roseembolism (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
roseembolism) wrote2008-08-25 04:26 pm
roseembolism) wrote2008-08-25 04:26 pm
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Oases! And Color-Coded Cities!
Another couple pages I'm saving as game and worldbuilding references.
First of all, we have the "10 Most Incredible Ancient Oases in the Ancient World", which though it could give more pictures of the geography, does a decent job of showing the towns that grow up around oases, and surprised me with how large they are. I'm used to the Hollywood depiction of an oases as a small pond with a few trees surrounded by desert; in reality, they tend to be large areas filled with multi-layered agriculture (date trees, fruit trees, tubers). As oases would be centers of civilization in otherwise inhospitable areas, it makes sense that they would be utilized as much as possible. If you have water and soil, you have the fundamental elements of agriculture, and the people in the desert needed to eat something.
By contrast, 4 Amazing Ancient Cities of Color, and the sequel 3 More Amazing Ancient Cities of Color are mainly useful as sources for inspiration on creating cities with unified concepts. It's interesting to think of layers of successive civilization coexisting with architecture from earlier eras. Thera on the other hand gets me to thinking of old civilizations completely swept away by disaster, to be settled over by latecomers.
First of all, we have the "10 Most Incredible Ancient Oases in the Ancient World", which though it could give more pictures of the geography, does a decent job of showing the towns that grow up around oases, and surprised me with how large they are. I'm used to the Hollywood depiction of an oases as a small pond with a few trees surrounded by desert; in reality, they tend to be large areas filled with multi-layered agriculture (date trees, fruit trees, tubers). As oases would be centers of civilization in otherwise inhospitable areas, it makes sense that they would be utilized as much as possible. If you have water and soil, you have the fundamental elements of agriculture, and the people in the desert needed to eat something.
By contrast, 4 Amazing Ancient Cities of Color, and the sequel 3 More Amazing Ancient Cities of Color are mainly useful as sources for inspiration on creating cities with unified concepts. It's interesting to think of layers of successive civilization coexisting with architecture from earlier eras. Thera on the other hand gets me to thinking of old civilizations completely swept away by disaster, to be settled over by latecomers.