indicated their approximate location and direction with respect to other places on the same map.

Examples: "Old Man" Napi (creator of the Blackfoot Indians) and his "Old Woman" wife in Alberta, Canada (see map on the side); Hermes (with his cranium in the Ukraine, his navel reversed in Lebanon, and his right foot in Yemen), and Aphrodite in north Africa.

Join this group if you are interested in ancient history, anthropology, cartography & mapmaking, exploration, historical linguistics, mythology, sacred geography, spatial cognition, or toponym etymology & place name onomastics.