Henry of Mainz, world map, ca.1110 A.D. (oriented with East at the top)
This medieval world map apparently belongs to a family of cartographical works which may be compared with the more closely-knit members of the Beatus genealogy . This family or group, besides Henry's map, includes the tiny Psalter map of about 1230 A.D. and the Hereford and Ebstorf examples of the later 13th century, huge wall-pictures which represented, in size though not in execution, the possible 11th century original more closely than their elder but smaller brethern or cousins . Lastly, the so-called Jerome maps of about 1150 A.D. may be collaterally referred to the same family, through the medium of the Mainz design.
The map shown in this monograph is to be found in the De imagine mundi of a certain Henry, probably the same person as Henry [Heinrich], a Canon of the Church of St. Mary in Mayence [Mainz], who in 1111 A.D. appeared before the Episcopal Court of Mainz; possibly he is the same as the Archbishop Henry, who ruled this church between 1142 and 1152. In any case, the map accompanies a work which was written about 1110 A.D., and was dedicated to the famous and unfortunate Matilda, wife of the Emperor Henry V, daughter of Henry I of England, and mother of Henry II. This work, also known as the Imago Mundi de dispositione orbis, a compendious encyclopedic description of the world, also containing a short chronicle of universal history in seven books, was copied and interpolated, but not originally composed, by Henry of Mainz; it was really the work of a contemporary, Honorius of Autun and was the most widely read book of its type. In fact the copy of Imago Mundi that was produced by Henry, which this world map illustrates, is older than any surviving work by Honorius himself. The map, however, is apparently the addition of the scribe Henry, and is not derived from Honorius, although Beazley and others suspect that it is based on another and older design of possibly the 11th century. The general character of the compilation is illustrated by a remark at the close of the dedicatory letter: "I place nothing in this work except that which is approved by the best authorities". According to Wright, the main source of the geographical chapters was the Etymologiae of Isidore, though the author also drew directly from Orosius. It seems likely, indeed, that the geographical chapter of Orosius served as a basis for the entire compilation and provided an outline which was embellished by copious excerpts of detail from the more elaborate writings of Isidore, Augustine, and Bede. Furthermore, it is even probable that the unknown author had a map before him. He appears to have borrowed directly from the Collectanea rerum memorabilium of Solinus his account of the marvels of India, though elsewhere he taps Solinus at second hand through the medium of Isidore.
Though indirectly made from the sources that the writers of the De imagine mundi and other medieval cosmographies utilized, it was probably not compiled directly from the De imagine mundi but rather from a large wall map. Its affinities to the immense late 13th century world disk in Hereford Cathedral make it seem possible that both had a common source. In addition to the older nomenclature, about a dozen more modern place names are to be found upon it.
The world map, preserved in a late 12th century manuscript copy in Cambridge College, England, is oval in form, of small size (about 29.5 X 20.5 cm), and contains 229 legends or inscriptions, together with a large number of unnamed cities, mountains and rivers, whose titles can for the most part be ascertained with the aid of its younger relatives, the Ebstorf, Psalter, Hereford and Jerome plans. Although the present world-scheme is apparently intended to illustrate the Imago Mundi copied by Henry, the connection between the two is but slender; for the peculiarities of the chart are often not in the manuscript, nor are those of the manuscript usually represented in the map. In reference to this lack of correspondence between Henry's map and the Imago, one may notice the former's selection of European cities is not represented in the latter, and that the interchange of Thile and Tilos which is found in the Imago is not on the map. As for Henry's use of colors, he is in line with the traditional medieval customs: the seas are colored green, the Red Sea is red, the rivers violet, and the relief shows red-lobed chains of mountains. Major settlements are indicated using cathedrals, double towers and ramparts.
According to scholars such as Beazley, Santarem and Miller, the Mainz design is obviously related to the Hereford map, as an elder to a younger brother; and the similarities of detail in these two works may be traced in almost every part of the world and in nearly every important feature of the draftsmanship. Santarem has well pointed out, and Beazley seems to agree, that the Hereford scheme was a working up of Henry's design. As to this, we may compare the varied outline of the coast, on the north of Europe and Asia, and the position and outline of the Baltic Sea, of the Scandinavian peninsula, of the Caspian, and of the lands of the Gog-Magog, the Hyperboreans and the Dog-headed folk. The coastline near Paradise may also be compared, and the islands adjoining this coast, such as Taraconta, likewise the position and outline of the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the island of Taprobane. The peninsular form of Italy is more developed on Henry of Mainz than in the Hereford, but the delineation is not dissimilar. Thus both maps have the same widening of the Mediterranean at its eastern extremity, the same projecting horns to represent the angles of the Levant, the same elongation of the Black and Azov Seas, the same approximation of the last to the Northern Ocean.
The Nile of Henry of Mainz resembles the Cottoniana map, as well as the Hereford in adopting the theory of three sections, (a) a short one springing from a lake (Nilidis Lacus) near the Atlantic; (b) a long stretch from a larger lake (Lacus Maximus) running parallel to the Southern Ocean, to a second point of submergence (hic mergitur); (c) the Nile of Egypt, springing from a Fons Fialus near the Red Sea, penetrating the Montes Nibiae [i.e., Nubia], and thence flowing in a southwest direction to the Mediterranean. Both Hereford and Henry of Mainz also introduce a Lake and River of Triton flowing into the Middle Nile (in a southwest direction) from the Altars of the Phileni, which are wrongly placed, far from the Mediterranean.
In Central Africa Orosius is probably the source of Henry of Mainz' (and Hereford's) Euzareae Montes. To the east of these are the Montes Ethiopiae, Mount Atlas being near the Atlantic, and Mons Hesperus further south. Henry of Mainz also agrees with the Hereford in the mountains of Syria, East Asia and Bactria and in the Caspian Gates.
The rivers of Asia also agree closely, for example the Hydaspes, Acesines and Hypanis (drawn as independent of the Indus); the Ganges, on the other side of Paradise, towards the north, flowing due east); the Acheron and Oxus, flowing into the Caspian); the two unnamed rivers on the west side of the Caspian; the Pactolus, flowing into the Euxine; and the Cobar [Chebar ?], flowing into the upper Euphrates.
Among other coincidences are: (a) in Asia - the wall shutting off the peninsula of the Gog-Magog and the description of the same people as unclean; of the Hyperboreans as untroubled by disease and discord; of the Gryphons, Griffons, or Griffins as most wicked; and of the Dog-headed folk as adjoining the Arctic Ocean; also the notices of Amazonia, the Golden Mountains (reference the Cottoniana map), the Port of Cotonare, Mount Sephar on the Indian Ocean, and the Tower of Enos just outside Paradise; (b) in Africa - the Burning Mountain and the Seven Mountains (here also reference the Cottoniana map); the Troglodytes near the Middle Nile; the River Lethon near Cyrene; St. Augustine's Hippo; the Basilisk between Triton and the Nile; the horseshoe-formed Temple of Jupiter-Ammon; the Monasteries of St. Antony, near the end of the Middle Nile; and the Pepper Wood near the Red Sea; together with other oddities which are common in medieval cartography, i.e., the Pyramids as barns, etc.; (c) in Europe - the Church of Santiago at Compostella, and near it a Pharos [of Brigantia ?]; the Danus, tributary of the Ebro, unnamed in ancient geography; the boundary of the Danes and Saxons; and the heart-shaped town of Cardia near Constantinople.
As to islands, Taraconta, Rapharrica and Abalcia, on the north coast of Asia, are from Aethicus; Ganzmir [for Scanza or Scandinavia] is a remarkable misreading, also in the Hereford. Hister, Asia Minor, Galilea, Sinus Persicus and some other names, wanting on Hereford, but supplied by Henry of Mainz, are probably from the common original.
Once more, in summary, both the Hereford and Henry of Mainz maps have practically the same Nile system and the same representation of African mountains, Asiatic rivers and oceanic islands; both give the boundary between Asia and Africa in much the same way; both omit to specify any definite boundary between Asia and Europe; both agree in their arrangement of the surrounding sea, in their drawing of the chief parts of the continental coastline, and in many other details.
Various peculiarities of nomenclature, i.e., Mene Island, Jabok, etc., are also common to both works; but of course the Hereford map is far larger, and contains much more detail, especially in relation to classical material. The 229 legends of the one are overshadowed in the 1,021 of the other. In the same way, among the other relatives of Henry's map, Ebstorf (a work on the scale of Hereford) dwarfs its elder cousin of Mainz with 1,224 legends; Jerome supplies 407; while the little Psalter map, Henry's younger brother, in spite of all its crowding, can only supply 145. One may notice that, among other works of a similar nature, the Cottoniana map gives us 146 legends; Lambert of St. Omer, 180; Matthew Paris' world map, 81; the Beatus group, 477; while the vast scope of the Peutinger Table offers 3,400 inscriptions .
It is plain from the great number of nameless rivers, mountains and cities in the Mainz example, that the work may well have been taken from a larger original, probably a great wall map of the 11th century. Of this original, Henry's transcript is more accurate but less complete due to size constraints. There is, however, another proof of the same in the eight half-circles which occur (apparently without reason) along the oval margin of Henry's ocean; from other works we may recognize these as representing the places of the eight intermediate winds.
The Hereford, fuller but considered less 'true' and 'scholarly' by Beazley, probably departs from the original, as well as Henry of Mainz, in making Jerusalem the center of the world, and in adopting an absolutely circular instead of an oval form.
The relationship between Mainz and the so-called Jerome maps is almost as close as that between Mainz and the Psalter. Only the eastern part of the Orbis antiquus in the Jerome examples survives, but here the likeness is marked; while the treatment, in the Mainz design, of the Twelve Tribes and their settlements corresponds with the well supported tradition that the celebrated and sainted editor of the Vulgate, who passed so many years in Syria, himself composed a separate treatise and map upon the subject.
In the draftsmanship of Asia Minor, the Gulf of Issus, and the Black Sea, the most striking analogies may be found between Henry and Jerome; and from a study of these particulars we may feel practically certain that some correspondence may be assumed. The agreement of the two maps is only, of course, partial, even in the eastern world; but it is far closer than the likeness between Jerome and the other members of the 'family' - the Hereford, Psalter or Ebstorf maps; and Beazley believes it to be a true and conscious relationship.
The details in the Mainz design which are foreign to the Jerome tradition may be divided into three classes, respectively based upon Aethicus of Istria, upon Solinus and upon the contemporary knowledge of the central medieval period. Among these last we may notice the references to the Turks, the Danes and the Saxons; the mention of the Lake of Nile; and the names of Rouen, Pisa, Iceland, Lombardy, Frisia and the Mare Veneticum [Gulf of Venice, unique in medieval maps]. Among these names the first three are in Aethicus; the fourth in Solinus; the last six belong to Henry's own time more especially.
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| Jerome's map of Asia. |
In the four corners, instead of winds or wind-blowers, are four angels, whom Santarem regards as pointing to Gog-Magog land and to Paradise, and blocking the way through the Straits of Gibraltar perhaps too elaborate an explanation. However, the angel in the left-hand top corner is certainly pointing to Gog and Magog, an unclean race. All of these angels have golden halos, and are variously colored in green and red; while the figure on the upper left hand carries something which has been variously interpreted as a cube or die, a box, or a church. His clothes are green, except for an upper loose cloak, which is red like the wings. Exactly the opposite arrangement of color is adopted with the angel that fronts him on the right. All of the seas, save the Persian and Arabian Gulfs, are light green; the Red Seas, the mountains and certain of the more important names, are rubricated. Excluding the Jerome maps, this is perhaps the richest in content and the best preserved among the 12th century examples of European cartography. However, the Chinese, during the same century were further developing their scientific tradition while Europe was still basically dominated by religious cosmography . (Corpus Christi College,Cambridge, England.)
World Map of Guido of Pisa , 1119 A.D.
In 1119 A.D. a man called Guido of Pisa, of whom nothing more is known, compiled a work of extracts, mainly geographical, in six books. The first of these contained a description of Italy, with extracts chiefly from the 'Anonymous Geographer of Ravenna' , but also from the Antonine Itinerary and the Notitia Urbis. The second book gave only extracts from Isidore of Seville , while the third, dealing with the general geography of the earth, combined Isidorian excerpts with passages from the Ravennese. The last three books gave a chronicle reaching down to 1108 A.D., with lists of the Lombard, Frankish and German kings, and special notices of the deeds of the Pisans and Genoese against the Saracens. Two of the existing manuscripts of this work (those at Brussels and Florence) contain map-pictures, one being a T-O map of Isidorian type, and the other two works of a much higher value. The latter maps are found in the Brussel's manuscript only, and are devoted to Italy and the world.
The highly stylized world map shown here belongs to the passage where Guido roughly defines the boundaries of the three continents; it is colored, and measures 13 cm across. According to Konrad Miller, this mappamundi is perhaps a reduced sketch of a larger work, of which a piece is better represented in the sectional plan of Italy, which occurs in the same manuscript. For the most part the text agrees with familiar sources from the early medieval period - Orosius, the Ravennese Geographer, and Isidore; but the names of Barcelona, Lyons, Samaria, and others (all of which do not appear in Guido's chief sources) show that this is no mere illustration of these authors, but also included contemporary information/modifications. The form of the Mediterranean is very peculiar, and the size of the rivers and inland waters of the continents is exaggerated more than in almost any other medieval map. The strange triangular formation in which the Mediterranean from one side, and the Black Sea and Aegaean from another, run southward almost to the Sea of Ethiopia, naturally affects the shape of Africa, whose northern coast has an unusual inclination to the southeast. The Gulf of Azov, the Palus Maeotis of classical times, becomes the Meotides Paludes (center, left).
The map is colored in the style of other medieval mappaemundi with the seas in blue, except the Red Sea which is in red, the rivers are in green, relief is represented in double leaves (green inside), and the settlements are represented by legends only. (Bibliotheque Royale Albert Ier)
Zonal world map, Lambert of St. Omer, Martianus Capella, Ghent copy,1120 A.D. Liber Floridus , ca. 1120 A.D. Lambert of St. Omer
Lambert, Canon of St. Omer, was the compiler of an encyclopedia entitled Liber Floridus, which was composed of extracts from approximately 192 different works. In this treatise Lambert compiled a chronicle or history that reaches to the year 1119; it contains various maps, including a mappamundi, which originally like the text, has a date at least earlier than 1125, and has survived in three forms: in the manuscripts of Ghent, Wolfenbüttel, and Paris. In spite of a clearly expressed intention of supplying a complete world map, the oldest copy, the Ghent manuscript, only includes Europe, two Macrobian-zone sketches and a T-O design. This particular manuscript copy seems to have been written by Lambert himself, certainly not later than 1125, and contains some remarkable peculiarities with regards to Europe. The Wolfenbüttel and Paris copies, dating from about 1150, are simply different copies from the same original, which was doubtless of Lambert's own draftsmanship (although in a monograph entitled Die Weltkarte des Martianus Capella, R. Uhden has pointed out that the world map contained in the Wolfenbüttel copy carries a legend ascribing the original to Martianus Capella. The correctness of the ascription is further verified by the identity of various other legends on the map with passages in the Satyricon or De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii . . . by Martianus Capella). These maps, which are based upon Capella's design, contain an equatorial ocean but are quite different than the Macrobian zone-maps . The ecliptic is usually shown, with the twelve signs of the zodiac, and the generalization of the coastlines is rounded in nature. Most of these maps are characteristically oriented to the East (although some show a northern orientation), and have a large amount of text in the southern continent. The climatic zones may or may not be explicitly shown. Regularly shaped islands are usually found in the ocean surrounding the northern continent.
While containing a less detailed Europe, both the Wolfenbüttel and Paris manuscripts possess a complete mappamundi, together with a special and interesting addition. Nowhere else in medieval cartography do we find greater prominence assigned to the unknown southern continent - the Australian land of the fabled Antipodes (termed Antichthon by the ancients). On the Paris manuscript, where this land occupies half of the circle of the earth, a long inscription defines this 'region of the south' in terms not unlike those used on the St. Sever - Beatus map :
. . . temperate in climate, but unknown to the sons of Adam, having nothing which belongs to our race. The Equatorial Sea [Mediterranean] which here divided the [great land masses or continents of the] world, was not visible to the human eye; for the full strength of the sun always heated it, and permitted no passage to, or from, this southern zone. In the latter, however, was a race of Antipodes (as some philosophers believed), wholly different from man, through the difference of regions and climates. For when we are scorched with heat, they are chilled with cold; and the northern stars, which we are permitted to discern, are entirely hidden from them . . . Days and nights they have one length; but the haste of the sun in the ending of the winter solstice causes them to suffer winter twice over.
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| Zonal world map from Liber Floridus (Wolfenbüttel) Lambert St Omer, 12th century |
To the south of this temperate 'Australia', Lambert places a zone of extreme cold, uninhabitable by living creatures.
The ideas expressed here are supplemented by the suggestion of two more unknown continents or 'earth-islands', one in the Northern and the other in the Southern [Western] Hemispheres, lying in the expanse of an all-encircling and dividing great ocean. Four landmasses therefore are assumed; of these, the first two were made up of the ancient oikoumene [known world] and the Australian region just described. The other two landmasses were on the reverse side of the globe (corresponding in some respects with the North and South American continents of later discoveries), and were divided by a tropical arm of the great ocean, in the same way as the two 'islands' of the Eastern Hemisphere. This concept reflects, in full, the theory of the ancient geographers such as Crates of Mallos, a 5th century B.C. Greek philosopher .
The present maps by Lambert, however, only indicate the 'third' and 'fourth' continents (those of the Western Hemisphere) by placing little circles in the margins of the Roman World, or Habitable Earth, respectively entitled Paradise, to the northeast, and Our Antipodes to the southwest. The idea of an undersea course of rivers from a trans-oceanic Paradise to the oikoumene was a common belief during the Middle Ages . Our Antipodes is clearly to be understood as the continental masses exactly opposite to Europe and Africa on the other side of the globe, inhabited by living (but apparently not human) beings, and having a day and night in an 'opposite relation' to those living in Europe; while the Paradise island is probably to be interpreted, in the same way, as precisely antipodean to the Australian continent. The graphic expression of these ideas in Lambert's maps derives from several sources. First there is the suggestion of a T-O form in the general contour of 'Our World'. Speculations of a much higher antiquity can be traced in the apparent indication of the Ecliptic in both the Ghent and Wolfenbüttel world maps (in the form of a crooked line running over the Equator and marked by three star-pictures), the obliquity of the sun's path is clearly suggested. Thirdly, of course, is the probable source of earlier world maps by Macrobius and/or Martianus Capella .
If Lambert's 'universal' conceptions are so narrowly dependent upon classical antecedents, it may be expected that the detailed material of the maps will also display a markedly antique character; and indeed the relationship between the medieval geographers and those of the later Imperial time is seldom found in more complete expression. Most of the 180 inscriptions are entirely ancient, and must, therefore, have referred to a lost design of the Old Roman world; the chief additions to this pre-medieval material were made from the geography of Lambert's own period. We must not, however, suppose that Lambert's mappamundi is simply a compilation of a large number of writers. It is not impossible that Lambert's maps, with the exception of a few place names, was taken bodily from an ancient world sketch of the 4th or 5th century A.D. But even if it was the outcome (in its general outlines) of a lost original from the days of the later old Empire, or borrowed directly from Capella, it has obviously been greatly modified by its 12th century redactor, and, in part at least, it truly belongs to the central medieval time frame. As to this we may notice especially some of the islands chosen to be displayed by Lambert, such as Tritonia, apparently a name from the Triton River in Ethiopia; Betania [Britain], placed over against the Pillars of Hercules; the Balearics, defined simply as 'over against Spain', but located in the ocean; Orcades, or British fringing-islets, thirty-three in number, lying over against Betania and Gotha. Although not discernible on the example shown here, on the Lambert maps the seas and rivers are usually colored green, the mountains red, but each of the three copies of the manuscript world map offers peculiarities of its own. The Ghent manuscript gives the most detailed map of the European area; the Wolfenbüttel manuscript alone gives Philistia, Palestine, Bactria, and the mountains of Taurus and Caucasus; the Paris manuscript alone contains Gallia, Comata, Troy, and the Australian inscription (a similar but shorter description of the Southern Ocean occurs in one of the small zone maps of the Liber Floridus).
Besides the world map, the Paris manuscript contains (with certain differences) several of the smaller designs which are also found in the Ghent copy of the Lambertian encyclopedia. Thus we have Augustus Caesar holding a T-O world in his left hand , an astronomical sketch, and an outline figure of the 'earth-globe'. On the Paris world map all names of seas are wanting; the Mediterranean is indistinguishable from a river; and the continents lack all clear differentiation. The textual script, moreover, is exceedingly difficult and Lambert's material has been so much rearranged that it is not easy in some cases to find agreement with the indications of the Ghent copy.
In addition to the previously mentioned sources, Lambert's Liber Floridus also drew from such medieval authorities as St. Isidore, Orosius, Julius Honorius, Pomponius Mela, Solinus, Venerable Bede, Raban Maur, the Pseudo- Callisthenes and the Bible. There are at least eight manuscripts of the text preserved in the libraries of Europe, and it was referred to with high praise by writers of the 13th century. (Herzog August Bibliothek, Codex Guelf. 1 Gud. Lat. (cat. 4305), fols. 69v-70r, Wolfenbüttel, Germany. Bibliotheque Nationale, MS. Lat. 8865 (Suppl. 10-2), Paris .Rijksuniversiteit, MS. 92, Ghent)
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| Hua I T'u Map of China and the Barbarian Countries ca.1137 A.D.rubbing from map carved in stone |
The Sian-or-Southern Sung Maps: the Hua I T'u , 1137 A.D.
Although these two maps were made about 1,000 years after the date in the 3rd century B.C., at which the physical record, both literary and cartographic, documents the earliest mapmaking activity in China to have survived, they each illustrate the clear links that continued to exist with the very earliest traditions and themes of both Chinese geography and cartography. The two maps, the Hua I T'u [Map of China and the Barbarian Countries] and the Yü-Chi T'u [Map of the Tracks of Yü (the Great)], were engraved on stone tablets, each about three feet square, and within six months of one another by an unknown artist in 1137 A.D. during the Sung Dynasty, 960-1280 A.D. They are now housed among a very large collection of engraved stones in the Pei Lin [the Forest of Steles or Tablets] in the Shensi Provincial Museum at Sian.
A brief history of the Chinese cartographic tradition will serve to reference the sources upon which these two maps have drawn, and demonstrate the remarkable antiquity and show the continuity that prevailed in Chinese cartography.
According to Leo Bagrow, Chinese tradition places the earliest reference to a cartographic display at about 2,000 B.C., when nine copper or bronze vases on tripods are said to have been made, bearing representations of nine provinces of the then current Hsia Dynasty and showing mountains, rivers and local products. These vases are thought to have lasted until the end of the Chou Dynasty (ca. 300 B.C.) and were destroyed. Most of the other authorities associated with this subject, however, hesitate to go beyond references to maps of the Chou Dynasty (1122-256 B.C.), specifically those of the third century.
Referring again to Mr. Bagrow, by 1125 B.C. the Chinese had produced a map of their entire kingdom, which must have been the result of many years' work. It seems to have been compiled by Wen-Wang and was certainly based upon geographical material in the official description of China, the Yü-Kung.
Highly significant as a primary source for any cartographic effort during this and subsequent periods, was the famous Yü-Kung [Tribute of Yü] which also can only be dated with certainty at least as early as the Chou Dynasty. A copy is presently found as a chapter of the Shu Ching [Historic Classic], one possibly prepared by an early disciple of Confucius and ascribed to the 5th century B.C., making it nearly contemporaneous with the earliest Greek map making endeavors of Anaximander . This text of the Yü Kung recounts the labors of the culture-hero, the Great Yü, as he mastered the primeval flood and laid down the mountains and rivers of the ancient Chinese landscape. Shorn of its mythical context, it may be seen simply as a primitive economic geography of the nine natural regions into which China could be divided. Yü himself became the patron of hydraulic engineers, and of all those concerned with irrigation and water conservation. The Yü Kung became and has remained a source of challenge and inspiration to all later generations of geographers and cartographers.
It can be assumed that maps, charts and plans accompanied even very early examples of these geographical works. Besides the example sited above, another specific reference in Chinese literature alludes to a map painted on silk in the 3rd century B.C., the weft and woof of the material may, in fact, have suggested a map grid. We also learn of various rulers, generals and scholars during the Han Dynasty (207 B.C.-220 A.D.) having a high regard for maps and using them for administrative and military purposes. The many maps that are recorded from this dynasty were executed on a variety of different materials - wood, silk, stone and paper, the latter of which was an invention by Ts'ai Lun in 105 A.D. In fact the oldest extant maps from China, dated ca.168 B.C. were a group painted on silk and unearthed in 1973 at Mawangtui, near Changsha in Hunan province in a Han Dynasty tomb.
Apparently the rectangular grid (a coordinate system consisting of lines intersecting at equal intervals to form squares which were intended to facilitate the measurement of distance, in li), which was basic to much scientific cartography in China, was formally introduced in the first century A.D. by the astronomer Chang Hêng (78-139 A.D., a contemporary of Claudius Ptolemy). The grid subdivided a plane or flat surface; this figure was assumed for purposes of mapmaking but it must not be supposed that all scholars in China believed that this was the shape of the earth. Indeed, we know that the Chinese used the gnomon and were aware of the continual variation in the length of its shadow in the long north-south extent of their own country, knowledge that presumably suggested to them a curving surface, if not a globe.
During the Chin Dynasty, P'ei Hsiu (224-271 A.D.), who was Minister of Works in an empire only just reunited after the divisions of the Three Kingdoms period, found that the maps available to assist him in his work were incomplete and inaccurate. Considering that his office was concerned with the land and the earth; and finding that the names of mountains, rivers and places, as given in the Yü Kung, had suffered numerous changes since ancient times, so that those who discussed their identifications had often proposed rather forced ideas, with the result that obscurity had gradually prevailed. Therefore P'ei Hsiu undertook a rigorous reconstruction in the light of knowledge then available, he rejected what was dubious, and classified whenever he could, the ancient names which had disappeared; finally composing, among other items, a geographical map of the Tribute of Yü in 18 sheets, with the title Yü Kung Ti Yü T'u. He presented it to the emperor, Wu Ti, who kept it in the secret archives. It is reported to be a map of China on a scale of 500 li to an inch. While the map has not survived, his text is now preserved in the Chin Dynasty history. In his preface, P'ei, now known as the 'father of scientific cartography in China', clearly outlined the principles of official mapmaking which included: the rectangular grid for scale and locational reference; orientation; triangulation; and altitude measurement (a complete translation of this preface is attached at the end of the monograph).
P'ei's methods are comparable to the contributions made in this regard by Ptolemy in the west ; but whereas Ptolemy's methods passed to the Arabs and were not known again in Europe until the Renaissance, China's tradition of scientific cartography, and in particular that of the use of the rectangular grid, is unbroken from P'ei Hsiu's time to the present.
THE HUA I T'U
As the Imperial territories of China increased through the intervening centuries, maps of various scales were made of part or all of the expanding realm. P'ei was followed by a number of cartographers, whose work is recorded in the dynastic histories, but of of which no example survives. The best known of his successors is undoubtedly Chia Tan, 730-805 A.D., of the T'ang Dynasty; and it is here that we return to the first of the Sian maps in the 'Forest of the Tablets'.
Under the T'angs China had attained a high degree of civilization, perhaps the highest it has ever reached, and cartography then made remarkable progress. It was in 785 A.D. that Chia Tan was entrusted by the emperor, Te Tsung, with the preparation of a map of the whole empire. This commission resulted in the famous Hei-nei Hua I T'u [Map of China and the Barbarian Countries within the (Four) Seas] which was finished and presented to the emperor in 801 A.D. This very large map was meticulously exact and detailed, measuring 33 feet high and 30 feet wide, it was constructed on a grid scale of one tsoun (a Chinese inch), to 100 li (a Chinese league); that is, a scale of about 1:1,500,000, taking a li as 300 pou (a Chinese pace, roughly one-third of a mile) and a pou as five tchih (a Chinese foot) according to Nakamura, or, by Herrmann's calculations, a scale of about 1:1,000,000. Using either scale-estimate, Chia Tan's map must have covered an oikoumene [known world] of 30,000 li from east to west, and 33,000 li from north to south, probably a map representing all of Asia.
Ancient place-names were inserted in black, and those of Chia Tan's own time in red. Unfortunately this great work also has not survived. However, during the succeeding Sung Dynasty, the author of the stele map Hua I T'u [Map of China and the Barbarian Countries] states that he consulted Chia Tan's map, remarking that it contained many hundred kingdoms. Carved in stone in 1137 A.D., it is fairly clear from the internal evidence that the Hua I T'u at Sian is modelled very closely on Chia Tan's work of 801 A.D. As a probable adaptation of the older work, the Hua I T'u is oriented to the North and concentrates primarily on the portion which covers China proper, but also includes part of Korea in the north and part of the Pamir plateau in the west - more than just a map of China, though by no means a world map. The 'barabarian countries' are not located graphically as on the map by Chia Tan, but are simply described in notes around the periphery of the map. As the latest date mentioned in this textual material is 1043 A.D., this date may be taken as evidence for the very probable date for the map's first composition (prior to engraving). One scholar, Soothill, actually argues that the Hua I T'u was Chia Tan's map, from which the sheets for the barbarian lands had been lost, and that the text was later substituted for them. Sung bibliographies do show, however, that versions of Chia Tan's map were still extant at this time, though kept secret at the imperial court and not easily accessible.
Curiously, the Hua I T'u lacks the distinctive rectangular grid system that superimposes most of the other Chinese maps. The coastline seems to be reduced to a sketchy outline, the Shantung peninsula being virtually non-existent. While some of the river systems are, imperfect, the course of the major rivers, as well as the line of the Great Wall, are shown with considerable accuracy. Mountains and cities within China are included, substantiating the claim that this map was intended for administrative and possibly military use.
Adding to the modern appearance of both of the Sian maps is the lack of the fabulous creatures or adornment of superfluous material so common to many of the European maps of the same period. Also their orientation to the North (true of all Sung Dynasty maps that have survived) contributes to the allusion. Needham and Ling, writing in their excellent multi-volume Science and Civilisation in China, assert, with ample justification, that this latter map is "the most remarkable cartographic work of its age in any culture".
P'ei Hsiu's Preface:
The origin of maps and geographical treatises goes far back into former ages. Under the three dynasties (Hsia, Shang and Chou) there were special officials for this (Kuo Shih). Then, when the Han people sacked Hsien-yang, Hsiao Ho collected all the maps and documents of the Chhin. Now it is no longer possible to find the old maps in the secret archives, and even those which Hsiao Ho found are missing; we only have maps, both general and local, from the (Later) Han time. None of these employs a graduated scale and none of them is arranged on a rectangular grid. Moreover, none of them gives anything like a complete representation of the celebrated mountains and the great rivers; their arrangement is very rough and imperfect, and one cannot rely on them. Indeed some of them contain absurdities, irrelevancies, and exaggerations, which are not in accord with reality, and which should be banished by good sense.
The assumption of power by the great Chin dynasty has unified space in all the six directions. To purify its territory, it began with Yung and Shu [Hupei and Szechuan], and penetrated deeply into their regions, though full of obstacles. The emperor Wen then ordered the appropriate officials to draw up maps of Wu and Shu. After Shu had been conquered and the maps were examined, with regard to the distances from one another of mountains, rivers and places, the positions of plains and declivities, and the lines of the roads, whether straight or curved, which the six armies had followed; it was found that there was not the slightest error. Now, referring back to antiquity, I have examined according to the Yü Kung the mountains and lakes, the courses of the rivers, the plateaus and plains, the slopes and marshes, the limits of the nine ancient provinces and the sixteen modern ones, taking account of commanderies and fiefs, prefectures and cities, and not forgetting the names of places where the ancient kingdoms concluded treaties or held meetings; and lastly, inserting the roads, paths, and navigable waters, I have made this map in eighteen sheets.
In making a map there are six principles observable:
(I) The graduated divisions, which are the means of determining the scale to which the map is
to be drawn.
(2) The rectangular grid (of parallel lines in two dimensions), which is the way of depicting the
correct relations between the various parts of the map.
(3) Pacing out the sides of right-angled triangles (tao li), which is the way of fixing the lengths
of derived distances (i.e., the third side of the triangle which cannot be walked over).
(4) (Measuring) the high and the low.
(5) (Measuring) right angles and acute angles.
(6) (Measuring) curves and straight lines.
These three principles are used according to the nature of the terrain, and are the means by which one reduces what are really plains and hills (literally cliffs) to distances on a plane surface.
If one draws a map without having graduated divisions, there is no means of distinguishing between what is near and what is far. If one has graduated divisions, but no rectangular grid or network of lines, then while one may attain accuracy in one corner of the map, one will certainly lose it elsewhere (i.e., in the middle, far from guiding marks). If one has a rectangular grid, but has not worked upon the tao li principle, then when it is a case of places in difficult country, among mountains, lakes or seas (which cannot be traversed directly by the surveyor), one cannot ascertain how they are related to one another. If one has adopted the tao li principle, but has not taken account of the high and the low the right angles and acute angles, and the curves and straight lines, then the figures for distances indicated on the paths and roads will be far from the truth, and one will lose the accuracy of the rectangular grid.
But if we examine a map which has been prepared by the combination of all these principles, we find that a true scale representation of the distances is fixed by the graduated divisions. So also the reality of the relative positions is attained by the use of paced sides of right-angled triangles; and the true scale of degrees and figures is reproduced by the determinations of high and low, angular dimensions,and curved or straight lines. Thus even if there are great obstacles in the shape of high mountains or vast lakes, huge distances or strange places, necessitating climbs and descents, retracing of steps or detours-everything can be taken into account and determined. When the principle of the rectangular grid is properly applied, then the straight and the curved, the near and the far, can conceal nothing of their form from us. (Pei Lin - Shensi Provincial Museum at Sian)
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| Yü Chi T'u [Map of the Tracks of Yü the Great] ca. 1137 A.D. |
The Sian-or-Southern Sung Maps: the Hua I T'u ,1137 A.D.
Although these two maps were made about 1,000 years after the date in the 3rd century B.C., at which the physical record, both literary and cartographic, documents the earliest mapmaking activity in China to have survived, they each illustrate the clear links that continued to exist with the very earliest traditions and themes of both Chinese geography and cartography. The two maps, the Hua I T'u [Map of China and the Barbarian Countries] and the Yü-Chi T'u [Map of the Tracks of Yü (the Great)], were engraved on stone tablets, each about three feet square, and within six months of one another by an unknown artist in 1137 A.D. during the Sung Dynasty, 960-1280 A.D. They are now housed among a very large collection of engraved stones in the Pei Lin [the Forest of Steles or Tablets] in the Shensi Provincial Museum at Sian.
A brief history of the Chinese cartographic tradition will serve to reference the sources upon which these two maps have drawn, and demonstrate the remarkable antiquity and show the continuity that prevailed in Chinese cartography.
According to Leo Bagrow, Chinese tradition places the earliest reference to a cartographic display at about 2,000 B.C., when nine copper or bronze vases on tripods are said to have been made, bearing representations of nine provinces of the then current Hsia Dynasty and showing mountains, rivers and local products. These vases are thought to have lasted until the end of the Chou Dynasty (ca. 300 B.C.) and were destroyed. Most of the other authorities associated with this subject, however, hesitate to go beyond references to maps of the Chou Dynasty (1122-256 B.C.), specifically those of the third century.
Referring again to Mr. Bagrow, by 1125 B.C. the Chinese had produced a map of their entire kingdom, which must have been the result of many years' work. It seems to have been compiled by Wen-Wang and was certainly based upon geographical material in the official description of China, the Yü-Kung.
Highly significant as a primary source for any cartographic effort during this and subsequent periods, was the famous Yü-Kung [Tribute of Yü] which also can only be dated with certainty at least as early as the Chou Dynasty. A copy is presently found as a chapter of the Shu Ching [Historic Classic], one possibly prepared by an early disciple of Confucius and ascribed to the 5th century B.C., making it nearly contemporaneous with the earliest Greek map making endeavors of Anaximander . This text of the Yü Kung recounts the labors of the culture-hero, the Great Yü, as he mastered the primeval flood and laid down the mountains and rivers of the ancient Chinese landscape. Shorn of its mythical context, it may be seen simply as a primitive economic geography of the nine natural regions into which China could be divided. Yü himself became the patron of hydraulic engineers, and of all those concerned with irrigation and water conservation. The Yü Kung became and has remained a source of challenge and inspiration to all later generations of geographers and cartographers.
It can be assumed that maps, charts and plans accompanied even very early examples of these geographical works. Besides the example sited above, another specific reference in Chinese literature alludes to a map painted on silk in the 3rd century B.C., the weft and woof of the material may, in fact, have suggested a map grid. We also learn of various rulers, generals and scholars during the Han Dynasty (207 B.C.-220 A.D.) having a high regard for maps and using them for administrative and military purposes. The many maps that are recorded from this dynasty were executed on a variety of different materials - wood, silk, stone and paper, the latter of which was an invention by Ts'ai Lun in 105 A.D. In fact the oldest extant maps from China, dated ca.168 B.C. were a group painted on silk and unearthed in 1973 at Mawangtui, near Changsha in Hunan province in a Han Dynasty tomb.
Apparently the rectangular grid (a coordinate system consisting of lines intersecting at equal intervals to form squares which were intended to facilitate the measurement of distance, in li), which was basic to much scientific cartography in China, was formally introduced in the first century A.D. by the astronomer Chang Hêng (78-139 A.D., a contemporary of Claudius Ptolemy). The grid subdivided a plane or flat surface; this figure was assumed for purposes of mapmaking but it must not be supposed that all scholars in China believed that this was the shape of the earth. Indeed, we know that the Chinese used the gnomon and were aware of the continual variation in the length of its shadow in the long north-south extent of their own country, knowledge that presumably suggested to them a curving surface, if not a globe.
During the Chin Dynasty, P'ei Hsiu (224-271 A.D.), who was Minister of Works in an empire only just reunited after the divisions of the Three Kingdoms period, found that the maps available to assist him in his work were incomplete and inaccurate. Considering that his office was concerned with the land and the earth; and finding that the names of mountains, rivers and places, as given in the Yü Kung, had suffered numerous changes since ancient times, so that those who discussed their identifications had often proposed rather forced ideas, with the result that obscurity had gradually prevailed. Therefore P'ei Hsiu undertook a rigorous reconstruction in the light of knowledge then available, he rejected what was dubious, and classified whenever he could, the ancient names which had disappeared; finally composing, among other items, a geographical map of the Tribute of Yü in 18 sheets, with the title Yü Kung Ti Yü T'u. He presented it to the emperor, Wu Ti, who kept it in the secret archives. It is reported to be a map of China on a scale of 500 li to an inch. While the map has not survived, his text is now preserved in the Chin Dynasty history. In his preface, P'ei, now known as the 'father of scientific cartography in China', clearly outlined the principles of official mapmaking which included: the rectangular grid for scale and locational reference; orientation; triangulation; and altitude measurement (a complete translation of this preface is attached at the end of the monograph).
P'ei's methods are comparable to the contributions made in this regard by Ptolemy in the west ; but whereas Ptolemy's methods passed to the Arabs and were not known again in Europe until the Renaissance, China's tradition of scientific cartography, and in particular that of the use of the rectangular grid, is unbroken from P'ei Hsiu's time to the present.
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| al-Idrisi's world map, Arabic, 804/1154/1456 A.D. (oriented with South at the top) |
World Maps of al-Idrisi , 1154-1192
Abu Abdullah Mohammed Ibn al-Sharif al-Idrisi [Edrisi]
During the Middle Ages the Greek tradition of disinterested research was stifled in Western Europe by a theological dictatorship which bade fair, for a time, to destroy all hope of a genuine intellectual revival. Further, socio-economically and politically the Latin West had gradually drifted apart from the Greek and Moslem East, thereby widening the already present cultural cleavage. Meanwhile the Moslems were slowly unearthing the treasures of Greek and Persian wisdom, and in so doing they became fired with enthusiasm to study them. Aided by their own native genius, by the keenest inter-regional competition - for Moslem culture radiated from a number of centers distributed all the way from Samarkand to Seville - and the stimulus of the classical models, they succeeded in advancing the cause of every known science before being overtaken by a tyrannical obscuranticism.
For example, the Moslems of the Eastern Caliphate had become familiar with Claudius Ptolemy's Almagest and Geographia through Syriac translations and through versions of the original Greek text. A manuscript of the Kitab al-Majisti, or Almagest ( meaning 'the greatest' ), was translated into Arabic in the days of Harun ar-Rashid by that caliph's vizier, Yahya, and other translations appeared during the middle part of the 9th century. Study of the Almagest stimulated Arab scholars and incited them to write such original treatises of their own as Al-Farghani's On the Elements of Astronomy, Al-Battani's On the Movements of the Stars, or Astronomy, and Ibn Yunus' Hakimi Tables.
Furthermore, Ptolemy's Geographia was certainly known to the Moslems in Syriac translations and probably also in copies of the original Greek text. With the Geographia as a model, a number of Arabic treatises, usually entitled Kitab surat al-ard, [Book of the Description of the Earth], were composed at an early period of Islam and served as bases on which later geographical writers built more complex systems. One of the most significant was the Kitab surat al-ard of Al-Khwarizmi, composed about the time of Al-Ma'mun (813-833 A.D.). From another book of the same sort and title Al-Battani derived the geographical details included in his Astronomy. The latter was translated into Latin during the 12th century; the former was known in Europe only through second-hand sources.
Most Arab cartographers also used Ptolemy's instructions in the construction of their own maps. With this basis the Moslems combined the accumulated knowledge gained through exploration and travel. Moslem trade between the 7th and 9th centuries reached China by sea and by land; southward it tapped the more distant coasts of Africa, including Zanzibar; northward it penetrated Russia; and westward Mohammedan navigators saw the unknown and dreaded waters of the Atlantic. Their own enlarged knowledge of the explored-world helped to broaden their cartographic outlook, and the preeminence of their civilization was soon acknowledged by contemporaries. Arab astronomers continued the observations that had been discontinued in Greece; they measured an arc of the meridian by observations made in Baghdad and Damascus; they constructed improved astronomical instruments and set up observatories. As a general rule, however, the Arabs were very stylized cartographers; they were apt to use the compass and ruler far too often so that land contours became stereotyped and rather arbitrary, as can be seen in maps by al-Istakhri, al-Kashgari, and Ibn Said .
Over the years, these enlightened Arabs injected new life and a storehouse of knowledge into the relatively backward science of Western Europe, and, for centuries, Arab culture actually dominated the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily. However, in the 11th century the Norman conquerors were beginning their advance westward and southward, overrunning the littoral of Western Europe, reaching the Mediterranean and establishing themselves in Southern Italy between 1066 and 1071. These new rulers preserved much of what was best of this Arabic tradition and culture, and Moslem scholars played a brilliant part in the intellectual life of the court. The Norman king was Roger II Guiscard of Sicily (1097-1154) who was active in encouraging science and learning of all areas, but was himself a devotee of geography, occupying much of his spare time in collecting Arabic geographical treatises and in questioning travelers about distant lands. Palermo was one of the great meeting places for sailors, merchants, pilgrims, crusaders, and scholars from all nations. Their accounts of distant lands could be heard, and it is not surprising that at the court of King Roger the idea was conceived of compiling a book and a map from all of these diverse reports.
It was, therefore, at Roger's instigation and patronage that Abu Abdullah Ibn Idrisi (born 1099 at Ceuta) was summoned to his court to collaborate with him in the compilation of a book containing all available data on the latitude and longitude of towns, the distances between them, and their distribution in climate zones. Furthermore, we are told that Roger provided Idrisi with special facilities for the construction of maps to accompany the resulting treatise, usually known as his Geography, or, to cite the translation of its Arabic title, The Recreation for Him Who Wishes to Travel Through the Countries. Idrisi was much traveled himself and, unlike many other Arabs of his time, had been to France and England as well as Central Asia and Constantinople. Also, as a student at the University of Cordova, he had access to the rich repository of information on various countries collected there.
In addition to Idrisi's personal travel and scholarship, it appears that the king and Idrisi together selected "certain intelligent men", who were despatched on travels and were accompanied by draftsmen. Just as soon as these men returned Idrisi inserted in his treatise the information which was thus communicated to him. Therefore, on the basis of these observations made 'in the field', and from data derived from such sources as Ptolemy and earlier Arabic and Greek geographers, geographical information was critically compiled, correlated, and brought up to date. The resulting book and associated maps took 15 years to amass and are, for this and the above reasons, unquestionably among the most interesting monuments of Arabian geography. In addition, the book is the most voluminous and detailed geographical work written during the 12th century in Europe.
The plan of this treatise is simple, though somewhat artificial. After a brief description of the earth as a globe, which he computed to be 22,900 miles in circumference and judged to remain stable in space like the yolk in an egg, and of the hemispheres, climates, seas and gulfs, Idrisi launches into a long and detailed account of the regions of the earth's surface. He takes up the seven climates in order, dividing each climate into ten longitudinal sections, an artificial arrangement started earlier by Islamic astronomers. These seventy sections are described minutely, illustrating each section with a separate map. When put together, these maps constitute a rectangular world map similar to the Ptolemaic design.
Idrisi fused elements from East and West with Arab knowledge to produce a world-picture. He was critical of traditional sources (even though he squeezed his map into a climate-zone framework) and he gathered much of the data for his map not only from contemporary lore and explorers' reports, but also from charts or from books of sailing instructions the Greeks called Periploi (these charts dated back to a mariner named Scylax, who kept a periplus, or record, of his voyage around the Mediterranean in about 350 B.C.). Idrisi's map of 1154 took the form of a silver tablet, probably measuring 3.5 X 1.5 meters (12 X 5 feet); later, in 1160, this tablet fell into the hands of a mob and was smashed to pieces. In 1154, a few weeks before Roger's death, manuscripts of the book in Latin and Arabic were completed, together with the rectangular map, which was drawn on 70 sheets, along with a small circular world map. Roger named this book Nuzhat al-Mushtak, however the author named it Kitab Rudjar, i.e.,The Book of Roger, and the map, Tabula Rogeriana.
According to Arab sources, Idrisi composed another more detailed text and map in 1161 for Roger's son William II. While the first book was sometimes entitled The Amusements of him who desires to traverse the Earth, the second bore the title The Gardens of Humanity and the Amusement of the Soul. Although his second work is not extant, a shortened version with the title Garden of Joys (1192), has survived; this work consists of 73 maps in the form of an atlas, and is now known as the Little Idrisi. There is a substantial difference between the two versions of 1154 and 1192. The latter map is smaller and contains fewer names. The maps are of the kind divided into climatic zones, although Idrisi did not stick slavishly to the Greek models, since he had at his disposal entirely new material. It is unfortunate that he tried to follow the classical arrangement of zones, since the quantity of material he had collected made the seven parallel belts overcrowded and the general picture distorted. He appended to his text a small circular world map which marked a definite advance on its predecessors, although its shape and small size limited the accuracy of his portrayal of the hemisphere. Further, decipherment is made very difficult by the Arab method of omitting the vowels when writing names, which were, in any case, garbled by Idrisi's copyists. Consequently a large number of place-names cannot be localized accurately. The text of the accompanying book is a great help in this respect, since it describes some features of places and details the routes and distances between various points.
Idrisi's works are of exceptional quality when considered in comparison with other geographical writings of their period, partly by reason of their richness of detail, but mainly because of the afore mentioned 'scientific method' that was employed, a procedure which was indeed unlike that adopted by most Latin scholars of that era. An examination of Idrisi's knowledge of Africa will show by way of example, the extent of quality found in this treatise.
The first division of the first climate commences to the west of the Western Sea, which Idrisi called the Sea of Darkness. "In this sea are two islands named Al-Khalibat [Fortunate Isles] where Ptolemy began to count longitudes and latitudes (sic) .... nobody knows of habitable land beyond that. " In this southern most section he places a number of important towns including the problematical Oulil [Cape Timiris ?] which, he tells us, " is situated in the sea not far from the shore and is renowned for salt". Much of the trade in this commodity with the Sudan was done with the help of ships which carried it from the town of Oulil
. . . a days journey to the mouth of the Nile [i.e., Senegal River, or Nile of the Negroes] and mounted the river as far as Silla, Tacrour, Barisa, Ghana . . . [and] to all the Sudanese towns. The greater part of the country is only habitable on the borders of the Nile for the rest of the country . . . is desert and uninhabited. There are arid wastes where one must walk two, four, five, or twelve days before finding water . . . The people of Barisa, Silla, Tacrour and Ghana make excursions into Lamlam [probably identified with the hinterland of the Ivory/Liberian coasts] bringing natives into captivity, transporting them to their own country and selling them to merchants.
In the second section of this first climate, Idrisi describes, among others, the lost city of Ghana, farther to the east,
. . . the most considerable, the most densely peopled and the largest trading center of the Negro countries. . . From the town of Ghana, the borders of Wangara are eight day's journey. This country is renowned for the quantity and the abundance of the gold it produces. It forms an island 300 miles long by 150 miles wide: this is surrounded by the Nile on all sides and at all seasons . . . The greater part [of the gold] is bought by the people of Wargalan [i.e., Wargla] and by those of Western Maghrib [i.e., Morocco].
Following the Nile, still eastward, "we find the nomadic Berbers who pasture their flock on the borders of a river flowing from the east, debouching into the Nile stream". Beyond, in the fourth section of his first climate, we come to
. . . the place where the two Niles separate, that is to say, first, the Nile of Egypt which crosses the country from the north to south, and second, the branch which flows from the east towards the western extremity of the continent. It is on this branch of the Nile that most of the large towns of the Sudan are situated.
It is clear that the part of southern Africa which is extended far to the east is a legacy from Ptolemy, but Arabian seafarers had taught Idrisi that the sea was open in the east, and in his own commentaries he writes: "The Sea of Sin [China] is an arm of the ocean which is called the Dark Sea (the Atlantic]".
These few extracts are characteristic of Idrisi's method and his content. From them we see, for instance, that Ptolemy's authority no longer commanded unreserved adherence; Ptolemy placed the Nile's source south of the Equator, in the Mountains of the Moon, and had no sympathy with the idea of a dual Nile. We see further that there was already, by the 12th century, a regular commercial exchange between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sudan, and that reliable information concerning these southern lands was beginning to filter through to the European centers of learning. When we recall that exact hydrography of the land of the Western Nile was not discovered until the 19th century, Idrisi's narrative assumes a profound importance. The authenticity of many of the places that he mentions is indisputable. Thus Ghana (situated near Timbuktu), Silla [possibly Ysilgam of the Valseccha portolan chart of 1434] and Tacrour [Tekrour on the Senegal] were, for a time, flourishing centers of Moslem culture. The reference to Wangara implies a knowledge of the flood region of the Niger, above Timbuktu; and the mention of the salt trade of Oulil suggests that there were, in Europe, faint glimmerings of knowledge about the Senegalese coast, even as early as the mid-12th century.
From a modern point of view, Idrisi's Ptolemaic leanings give a markedly retrograde character to certain portions of his work, such as East Africa and South Asia; despite his narrative of the Lisbon Wanderers (see Beazely, vol. III, p. 532) he fully shares the common Moslem dread of the Atlantic. Thus, at the beginning of the first, fourth, and sixth climates Idrisi dwells upon ". . . the thick and perpetual darkness brooding over the Western Ocean, and adding to the terrors of these black, viscous, stormy, and wind swept waters, whose western limits no one knew". His rigid climatic system, treating the Terra Habitabilis under seven zones, from equatorial to polar regions (the description proceeds section by section, from West to East, through each zone, beginning with the most southerly and finishing in the extreme north), and ignoring all divisions whether physical, political, linguistic, or religious, which did not harmonize with these of latitude, is unfortunate and confusing.
On the shape of the earth (remaining 'stable in space like the yolk in an egg'), he is perfectly satisfied with the "opinions of most philosophers", and believes it to be unquestionably spherical. "Some object that waters could not remain upon a curved surface, but it is certain that they do so remain, maintained by an equilibrium which experiences no variation."
Idrisi was not, however, able to put the countries around the Baltic into proper shape, even though his notes show him to have been familiar with a great many places there, as in the rest of Europe. He had no doubt met travellers and merchants from Scandinavia at the court of King Roger and received important information from them, but we know that the Arabs too had connections with the Baltic peoples and also those in Russia at that time. Idrisi knows of Danu [the Danube], Arin [the Rhine] and Albe [the Elbe]. He mentions Denmark and Snislua [Schleswig], and describes Norway as if it were an island. Curiously, Idrisi notes that in the Baltic there is an Isle of Amazons.
In view of its modernity and high intrinsic worth, it is difficult to understand why Idrisi's work, composed as it was at the chronological and geographical point of contact between the Islamic and Christian civilizations, remained so long un-utilized by Christian scholars in Sicily, Italy, or other Christian countries, until we remember that the primary - we might even say the sole - interest of the Latin West in Arabic literature centered on the preparation of calendars, star tables and horoscopes, and, to some extent, the recovery of ancient lore. Certainly the influence of Idrisi's Geography could not have been great in the world of letters or else traces of it would more easily be detected in Western literature. Unlike a multitude of Arabic writings of far less intrinsic value, the Rogerian Description found no Gerard of Cremona (translator of Ptolemy into Latin) to put it into Latin, and the authoritative geographical knowledge of the Western world was destined to develop unenriched by the treasures which Roger and Idrisi together had amassed. The first translation known of Idrisi's work was published in Rome only in 1619, and then in a very much shortened form (the translator did not even known the author's name). While in the world maps of Marino Sanudo and Pietro Vesconte we find Idrisi's influence very apparent here and there , and although his record of the Deceived Men of Lisbon and their explorations in the Western Ocean may have had a certain effect in stimulating the later Atlantic enterprises of Christian mariners, the Geography of Idrisi never seems to have become a European textbook.
On the other hand, there is no question but that the Sicilo-Norman enthusiasm for geography exerted an indirect influence on the evolution of geographical knowledge, an influence that was to make itself felt more especially after the close of the Crusades period. This enthusiasm was the product of a mingling of Arabic scientific and scholarly traditions with Norman maritime enterprise in an island which occupied a central position in relation to the world of its day. It was an enthusiasm that arose partly from pure love of knowledge but also in very large degree from the practical necessities of a sea-faring people, and it was early applied to the solution of the problems of navigation. As late as the 16th century, at Sfax in Tunisia, seven or eight generations of a family of cartographers called Sharfi, produced world maps based, at least as far as the eastern parts are concerned, on Idrisi maps, although they also show the later influence of European sea-charts.
In 1551 a cartographer of the Sharfi family drew a sea atlas accompanied by a small, round synoptic map which is similar to the Idrisi maps. The view that Arab cartography turned the clock back when it broke away from the Greek traditions, represented by Ptolemy, is unfounded. Compared with medieval monastic maps, the Arab maps show a considerable advance in design and geographical content; in fact, as we said, Idrisi's adherence to one of the basic principles of Greek cartography - the division into zones had a deleterious effect on his work. What other sources could Idrisi have used ? Had the Ptolemaic maps, found in Byzantine manuscripts of Ptolemy's Geography, been in existence at that time, would they not found their way to the court of Roger II ? And would Idrisi, knowing of them, have chosen to ignore them ? It must be assumed that no such maps were available to Idrisi, although there seem to have been some lists of positions from which a map could be constructed. Idrisi, having no good maps at his disposal, based his own on routes and distances between places, which he distorted by forcing them in to the conformity of zones.
In spite of this error, his maps are undoubtedly the expression of a new spirit in medieval cartography. (Oxford Pococke Manuscript, Bodleian Library, Oxford)
devam ediyor
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