Old Besokian World Map

The Old Besokian World Map is a schematic representation of the lands surrounding the Besokan river. Found among the Nishûnâc stone carvings, it is labelled in Proto-Besokian and thought to represent the Besokian knowledge of the world in the late 3rd millennium B.E.B.

Description

The map is found in a dedicated chamber to the west of the Mule’s chamber, carved into the flat surface of a round pillar around one kâl high and three kâla in diameter. No other carvings have been found in the chamber, suggesting its purpose was related directly to the map itself; whether it had a spiritual or practical function cannot be determined.

Markings on the map are schematic, with squares used to represent mountains and hills, long horizontal or vertical lines to represent water, and loosely hatched areas presumably representing woodland. Islands are given as large rectangles, lakes as ellipses, and rivers as lines. The map itself is circular and centred on Nishûnâc, showing a mountain range to the (presumed) north and a large body of water with two islands, presumably the sea, to the south. East and west are filled by plains, bordered by a forest in the west and three lakes in the east. The map has no primary direction, labels roughly rotate around Nishûnâc.

23 locations are annotated with short labels written in the Besokian abugida and a later form of Proto-Besokian. It is unclear whether these labels are meant to give proper names or merely descriptions of locations; many are strikingly general terms, so kîrîmin ‘mountains’ for the mountain range presumed to represent the Reknaya. Given the language and the locations included, the map is usually dated to around 2200 B.E.B., making it the second oldest extant evidence of Besokian writing, roughly 700 years younger than the Besokian Cosmogony. The inscriptions are consistent with those of the latter in both writing and language, leading to the general classification of the language represented as Proto-Besokian; this identification has been criticized mostly based on the historical distance of the two inscriptions, suggesting a form of Old Besokian with a conservative orthography might be a better interpretation of the find. Nonregarding the language used in its labels, the map is almost invariably dated to the early Old Besokian period, hence gaining its appelation.

Analysis

===Relationship with the Besokian Cosmogony