ATLAS
Every world that didn’t happen, on one shelf.
The full archive, arranged by the history it departs from — one map per divergence, from Antiquity to the twentieth century.
Antiquity
BEFORE 500
A Bronze Age fortification wall with one gateway sealed by mudbrick, above an empty marshy plain and a distant bay with a few small sailing ships.
No. 004 · 1180
The Bricked Gate Jamb
Middle Ages
500 — 1500
A dim palace storehouse hall at night with rows of lacquered iron-cornered chests, the nearest bound with cord and an unmarked seal, lit by a single oil lamp.
No. 007 · 1444
Three Mal of Rice
Early Modern
1500 — 1800
A deserted eighteenth-century earthwork gun battery with empty embrasures and spent cannonballs, looking across a wide grey river to a walled town standing intact on its rock.
No. 001 · 1759
The Ursuline Crater
19th Century
1800 — 1900
A small plank toll-house raised on piles above the muddy mouths of a delta river at dusk, with a walkway, a moored pirogue and an anchored schooner beyond.
No. 002 · 1803
The Balize Toll-House
A long dim record hall lined with tall oak filing cabinets, one drawer half open, lit by a shaft of window light on a worn wooden floor.
No. 005 · 1866
The Grandparents' Field
An empty nineteenth-century assembly hall with curved wooden benches and a vacant presiding chair, lit by pale winter light from tall windows overlooking a snowy canal.
No. 008 · 1881
Loris-Melikov's Signed Note
20th Century
1900 — 2000
Night view of a reinstated road border post on a river bridge, with lorries and cars queuing behind a lowered barrier under floodlights.
No. 003 · 2002
The Blank Ballot Line
A rusted steel sea marker buoy rides a dark ocean swell at dawn, a second buoy visible far off on the horizon.
No. 006 · 1962
The Sargasso Line
[ map ]
No. 009 · 1918
The Boat Sheds at Apia