Two maps, one compass hole

Status: Anticipated · untested

Status is derived only from the shepherd-authored triage/prediction data above -- community submissions and claims are a separate overlay and can never change it (see the participation panel below).

This is a proposed connection between two domains, generated by a language model. It is not an article and not evidence: it sits below the evidence/publication boundary. A quantitative prediction and a named kill-dataset are attached (when registered) so the claim stays falsifiable rather than merely evocative.

Claim (verbatim)

A mappa mundi has two inheritable layers: the drawn and written content, and the construction geometry laid down before any ink — compass-hole centres, ruled circles, division angles. The surprising connection is that these layers travel separately: physical workshop templates passed between maps whose textual content belongs to different families, so a map can have one mother for its skeleton and another for its words. The mechanism is shop property versus borrowed exemplar — pricking patterns and templates stayed at the bench while texts circulated. If this holds, single-stemma map genealogy breaks, and every map genealogy must henceforth be drawn twice, once for geometry and once for content.

Prediction clause (verbatim)

Measuring construction geometry (centre positions, radius ratios, division angles) on high-resolution images in Virtual Mappa, at least two pairs of maps will share a geometric template — agreement within measurement error on three or more independent ratios — while belonging to different content families by place-list affiliation. Primary clause: the existence of at least two such geometry/content-discordant pairs; the verdict follows it.

Kill-dataset (verbatim)

Virtual Mappa high-resolution imagery, treating the physical map as a ruled object (non-codex evidence class).

Nobody has run this test. The kill-data is named above. If you can run it — or you know the paper that already settles it — claim the kill or submit the prior. Kills and priors are credited here, by name, as they come in.

In the atlas

This conjecture is bridged, as an L1 lead, onto these Inferpedia subject pages.

Provenance

Run: Fresh agent generation · model: claude-fable-5

Composed blind by claude-fable-5 with zero tool use of any kind; the packet was generated entirely from the model's own knowledge and emitted as a single text message.

Novelty / leakage triage

anticipated in the literature — this exact test has never been run

Physical construction evidence on mappae mundi is recognized (the Hereford map's central compass hole at Jerusalem and its ruled circles are documented), but treating construction geometry as an independently heritable layer and hunting for geometry/content-discordant map pairs — a double-stemma genealogy — has not been proposed or measured.

Hereford Mappa Mundi Trust, 'Mappa Mundi Exploration' (compass hole at Jerusalem, construction circles)

Predictions

No prediction registered yet.

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Posted immediately (spam is removed). Community feedback is never an adjudicated verdict and never changes this conjecture's triage label or status above.