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The Waldseemüller map being assembled
Disturnell map of 1847 confirms original name of Atlanta
Over 33,000 visits to the Field Museum exhibit so far
Modern artists and the 'Festival of Maps'
A round-up of exhibits in the 'Festival of Maps'
The Waldseemüller Map to go on display next week
A glimpse of the Peutinger Table spread out
A map of Taiwan owned by the Qianlong Emperor coming up for auction in Beijing
The place of al-Idrisi in Islamic science
Landing maps for Omaha and Utah beaches for auction
The New York Times on the latest map books
Interactive replica of the Field Museum exhibit
More on the 'Sea of Corea' and 'Sea of Japan' controversy
A Vietnamese map collector
A piece on the American Geographical Society (AGS)
Elizabethan tapestry map to be exhibited next year
Interview with Vincent Virga
Adolf Hitler's Globe Sells for $100,000
Saumerez family archive acquired by Suffolk Records Office
How to make an unconvincing map fake
Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum exhibition opens
Mapping a Continent: Historical Atlas of North America, 1492-1814 just published
A hyped story about the 1678 Vivier map of the Paris environs
Video commentary on Chicago History Museum's exhibition
Iran steps up its 'war on toponymy'
"Mapping the Self": preview of another 'Festival of Maps' exhibition
News about the World Digital Library, due to be launched next year
'Historical Maps of County Clare' shortlisted for an award
Dedication of a new East Asian Library at Berkeley
Elizabethan map of Hailes Abbey in the Cotswolds discovered [missed earlier]
Some of Pakistan's archives found in the roof of a Karachi building
When the exhibition at Chicago's Field Museum moves to Baltimore admission will be free
Earliest known survey of Sir Walter Scott's estate found
Minneapolis exhibition, "The Map that Named America, 1507-2007", opening on October 1st
The International Camapaign for Tibet uses maps
Chicago History Museum's exhibition opens
Globe exhibition opening in Venice next week
'Ancient artists drew accurate topographical maps of the Horus Road' in the 13th century B.C.
Newport News Mariners' Museum will move its maps
US road map collectors meet in Texas
Delft University of Technology to put its cartographic 'treasures' online
More of the Field Museum's forthcoming exhibits described
The Rhode Island Historical Society to put its catalogue online
Tampa Museum with large Florida map collection to open next year
The Vallard Atlas cited for its 'genuine' portrait of Jacques Cartier
Fire insurance and landownership atlases digitised at Harvard
Norman Leventhal gives $10 million to the Boston Public Library's Map Center
The 178 maps he is donating - about half of Leventhal's collection since he purchased his first map of Boston in London in the
early 1970s - will join 200,000 maps already at the library. All of them, both originals and reproductions, will be used
increasingly in an educational outreach program for students in Massachusetts and the rest of the nation, funded by the Leventhal
gift, library officials said yesterday ... Among the 400-piece Leventhal collection: John Seller's "A Mapp of New England," from
London in 1675, was the first large detailed map of the region. A map published in Paris, "Plan de la Ville et du Port de Boston,"
is from 1764 and shows early Boston, the little Shawmut Peninsula, almost cut off from the mainland. "Map of the city of Boston
and vicinity" is a 1908 lithograph, in pale pink, yellow, and green. Leventhal's maps are a priceless collection of depictions of
the world dating back to 1486, documenting the discovery of the New World and following the development of Boston and New England
into the 20th century.
The maps are being digitized and put on line - about 800 are already available - and that effort will now be accelerated, Boston
Public Library executives said. In a couple of years or so, a permanent space will be created for the map center in the library's
original McKim building at the main branch on Boylston Street.' [Extracts from a much longer article]
Newberry Library receives four wall maps from Boeing
'Chicago puts maps in the hands of the world'
Norman Leventhal at 90
German-Polish war booty dispute related to maps 'The Polish government is demanding
billions of euros in compensation from Germany for cultural artefacts which were stolen or destroyed during the second world war,
after accusing Berlin of trying to rewrite history. The foreign minister, Anna Fotyga, said a list was being prepared of all the
cultural treasures Poland lost to Germany, in a riposte to a recent call from Berlin for Poland to return "war booty" it said had
been stolen from Germany.
'Ms Fotyga said Poland had stolen nothing from Germany, rather the German cultural treasures in Poland were "left behind by fleeing
Nazis" at the end of the war and according to international law "they belong to Poland". Ms Fotyga, whose government faces an
election in October, instead urged Germany to recognise the cultural devastation it had wrought in Poland. "We estimate our losses
to be more than $20bn [£10bn]," she said.
'Germany's demands last month for the return of thousands of works of art it claims are being hidden in secret depots in Poland,
has angered Poles, aware as they are that following the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, the Nazis spent three months systematically
destroying the Polish capital, including burning the national library to the ground as well as hundreds of other libraries and
archives housing valuable medieval scripts and priceless manuscripts. Before that, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring ordered the
plundering of castles, museums, palaces and manor houses across the country. The symbol of that destruction is a glass urn
containing the ashes of a burned book from the once famous Krasinksi library in Warsaw, which was destroyed by the Nazis. The
items Germany wants to see returned include rare maps and illustrations, letters from Goethe, Schiller and Luther as well as music
by Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, part of the so-called Berlinka collection, which is housed in Krakow's Jagiellon library.
'The items ended up in Poland after libraries in Prussia moved their most valuable belongings to the region of lower Silesia for
safe keeping from allied bombing raids. Subsequently these areas became part of Poland after its border was moved westwards after
the 1945 Potsdam conference.'
Preview of one of the upcoming Chicago exhibitions, on botanical maps
Canadian insurance company to digitise its maps
Maps of Japan coming to Seattle
LC summer interns edited the Sanborn database and scanned the Cassini map of France
A California county receives official funding to restore its map collection
Five cartographic items among 'treasures' from UK regional public libraries
BBC2 Wales series on Ogilby's Roads, with Terry Jones
Salvaged Canadian canal maps put online
Eight million New Zealand cadastral plans being reissued
'Heritage Imprints takes a digital copy of a plan to restore it to what it would have looked like when
the surveyor originally lodged it in the Land Office, Rennie said. The original plans contain a wealth of historical information
because the early surveyors usually included the names of homeowners or tenants, and were so meticulous they even sometimes drew
the location of the outside toilet and the fowl house, Rennie said. These plans are usually consulted only when a surveyor needs
to delve into issues relating to access and boundaries. He said the database gave him access to about eight million plans dating
from 1840-1972.'
'Old maps' cited in border dispute on Lake Albert
What to do with those 'old maps'?
Accurate geological maps vital to military tunnellers in 1917
Yale seeks a new head of its map collection
Recent auction prices for early maps
A 1669 wall-map of Africa presented to a Boston university
The search continues for the Arlington chair in the history of cartography
More digitised maps for Harvard's Center for Geographic Analysis
Old maps used as a base for a history of the steel town, Bethlehem
Major reorganisation at the New York Public Library
Centenary of the death of the founder of the Mitchell Library honoured
The mapping of 19th century Nova Scotia
400th anniversary of the great Czech cartographic etcher Hollar
Construction Under Way for Encasement of Waldeemüller Map
Environmental threats to US local archives
Exhibition and series of talks about the maps of Cape Cod
Sheldon Tapestry Map acquired by the Bodleian Library
Technical information about the electronic versions of the U.S. Serial Set Maps Digital Collection
The contract for 'the Scottish equivalent of the Mayflower'
Edinburgh Central Library to digitise selected maps
Creator of the 1972 New York subway map claims it was not abstract enough
How to fake (badly) ageing on a map
The oldest plat map of La Crosse county, Wisconsin (1874) now available for research
Captain John Smith's map of Virginia found to be very accurate
Display of a six-feet wide map of the mountain home of Manjushri, Bodhisattva of Wisdom
Roy map of Scotland (1747-55) to be placed on the NLS site
Russia puts on an exhibit of old maps of Bulgaria to welcome its prime minister
'Underground Railroad' tunnels in Brooklyn, or just porches?
New Mexico coalmining maps sought
Which maps were used for this super jigsaw?
Maps among material lost in Georgetown fire
May 3, a note to MapHist from
Matthew Gilmore explained that the damage was much less than thought initially: 'The fire having started on the opposite side
of the building, Peabody was untouched by flames. Heat did damage some materials. Materials did get wet from fire suppression
efforts (and smokey). Wet materials have been shipped off to Texas to be frozen and dried. Some materials did not even get wet
and have been shipped to the Washingtoniana Division where they will be made available (in due course). So, miraculously,
despite early fears, the Peabody collection has not been destroyed; some materials damaged, perhaps a few things lost, but a
far better result than anyone could've imagined.' See also the 2 May piece by Brett Zongker for Associated press <
http://www.examiner.com/a-707244~Historic_library_archives_remains_largely_intact_after_fire.html >.
30 April has been designated 'Persian Gulf Day' in Iran
Maps feature in upcoming National Gallery of Art exhibition
Cataloguing of the Minasian Collection of Near Eastern manuscripts (including maps)
Volume 2 of Philip Burden's The Mapping of North America is now published
1507 Waldseemüller map in the news again
Map anotations reveal the knowledge available to the ANZAC forces at Gallipoli
Harry Beck's map of 1933 still determines how an underground map should look
A sneek preview of the Chicago Field Museum exhibition
Higher than estimated prices for early cartographic material
Old maps 'with an agenda' to go on view in Norfolk, Virginia
Exhibition of Africa maps at Princeton from 15 April
Old Utah mining maps wanted - for historical and safety purposes
Indian Trail Trees and early maps
Exhibition of New England maps at Historic Deerfield
David Rumsey's site mined for material on an Irish county
Jigsaw cabinet now on public display
Cartographic Perspectives launches a blog
Another claim of pre-Dutch discovery of Australia
Details of more than 20 map exhibitions in Chicago this November
An ongoing gallery of assorted maps
The cabinet containing very early jigsaw maps is to remain in the UK
Supposed censorship of past maps claimed by Macedonia against Greece
Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum previews autumn exhibition
Sea of Japan/East Sea controversy enlivened by claim that original map was altered
A fine example of the first atlas of England and Wales to be sold on March 15
1563 portolan atlas by Jaume Olives found in a safe in the Czech Republic
A WW1 trench map is being used to locate a 40 ft [12 m.] British tunnel
Who says ancient maps do not have practical value!
Early maps emerging in Providence's Brown University during the cataloguing programme
Vermont law requiring roads to be mapped may increase map knowledge and use
Library of Congress and South Korea collaboration caught up in the 'East Sea' controversy
A U.S. road map collector reminisces
John White drawings going on display next month
Why the supposed ancient origin of the Piri Reis outlines is nonsense
Map and atlas prices in December
A round-up of the prices realised at
Swann Galleries' auction on 6 December, including the Neptune François (mentioned in the title), Moll's "Beaver Map" (at $28,800),
etc.
The
brief piece about the Waldseemüller map includes an interesting illustration showing Library of Congress staff assembling the
custom-made case.
Alex
Branch, owner of a rare map, print and book shop in Buckhead, Atlanta, has, with the help of the California dealer Barry
Ruderman, identified the original name 'Atalanta' on the 1847 Disturnell 'Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico'.
Relating a visit to the Field Museum exhibit and mostly about the heart-shaped map of
1556 by Giovanni Paolo Cimerlini. This also notes that, 'as of early December, more than 33,000 people have toured the map
exhibit'.
Observations, mostly about contemporary map art (though with references to earlier maps) prompted by Chicago's Festival of Maps. "Basically the entire city is talking about maps right
now."
A series of personal, but thoughtful, reports in November on
visits to five of the exhibits in the Festival of Maps. There are
criticisms but also enthusiastic endorsement, e.g., for the Field Museum centrepiece display: 'I can honestly (and emphatically)
say that Maps: Finding Our Place in the World is one of the most impressive museum exhibits I have ever been to.' [Via The Map Room weblog].
More about the Library of Congress's Waldseemüller Map, as
John Hébert speculates about the map's origins. 'The case will be flooded with inert argon gas to prevent deterioration when it
goes on public display December 13.'
There has been
widespread reporting of the single day's display, in the Austrian National Library, of the 'Peutinger Table'. The link above includes
an unusual photo (if a small one) of the entire, 11-section, 7 metre scroll spread out. A message from Zsolt Török to MapHist describes the context - one of
three maps (among 38 documents) added to UNESCO's Memory of the World in 2007. [The other two are the Tabula Hungarie
(Hungary) and the Hereford Mappa Mundi (United Kingdom).]
An article, dated November 3rd (which has just surfaced via Google) describes a map of 1748 coming
up for auction on November 30, at Poly International
Auction (Beijing), with a reserve price of 3 million yuan (US$400,000). It was 'consigned by an overseas collector'.
'The "Complete Map of Taiwan Province of the Great Qing Dynasty" was owned by Emperor Qianlong (reigned AD 1735-1796), who is said
to have kept it in his study. The map bears the seals of the Qing Dynasty (AD 1644-1911) emperor ... Yang Yuliang, a researcher
at the Palace Museum in Beijing, which is the administrative organ of the Forbidden City, said Bai Ying, the then governor of
Taiwan, had the map completed in AD 1748 on the orders of the emperor. After receiving it from the government of Fujian, which
controlled Taiwan at that time, Qianlong put the map in his study. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, however, it fell into the hands
of a private collector. The map, which is 9.64 m long and 40 cm wide, was drawn using the brushwork of traditional Chinese
paintings.'
Discussing the impact of medieval Islamic science on the West, including the statement: 'The leading
12th-century geographer al-Idrisi, a star product of the brilliant Islamic culture that flourished in Sicily, was commissioned by
the Norman King Roger II to compile a world atlas. With dozens of maps covering areas never before charted, al-Idrisi’s atlas
became the best mapped representation of the known world in Medieval times.'
'Secret charts used for the D-Day landings have surfaced at
auction after 63 years. The maps for the Omaha and Utah beaches at Normandy were passed down through the family of their designer,
Belgian architect Hugo Van Kuyck, who himself landed at Omaha on June 6, 1944. Now the collection of maps, graphs, photographs and
details of tidal flows is expected to fetch up to £6000 at Sotheby's in London on December 13. Van Kuyck said: "The landing
operation required special maps showing part of the land, part of the sea, and more particularly the part of the beach involved."
'
A quick round-up of nine
recent map books.
A full list of the exhibits in the keynote 'Festival of Maps'
exhibition at the Chicago Field Museum, brief descriptions of the items, and a photo gallery. It is claimed to be 'the only
interactive 3D replica/gallery of a museum on the web. Essentially it’s a map of the Maps exhibit.' [Via The Map Room weblog].
"Objective evidence" from Korea's 'National Geographic Information Institute under the
Ministry of Construction and Transportation' emerged from a study, which 'looked at 400 old maps from the United States, France,
England and other European nations that included the Korean Peninsula'. The research admits that, from the late 18th century
onwards, 'Sea of Japan' became the norm. The Japanese might be expected to argue that more recent toponymy should carry greater
weight. Even if such cartographic trawling exercises have any scholarly value, they need to be carried out by independent
researchers. [The East Sea/Sea of Japan dispute has featured in earlier News entries.]
About the 80-year-old historian Professor Nguyen Dinh Dau and his collection
of about 3000 facsimile maps (kept in Ho Chi Minh City), gathered over 50 years. His old maps are his pride and joy, with the
oldest dating back to the fifth century, a map drawn by Egyptian navigators . Rounding out his collection of maps of Viet Nam is
one drawn in 1840, one drawn during the reign of King Dong Khanh (1885-88) and one of Dai Viet (the Great Viet Country), drawn in
1950. Most of these maps were drawn by British, French and German researchers.'
About the American Geographical Society (AGS) Library: an interview with Chris Baruth,
with comments on the collection's history and its link to the Chicago
Festival of Maps, whose Field Museum exhibit contains three AGS items. [See also the original press release.]
A thoughtful look at the tapestry map
of c. 1590 showing part of south-west England. One of four large maps commissioned by Ralph Sheldon, it reappeared last year and
was bought by the Bodleian Library, Oxford 'for £100,000 with the help of the Art Fund, charities and private donors ... The
combined maps, which would once have covered some 80 sq ft of wall space, offer a unique representation of the countryside from a
time when modern mapmaking was in its infancy. The tapestry weavers are believed to have used several sources for the maps, which
may be the nearest thing we will ever have to an aerial colour picture of the landscape that Shakespeare knew.' The Sheldons were
Roman Catholic and it is suggested that the maps may emphasise Catholic properties. It is to be exhibited in Oxford next January.
[Update, 23 January 2008, see announcement on MapHist.]
An interview with Vincent Virga, co-author with Ron Grim of Cartographia: Mapping
Civilizations, about maps in the collections of the Library of Congress.
'American
soldier John Barsamian found the globe in the ruins of Hitler's Eagle's Nest retreat in the Bavarian Alps in May 1945 ... Other
globes presumed to have been owned by Hitler have been extensively researched for authenticity. But there is no uncertainty about
the origins of Barsamian's wartime trophy, since he had all the military paperwork that allowed him to bring it back to the United
States, including a certificate that reads "1 Global Map, German, Hitler's Eagle Nest." "This is probably the most airtight
documentation I've run across in some time," Greg Martin, proprietor of the auction house, said before the sale. "We have pictures
of the guy there at the time, standing in the ruins holding the globe like a newborn baby."' See here for an illustration of the
unidentified globe
Material from the Saumerez family of Shrubland Hall (and others)
has been passed to the Ipswich branch of the Suffolk Records Office in lieu of tax. Some of the papers relate to Admiral Sir
James Saumarez, who served under Nelson in the Mediterranean. The extensive description includes: 'Estate records, maps, plans
and family papers. Relating to the Saumarez and other related families from the 12th century onwards, these are of great value to
those studying the development of large estates like Broke Hall and Shrubland ... A collection of maps, plans and surveys of all
the lands and tenements belonging to Henry Harwood Esquire in Wetheringsett, dated 1656.' Some of the material relates to North
America.
'Here’s a great way of taking a simple black and white
drawing and converting it into a mysterious, old map, lost for hundreds of years.' Had the results been remotely plausible I would
not be publicising this sad exercise.
A brief note on the exhibition at the Oriental Institute Museum, which opened 2 November (part of the
Chicago Festival of Maps). [With the major exhibition at the Field
Museum also opening, I will not attempt to document what will undoubtedly be a deluge of newspaper articles. See the 4 November
entry (and no doubt later ones) on the The
Map Room weblog].
'Written by Jean-François Palomino, map librarian at BAnQ, and historians
Raymonde Litalien and Denis Vaugeois', and 'jointly published with Septentrion under the title Mapping a Continent: Historical
Atlas of North America, 1492-1814, the work is an invitation to discover the riches of BAnQ's cartographic collections ... The
atlas has notably benefited from the participation of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.' The orginal French version is
entitled La mesure d'un continent : atlas historique de l'Amérique du Nord, 1492-1814.
'The Da Vinci Chalice Group proudly announced
that one of the most rare, and priceless maps in the world will go on its first public exhibition in over 300 years. The Group
stated that this has been a twenty-year project. The map, "Le Carte Particulier Des Environs de Paris," dated 1678, is nine-sheets
of 45 X 41 cm. each. A bird's eye view of Paris, it is considered to be the first correct metric style map, and the only known
hand-colored copy.' Reference is made to Lloyd A. Brown's The Story of Maps (1949), p.247, so it is not quite clear just
how it has been 'lost'. Nor are details given of where it is to be exhibited, although surviving examples are identified as in the
Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Royal Collection in Windsor, England. More confusing, and worrying, is the comment from
News-Antique.com (28 October),
that 'The davinci Chalice Group proudly announced that one of the rarest and priceless maps would be offered for public
exhibition-loan, the trust also agreed to place the Map on the market for sale.' Given that they show the map on its side
{subsequently corrected in response to this note,} perhaps we need not take their text too seriously either. Perhaps somebody
is planning to produce a facsimile?
More about the Festival of Maps, in this case Chicago History Museum's exhibit, 'Mapping
Chicago: the Past and the Possible', with an accompanying video of the author talking about selected items, and a sequence of nine
photos, under 'Related links'.[For a review of the exhibition, see the Where blogspot (29 October).]
'The Center for the Great Islamic
Encyclopedia is to send a copy of a historical Persian Gulf map to the world's scientific centers. The 284-year-old map of the
Persian Gulf will be published and presented to various universities, libraries, scientific and cultural centers in the world.'
The recipients might be well advised to return the package. Cartographically, the map is Delisle's 'Carte de Perse' (1724).
Politically, this is part of a continuing campaign by the Iranian government to use early maps in support of its claim that
Persian Gulf is the only correct name for that stretch of water. Most early maps do indeed name it thus but some used variants
of 'Gulf of Arabia', which fuels counter claims from the Arab world. Those who curate or study early maps should dissociate
themselves from any exercise that seeks carefully selected cartographic information for propaganda purposes. The continuing
quarrel between South Korea and Japan over the naming of the water that divides them is a similar example. [For earlier entries on
each of those disputes search the News archives.]
A preview of the exhibition opening on 3 November at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, part
of the Festival of Maps. "Mapping the Self" examines how the decoding
and re-encoding of information - both physical and metaphysical, with or without maps - fosters personal exploration, artistic
expression, and communication.' Two exhibits are illustrated.
'Reporters in Paris got a peak Wednesday
at a prototype for the World Digital Library, an online initiative by the U.S. Library of Congress, the U.N. cultural body UNESCO
and international partner libraries. Officials are aiming for a 2008 launch of the online site. Abdul Waheed Khan, UNESCO's
assistant director-general for communication and information, and the U.S. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington signed an
agreement to forge ahead on the project Wednesday. The concept is modeled on the Library of Congress' American Memory project, which debuted in the 1990s and now has 11
million history-related items online. The international digital
library will be free and multilingual, with contributions from around the world, including rare books, films, prints, sound
recordings and musical scores.' The prototype includes 'documents such as New World maps'. [For an earlier entry on this, see the
archive for 2005 under 22 November.]
The Internet GIS entitled 'Historical Maps of County Clare' has been
shortlisted for Chamber Ireland's Excellence in Local Government Awards 2007, to be announced on 8 November. It comprises the
6-inch OS maps of 1842, with the Petty and Grand Jury series, and others from David Rumsey's site. "The aim is to provide free and unlimited access to a digital map collection comprising a
variety of historical County Clare maps, integrated with the wealth of historical and archeological data on the library website".
It seems to be an excellent example of local government initiative.
An
illustrated article about what will be 'the first freestanding library in the United States constructed
exclusively for an East Asian collection and one of the few such facilities in the world'. It is due to open early in 2008.
The library contains 'more than 900,000 volumes of primarily Chinese, Japanese and Korean materials including woodblock prints,
rare maps and scrolls, contemporary political posters and Buddhist scriptures'.
Dating from about 1587, the map, discovered at the
U.K. National Archives, was the work of Ralph Treswell. He was a 'renowned surveyor and cartographer who was among the first
cartographers in England to produce scaled plans of estates, and [the map] was produced as part of a commission of enquiry into
the ownership of Hailes Park ...[it] shows a range of previously unknown or unconfirmed details on the estate, including the size
of the estate, the water supply, the use of the land and the position of several key buildings.'
The
Karachi Municipal Archives and Research Department (set up in June) 'has started sorting out more than 1,000 plastic sacks that are
said to contain old maps and blueprints of prominent buildings, official documents of the city’s different regimes from 1870 to
2000, roadmaps, plans of localities during the British Raj, books, magazines, letters and notifications etc.' The sacks had been
stored in the roof for the past century and some of them 'were found in extreme neglect and a highly dilapidated condition
... so far, they had preserved some maps that had been displayed in the hall for visitors.'
A piece about the decision by some American museums to cease charging for entry
refers to the Walters Art Museum,
host for 'Maps: Finding Our Place in the World', which is being billed as "the most ambitious American exhibition of its kind in the
past 50 years." This will open in Baltimore on 16 March 2008, after the original version of the exhibition closes at the Field
Museum in Chicago in January.
'The hunt is on for the original of an early map of Sir Walter Scott's estate at
Abbotsford. What experts say is most likely a copy of the map surfaced when the owner told a friend about it. The framed document,
measuring about 20in wide by 14in tall [51x36 cm], shows a map of the estate on one side and a list of names - allegedly in Sir
Walter Scott’s handwriting - on the other ... On the map, it says it is a survey done by John Morrison in 1820. The fields, parks
and woodlands are numbered up to 116, each relating to a name allegedly written in Sir Walter Scott’s hand.' Until now, the oldest
known map of Abbotsford, acquired by Scott in 1811, was one dating from 1838.
About an exhibition, "The Map that Named America, 1507-2007: An Anniversary Exhibition of the Waldseemüller Globe Gores Map
and Its Place in History ", at the University of Minnesota'a James Ford Bell Library, opening on 1 October and running until 31
December. The exhibit will 'commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Waldseemüller gores globe [i.e. globe gores], a map created
in 1507'. The article concentrates on the globe gores - as distinct
from the Library of Congress's recently purchased wallmap of the world of the same date - as being 'the first to include the word
"America"'.
'A unique collection of rare images and maps of Tibet through the
ages is now available as a calendar from the
International Campaign for Tibet. The 2008 calendar, 'Maps of Tibet: Historic Images of the High Plateau', illustrate Tibet's
history as an independent or autonomous state. The maps and images are drawn from an era when maps were an art form as well as
political representations of shifting dynasties and empires. Antique thangka paintings of Tibetan cities and monasteries
illustrate Tibet's unique architecture and culture, as well as Tibet's political status. The calendar features nine maps and three
thangka paintings with captions and a historical essay written by Princeton University map expert Tsering Wangyal Shawa ... The
calendar also serves as the official launching pad for ICT's Map Project - an initiative to collect, analyze and distribute old maps
of Asia that show Tibet as distinct from China. The chief goal of the project is graphically to show how boundaries of Tibet have
shifted overtime and to show that Tibet has had a long and distinguished history, including as a separate territory from China.
Enlarged copies of the maps are on display at an exhibition in ICT's conference room [presumably Washington, D.C.]. In the coming
months ICT will have a web presence featuring our map collection.'
Chicago History Museum's is one of the first of the 25 or so 'Festival of Maps' exhibitions to open. It 'features nearly forty historic maps, showcases Chicago's
premier globe manufacturer, and includes a number of map- related activities.' It is 'organized into three groups. The first
group includes maps that capture events, such as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.
The second group explores maps as tools for looking at people. Maps can show the life of an individual, such as Abraham
Lincoln, or record the activity of an entire community, such as the neighborhood near Hull-House or jazz on the South Side in
the 1910s and 1920s. Lastly, visitors are invited to look at the physical city in unique and thought-provoking ways. Maps in
this group explore the city in the past, the present, and even the future, including visions of Chicago as imagined in Daniel
Burnham's 1909 plan and the planning maps for the city's 2016 Olympic bid.' The exhibition runs until 6 January 2008.
To coincide with the 11th Symposium of the International
Coronelli Society for the Study of Globes, taking place in Venice, 28-29 September, the Museo Correr is mounting 'the first
exhibition in Italy to be dedicated exclusively to the theme'. "Sfere del cielo, sfere della terra - Globi celesti e terrestri dal
XVI al XX secolo" is 'curated by Marica Milanesi and Rudolf Schmidt. The exhibition includes some 142 works from the Museo Correr,
the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana and various prestigious private collections; one of these latter is the important collection put
together by Rudolf Schmidt himself ... One of the high points of the show is the result of an exceptional discovery made within
the Correr collection by Marica Milanesi: the world’s only extant mounted example of a rare and precious sixteenth-century globe
by the cartographer Livio Sanudo [Sanuto] (1520-1576), which had previously been thought to have been lost. However, the main
focus of the event is the Venetian friar Vincenzo Coronelli (1650-1718)'. The website includes a list of the exhibits and brief
details of the accompanying catalogue (not including its ISBN). There is also an album with 72 images. The exhibition runs until 29
February 2008. [Update message from Marica Milanesi on 3 October 2007 to the MapHist list, that there is a second
known example of the Sanudo globe at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.]
'The discovery of the eastern fortress of the New Kingdom military town of Tharo
in North Sinai charts the military quarters used by the ancient Egyptian to protect Egypt's northeast border. The fortified city
of Qantara East (Sharq) in North Sinai is often hailed by historians as Egypt's eastern gateway to the Nile Delta ... Early in
2000, however, the town achieved repute as an extremely fruitful archaeological site when a number of ancient Egyptian monuments
and artefacts came to light after a massive archaeological excavation project carried out by three archeological teams from
Trinity University in the US, the Sorbonne in France and the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) ... This summer, for
the second time, Qantara East was in the limelight when early last week Egyptian excavators chanced upon the fort of Tharo east
... Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the SCA, said this discovery was concrete evidence of the events depicted on the reliefs of
Seti I engraved on the north wall of the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak Temple. These relate to the military campaign to smash rebels
led by Seti I in the first year of his rule [1294]. Hawass pointed out that the discovery also showed how ancient artists drew accurate
topographical maps of the Horus Road, which stretched from Egypt to Palestine.' [Extracts from a much longer article. For a
previous reference to ancient Egypt see the Archive under 20 February 2007].
'The Mariners' Museum has agreed to move its acclaimed maritime history
library [including '5,000 rare maps and charts'] to the new $30 million Paul S. Trible Library at neighboring Christopher Newport
University. The relocation will not only provide the museum with a long-sought, state-of-the-art archival and research space, but
also give CNU its first important scholarly library collection.'
Background information
about the collecting of US road maps. Such maps will be on display 21-22 September 'at the Hilton Garden
Inn DFW Airport South in Irving, when the Road Map Collectors Association and the Texas Map Society have their annual map swap
meet'
'The TU Delft Library has a beautiful collection of old maps. These maps are kept
in the Trésor of the library. The oldest maps, available from atlases from Braun and Ortelius, are from the late 16th century. In
2007 a part of the map collection has been scanned and digitized. In the second half of 2007 these digitized maps will be made
available via the catalogue and the Trésor website.' See a sample image (enlargeable via Zoomify to very high
resolution).
More details about the November
'Festival of Maps' in Chicago, focussing on a number of the exhibits to be included in the main exhibition at the Field Museum.
[See earlier entries under 28 & 30 August 2007; for further comment see the article by Steve Metsch in the Daily Southtown,
19 September < http://www.dailysouthtown.com/news/563303,091907festivalofmaps.article >. For details of the book
accompanying the Field Museum exhibition, Maps: Finding Our Place in the World, edited by James R. Akerman and Robert W.
Karrow, Jr, see the relevant University of Chicago Press page].
'The Rhode Island Historical Society is about to jump
into the digital age. No longer will local history buffs have to drive to Providence to thumb through the society’s 600,000-item
card catalogue to do research. The group plans to abandon its 185-year-old card catalogue system later this month, launching an
electronic database that will allow anyone with Web access to search for items stored in the society’s museum and library ...
Digital reproductions of the historical items will not be available online ... But for the first time, computer users will be able
to comb through the historical society’s extensive collection and determine the location of an item from the convenience of home
... Among the items initially listed will be ... Rhode Island maps dating back to the 1700s.'
Construction is
about to begin on the Tampa Bay History Center, at a cost of $19.5 million. 'The 60,000-square-foot museum will start with 30,000
artifacts when it opens in December 2008 ... the museum recently acquired the largest collection of antique Florida maps in the
state, some dating to the 1600s ... The center will focus on the history of Central Florida.'
'An Ottawa historian has launched a campaign to place a small, largely overlooked image of a
cloaked and bearded man from a 460-year-old map of Canada at the centre of this country's historical iconography. Alastair Sweeny
said the gesturing figure with black boots and a red hat may be the only authentic likeness of Jacques Cartier, the French
explorer who first reached inland Canada. Insisting the picture has been ignored for centuries in favour of "romantic fantasy
images" showing a falsely heroic and handsome Cartier, Sweeny said the emergence of digital technology is allowing greater access
to the 1547 map and enlarged, reproductions of its "true Cartier."' About the chart of North America (click on f.9) in the
Huntington Library's
'Vallard Atlas'.
' "The two kinds of atlases we’ve recently digitized for Cambridge and Boston are called
fire insurance and land ownership atlases," says David Cobb, Curator of the Harvard Map Collection. "They’re unique and very
significant, and they really provide far more detail than the regular maps of Cambridge and Boston ... Newly digitized atlases of
Cambridge include the years 1873, 1885, 1886, 1894, 1900, 1903, and 1916. Due to copyright law, the Map Collection can’t digitize
beyond that. Digitized years for Boston atlases include 1867, 1873, 1885, 1887, and 1902, each with seven volumes. In fact, the
1867 item was the very first fire insurance atlas of Boston, made by Daniel Sanborn, a local surveyor from Somerville who founded
the Sanborn Map Company. "Unfortunately," explains Cobb, "there aren’t really any kind of similar maps prior to this date." For
those interested in seeing exactly how much Harvard Square has changed between 1873 and now, the Map Collection also plans to
georeference two of the old Harvard-area atlases and include those images in the Harvard Geospatial Library ... The digitization
of the Boston and Cambridge atlases is part of a larger Library Digital Initiative Project that the division calls "Imaging the
Urban Environment" and that involves maps from 30 cities around the world. "We’re going to start with the earliest map of each
city we have, usually somewhere in the 1570s or 1580s and then digitally capture another map of the same city approximately every
50 years, up to 1900 or so. These can then be used by students, faculty, and researchers and scholars around the world to see a
nice time-series analysis for these various cities".' [the piece includes more local detail]
'Retired Boston developer and map aficionado Norman B. Leventhal is contributing $10 million for a permanent endowment of
the Boston Public Library's map center, the library's largest gift ever. In an announcement to be made at the library today,
Leventhal, who built a significant piece of Boston's skyline and who last week turned 90, is also making a long-term loan to the
Norman B. Leventhal Map Center of 178 of his most valuable historic maps of Boston, New England, and the world.Leventhal and
library executives created the center, now in several rooms open to the public only by appointment, about three years ago.
'The four maps were originally on display at the Boeing Corporate Offices in
Chicago as part of The Boeing Collection of Art. The maps were the earliest works in the Collection and were chosen by the company
for their representations of science, humanity and exploration during a period of time when science was first applied to travel'.
The titles of the four maps, all wall maps, of which brief descriptions are provided, are:
'Hog
butchering and the World’s Fair of 1893 may have put Chicago on the map, but it’s Chicago that puts maps in the hands of the world
...' For the Festival of Maps, 'more than 25 participating museums and institutions will host cartography- related exhibitions,
lectures and events. With all this activity, the festival might seem a little hard to navigate, so we embarked on a mapping
journey of our own to pinpoint the most valuable map-related artifacts out there. Just follow our clues to uncover some of the
oldest, rarest and most important hidden treasures in mapmaking history.' Five of the exhibitions are singled out for comment.
A eulogistic biographical note on Norman Levanthal,
to celebrate his 90th birthday. As expected, it it mostly about his work as a developer, but the donation of his map collection
to the Boston Public Library is mentioned.
The following, which unusually, is given in full, has direct bearing on
a report in the IMCoS Journal 90 (Autumn 2002), pp.
60-1, by Oswald Dreyer-Eimbcke. He described how the pre-eminent Polish-German map collector, Dr Tomasz Niewodniczanski, had publicly promised to give his entire map collection to the Republic of Poland
if it agreed to return the books evacuated from the former Prussian State Library on Unter den Linden during the war. This is not
mentioned in the article that follows:
'An exhibition featuring maps revealing the global travels of plant explorers will be on display in the
Lenhardt Library located in the Regenstein Center at the Chicago Botanic
Garden from Friday, November 2 through Sunday, February 10, 2008. The Chicago Botanic Garden is one of 25 Chicago area
cultural institutions participating in the first citywide Festival of Maps ... This exhibition allows visitors to enter the age of
plant exploration through the pages of beautiful maps found in the Library’s Rare Book Collection, which holds approximately 3,000
titles from the 15th to the 19th centuries.' Three works are briefly described: Beschryving van het eiland Sumatra by
Adolph Eschelskroon, Letters from an American Farmer by J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's
Flore francaise, including the 'first biogeographical map ever published'.
'Gore
Mutual unearths its past; Old documents and maps dating to Cambridge firm's founding in 1839 are being digitized for use by
history buffs and others seeking a glimpse of region's past ... Over the summer, the company has worked with a Waterloo photo
studio to create digital versions of 2,467 historic insurance maps. The company has set up a room in its main lobby where anyone
can scan old maps of Kitchener, Galt, Waterloo, Woodstock or any number of other Ontario towns where Gore had policyholders.'
'This fall, the Seattle Art Museum
showcases the splendid exhibition 'Japan Envisions the West: 16th -19th Century Japanese Art from Kobe City Museum', which will be
presented in two parts, Part I: Oct. 11 through Nov. 25, 2007 and Part II: Dec. 1, 2007 through Jan. 6, 2008 ... the exhibition
provides an intriguing window on the early interaction between Japan and the West during the period of the 16th to 19th centuries.
[It] will include 142 cultural treasures from the Kobe City Museum, many of which have never traveled outside of Japan before. The
exhibition features rare and exquisite paintings, prints, maps, ceramics, lacquer ware, metal ware, glass ware, leather ware and
textiles ... 'Japan Envisions the West' includes rare works such as 'Depiction of the Island of Japan' (1595) by Luis Teixeira
(Portuguese, 1564-1604), which is the first map of Japan published in Europe, and a four panel screen 'Foreign Emperors and Kings
on Horseback' (c. 1610s) by an unknown Japanese artist created under the direction of a Jesuit missionary ... Halfway through the
exhibition there will be a changeover in works on paper which includes all the prints and maps. Exhibited works in part I and II
can be checked in the website. Accompanying the exhibition will be
a handsome 224 page scholarly catalogue published by the University of Washington Press.'
Each summer, interns at the Library of Congress look through the 'vast and long-forgotten copyright
deposits', searching for treasures. At the end, a selection is displayed to the Librarian. '... Thanks to the work of interns Katelynn
Chambers, Sarah McIntire and Lauren Schott, the Geography and Map Division soon will be able to make available online more than
1,000 maps. The team reviewed and edited an online database detailing the geographic coverage by more than 700,000 map sheets in
the Sanborn Map Collection. Schott, a sophomore at Sarah Lawrence College, worked on scanning, processing and indexing the
180-sheet Carte de France, the first large-scale scientific mapping of France by the Cassini family between 1687 and 1793. Using
special software, viewers will be able to zoom into specific sections of the map to see enlarged details.'
'The maps of Amador County are deteriorating, with many of the oldest ones held together by tape. But the county's
board of supervisors voted Tuesday to spend $362,761 to restore and catalogue the maps, then have special cabinets built that will
help preserve them for at least the next 300 years. The price also includes backing up the historical maps by scanning them into
digital images.' Amador County has 10,851 maps, including an official map of 1866. The article on this most
encouraging initiative talks about the conservation measures that will be necessary. Apparently other California counties are having similar work done on their maps. While it is good to hear about the digitization plans, there is no mention of putting the results on the web.
'The British Library has announced the shortlist for its national competition to make
spectacular treasures from public libraries available via the web ... Four winning libraries [one from England, Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland] will each have their nominated item digitised, converted into Turning the Pages 2.0 format and shared
with the world via the British Library website for three years, giving these treasures a far wider audience than would have ever
been possible through traditional exhibition.' [See also the piece by Maev Kennedy in The [London] Guardian 'History revealed:
quest for libraries' hidden treasures', 20 August 2007 < http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/heritage/story/0,,2152350,00.html
>]. 82 entries were submitted. The shortlist of 24 includes no fewer than five cartographic items:
'Monty Python star Terry Jones will next week follow the route of 17th century map-maker John Ogilby, who
made the first road maps of Britain. He will be starring in one of four BBC Wales films called Ogilby's Roads which will focus on
routes in the county, with Llanybri, Llansteffan and Ferryside being key locations ... John Ogilby spent seven years mapping the roads of England and Wales
between 1669 and 1676. He began when he was 69 years old. In Wales he focused mainly on Mid Wales but also spent a considerable
amount of time in Carmarthenshire ... The programme will be filmed on August 21st and 22nd and is due for transmission on BBC2
Wales in the Autumn.'
'A collection
of survey maps of the second Welland Canal [Ontario, Canada] - saved from the trash about 20 years ago - is now available for all
to see on the Internet. Since the late 1980s, the yellowed
drawings have been in the care of Brock University. The 53 maps were saved by Dr. John Jackson, a geography professor emeritus.
The St. Lawrence Seaway Authority was going to throw them out but contacted him to see if he wanted them. Jackson understood
their value and brought them to the university to be archived. Most recently, it took three weeks to scan each one and upload
them to the web, but it was a project David Sharron was determined to complete ... The maps detail land use along the canal from
Port Dalhousie to Port Colborne in the 1860s. The layout of the canal is recorded with precise detail. Even the surveyor’s notes
and measurements in both pencil and ink are visible. Lots are divided and labelled with the owners’ names, and churches, taverns
and mills are clearly marked.'
'A Christchurch man has bought the rights to a large historical archive of maps
and surveys. Chris Rennie, a public relations consultant and keen map collector, says he owns the rights to Land Information New
Zealand's database. This has given him the ability to sell historic property survey plans dating from the 1800s. Heritage
Imprints, his business, has developed a system of finding old survey plans using a property's current street address, and
reproducing the plan on art paper as it would have originally looked. "Years ago, the survey plans were put into secure archive
storage by Land Information New Zealand and today are usually consulted only when historical property boundaries need checking or
are in dispute," he said.
There
have been recent clashes between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A Ugandan commentator point out that 'it is the
small fishing island of Rukwanzi on the southern tip of Lake Albert that has come to embody the anger on both sides of the border.
Either country claims the island belongs to it although old maps seem to show that the border actually cuts Rukwanzi into two.'
No information is provided about the maps referred to. Rukwanzi, described here as 'disputed territory', is said to provide 'a
good staging ground for oil exploration and abundant fishing both in the lake and River Semiliki'.
Two suggested ways to while away time
profitably during the holiday season. Karlablogs suggests you 'Choose Unique Containers When Making Gift Baskets'. In particular,
'if you plan to include heavy items, make sure the container has a sturdy bottom. Use a paper shredder to make your own decorative
filler materials by shredding brown paper, bags, old maps, sheet music, comics, etc.' <
http://karlablogs.crewnetblogs.com/2007/08/10/choose-unique-containers-when-making-gift-baskets/ >. CathyScott illustrates 'how
to sew a customized file organizer made from pattern sheets and old maps' <
http://www.needforinformation.com/arts-and-design/how-to-sew-a-file-organizer-from-old-maps-or-pattern-paper/ >. One hopes that
'old maps' is used in both cases to mean no more than superseded maps, though even those could have had historical interest one day.
An interesting account of the background to the massive explosions carried out by the British under the
German lines on the Messines ridge on 7 June 1917. Among the tunnellers were Australians. 'Now the amazing story of the miners'
war is a central part of a new exhibition at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The exhibition, 'To Flanders Fields, 1917', opened yesterday and runs until November 25 ... T.W.
Edgeworth David, professor of geology at the University of Sydney, was part of the creation of three military companies of
Australian tunnellers ... He began to map the geology of the area, and by 1918 had produced detailed colour maps and vertical
sections showing various soil types and depths.' The Allied and German tunnellers had to listen carefully for each other.
'Accurate interpretation of the sounds heard by the listening devices depended on a knowledge of soil types, and here David's
knowledge and calculations proved vital.'
In the wake of the
upheavals caused by Forbes Smiley, Yale is seeking a curator to head up the Yale Map Collection, located in the Sterling Memorial
Library. The 'Responsibilities' section includes the following: 'Working closely with other Yale librarians and with Yale faculty
and students, the Curator will take a lead role in coordinating the Library's overall collection building and service programs
related to maps and cartography, as well as the Library’s efforts to apply new technologies to the description, storage, access,
preservation, and manipulation of cartographic materials and geographic information.'
'A rare
map of the Republic of Texas, created in 1843 by John Arrowsmith, sold for $27,440 in an online sale held July 2-18 by Old World
Auctions of Sedona, Ariz. The firm is celebrating its 30th year.' This commercial editorial mentions other 'rare and exquisite
maps'. What is not explained is that the Arrowsmith map of Texas was published in his London Atlas.
Dr. Gerald Rizzo, founder of the AFRITERRA Foundation has donated
to the Mildred F. Sawyer Library at Suffolk University in Boston an example of the Blaeu wall-map of Africa, issued in Paris in
1669 by A-H. Jaillot. A brief description and a high resolution image of the map and its surrounding panels and text can be seen here.
A successor has yet to be found for the chair vacated by Professor David Buisseret in August 2006. 'The
position commences on Sept. 1, 2008.'
'East View Cartographic (EVC)
recently delivered the latest in a series of digitization projects for Harvard University's Center for Geographic Analysis. The
most recent project involved creating a vector data set derived from over 50 ethno-linguistic maps of the African continent ...
EVC has worked ... to develop many of their paper map collections into accurate and accessible digital databases. Projects include
feature extraction from standard topographic maps, vectorizing and georeferencing multi-source historical maps into seamless
vector data sets for Europe and Africa, and creating a spatially accurate digital representation of a set of Civil War era maps.'
'As Bethlehem prepares for dramatic changes with the redevelopment of
its old steel plant, historians are trying to create a digital portrait of the community on the eve of its rise to prominence in
the steel industry ... Details from rare historic documents are being entered into a computer at Lehigh University to reconstruct
the early 20th century neighborhoods that would become incorporated as the city of Bethlehem ... Old census records, city
directories and steel payrolls from the turn of the century are being used in the Geographic Information System, which allows such
information to be layered on top of old maps.' [See also <
http://hurstassociates.blogspot.com/2007/08/article-uncovering-past-bit-by-byte.html >].
An extended piece about major forthcoming changes at the New York
Public Library, including merging the administration of the branch and research libraries. 'To lead its digital efforts, the
library recently hired Joshua Greenberg, a 30-year-old who holds a doctorate in science and technology studies from Cornell
University, and is a self-described "humanist" whose experience as a historian gives him a close understanding of how technology
can aid research ... He is also working with the map department to figure out how the maps in the Digital Gallery can be enhanced,
so that rather than being static images, as they are now, they can function dynamically and interactively, so that a user can link
from a location on a map to images of that site or descriptions from historical travel guides, or jump between maps of the same
area from different periods.'
The centenary of the death of David Scott Mitchell has just been celebrated.
'Mitchell assembled the largest collection of books, manuscripts, maps and pictures relating to Australia and the Pacific at a
time when many would rather forget the colony's convict heritage. It has become an invaluable historical record. Mitchell
bequeathed his collection of 40,000 books, manuscripts, maps and pictures and £70,000 to the State Library of New South Wales in 1907, but
only if the government would build a separate wing of the library to house the collection.' The Mitchell Library's collection i Sydney now runs to more than
100,000 maps.
A brief introduction to The Mapmakers’ Legacy: Nineteenth-Century Nova Scotia Through Maps by Joan
Dawson (Nimbus Pub., 2007) ISBN 978-1-55109-607-0 - the successor volume to The Mapmaker’s Eye (Nimbus and the Nova Scotia
Museum, 1988). The new volume was published earlier this year.
Links to two articles and a radio clip from Radio Praha celebrating the 400th anniversary of
Hollar's birth.
Further details are given of the aluminium encasement for the map [for an earlier entry see 30 April 2007].
'This week archivists, librarians and curators from Georgia and around the country are gathering at the Smithsonian
Institutions in Washington, D.C., to learn how to keep local history from slipping through their hands. Organized by the nonprofit
group Heritage Preservation and the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, the summit is a response to a discouraging survey
conducted recently that demonstrated how fast America's historic archives are disintegrating. According to the survey:
On 5 July an exhibition opens at the
Orleans Historical Society, '300 Years Mapping Orleans and Cape Cod 1600-1900'. It will run, Thursday-Saturday, until
September 1st, at the Meeting House Museum, Main Street and River Road, Orleans, Massachusetts. In conjunction with this there
will be a series of six Tuesday lectures (July 10 to August 14). The speakers include Michael Buehler, Susan Danforth, Joseph G. Garver and Ron Grim.
'The Bodleian Library has acquired at auction [Christie's, London, 7 June 2007] the missing
part of a unique series of Tudor tapestry maps. Woven in wools and silks, the Sheldon Tapestry Map for Gloucestershire is a fine
example of cartography and decorative art from the 16th century. Depicting parts of Wiltshire and Monmouthshire, the map is a part
of the set of four famed ‘Tapestry Maps’ dating from the1590s. Commissioned by Ralph Sheldon for his home at Weston, Warwickshire,
the series illustrates the midland counties of England: Worcestershire; Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire ...'
'LuraTech,
Inc...today announced that they have enabled LexisNexis to create and publish the new LexisNexis(R) U.S. Serial Set Maps Digital
Collection, using the LuraWave(R) JP2 Image Content Server, Enterprise Edition. LexisNexis ... [will] convert their digital,
historic collections of more than 56,000 maps into the standard JPEG2000 image format and provide web-based viewing features for
the maps without any barriers, additional software or browser plug-ins. LuraTech’s Image Content Server (ICS) offers several
advanced web-based viewing features that allow end users to pan, zoom and turn pages in a simple way.' This is being demonstrated
at the American Library Association conference. June 21 update: "Readex Enhances Access to 50,000 Historical Maps within
the U.S. Congressional Serial Set". <
http://usceresources.blogspot.com/2007/06/readex-enhances-access-to-50000.html > 'Readex , a leading publisher of online historical collections, announced today that it will
provide customers with superior access to the more than 50,000 maps within its definitive digital edition of the U.S.
Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980. Readex is adding authoritative cartographic records monthly and will continue until every
Serial Set map carries a comprehensive record.'
Sotheby's New York will be
selling on 21 June, at an estimated $100,000, a document detailing an agreement in 1622 for the Scotsman, Sir William Alexander,
to send the first colonists to Canada ('Nova Scotia'). Dating from the year after the Pilgrim Fathers, it is being described as
the contract for 'Canada's Mayflower'. It was signed with the ship-owner Thomas Hopkins, who supplied the vessel, the Planter, and
the vellum document remained with Hopkins's descendants until 1989. Alexander wrote an account of the voyage in his An
Encouragement to Colonies, which also contains a famous early map showing 'New Scotlande'. Update: "Historic document
lost: U.S. buyer snags 1622 contract for 'Canada's Mayflower'", by Randy Boswell in the [Halifax] Daily News, 22 June 2007,
describing the document's sale for $90,000 < http://www.hfxnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=39409&sc=89 >.
'Rare prints, photographs and cartoons, documenting 500 years
of Edinburgh's history, are to be made available online for the first time. The archives of the Edinburgh Room, part of the Central Library on George IV Bridge, are being digitised thanks to a £18,000
grant from the city's World Heritage Trust. Key parts of the collection of 30,000 maps, prints, newspapers and publications will
be available on the new website, due to be launched in July'. There are no further details about the maps involved.
The creator of the 1972 map of the New York subway system defends it against charges of
over-abstraction, on an unused section of the film
Helvetica [via Anil Dash].
'In this tutorial, you will learn how to create the
look and feel of an old antique map. You can apply this effect to new maps and wow your friends and clients. You will learn to
create the effect of burnt edges and yellowed paper.' Complete with illustration of how to debase a map of Boston. I do not
think comment is needed.
'In the La Crosse city engineer’s office, stuffed in a plastic bag atop some
shelves, was a hidden treasure: an original La Crosse County map from 1874, believed to be the county’s oldest plat map still
in existence.It remained hidden for at least 30 years before City Engineer Randy Turtenwald came across it more than a year
ago.' The publicity marks the map's return from the Wisconsin Historical Society Conservation Lab in Madison. Such plats
include landowners' names and are thus used by genealogists.
In connection with the 400th anniversary of Captain John Smith's surveying voyage up the Chesapeake Bay, a
team from the Eastern Shore Regional GIS Cooperative at Salisbury University in Maryland have used modern methods to test the
resulting maps of 1612 and 1624. '"It’s amazing, he mapped with a stunning level of accuracy," Dr Michael Scott said. "He’s out
there in this little boat navigating the hazards of uncharted territory and he was able to capture most major bends of the rivers
and everything is pretty close to scale. His map was so accurate that it was used as the prototype of the bay for more than 100
years."' The team confirmed that Smith had continued up into Delaware, and they were able to locate the correct place for a
monument. A replica 28-foot shallot will leave Jamestown on Saturday to start retracing the route. [For more on this see 'Ship
retraces explorer's voyage. The replica of Capt. John Smith's shallop scheduled to arrive in Vienna June 2' by Brice Stump in The
Daily Times on 27 May 2007 < http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070527/LIFESTYLE/705270326/1024 >.]
The Rubin Museum of Art in New York City will open
an exhibition with the above title this Thursday (10 May), to run until 16 October 2007. 'Wutaishan is an extensive complex of
mountains composed of a group of five towering, flat-topped peaks. Located in Shanxi Province, China, Wutaishan has been famous
throughout the Buddhist world since the seventh century as the earthly abode of Manjushri, Bodhisattva of Wisdom ... The focal
point of the exhibition is an intricately-detailed, hand-painted woodblock print map of Wutaishan, created in the 19th century
by a Mongolian monk at a monastery on Wutaishan, called Cifusi. Six feet [183 cm] wide, this rare map offers a panoramic view of
Wutaishan which can be read as both a primary historical record of the lay of the land and as a declaration of the political
primacy of Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhism, claiming Mongolian ethnic and sectarian identity over the mountain.'
'The most important map of Scotland from the 18th century
is set to be posted on the National Library of Scotland's website. William Roy's Military Survey of Scotland, known as Roy's
Map, was made in 1747-55, as the army needed a proper survey of the country following the Jacobite uprising. The British
Library in London holds the original manuscripts, and the NLS previously had only photocopies and 35mm colour slides ... The
XYZ Digital Map Company, based in Dalkeith, produced a digital image of the 38 large maps that comprise the survey. Each map is
made up of 30-40 panels, which were scanned and stitched together to create a seamless finish for the online map.' The map will
be available on the NLS website 'in the next few days'.
The
Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev is on a work visit to Russia from May 6-8. At one stage the 'Bulgarian delegation
will visit an exhibition of old maps of Bulgaria, part of Russia’s archives.' In an era of increased awareness of historical
political boundaries, will such tailored exhibits become a diplomatic commonplace. One wonders which maps were selected
or rejected.
There has been continuing
discussion on the web about the Underground Railroad, 'a path through land, waterways, homes and churches that enslaved blacks
took to freedom.' In the face of potential development, seven houses along Duffield and Gold streets in Downtown Brooklyn are
seeking museum status. Maps, and specifically their symbology, come into play here because 'the study consulted historical
maps and concluded, controversially, that a dashed line between the Duffield street houses represented porches, not a tunnel
connecting them'.
'In September [2006], the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources (NMBGMR) was awarded a grant of $42,000 to complete the
cataloguing and scanning of historic coal mine maps of New Mexico. NMBGMR serves as the repository for historic underground
mine maps in the state and has a collection of more than 400 such maps ... State officials are in search of maps of old mines
such as those of the many former coal camps that were located in and around Colfax County ... Officials say maps of the coal
mines in the Raton Basin are especially important because there are many inactive underground mines'. The recent grant will be
used to catalogue the remaining 100 coal mine maps at the bureau and clean up the images of the maps already scanned. No
mention of the scanned maps could be seen on the Bureau's website.
'How do you put
together a jigsaw puzzle with 18,240 pieces? Slowly. Very, very slowly. But professors at Delta College were up to the
challenge. For more than two months in a workroom above the Michigan college's library, a team of 15 professors and students
worked on the puzzle, which pictures four historic maps. Once finished, it was disassembled into 285 64-piece, 8-by-8-inch
sections, and given to middle schoolers to be reassembled at a math competition. "We're trying to show the students, parents,
and teachers if you take something bizarrely huge, organize it, and section it into smaller jobs, you can have many people do
many small jobs that add up to one large job - like computer programming" says David Redman, an assistant professor of math and
a self-described puzzle maniac. Mr. Redman calls putting the pieces together a "horrible job." But he says the longitude and
latitude lines, along with different colored continents, made it easier (but by no means easy).'
'Washington, DC -- A blaze that
devoured the roof of the DC Public Library's Georgetown branch was undergoing renovations when a fire started at about 12:20
Monday ... The library contained the Peabody Room, which houses a collection of maps, photos, art and documents on every house in
Georgetown. Archivist Jerry McCoy says the artifacts aren't replaceable and in many cases, no copies exist.' [May 2 - further
snippets of information on the fire, whose damage is currently being assessed: <
http://www.examiner.com/a-704064~Blaze_at_Georgetown_library_damages_historical_documents.html > ‘Among the dozens of priceless
historic documents and paintings housed in the library were a rare map of Civil War fortifications made inside the District...’;
< http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=3081797&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1 >
'Officials say none of the material was on microfiche or made into digital copies -- and not even the Library of Congress has
duplicates.']. Further update 22 August 2007: 'City Sues Contractor Following Library Fire', by Susan Levine for the Washington
Post, revealing that 'the city is seeking more than $13 million in damages from the Hyattsville contractor', and citing evidence that
the fire was caused by electrical heat guns < http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/22/AR2007082201794.html >.
The Iranians have stepped up their battle to
preserve the name 'Persian Gulf' against the alternative 'Arabian Gulf' . Having battled the Louvre recently (and apparently
successfully) over this issue, they have now designated 30 April as Persian Gulf Day, and created the Persian Gulf
Organization. Maybe the South Koreans will do something similar, in their dispute with Japan over 'East Sea'/'Sea of Japan'.
Our interest in this stems from the fact that earlier maps are used in evidence, though only those with the 'right' version of
the name. [There have been a number of earlier entries about each of these disputes.]
The
exhibition at the National Gallery of Art will be on display from 6 May to 16 September 2007. A number of maps (unspecified) will be
included.
'The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the UCLA Library a grant for a project to catalog, digitize and
provide online access to the Caro Minasian Collection of Near Eastern manuscripts ... "The Minasian Collection is one of the
most important collections of Arabic and Persian manuscripts of its kind, certainly in the U.S., if not internationally," said
Hossein Ziai, UCLA director of Iranian studies and professor of Iranian and Islamic studies. "Much of the content of its
manuscripts has never been systematically studied; thus, access to such a unique collection will undoubtedly lead to
groundbreaking scholarship" '. 'Early maps and atlases' are mentioned in the context of a general cataloguing project but not,
it seems the selective digitisation.
'The Federal Republic of Germany, represented by Chancellor Angela Merkel, will officially transfer the 1507 world map by
Martin Waldseemüller, known as "America’s Birth Certificate", to the Library of Congress. The map is the first document on
which the name "America" appears. The Library of Congress purchased the map for $10 million in 2003, concluding a long effort
to bring the document into the United States. The map will be temporarily displayed at the ceremony. In December 2007, the map
will be placed on permanent exhibition in a state-of-the-art encasement at the Library of Congress.' [Nancy Pelosi was to have
received the map, but is now unable to attend.] A related story in the news concerns the issue by the German post office of a
reproduction of the 1507 map spread over 12 stamps - see the homepage of the CartoPhilatelic Society, which is planning a special publication on America on stamps. A later piece by Jim
Abrams in the Ledger-Enquirer (Columbus, Georgia) on 30 April < http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/254/story/24639.html >
'U.S. given German map that named America', explains that, although the Library of Congress had bought the map in 2003, an
official transfer ceremony was required because the map was on Germany's national culture list. [For an update on the encasement see 29 June 2007].
'The map, a standard 1:40,000 scale printed map of the
Gallipoli area, is one of many issued to staff officers from the New Zealand, Australian and British armies before they landed
on Turkish territory on April 25, 1915. However, this map was the one used by Major General Alexander Godley, who commanded the
New Zealand Division. A junior officer hand-coloured the map to give an idea of the steep terrain of the peninsula and depth of
the surrounding water, and Godley himself annotated the map to indicate the type of terrain, the foliage on it, and where the
Turkish defences were believed to be strongest.' It is currently on display in the National Library in Wellington, New Zealand.
Rafa Sañudo has come in for criticism over his new map of the Madrid
metro, since he has rejected diagonal lines, leaving all junctions at right angles. His market research cannot reasonably be
faulted, since he tested the design on his mother-in-law and her bridge partners. However, many madrileños seem to prefer the
previous Beck-based version.
Exhibition
background and brief notes on some of the 130-plus 'famous or prized maps' that will be on display from November 2nd. The
exhibition is being described as 'the most ambitious cartography exhibit ever in North America'. [There are additional details
in the Map the Universe weblog. For an earlier note on the
'Festival of Maps', of which this will be a major highlight, see under 17 March 2007].
Describing the more expensive cartographic and travel
items sold by Christie's New York on 16 April, from the Frank S. Streeter Library.
The
Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk will shortly open a map exhibition, 'Envisioning Virginia 1587-1784: Early Maps of the
New World', coinciding with the foundation of the Jamestown colony. A few of the thirty maps are mentioned individually, but of
greater interest are the broader insights. 'Virginia was much more a place of myth and speculation than geography - and it
spawned map after map of often dubious credibility as European cartographers tried to grasp its unexplored interior and
coastline.' Or, in the words of Bill Wooldridge, "There are no neutral maps. None of these maps was made without an agenda",
reflected in section headings: An Imagined Eden, Territorial Propaganda, Geographical Colossus, and Spoils of War. The display
runs until 12 August 2007.[Via Map the Universe weblog. For
a summary list of the exhibits, see Paul B. Anderson's message to the MapHist list].
What looks like being a major exhibition, <
http://www.princeton.edu/~rbsc/exhibitions/main.html >'To the Mountains of the Moon: Mapping African Exploration, 1541-1880', will run
from 15 April to 21 October 2007 in the main exhibition gallery of Princton University's Firestone Library. It will be free, open to the
general public, and supported by an illustrated catalogue. '"Behind each map is a great story. The exhibition documents what the men
encountered on their incredible travels," said John Delaney, curator of the library's Historic Maps Collection. "On display are these
explorers' published narratives, open to their own maps, illustrated with their own drawings and captioned in their own words." There will
be a public lecture on opening day by Pasquale Scaturro.
'The Utah Geological Survey (UGS) is looking for maps of old abandoned mines that could be
potentially dangerous. UGS Senior Scientist Dave Tabet says, "they're generally just kind of working maps that were done by the people who
were mining it" ... Old maps like these were never published or if they were, it was by a small company, and they're not on record any more.
But they could have ended up in a collection of things passed down to a family or a friend ... The agency will make digital images of then
and then return them to the owners.'
'I've been doing some research on old maps which
have some of the trails used by the Indians on the map. If you know where the trails were, you usually can find the Trail Trees if they
still exist.' Only indirectly related to early maps, but this intrigued me - the widespread practice across the USA of trees bent over by
Indians to indicate the direction of the trail. The surviving, distorted trees (presumably over 200 years old now) can help confirm the
course of such trails, which may be depicted on early maps. There is some background about Trail Trees on the same blog, with pictures, at <
http://www.mountainstewards.org/trailtreeblog/?page_id=10 >
The Flynt Center of Early New England Life, at Historic Deerfield, Massachusetts has a new exhibition, "North by Northeast: Five
Centuries of New England Maps", running from this Saturday (March 31) to 12 August 2007. Besides printed and manuscript maps there will be
'portraits, surveyors' compasses, globes, reverse paintings on glass, powder horns, landscape views, printed diagrams and an orrery'. As
curator David Bosse explains, the goal is 'to provide greater awareness of the biases and perspectives found in most maps, since they are
always a product of their time - embodying the political, cultural and economic views of their makers'. The material is drawn from a number
of institutions.
Clare County Library has placed online 49 maps relating to
that Irish county, all taken, with permission and encouragement, from the David Rumsey
Map Collection. 'All references to County Clare in his collection have been isolated and copied ... To give a broader picture of the
source for each of these county maps, another set of the David Rumsey Maps has been published on the library website using full pages from
the individual atlases ... image compression software enables web users to quickly move around and zoom in on areas of the maps, and to
copy and save them.' With the addition of their own material, this pushes the coverage back to the
mid 17th century, to provide a 'one-stop-shop for information on County Clare'. The maps are accessed via the DjVu Browser Plug-in.
The
mahogany cabinet containing jigsaw maps that were used to teach geography to the future George III in the nursery at Kew Palace is now on
display in the Breakfast Room there. It will later be exhibited at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, east London. [For earlier
entries see under 12 March 2007 and 27 November 2006.]
'Historian and journalist', Peter Trickett, claims in his book Beyond Capricorn
that 'a small Portuguese fleet charted much of Australia's coast as early as 1522'. This theory is based on a new interpretation of charts
in the Vallard Atlas (Huntington Library, San Marino, California). 'Modern scholars had noticed that one of them closely resembles the
coastline of Queensland, aside from a point where it suddenly shoots out at a right angle for a distance of about 900 miles. After studying
the map himself, Mr Trickett came up with a new theory - that the French map-makers had wrongly spliced together two of the Portuguese
charts they were copying from. With the help of a computer expert, he divided the map in two and rotated the lower half by 90 degrees.
Suddenly the chart fitted almost exactly the east coast of Australia and the south coast as far as Kangaroo Island, off present day South
Australia.' Trickett suggests Christopher de Mendonca as the likely 'discoverer'. Typically, this report does not include any views critical
of this theory. [For further coverage, including a scan of the rotated and joined map, see Michael Perry in <
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070321/wl_nm/australia_map_dc > Yahoo News (21 March). Much enlarged and high resolution
scans of the Vallard Atlas are available here].
'Opening November 2,
2007 and continuing into 2008, the Festival of Maps Chicago is a citywide celebration of humanity's greatest discoveries and the maps that
record our boldest explorations. More than 25 cultural and scientific institutions join a unique collaboration that will feature maps,
globes, artifacts and artworks and track the evolving technology of wayfinding from ancient to modern times.' Check each of the
'Participating Institutions' for a brief note on their planned exhibition. This will be a unique extravaganza. Nothing like it has ever
been put together for the history of cartography. [For more details on the keynote exhibit at the Field Museum see 21 April 2007].
'For the next few days, I'll be posting an on-going post, of an
eclectic accumulation of maps, all sorts of maps...' An interesting assortment of current and early maps.
The story is a complicated one and the best online summary is
Peter Barber's Expert
Adviser's Statement, in which he argued that the cabinet and its contents fell within the definition of being ‘of outstanding
significance for the study of some particular branch of art, learning or history’ and ‘so closely connected with our history or national
life that its departure would be a misfortune’. The government's Press Release provides further
details. [For a later entry see under 24 March 2007, and for an earlier entry look in the archive under 27 November 2006 'The earliest jigsaw
puzzles?']
Macedonian journalists have claimed that 'the maps of ancient Macedonia had been removed from the
Military Museum in Skopje under the pressure of Greece ... which already laid conditions for its support for Macedonia’s NATO membership.'
However employees of the Museum of History in Skopje said that 'neither the ancient maps of Macedonia, nor the contemporary maps since the
time of the Balkan wars will be removed.' Another example of how earlier maps can be caught up in current political arguments.
The Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago gives a brief preview of the exhibition to
be held (November 2, 2007- March 2, 2008) as part of the 'Festival of Maps'. It will comprise 'thirty-two sheet maps and a variety of
atlases and travel narratives.'
YouTube user oniazuma has posted translated versions of
videos circulating in Japan about tensions with South Korea. One comment is noteworthy: 'South Korean claims on the islets are questioned
through the mention of an alteration of a historical map at the Dokdo Museum.' Whether any of this is true or not, it does highlight the
possibility, and danger, of another type of cartographic 'fake', namely alteration of a genuine original. [See earlier notes on the Sea of
Japan/East Sea controversy, e.g. 12 February 2007 and later, 1 January 2008.]
Sotheby's will be selling an example of
Christopher Saxton's atlas of England and Wales (1579-90) on March 15, in a sale of part of the library of the Earls of Macclesfield. Bound
in is a rare set of five charts by Giovanni Battista Boazio, illustrating Sir Francis Drake’s expedition to the West Indies and America from
1585-6. The estimate is £500,000-£700,000. 'Catherine Slowther, of Sotheby’s, said: "In my 20 years as a maps and atlases specialist at
Sotheby’s I have never handled a set of these charts, nor a finer example of Saxton’s atlas."' [Via The Map Room weblog]. [Update, 16
March: the atlas fetched £669,600 ($1.3million)]
'Historians in the department of old prints and manuscripts at the Research Library in Olomouc
have made a surprising discovery. While moving a safe containing rare documents to a new building, they found a seven-page
nautical atlas that was hand-made in 1563. The richly coloured parchment with gold and silver linings shows the Mediterranean Sea,
the Black Sea and the northern part of the Atlantic. Made by the Catalan cartographer Jaume Olives, there are only five others in
the world - in Barcelona, New York, Florence, Milan, and Valenciennes in France ... Our library is currently putting it into
digital format and you will be able to see it on our website [www.vkol.cz] in a couple of weeks. After that, we plan to make an
exact replica. But I'm not sure whether the original will be exhibited because of the insurance and safety arrangements.' The
transcription also includes information on the atlas's provenance. Among the illlustrations is one that gives an idea of size.
Corradino Astengo's listing of surviving portolan atlases and charts cites 17 productions for Jaume Olives. [Via Map the Universe weblog]. [Later update: this atlas is apparently
listed in Corradino Astengo, La cartografia nautica mediterranea dei secoli XVI e XVII (Genoa, 2000), entry Ce03 - a work
to which I do not have access.]
'Ninety years after the battle of Passchendaele, officially known as the third battle of Ypres, a group of
enthusiasts is attempting to dig up some of the key trenches of World War I ... Working from the original trench maps, they have
identified a tunnel known as the Vampire Dugout - a brigade headquarters that would have housed a senior officer and up to 50 men
... the shelter was later captured by the Germans. Flooded, buried and forgotten after the war, it has not been entered in nine
decades.' The searchers have a few weeks before the field must be ploughed.
'Centamin
Egypt Ltd., an Australian gold exploration company drawn to look for gold in Egypt by a 3,000-year-old map, will proceed with its
$216 million Sukari project in Egypt amid soaring prices for the precious metal ... The company said in 1999 that it had been
spurred to explore the site by a map of Egyptian gold sites thought to have been drawn by King Seti more than 3,000 years ago.
The map was found early last century and is held by a museum in Turin, Italy.' [For further details and an illustration of the
map, kept in the Museo Egizio, Turin, see The History of Cartography Volume 1 (Chicago University Press, 1987) pp. 121-2].
'The librarians
recently opened the equivalent of a great-grandmother’s long-neglected chest in an attic at the John Hay Library and uncovered a
treasure trove of maps - some older than 400 years - that open a window into a wide sweep of United States and world history.'
The article includes descriptions of some of the previously uncatalogued maps that will be exhibited at the Hay Library from
March 26 to April 25, 2007. [For more on the Brown University cataloguing programme, see in the archive, under 18 November 2006]
I missed the first part of this story, which describes how the need to prove the existence of Vermont roads
(as per an act of 2006) will require 'close search of early town and state maps, lotting plans, local history, surveying, deeds
and land transfers to uncover the hidden history of roads in every corner of Vermont.' In some places, local historians have
recruited volunteers to help track down the maps.
'South Korean and U.S. libraries will begin a joint project to
preserve and digitalize centuries-old Korean maps and post them on their web sites for world view ... The National Library of
Korea and the U.S. Library of Congress reached an agreement at the end of last year and will begin the digitalization process as
soon as the budget is allocated'. Not surprisingly, perhaps, what sounds like an innocous project is reported on this Korean site
because: 'The old maps held by the U.S. show the Dokdo islets and the East Sea. Japan insists it has sovereignty over the islets
located east of South Korea and argues that the East Sea should be called the Sea of Japan.'
An illustrated interview with Horwitz, past president of the Road Map Collectors
Association, who has been gathering road maps since the 1960s. [Via Map the Universe weblog].
For the first time in forty years, in an exhibition running from 15 March to 17 June
2007, all the John White drawings of the North Carolina Algonquian Indians (1585) will be on display. 'Loans of portraits,
maps and navigational instruments from the National Portrait Gallery, British Library and
National Maritime Museum among others will be used to set the scene at the Elizabethan Court.'
For details of the accompanying book and ticket purchase, see here.
A measured round-up of views about the wild theories surrounding the Piri Reis map,
from Hapgood and other