« It is better to be ignorant of where one is, and to know that one is ignorant, than to confidently believe oneself to be where one is not. »
Cassini, cartographer and astronomer, 18th century.



The ancient Greeks defined the oekumene, or inhabited world, as the totality of lands fit for habitation and use.
At the margins of this known world, where the maps end, the outer reaches begin: lands of dread haunted by creatures that may not necessarily be human, where perhaps only a few hermits with burning eyes survive.
Farther still, beyond the Pillars of Hercules, begin the wild territories, also called the erēmos.

Drawn from the accounts of daring travellers and lost armies, or more recently from satellite surveys, the map is a first step towards laying claim to the erēmos. It relies on physical landmarks — mountains, rivers, and lakes — or on artificial ones. This network of standardized landmarks makes it possible to plot routes along geodesic curves, with stopping places, stages, or anchorages.

Conversely, what does an almost empty map tell us? Does it promise an unknown territory waiting to be discovered, or does it show with perfect precision a land that is itself empty and barren? Utopia, a nowhere-place existing only on a large sheet of graph paper, a schoolchild's treasure map, or a rigorous description of a distant, arid, and inhospitable expanse in which one can do nothing but lose one's way?


Translated by AI.