The Domes of Paris

When the Dreyfus affair broke out in 1895, a very important development in the field of aviation also occurred, the invention of Zeppelin. The zeppelin was a German invention, which the French were very afraid of. Behind them were 100 years of almost exclusive control of the air. This was thanks to the invention of the hot-air and hydrogen manned balloons, back in 1783, seven years before the French Revolution. Now, for the first time, there was an aircraft not at the mercy of the winds. Zeppelins could reach anywhere, at any time, and stay above the target as much as they wished. The military and political reality has changed completely. World War I broke out and was largely influenced by the air raids of the German zeppelins. It shaped the modern state.

The period of the Dreyfus trial is also known as the "beautiful period" or the "Belle Epoque" in the history of France. During this period French culture reached its peak. The balloon was the technological symbol, as well as the cultural source of inspiration. All sectors of were influenced by it, especially architecture and painting. Everything that was high was decorated in detail. The most notable feature was the Eiffel Tower, which was originally designed for tying balloons as part of the international trade fair in honor of the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. But the most appropriate architectural and periodical symbol was the ornate dome, which was built in many institutions in Paris at that time. These ornate domes resemble the first balloons, which were made of silk sheets. On the outside, the domes are prominent features in the urban landscape and are integrated as architectural pearls between the roofs. Anyone who enters them is immediately impressed by their unique size and decoration. Time stands and the soul expands.

It is important to say that unlike the domes of religious buildings around the world, the Parisian dome is secular. It is located in public buildings of all kinds. It is addressed for the secular citizen. The domes illustrate the French worldview during the Belle Epoque. They saw the sky as a painting of unlimited inspiration, not only religious, but cultural and human in general. It was now possible to use the sky as a colorful background for Impressionist painting, which became the flagship of French culture. This is expressed in the city's most important museums.

Paris was completely rebuilt during the Belle Epoque period, with Large squares leading to long boulevards. The boulevards cross the city like air routes. There are dialogues between the square and the boulevard, the circle and the straight line, the dome and the long hall. The dome and the square are a place of convergence and a sense of eternal perfection. In contrast, the long hall or the boulevard represent a story plot developing over time.

The dome or the square can be compared to the French ''macron'' cookie, which was created at the beginning of the 20th century, as a cookie made up of two discs, including a filling. The macron is considered difficult for baking.

The long hall or boulevard can be compared to the baguette, the long and narrow French bread. The baguette is a simple bread and was invented in World War I. when French did not have enough time to puff the dough for complex breads during the war nights.

Map of the human figure of the Holy Land

Anthropomorphism is one of the most characteristic traits of humankind. It is the provision of human qualities and appearances to inanimate objects and animals. It is very common in world cultures as a means of expression. The great popularity of it rests on the fact that the human body is a central focus of attention in human society. This principle is used on a daily basis in the framework of all known religious beliefs. Anthropomorphism in the modern world is also required, in order to improve the connection between the machine and the person. The human body is a miniature world in which the outside world is reflected and vice versa. Anthropomorphism is greatly aided by the brain's ability to perceive vague stimuli as familiar and meaningful, especially in its vigorous activity in recognizing human faces.

Maps are powerful means of transmitting messages using cultural symbols. Many ancient maps represented a visual essence of knowledge combined with the worldview of their creators. Although modern scientific mapping uses sophisticated means of measurement, accurate maps also represent an interpretive and tendentious perspective. At the same time, there is a historic collaboration between medical professionals and artists in order to illustrate the anatomy by the most graphic and artistic methods, even at the expense of pure scientific description.

Anthropomorphic maps, in which the surface is described as a human figure, exist since the dawn of history. These maps offer a reflection of the personal and collective identity of the human body. These maps were created in a lengthy procreation process. The landscape is not exactly the character of man. A complex transformation process is required to make geography a human portrait. But this is possible because there is constant dialogue between man and landscape, as a process of refined dynamic and image in action.

Early Anthropomorphic maps are the Zodiac maps identified with the entire universe and the maps of the inhabited world of antiquity and the Middle Ages. What gradually evolved in modern times are Anthropomorphic maps of countries and continents, which are based on an imaginary identification of the surface with the human face and body. Atlases of these maps were very successful until the twentieth century. Nowadays, political cartoons are sometimes shaped as humanized maps and they are important geopolitical tools.

The concept of 'the image of God' is of great importance in Judaism, but the image of man is not connected to the Land of Israel. This is despite the fact that in the Bible it is written that God, the people of Israel, and the Land of Israel are one entity. This definition determined the fate of the Jewish people, because in contrast to the clear concreteity of the people and the laws, the boundaries of the land remained vague and undefined.

The map of the Holy Land as a human figure, created by Avinoam Amizen, is a revolutionary description of the geography of greater Israel. The map is the result of research in time and space, body and mind. The human form includes the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as a human face, the Negev Heights as a neck, and the Sinai Peninsula as a torso. Completing the picture are Edom mountains as the hair and Lebanon mountains as the rays of an angel.

In the process of creating the map, the landscape was examined by many photographs and maps in relation to human, anatomical and artistic, figures. The level of correlation between the regions of the earth and the human body is incomparably greater than that found in any other anthropomorphic map. This is the level of correlation that calls for a scientific examination of the relationship' as a physical reality with a unique relief, engraved in the soul and elevating it.

The world map of Herodotus in the shape of the human head

Herodotus was a Greek historian from the 5th century BC, known as the father of history, because he was the first to treat historical issues as an interrogation method. He traveled in Europe, Asia, and North Africa, gathered information from people he met, and documented his findings in his great treatise Histories, which provides a detailed picture of the cultures of his time. According to his descriptions, the map of the world was also drawn. Greek civilization is at the center of his worldview, his writings and maps, and his narrative is a unified geo-historical.

The most prominent feature of the map is that it is in the shape of a human head or a skull. There is no doubt that this form was before Herodotus' eyes when he described the map of the world, and in ancient times the head served as a direct source of inspiration for the mapping of the earth. The land was accepted as the organs, and the seas and river were accepted as the head's hollow parts. The map was integrated into the Pythagorean discovery from that time of the Earth is in the shape of a sphere.

Some of the parallels between the human head and the map of the world are:

- Africa is the jaw

- Europe is the forehead and nose

- Asia is the head's back

- The Mediterranean is the oral cavity

The eastern Mediterranean coast, part of which is part of Israel, is at the heart of the map, but Herodotus describes it only briefly, as if it were between Greece, Persia and Egypt. He has seven references to the region, which he calls Syria-Palestine. The peoples inhabiting the area are: the Phoenicians in the north, the Syrians on the eastern side of the Jordan, the Palestinian Syrians who are apparently Jews in the Land of Israel, and the Egyptians in the south.

The concept of the map can be dated to the time of Homer, around 1000 B.C. and probably before. 
Herodotus contemporaries, notably the influential Ptolemy,  used this concept almost until the mapping of America in the 16th century. 
These cartographers placed the 'head' on a sphere, added distances, longitudes and latitudes, climate zones, new lands, info-graphic maps and so on, but the basic shape remained the same. There are many versions of this map on similar lines.

 The world map of Herodotus in the shape of the human head

The intuitive concept of Planet Earth as a head continued in the 'Age of Discoveries', when the globe replaced the flat map and many new land and sea forms were discovered. The new land forms which had also anthropomorphic shape, such as Africa abd the Baltic Sea, were integrated into the big picture while maintaining their character.

In our time, the outer space replace the ocean that enveloped the map in the past.

The abundance of information about our planet make it necessary to simplify it into an intimate knowledge.

It is important to point out that during the Middle Ages there was a gradual shift from this concept to the concept of the world as an entire human body, including torso, arms and legs.
The influence came from the Church, which wished to include the character of Jesus Christ in the formal world view. Subconsciously it prepared the way for the discovery of America, which has almost an exact shape of the entire human body.
The idea of other continents came from the Greek cartographers, who calculated that there should be another land mass in the other side of the sphere, in order to balance it.
The combination of the old world as 'head' and the new world as 'body' can be described as perfect. It can be adapted into the common perception of anatomy.

China, in eastern Asia, 'played' its role as the back part of the 'head'. It did so while considering itself as the center of the world. The Chinese ancient world concept was of an abstract mandala, which fit to the functions of the mind's back. 

All the classic world empires had practical maps too, specially for lands ownership. While being simple, they too were inspired by the world view of their cartographers. 

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