Erica Naone explores in a recent article why maps of the American colony of Virginia from 1590, 1612 and later years are drawn with west at top and the Atlantic at bottom, adopting a landwards point of view. Some of the reasons advanced by the academics Naone quotes seem a little forced. It's not to exploit the width of the sheet of paper: it's more likely that that it was once obvious that charts would naturally be drawn with the drawer's foreground at bottom.
If Naone had phoned me to ask my opinion, I would have said that the maps of Virginia followed a tradition more than 2,000 years old of the chorographic chart, a tradition we have today lost.
This week I have published two more network maps in my series analysing the Tabula Peutingeriana, the oldest western chart of the world, which is composed of country sections which I call cells. The latest two "cells" cover Syria and Palestine respectively. As I explained in my last post about this project, I suspect the maker of the Tabula employed a chorographic chart to design each cell.
Since introducing the cell hypothesis, I have been thinking intensively about how chorographic charts in the ancient world might have been oriented. In my view the evidence points to the sea-coast being at the bottom as a matter of course, as in the Virginia maps, whenever the coast of a continent is being drawn.
I was reminded of the same while I was recently trying to find some way to bring a compact, high-resolution version of the Madaba Mosaic Map online. That 6th-century diagram, on the floor of a church in Madaba, Jordan, has the script oriented so that the Palestinian coast is at the bottom, implying an eastwards view.
The exception (that proves the rule) is the Palestine section of the Tabula Peutingeriana, where the sea is at the top. In the abstract below, the land is green, the Mediterranean (white) is at top and the Strata Diocletiana (blue), marking the edge of the desert and the limit of the empire, is at bottom. A bit of the Gulf of Aqaba peeps in at the left side:
Compare this with the layout of the Tabula itself, where there is nothing below the Strata Diocletiana. The content immediately turns into the Red Sea and Indian Ocean (dark green, at bottom). The desert is simply not drawn.
How do I claim the rule still stands? I see it like this: from this abrupt cut-off, and from the density of detail nearest the Mediterranean coast, one might argue that the level of geographic knowledge declines in proportion to distance from the Mediterranean coast. The absence of information about the desert and the abrupt transition to
the Indian Ocean indicate those are distant places, far from the
observer and unknown.
This would imply the point of view of whatever chart served as the basis for this cell was from the Mediterranean. Mentally at least, the original view would be more like the following, an inversion:
The idea I am developing beyond this goes as follows: the Tabula Peutingeriana shows most of the lands of the Mediterranean north shore in a landwards perspective: for example Provence is oriented with northwest at top (and so is Syria), Italy and Greece incline northeastwards, and the "upper" limit of Asia Minor as drawn is its easternmost part.
Might one not therefore expect the mental point of view to have turned fully southwards when the ancient chorographers regarded Africa? Would not Africa naturally be drawn with south at top, the direct opposite of Provence and Liguria, and for the same reason that John Smith sketched Virginia with the Atlantic below and the Appalachians at top?
I will be interested to hear any thoughts about this, and will keep an eye out for any evidence in the Tabula Peutingeriana that might undermine, or bolster, this hypothesis.
This week I have published two more network maps in my series analysing the Tabula Peutingeriana, the oldest western chart of the world, which is composed of country sections which I call cells. The latest two "cells" cover Syria and Palestine respectively. As I explained in my last post about this project, I suspect the maker of the Tabula employed a chorographic chart to design each cell.
Since introducing the cell hypothesis, I have been thinking intensively about how chorographic charts in the ancient world might have been oriented. In my view the evidence points to the sea-coast being at the bottom as a matter of course, as in the Virginia maps, whenever the coast of a continent is being drawn.
I was reminded of the same while I was recently trying to find some way to bring a compact, high-resolution version of the Madaba Mosaic Map online. That 6th-century diagram, on the floor of a church in Madaba, Jordan, has the script oriented so that the Palestinian coast is at the bottom, implying an eastwards view.
The exception (that proves the rule) is the Palestine section of the Tabula Peutingeriana, where the sea is at the top. In the abstract below, the land is green, the Mediterranean (white) is at top and the Strata Diocletiana (blue), marking the edge of the desert and the limit of the empire, is at bottom. A bit of the Gulf of Aqaba peeps in at the left side:
This would imply the point of view of whatever chart served as the basis for this cell was from the Mediterranean. Mentally at least, the original view would be more like the following, an inversion:
Might one not therefore expect the mental point of view to have turned fully southwards when the ancient chorographers regarded Africa? Would not Africa naturally be drawn with south at top, the direct opposite of Provence and Liguria, and for the same reason that John Smith sketched Virginia with the Atlantic below and the Appalachians at top?
I will be interested to hear any thoughts about this, and will keep an eye out for any evidence in the Tabula Peutingeriana that might undermine, or bolster, this hypothesis.
Naone, E. (2018, July 30). In Early Maps of Virginia, West Was at the Top. Atlas Obscura. Retrieved from https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-early-virginia-maps-had-west-at-the-top
