Searching for maps to illustrate my last post, I found three thought-provoking images of the Middle East. Here they are, with a brief note about why I found them interesting:
I love visual reminders that maps can distort the size and importance of different regions. The caption on this image says that the Middle East, oddly including Turkey, covers 90% of the landmass of the continental United States.
Not only is this map, and every one in its series, gloriously illustrated. But they also show a vision of the world where the Middle East is central, not the middle of something, or east of something.
I just find joy in the caring details of this drawing–I love the idea that some second-graders are learning about these places with crayons. There is an entire set of children’s drawings illustrating the entire Middle East. It gives hope.
Inspirational Quote:
“And his brethren by their families, when the genealogy of their generations was reckoned, were the chief, Jeiel, and Zechariah,
And Bela the son of Azaz, the son of Shema, the son of Joel, who dwelt in Aroer, even unto Nebo and Baalmeon:
And eastward he inhabited unto the entering in of the wilderness from the river Euphrates: because their cattle were multiplied in the land of Gilead.”–Bible quotes
