Ancient Map of the West

choi

Anna Russell, Here Be Dragon--And Map Lovers. Wall Street Journal, Nov 24, 2012.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 21291930638104.html

Note:
(a) The article stated, "The highest price paid for a map is believed to be $10 million—what the Library of Congress paid Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg of Germany in 2003 for the 1507 Waldseemüller map, famous for being the first map to name the US region as 'America.'"

Waldseemüller map
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldseem%C3%BCller_map
(a printed wall map of the world by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller [ c 1470-1520], originally published in April 1507)
(b) The article mentions "Abel Buell's 1784 work, the first map of the US published in America."

Abel Buell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel_Buell
(1742-1822; born and died in Connecticut)
(c) The article said, "'If they didn't know what was in the northwest in Alaska, they might put a big cartouche [a decorative emblem] there. Or in the interior of Africa, they might put an elephant,' said Cathy Slowther, senior specialist in maps and atlases at Sotheby's."
(i) Both English nouns cartouche and cartridge ultimately came from Medievak Latin carta "paper."
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=cartouche
(ii) cartouche (disambiguation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartouche_(disambiguation)
(A cartouche is an oblong Egyptian hieroglyphs enclosure [check section 1 Etymology of that Wiki page]. Cartouche may also refer to: Cartouche (cartography), a decorative emblem on a globe or map)


(2) Carl Wilkinson, It goes With the Territories; How maps tell us as much about the societies that produced them as the cities, continents and oceans they represent. Financial Times, Nov 10, 2012.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/0 ... c-00144feabdc0.html

(a) Excerpt in the window of print: 'The Book of Roger' reflected a moment of uneasy cultural exchange

(b) Quote:
(i) "No map is objective, says Brotton. In the early 1140s, for example, King Roger II of Sicily commissioned his close confidant al-Idrisi to produce a map that promoted his own political position ruling over a crossroads of Mediterranean cultures.

"The 'Entertainment for He Who Longs to Travel the World,' or the The Book of Roger, as it became known, was finished in 1154 and consisted of 70 regional maps that drew on Christian, Greek and Islamic traditions. What it offers is a snapshot of a moment in history when there was an uneasy exchange of ideas and knowledge between broadly Christian and Muslim traditions; in the centuries that followed, cartographers would focus increasingly on religious and cultural divides at the expense of pure topography.

(ii) "Garfield tells the story of Dr John Snow, who located the cause of a cholera outbreak in London by mapping the disease; he explodes the myth of 'Here be Dragons' ('The phrase "Here Be Dragons" has never actually appeared on a historic map'); and explores why California was marked as an island on maps for decades despite the fact that those who tried to sail around it failed. This latter tale he describes as 'the 17th-century’s forerunner to a mistake on Wikipedia – doomed to be repeated in a thousand school essays until a bright spark noticed it and dared to make amends.'


(c) My comment:
(i) There is no need to read the rest.
(ii) The article is a review on two books:
(A) Jerry Brotton, A History of the World in Twleve Maps. Allen Lane, 2012; and
(B) Simon Garfield, On the Map; Why the world looks the way it does. Profile, 2012.

(iii) The article mentioned "Gerard Mercator's projection of 1569."
(A) Mercaptor Projection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection
(a cylindrical map projection presented by the Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569)
(B) Gerard Mercator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Mercator
(1512-1594; He was the first to use the term Atlas for a collection of maps; "'Mercator' is the Latinized form of his [Flemish] name. It means 'merchant'")  

(iv) California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California
(section 1 Etymology)