Cosmography

Sky Views

Before the Modern Age, the sky in the Zymoglyphic region looked very different.

"In the old days, the sky practically swarmed with moons. It wasn't just that one big, plodding, gray moon that you see nowadays. There were speedy satellites, close ones, shiny ones, red ones. Sometimes a moon would lure a passing asteroid and keep it as a moonlet.

It was the Mud Age, after all, with that primordial ooze seeping in everywhere, continents all askew, jostling for position, each still trying to figure out where it really wanted to be. Tectonic plates piled up, eruptions all the time! Some people claimed that one of the moons looked just like a giant eyeball, always watching. It didn't help that, exactly like our one moon today, that eyeball moon was locked in orbit facing us. It never blinked. And of course for us kids it was always a treat when one of those orbiting mermaids flew over!

The sky, too, was different in those days. It was full of visions and messages, if you looked at it just right. There were angels and demons, crawly things, and those swirly galaxies were not so many light-years away as they are now. You can see the proof right there in those pictures. That's just how it was."

from Memories of the Mud Age, Zymoglyphic Oral History Archive

Sky views from Views of the Zymoglyphic Region

The Orrery

The blank areas on the maps and globes in the early days of the Age of Wonder were often filled in with wind cherubs, mermaids, and sea monsters. This crude orrery is an artist's conception from the Age of Wonder depicting the state of the planet at it was believed to have existed during its formative eons, known as the "Mud Age."

The Rainbow Jewel
	The "Rainbow Jewel from Another Planet" is one of the museum’s earliest acquisitions, believed at one time (or at least hoped) to be an artifact from a distant solar system, perhaps originally a multifaceted jewel, melted and distorted like a meteorite in the last stage of its unimaginably long journey. For more information, see here.

The Zymoglyphic Meteorite
	The Zymoglyphic Meteorite is 4-billion-year-old remnant of the iron core of an asteroid, seared and pocked from its violent entry into the earth’s atmosphere. It was formed during the creation of the solar system and is older than life itself. During the Rust Age, it was revered as a divine messenger. For more information, see here.