"Those ancient humans who might have scratched directions in the sand or carved lines on wood were the first to practice the art of symbolic representation in the form of a map." https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/oldest-maps-world #History #Anthropology #Map #Cartography #histodon #histodons @histodon @histodons @anthropology
Source: https://twitter.com/laphamsquart/status/1666465537533313024
@bibliolater @histodon @histodons @anthropology The use of a late 19c construction (never re-construction) of the map ad mentem Eratosthenes is likely not the author’s doing, but the use of a world map to illustrate a piece about detailed maps of place reveals the deep rooted myth of cartography.
@bibliolater and I failed to give the requisite hashtags #cartography #map #maphistory !!!
@bibliolater (2) the monetary system, the trade system, the intellectual system in the Mediterranean was not medieval. To call it medieval requires adherence to early 19c myths re Columbus and the “discovery” of the new world creating a new mentality I.e. “the West”
@bibliolater (3) to call 15c medieval requires drastic oversimplifications and an ideology of a triumphal Renaissance that sets Europe/West apart from the rest of the world. The ideology was key in 19-20c imperialism, but just doesn’t hold water.
@bibliolater (4) and why insist on “medievalism” “at a very far stretch”? That formula requires one to acknowledge all the many ways that 15c Venice was NOT medieval in character.
@bibliolater in this case, Prof. Smith is talking about map making in a city on the cutting edge of geography. Others in Venice were working on editions and working out implications of Ptolemy’s Geography, released ca. 1410 in Latin. Fra Mauro was working in part on a commission from the Portuguese, who’d been pushing new Atlantic voyages since 1420s.