Abstract

The constructing principles of ancient cartography were for most of the time non-mimetic and non-empirical, so that the maps build on their basis had a most fantastic shape. We could safely call this kind of non-realistic geography – symbolic geography. In this paper, I focus on the psychological projections that shaped the form of pre-modern maps. The main epistemological instrument for such an approach is offered by Freudian psychoanalysis and Jungian analytical psychology. In ”psychoanalytical geography”, Freudian schemes of interpretation (the oral, anal and genital stages of evolution) are put to work for explaining the complex mechanisms of identification and transference at work in ancient cartography