A Linguistic Quandary

I always have thought that the difference between “artifact” and “artefact” was one of English vs American spelling. I just can never remember which is which (given I’m thoroughly mid-Atlantic and confused). So, I checked (yet again) before writing the word yet again. In the process, I hit a bit of a quandary, just right for contemplation at New Year’s.

Specifically, I encountered an interesting blog reflecting academic overthinking of the difference between art-I-fact and art-E-fact. The lead query stated:

My understanding was that an artifact was properly applied to physical, historical objects, while an artefact was more correct for more abstract, intangible, error-ish concepts, for example a compression artefact.

Responses varied between agreement, as directed by archaeological practice in the US, and insistence on a simple difference between US and English spelling.

But then I started thinking. (My curse.)

Maps are things, they’re made, they’re art-I-facts according to both US spelling and precise archaeological usage. (This is why I have an archaeological find—the Babylonian world map—for the image on the main blog roll.) But maps are not necessarily physical, or entirely so. There are verbal and performative maps…are they art-I-facts?

But, then, I’ve been arguing for years (or trying to argue) that maps are simply epiphenomena of mapping processes: they are expressions or manifestations of the ways in which people make and communicate sense of the world. In precise archaeological usage, maps are therefore art-E-facts.

So, when I write about maps, which do I use?

(Pragmatically, -I-, I’m sure, but I might change my mind.)