The Selden Map

choi

Alexandra A Seno, How China’s Selden Map Rewrote History. China Real Time, May 29, 2014 (available now).
blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/29/how-chinas-selden-map-rewrote-history/
(exhibition review on Mapping Ming China’s Maritime World; The Selden Map and other treasures from the University of Oxford. Mar 21-June 23, 2014 at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum 香港海事博物館 (a private, nonprofit organization established in 2004))

Note:
(a) "Dr Robert Batchelor, a researcher in early Sino-European relations at Georgia Southern University * * * recognized the document for what it was: a maritime trade chart from the Ming Dynasty. Today, the map represents a shift in our understanding of the roots of global trade. * * * The Selden Map, as it is known, is the oldest surviving merchant map of its kind. * * * Merchant navigation charts are today a rarity. Imperial libraries considered commercial maps unworthy of scholarship, so few have been preserved."
(i) The English surname Batchelor is "status name for a young knight or novice at arms, Middle English and Old French bacheler (medieval Latin baccalarius), a word of unknown ultimate origin. The word had already been extended to mean ‘(young) unmarried man’ by the 14th century, but it is unlikely that many bearers of the surname derive from the word in that sense."
(ii) Georgia Southern University
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Southern_University
(public; in Statesboro, Georgia; Founded in 1906, it is part of the University System of Georgia)
(iii) The English surname Selden came from “Selden Farm in the parish of Patching, Sussex, probably so called from Old English s(e)alh ‘willow’ + denu ‘valley.’”

(b) “‘This is the most crucial discovery on the Ming Dynasty in a century,’ said Dr JIAO Tianlong 海事博物館總館長焦天龍, the museum’s chief curator and one of the world’s leading experts on Ming trade history. * * * The map’s illustrations provide evidence of Ming China’s strong seaborne economic and cultural ties with Southeast Asia and the Arab world. They also show the trade routes that connected China to Europe and the Americas. ‘This map tells the story of early globalization,’ noted Dr Jiao.”

(c) photo legend: “Blue-and-white kendi water flask with landscape decoration, probably for the Southeast Asian market, circa 1600 to 1630--Ashmolean Museum of Art and Arch”
(i) Indonesian English dictionary:

kendi (n): “jug; jar”
www.englishindonesiandictionary. ... esian-english/kendi
(ii) English dictionary:

kendi (n; from Malay kendi, from Sanskrit kuṇḍa or kuṇḍika “water pot”; plural: kendis or kendi):
"container of Asian derivation, usually handleless, used to hold liquid with a broad opening on top for inserting liquid and usually only one spout for pouring"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kendi