> I find it hard to look at that page and not think of the T-O map
> representing the earth, and the Wolkenband representing the Milky Way, with
> a linear sequence of stars strung out along the ecliptic - like 22 pearls
> on a necklace.
The surrounding dotted area (which is blue in the Yale color images) could be the sky, except that its boundary looks more like the edge of a pool. Also the spiral arms look like four roads with bridges over the pool, alternating with four water channels that feed into (or draw from) the pool.
I believe that the realization that spiral galaxies are assemblages of stars is quite modern (18th century?); and the idea of the Earth being *within* such a galaxy is newer still. If that is what f68v3 shows, then move over, Vinland Map...
Another candidate for T-O map is f86v3, the "garden of eden", where the T-O map is obviously incomplete. Is it an unfinished sketch? A scribal mistake? A palimpsest? Or a chance survival of a more complex figure, which has faded away?
<...> This page, by the way, is a panel of the big fold-out, which is a quire by itself; and in fact f86v3 is the panel which would be the "back cover" of that quire, when it was completely folded. Thus it is understandable that it has suffered a lot more wear than the rest of the VMS.)