The researchers found that the markings on the slab corresponded to the landscape of the Odet Valley, oriented east-north-east to west-south-west. The Saint-Bélec slab is the first map of its kind and age that has been identified with a particular territory. The landscape it depicts has not been identified possibly it is a purely imagined one. Nicolas via INRAPĪnother famous prehistoric map, from Bedolina in Valcamonica (northern Italy), is dated later, to the Iron Age. IGN, Fily 2008, DRAC/SRA Bretagne, DAO, C. Slab location marks the area depicted by the Saint-Bélec map. Map of “royal” Bronze Age tombs in Brittany with theoretical boundaries between their domains. The slab was engraved in the early Bronze Age (2150–1600 B.C.), which makes it contemporaneous with the Nebra Sky Disk, a map of the cosmos discovered in Germany (but not conclusively identified with any particular constellations). Their conclusion was published in March 2021 in the Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française.Īnd it is spectacular: This is the earliest known example in Europe of a map for which we can identify the territory it depicts. It was “rediscovered” in the castle cellar only in 2014.įrom 2017 to earlier this year, researchers from INRAP (France’s National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research) and other institutions carried out extensive research on the slab. The stone itself, however, had gone missing. In 1994, researchers revisiting Du Châtellier’s original drawing found that the intricate markings on the stone looked a lot like a map. The stone languished in obscurity for decades. After the amateur prehistorian’s death in 1911, his artifacts were acquired by France’s National Archeological Museum at Saint-Germain-en-Laye but remained on site. The slab was placed in a niche near the moat of the castle. Wikimedia/Public Domainĭu Châtellier had the stone, weighing more than a ton, moved to his ancestral home, Château de Kernuz, where he maintained a private museum. Let’s not let our imagination get the better of us and let us wait for a Champollion to tell us what it says.” Drawing of the Saint-Bélec slab by Paul du Châtellier (1901). (Its name means “end of the world.”)Īfter unceremoniously gluing the pieces of the broken stone back together with concrete, Du Châtellier faithfully reproduced the markings on its surface for a report, in which he noted: “Some see a human form, others an animal one. In 1900, local archaeologist Paul du Châtellier retrieved it from a prehistoric burial mound in Finistère, the French department on the western edge of Brittany. In a nutshell, that is the story of the Saint-Bélec slab. Your name and that of your little empire have been forgotten, but that slab is now recognized as Europe’s oldest map that can be matched to a territory-even if it took the supposedly clever scientists of the distant future more than a century to figure that out. You, or one of your successors, is buried with the slab-broken to indicate the overthrow of your dynasty. To celebrate your success, you commission a map of your bountiful domain: a stone slab 2.2 by 1.53 meters (6.5 by 5 feet), representing an area of 30 by 21 kilometers (19 by 13 miles). Our animators have continued to work on a whole bunch of behavioral animations for a number of animal groups.It’s about 4,000 years ago, and you are the ruler of a prosperous little Bronze Age kingdom at the end of the world. What’s in the Pipeline? Animal Animations Another batch of guest ethnicities will be added at a later date. They still need to be retargeted and integrated into the engine. This is not a “must have” and may be moved into the following update if needed.ģD art for new guest ethnicities has been completed, introducing new faces, skin tones and hair styles. All that remains is to set the scene up in-engine and prepare our new background elements. In the future, they will contribute to the guest education need.ģD art for the new main menu has been completed. For now, we will be releasing the animal info signs with temporary screenshots. The 3D art (screen, frame, etc.) is still yet to be made but won’t take long. A number of important changes have been made as well as fixing a number of issues such as the idle Triceratops and further save/load reports.įor the next update, we’d like to specify what we’re actively working on and what needs to be finished in order for us to release it:ĢD art assets for the info sign screen are complete. Currently, the team is hard at work developing our next update.
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