Timelines of Consequence
Two chronologies on one baseline: the official account begins at discovery; the documentary account begins four years earlier.
Map No. 002 – The documentary chronology. Each event is plotted by location and linked to the dated baseline; gold marks the official account’s starting point.
The chronology examined in Record No. 006 is plotted on a single baseline: what was known, when, by whom and what followed. The two accounts can then be inspected together.
The convention
Each event is plotted where it happened and dropped by a stem to the dated baseline beneath the map, so place and sequence can be read together. Every stem is a dated document: a decision, a signature, a renewal. The gold mark is the moment the official account treats as the beginning. Everything earlier on the baseline is what that account omits.
Duration at scale
Prose compresses duration. The sentence “the risk was accepted annually for four years” is easily read past. On a baseline, four years of renewals occupy four years of space. The scale makes the delay visible.
Revision
The map will be reissued as the matter develops, with each issue dated. If new documents move the official starting point, the revision will record that change. The changing account is itself part of the record.
- Timelines
- Evidence
- Visual records