Glove map of London, 1851, by George Shove. Printed map on leather.
(via Mapping the Marvellous)
Long before Googlemaps on an iPhone or handheld GPS devices, there was this very analog Victorian Glove Map! (I already posted this wonderful glove on the old bioephemera, but was inspired by a recent conversation with my boss to revisit it.)
During the AAAS meeting last month, Stanford's Barbara Tversky showed an illustration of a technique used by Native Americans to remember maps, in which the outline of the hand symbolized the local coastline. I tried to dig up the original reference, but couldn't find it - and she couldn't remember where she'd gotten it, either. But I did find this wonderful collection of symbolic hands from Rima at The Hermitage.
anonymous hand coloured Netherlandish woodcut, 1466
(via The Hermitage)
Update: I think the glove map is going to be in this exhibition that just opened in Baltimore!
Those hands make me think of the much less stylish Guidonian Hand, which was apparently supposed to help medieval choristers learn and memorize music in the absence of hand-held sheet music. Every time I see one of those things, I wonder if anybody actually found it useful, or if it was one of those theoretically good ideas that turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.