0 Map of the Week 9-12-2011: Geographical Art at the RGS

Drawing made with GPS tracking in Hyde Park near the Royal Geographical Society headquarters in London.  It has the letters “RGS” and this year’s RGS/IBG conference logo mapped out.

“I record all my journeys with GPS to map where I have been and how I got there.  It is a form of personal cartography that documents my life as visual journal....The GPS model was created as a physical reference to a history of geograms that can be traced back to the Nasca Lines made in Ancient Peru and the chalk figures carved into the English landscape. In both cases they were made by either clearing a path by the removal of stones or of topsoil over large areas. They revealed signs, not entirely visible from the ground, projected towards the skies like symbols on a map to be seen by the gods,” Jeremy Wood, artist

“Artist Jeremy Wood will be in residence at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) in London this week as he turns Hyde Park into a blank canvas for almost 1,500 delegates at the Society’s annual International Conference [August 31-September 2, 2011].

Using global positioning system (GPS) satellite technology, Jeremy creates art works by turning his journeys by foot, bicycle and train into fascinating shapes, patterns and words. Tracking his every move for the last nine years, Jeremy is never without the GPS devices that inspire his art.

'The theme of this year’s conference is the ‘Geographical Imagination’ and I want geographers to show me what they can create,' Jeremy said. 'The images I’ve created over the years explore people’s perception of open space – the places they can go and places they can’t are all reflected in the images. Buildings and other restricted areas become blank spaces while roads and other routes are filled in to reveal the image.'

Using Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens opposite the Society’s headquarters in London, geographers attending conference from across the world will be able to create their own works of art. Select images will appear Jeremy’s website (www.gpsdrawing.com).

Jeremy first had the idea for his GPS art when flying back to London and tracking the places on the ground below with his GPS device. Trapped in a holding pattern above London’s Heathrow Airport, images began forming on his GPS screen and it wasn’t long before he realised the application for this down on the ground.” Text from “Walk this way for geographical art,” at

http://www.rgs.org/NR/rdonlyres/F34818CF-D6CD-4DD1-A026-4512E12A54E9/0/110901Walkthiswayforgeographicalart.pdf

Example of a GPS drawing by Jeremy Wood from the GPS Drawing Gallery.  The University of Warwick campus map was drawn on foot at 1:1 scale with 238 miles of GPS tracks walked over 17 days. From: www.gpsdrawing.com. It gives new meaning to the term "full scale map!" 

"'Traverse Me' is a map drawn by walking across campus with a GPS device to invite the viewer to see a different landscape to that which surrounds them.  It questions the possibilities of where they are and inspires a personal reading of their movements and explorations of the campus.  I responded to the structure of each location and avoided walking along roads and paths when possible.  The route was recorded with GPS technology and was walked in stages over the 300 hectare site.  My shoes turned brown in the dry fields and they turned green in the long grass.  The compass rose and the globe were paced out over cricket pitches, and the scale was measured along a narrow tractor rut.  I collided with objects and buildings, barriers and footpaths, and traipsed over the tops of multi-story car parks.  Security was called on me twice on separate occasions and I lost count of how many times I happened to trigger an automatic sliding door,"  Text from: http://www.gpsdrawing.com/maps/traverse-me.html

And this one is truly incredible - it was done at Uffington - the famous White Horse Hill.  Check it out (there's also a video about the project) at http://www.gpsdrawing.com/gallery/maps/whh-model.htm   “The model displaces our trajectories by a transferral of surfaces. It is a three-dimensional map of our systems of movement within 43 kilometres of walks made over four days. We acted as data collectors by traversing the area in order to generate the material to model the experience.  Our GPS tracks were processed and reduced in scale by 1000 times and printed as templates on cardboard sheets. They included a plan view of the journey (track position), and many strips of various lengths (distance) and widths (altitude). On each strip were score-lines with colours that indicated the varying degrees of change in the direction of the track.”

Gallery of GPS drawings by Jeremy Wood:
http://www.gpsdrawing.com/gallery.html

Slide show:

http://www.leoalmanac.org/index.php/lea/exhibition/lea_new_media_exhibition_interview_with_jeremy_wood/

Detail: Map of the Week 9-12-2011: Geographical Art at the RGS

0 My visit to the Royal Geographical Society

The Royal Geographical Society brass plaque on a large sturdy double wooden door – no, surprisingly, this is NOT the entrance! (although it may have been at one time)

Lastly, but certainly not least in my travels to England, was my visit to the Royal Geographical Society in London, established in 1830 to promote the advancement of geographical science, and counts amongst its Fellows some of the most illustrious explorers and geographers of the past nearly two centuries, including Charles Darwin, David Livingstone, Henry Morton Stanley, Robert Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Richard Burton, and Edmund Hillary.  Although the history of the Society was closely linked to colonial exploration in its early years, having absorbed both the African Association and the Palestine Association, the Society's current mission is to be at the forefront of geographical research by funding contemporary geographical research projects rather than major exploratory expeditions, a recent move that proved quite controversial amongst some of its Fellows. 

The Society’s headquarters is right outside Hyde Park, on Exhibition Road (just down the street from the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Royal Albert Hall, the Imperial College London, the Victoria and Albert Museum of art and design, and many other cultural institutions - kind of like Fifth Avenue’s Museum Mile in NYC).  Exhibition Road was so named at the time of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park in 1851, (you know, the one with Joseph Paxton’s famous “Crystal Palace,” that set the bar for World’s Fairs ever since).  The Road is all under construction right now, in a transformative effort to make the area a world class tourist attraction (in time for the London Olympics 2012).  Apparently the design recently won the New London’s Place-making Award.  See http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/subsites/exhibitionroad.aspx

The RGS Headquarters, view from the courtyard

The RGS headquarters are steeped in history, and it was more than slightly awe-inspiring to wander around the halls where so many “onlys” and “firsts” were casually displayed.  Amongst the things I found pretty amazing to see were the following: 

§  The Matteo Ricci world map, created in China in 1602.  This map was highlighted in my post about the Method of Loci – the Memory Palace.  The one here at RGS is the original!  See http://geographer-notes.blogspot.com/2011/06/method-of-loci-memory-palace.html

§  “The World on Mercator’s Projection, by Judicus Hondius, 1608, the only example known, Purchased by the Royal Geographical Society in London, 1919.”  So says the brass plaque affixed to the frame.  Just hanging in some under-lit random hallway!

§  “The World on the Stereographic Projection, by Joan Blaeu of Amsterdam, 1650, the only complete example known, Presented to the Royal Geographical Society by Lieut. Gen. Sir Arthur Paget, GCB, in 1920.”    

The 1602 Ricci map, barely visible in this photo behind VERY reflective glass, incorporating and replicating the image of Fellows drinking tea under the portrait of Sir Edmund Hillary across the room.  

 There are also many portraits of eminent and lesser-known Fellows of yesteryear - in the Tearoom, for instance, just casually hanging above the table with the coffee pots, is a wonderful oil painting of a Fellow and his wife in “Arabian dress” - James Silk Buckingham, and his wife Elizabeth Jennings, labelled on the frame as: “James Silk Buckingham, traveller and author, 1786-1855 & his wife in Arab costume of Baghdad in 1816.  Painted by H.W. Pickersgill, R.A.  Presented by H. Swayne Drewry, Esq. 1916.” 

I have no idea if this guy Buckingham (1786-1855) was a typical RGS Fellow, but I would like to think he was!  He was the son of a farmer, went to sea at age 10, was a prisoner of war in 1797 (when he was 11!), lived in India and all over the world, for that matter, toured the U.S. and Canada at a time when traveling in the New World was precarious, to say the least, (and he wrote several volumes on America, including “Slave States of America,” and “America: Historical, Statistic, and Descriptive”).  He founded and published a famously liberal and anti-East India Company newspaper in Calcutta (which got him into big trouble with the powers-that-be), wrote travel guides about the Arab world, was at one point a Member of Parliament for Sheffield (for five years), was an economic, social, and political reformer, strong anti-slavery advocate, promoted the repeal of the Corn Laws, abolishment of press-gang practices and flogging in the Navy.  Plus, of all things, he developed plans for a Model City!  (“National Evils and Practical Remedies with a Plan for A Model Town,” published in London by Peter Jackson, 1849.)  From what I can gather, his model town combines elements of Ebenezer Howard’s much-later Garden City design, and what we would today call “co-housing.”  And, best of all, medical services would be free, with doctors paid by the community, working to prevent disease rather than to cure it.  In all, a stand-up sort of person, in my estimation, and one I am proud to be in company with as a RGS Fellow!     http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/buckham.htm for the Model Town info, general biographical info at http://www.archive.org/details/autobiographyofj01buck and http://www.xjt60.dial.pipex.com/id127.htm

As well, there are first edition books of the Fellows and other sundry memorabilia on display.  For instance:

A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome, The so-called “Amazons,” The Grand Customs, The Yearly Customs, The Human Sacrifices, The Present State of the Slave Trade, and the Negro’s Place in Nature,

by Richard F. Burton, (Late Commissioner of Dahome,)

Author of “Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah”

“If a man be ambitious to improve his knowledge and wisdom, he should travel into foreign countries,” Philostratus in Appoll.

“Every Kingdom, every province, should have its own monographer,” Gilbert White

In Two Volumes, Vol. I

Second Edition, London: Tinsley Brothers, 18, Catherine Street, Strand

1864

Another amazing aspect of the Society’s headquarters is the Foyle Reading Room, where you can peruse the stacks containing past Society proceedings and journals, dating back to the early 1800’s – in their original editions.  One of the early goals of the Society was to collect information - maps, drawings, and later on, photographs – which then became part of the Society’s library.  It holds about 1 million maps, making it the largest private repository of maps in the world.  There are another million or more books, letters, photos, and artifacts, including Darwin’s pocket compass, David Livingston’s log book and manuscript maps, and slave chains he brought back from Africa.  You can check out the collections on-line at http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Collections/Collections.htm , but in the Foyle Reading Room the staff will actually fetch many of the less fragile items for you to look at, up close and personal.

The RGS began admitting women as Fellows in 1913, this after many intrepid British women explorers had rather grudgingly been allowed to give talks in the Society beforehand, but not allowed to be elected as Fellows.  In a public debate in 1893 on the matter of admitting women as Fellows, (“Can a Lady be a Fellow?”) the then-President of the Society, Lord Curzon, stated: “We contest in toto the general capability of women to contribute to scientific geographical knowledge.  Their sex and training render them equally unfitted for exploration, and the genus of professional female globe-trotters with which America has lately familiarised us is one of the horrors of the latter end of the nineteenth century.”  Meanwhile, Mrs. Bird-Bishop, having just returned from her expedition to Tibet in 1892, was invited to speak at the RGS, and refused, on the grounds that she would not speak in any venue that would not receive her as a member.   

“Women travelers are not supposed to become experts on fish (as Mary Kingsley did), or discover unknown mountain chains (as Fanny Bullock Workman did), or provide statistical information about a country (as Isabella Bird-Bishop did),” from Sarah Mills, 1993, “Discourses of Difference: an analysis of women's travel writing and colonialism.”  The irony of this ban on women RGS Fellows, of course, is that the mid- to late-19^th century was the golden age of women explorers and geographers.  See http://victorianresearch.org/wtravelbib2003.pdf for a bibliography of women travel writers from 1837-1910.  I guarantee you will be surprised. 

At the moment, the Society has mounted a very interesting exhibit of photos taken on the historic visit in 1938 of Princess Alice and her husband, the Earl of Athlone, to Saudi Arabia, (which had just become a nation a few years earlier).  Britain, of course, figured in this story of nation-building by supporting the Sauds against their Ottoman overlords in the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918, while the British were fighting the Turks anyway in WWI.  (You may be familiar with a well-known part of the story – T.E. Lawrence, the dashing British officer known as Lawrence of Arabia, who led the Arab Revolt against the Turks, and was immortalized in the 1962 David Lean/Peter O’Toole film.)

While in the Society’s Tearoom on my recent visit there, I sat near two older lady RGS Fellows, who were having a conversation about where to travel next.  The one started off by saying “well, if I’m still alive next year, I’d like to go to ….”  That’s the spirit!  Always make plans to travel, regardless of how old you are, as long as you can still move about!  

Detail: My visit to the Royal Geographical Society

0 Rediscovering African Geographies

The Catalan Atlas, 1375, by Abraham Cresques – detail showing Northern Africa, with a depiction of The King of Mali and Lord of Guinea, Mansa Musa, 1312-1337, seated on his throne in a stately fashion with crown, orb, and scepter, with the inscription: The richest and noblest King in the world.

“This ‘atlas’ was the work of a family of Catalonian Jews who worked in Majorca at the end of the 14th century and was commissioned by Charles V of France at a time when the reputation of the Catalan chartmakers was at its peak.  King Charles requested this map from Peter of Aragon, patron of the best Majorcan mapmaker of the time: Abraham Cresques.  The ‘atlas’ that resulted has subsequently been called ‘the most complete picture of geographical knowledge as it stood in the later Middle Ages.’ 

The title of the Atlas shows clearly the spirit in which it was executed and its content: Mappamundi, that is to say, image of the world and of the regions which are on the earth and of the various kinds of peoples which inhabit it.  A major impetus to the advancement of exploration in western Europe during the later Middle Ages came through the evolution and use of the nautical chart or portolano.  Designed to assist mariners find their way at sea, it served a practical purpose akin to that of the future road map, but it answered this purpose by depicting not the route itself, but detailed coastlines and hazards to shipping.  The Catalan Atlas is actually a world map built up around a portolan chart, thus combining aspects of the nautical chart by employing loxodromes and coastal detail with the medieval mappaemundi exemplified by its legends and illustrations.  The result is that the Atlas represents a transitionary step towards the world maps developed later during the Renaissance, especially by its extensive application of contemporary geographical knowledge and ambitious scope.

The crowned black man holding a golden disk is identified as Musse Melly, ‘lord of the negroes of Guinea’ - in fact, Mansa Musa, of fabulous wealth. ‘The King,’ we are told, ‘is the richest and most distinguished ruler of this whole region, on account of the great quantity of gold that is found in his land.’  Mansa Musa, who reigned over the kingdom of Mali, probably from 1312 to 1337, is known for having encouraged the development of Islamic learning.  His pilgrimage to Mecca, including a visit to Cairo, was famous for the enormous amount of gold he spent on that occasion.  This is plausible enough, for he controlled a large part of Africa, from Gambia and Senegal to Gao on the Niger, and had access to some of its richest gold deposits. Reports of the fabulous wealth of this African ruler did much to encourage an interest in the exploration of Africa. 

East of the Sultan of Mali appears the King of Organa, in turban and blue dress, holding an oriental sword and a shield.  He is, we are told, ‘a Saracen who waged constant war against the Saracens of the coast and with the other Arabs.’  Still farther to the east is the King of Nubia, ‘always at war and under arms against the Nubian Christians, who are under the rule of the Emperor of Ethiopia and belong to the realm of Prester John.’  On the Catalan Atlas, Africa is also symbolized by a nude black man with a camel and a turreted elephant.  Camels were first used for the trans-Sahara trade sometime between the second and fifth century A.D., after being introduced from Arabia.  Thanks to their notorious capacity to travel long distances without water, they completely transformed African trade, opening sub-Saharan areas to Islam.  The elephant, which inhabits the area south of the Sahara, signifies the fact, as the text puts it, that Africa is the land of ivory ‘on account of the large numbers of elephants that live there.’ ”

(excerpted from Henry Davis Consulting at

http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/LMwebpages/235mono.html)

This audio slide show, link below, is a nice introduction to a new exhibit at the Royal Geographical Society in London, Rediscovering African Geographies - the history of Africa as seen through maps, narrated by British and African scholars.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12675464   

Rediscovering African Geographies can be seen at the Royal Geographical Society in London between 22 March - 28 April 2011.  Check out the zoom-able maps and other informative materials in the exhibit.

http://www.rgs.org/HomePage.htm

From the blurb announcing the exhibit:

“From the great African Kings and Empires from 3000BC to the complex trade networks and migration of Africans within the continent and across the world, the Society's new Rediscovering African Geographies exhibition uses maps, photographs and literature from our Collections to travel through Africa’s history.

Rediscovering African Geographies shows, from an African perspective, how culture, international relations, language and conflict have shaped the geography we know today. It reveals often neglected stories and how these records of African societies, cultures and landscapes helped shape and inform European views of this continent and its people.

The exhibition, which runs from 22 March 2011 to 28 April 2011, has been created with African community partners representing the Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and South Africa.

The exhibition features Africans such as James Chuma, Abdullah Susi and Sidi Mubarak Bombay who made important contributions to the Victorian expeditions undertaken by David Livingstone and others that were supported by the Society.”  (Source: Royal Geographical Society webpage)

Since most of us, regrettably, won’t get to see the exhibit in London, I have put together a little tour of some historical maps of Africa (not from the RGS exhibit), but which are interesting nonetheless.  Note that many of the maps are by some of the most illustrious cartographers in history: 

Cosmographia Claudii Ptolomaei Alexandrini, 1467, by Nicolaus Germanus after Claudius Ptolemaeus, published in Reichenbach Monastery. 

Africa in Cantino, 1502, a portolan chart showing detailed information about coastal areas, which were the areas of Africa that were both the most well-known as well as the most useful to the Europeans.

Map of Africa, drawn in 1508, map maker unknown. 

Nautical (Portolan) chart of Africa, by Portuguese cartographer Fernão Vaz Dourado (1520 - c. 1580), part of a nautical atlas drawn in 1571, and now kept in the Portuguese National Archives of Torre do Tombo, Lisbon.

Antique map of Prester John’s kingdom in Ethiopia, by Ortelius.  The Latin reads: ‘A description of the Empire of Prester John of the Abyssinians.’  Note the little drawings of elephants scattered about.

“Africae tabula nova,” by Abraham Ortelius, 1570, Antwerpen,  

West Afrika, 1596, by Jan Huygen van Linschoten. Note that the Atlantic Ocean is called Oceanus Aethiopicus (Ethiopian Sea) on this map.

Amina (El Mina),West Africa, 16^th Century.  Elmina Castle was built by Portugal in 1482 as São Jorge da Mina (St. George of the Mine) Castle, in present day Elmina, Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast).  It was the first trading post built on the Gulf of Guinea, so it's the oldest European building in existence south of the Sahara.  First established as a trade settlement, the castle later became one of the most important stops on the Atlantic Slave Trade route.  The Dutch seized the fort in 1637, and continued the slave trade from there until 1814, and in 1871, the British took  over the castle as well as the colony.  In 1957 the Gold Coast gained its independence, and the new country of Ghana took control of the castle.  UNESCO has named it as a World Heritage Site.

Map of the Abyssinian Empire (in the medieval imagination) drawn in 16th century, combining Ptolemie's tradition and findings of contemporary travelers, by Gerardus Mercator, 1595.  Atlas sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati figura. Originally published by Jodocus Hondius.

Map of Africa, by Mercator, from the same Atlas, 1595.

Map of Africa, 1600, from Johannes Leo Africanus, A Geographical Historie of Africa, Written in Arabicke and Italian. ... Before which... is Prefixed a Generall Description of Africa, and... a Particular Treatise of All the... Lands... Undescribed, by J. Leo... Translated and Collected by J. Pory. London: George Bishop.  The north African geographer, al-Hassan ibn-Mohammed al-Wezaz al-Fasi (c.1483-1552), better known as Leo Africanus, geographer extraordinaire to kings, sultans, the Sublime Porte, and the Christian Pope, was quite an incredible person who led a most interesting and eventful life.  If you aren't familiar with Leo Africanus, watch this blog for a future posting devoted to him.   http://geographer-notes.blogspot.com/2011/04/leo-africanus-15th-century-geographer.html

Africæ nova description, 1635, by Willem Janszoon Blaeu, (1571-1638) published in Amsterdam, “Cum privilegio ad decennium.”  Relief shown pictorially.  Map contained within illustrated frame. Nine city views across top of map: Tanger, Ceuta, Alger, Tunis, Alexandria, Alcair, Mozambique, S. Georgius della Mina, Canaria.  Source: Northwest University Library.

“L'Afrique suivant les premiers voyages par Mer des Portugais,” by Pieter van der Leyden, 1714.

Map detail showing the Bight of Biafra from a 1729 map by Herman Moll, (1654-1732) showing “Negroland and Guinea. With the European Settlements. Explaining what belongs to England, Holland, Denmark, etc.”  Source: Atlas Minor, originally published in 1727 in London.  The map shows the area from the Tropic of Cancer to Cameroon.  From the University of Florida Map and Image Library.   

Guinea Propria, Nec Non Nigritiae Vel Terrae Nigorum…Aethiopia Inferior…1743, Homann Heirs.  One of the finest maps of west Africa to appear in the mid 17th century.  Details West Africa from Cape Blanc and Senegal to Guinea Inferior and the Cacongo and Barbela Rivers. Extends inland to including Ghana Lake on the Niger River as far as Regio Auri.  The coast is highly detailed with numerous notations regarding the peoples and tribes of the region.  The detail extends inland along some river valleys, most specifically the Niger, however, the map becomes quite vague the farther the river flows inland.  Features an elaborate enbraving in the lower left depicting ivory, Africa tribespeople and a small village.

Map of Africa, made by John Cary in 1805.  The map shows the non-existent “Mountains of Kong.”

“Africa,” from Brookes, R., The General Gazetteer; or Compendious Geographical Dictionary. Eighth Edition.  Dublin, 1808.

Map of Africa, 1812, by Arrowsmith and Lewis, printed in Boston by Thomas & Andrews.

Africa, 1827, by Anthony Finley (1790-1840), American Cartographer.  “A beautiful example of Finley’s important 1827 map of Africa.  This map predates the explosion of African exploration that occurred in the mid-19^th century.  Much of the interior remains unknown.  The Ptolemaic Mountains of the Moon are drawn stretching across the central part of the continent with the suggestions that they are the source of several branches of the Nile.  Several speculative courses are drawn for the Niger River, one of which joins it to the Nile, another of which flows south of the Mountains of the Moon into the Congo, and yet another of which, correctly, bends southwards to empty into the Bight of Biafra.  Identifies numerous African tribes throughout, including the Pomba, Jaga, Tbook, Tuareg, Tibboos, Bambara, and others.  Also identifies a land of Cannibals in Mozambique.  Title and scale in lower left quadrant. Engraved by Young and Delleker for the 1827 edition of Anthony Finley's General Atlas.”  Source: Finley, Anthony, A New General Atlas, Comprising a Complete Set of Maps, representing the Grand Divisions of the Globe, Together with the several Empires, Kingdoms and States in the World; Compiled from the Best Authorities, and corrected by the Most Recent Discoveries, Philadelphia, 1827.

Historical map of Africa, 1885, by J. Bartholomew, F.R.G.S. John Bartholomew (1831 – 1893), a Scottish cartographer, born in Edinburgh.  The image shows a political map with the knowledge about Africa in the year 1885.

Muhammadan Africa, 1899, from “A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races,” by Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston, 1858-1927, and J.G. Bartholomew, Cartographer, 1860-1920, Source: New York Public Library.

Africa.  Source: Encyclopedia Britannica 1911

Modern Africa, 1913, by J.G. Bartholomew, LL.D., originally published in “A literary and historical atlas of Africa and Australasia,” by J. G. Bartholomew, London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc. 1913.

German Claims in Africa, 1917, according to Professor Delbruck

  

Ottoman Map of Africa

Detail: Rediscovering African Geographies