The Enigma of the Origin of Portolan Charts

The Enigma of the Origin of Portolan Charts PDF Author: Roel Nicolai
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004285121
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 570

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Book Description
The sudden appearance of portolan charts, realistic nautical charts of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, at the end of the thirteenth century is one of the most significant occurrences in the history of cartography. Using geodetic and statistical analysis techniques these charts are shown to be mosaics of partial charts that are considerably more accurate than has been assumed. Their accuracy exceeds medieval mapping capabilities. These sub-charts show a remarkably good agreement with the Mercator map projection. It is demonstrated that this map projection can only have been an intentional feature of the charts’ construction. Through geodetic analysis the author eliminates the possibility that the charts are original products of a medieval Mediterranean nautical culture, which until now they have been widely believed to be.

The Enigma of the Origin of Portolan Charts

The Enigma of the Origin of Portolan Charts PDF Author: Roel Nicolai
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004285121
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 570

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Book Description
The sudden appearance of portolan charts, realistic nautical charts of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, at the end of the thirteenth century is one of the most significant occurrences in the history of cartography. Using geodetic and statistical analysis techniques these charts are shown to be mosaics of partial charts that are considerably more accurate than has been assumed. Their accuracy exceeds medieval mapping capabilities. These sub-charts show a remarkably good agreement with the Mercator map projection. It is demonstrated that this map projection can only have been an intentional feature of the charts’ construction. Through geodetic analysis the author eliminates the possibility that the charts are original products of a medieval Mediterranean nautical culture, which until now they have been widely believed to be.

Portolan Charts; Their Origin and Characteristics

Portolan Charts; Their Origin and Characteristics PDF Author: Edward Luther Stevenson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cartography
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description


Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings

Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings PDF Author: Charles H. Hapgood
Publisher: Adventures Unlimited Press
ISBN: 9780932813428
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Hapgood utilizes ancient maps as concrete evidence of an advanced worldwide civilization existing many thousands of years before ancient Egypt. Hapgood concluded that these ancient mapmakers were in some ways much more advanced in mapmaking than any people prior to the 18th century. Hapgood believes that they mapped all the continents. This would mean that the Americas were mapped thousands of years before Columbus. Antarctica would have been mapped when its coasts were free of ice. Hapgood supposes that there is evidence that these people must have lived when the Ice Age had not yet ended in the Northern Hemisphere and when Alaska was still connected with Siberia by the Pleistocene, Ice Age 'land bridge'.

The History of Cartography: Cartography in prehistoric, ancient, and medieval Europe and the Mediterranean

The History of Cartography: Cartography in prehistoric, ancient, and medieval Europe and the Mediterranean PDF Author: John Brian Harley
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cartography
Languages : en
Pages : 664

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Book Description
By developing the broadest and most inclusive definition of the term "map" ever adopted in the history of cartography, this inaugural volume of the History of Cartography series has helped redefine the way maps are studied and understood by scholars in a number of disciplines. Volume One addresses the prehistorical and historical mapping traditions of premodern Europe and the Mediterranean world. A substantial introductory essay surveys the historiography and theoretical development of the history of cartography and situates the work of the multi-volume series within this scholarly tradition. Cartographic themes include an emphasis on the spatial-cognitive abilities of Europe's prehistoric peoples and their transmission of cartographic concepts through media such as rock art; the emphasis on mensuration, land surveys, and architectural plans in the cartography of Ancient Egypt and the Near East; the emergence of both theoretical and practical cartographic knowledge in the Greco-Roman world; and the parallel existence of diverse mapping traditions (mappaemundi, portolan charts, local and regional cartography) in the Medieval period. Throughout the volume, a commitment to include cosmographical and celestial maps underscores the inclusive definition of "map" and sets the tone for the breadth of scholarship found in later volumes of the series.

Atlas of Portolan Charts

Atlas of Portolan Charts PDF Author: Visconte de Maggiolo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Atlases, Italian
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description


The Luso-Hispanic World in Maps

The Luso-Hispanic World in Maps PDF Author: Library of Congress
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Caribbean Area
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description


Medieval Maps

Medieval Maps PDF Author: P. D. A. Harvey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cartography
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
Professor Harvey traces the development of western mapmaking from the early Middle Ages to the first printed maps of the late 15th century, discussing their traditions, artistic and technical aspects, and uses.

The Age of Reconnaissance

The Age of Reconnaissance PDF Author: J H Parry
Publisher: Orion
ISBN: 0297865951
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 491

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Book Description
The Age of Reconnaissance, as J. H. Parry so aptly named it, was the period in which Europe discovered the rest of the world. It began with Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese voyages in the mid-fifteenth century and ended 250 years later when the 'reconnaissance' was all but complete. This book is less concerned with the voyages of discovery themselves than with an analysis of the factors that made the voyages possible in the first place. Dr Parry examines the inducements - political, economic, religious - to overseas enterprises at the time, and analyses the nature and problems of the various European settlements in the new lands. At the beginning of the period central to this book, the middle of the fifteenth century, the normal educated man believed that the Ancients were more civilized, more elegant, wiser and, except in religious matters, better informed than his contemporaries. But gradually as the reconnaissance proceeded, the European picture became fuller and more detailed and with it the idea of continually expanding knowledge became more familiar and the links between science and practical life became closer. The unprecedented power which it produced would eventually lead Europe from reconnaissance to worldwide conquest.

Maps and Their Makers

Maps and Their Makers PDF Author: Gerald Roe Crone
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description


Ancient Perspectives

Ancient Perspectives PDF Author: Richard J. A. Talbert
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226789373
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Ancient Perspectives encompasses a vast arc of space and time—Western Asia to North Africa and Europe from the third millennium BCE to the fifth century CE—to explore mapmaking and worldviews in the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In each society, maps served as critical economic, political, and personal tools, but there was little consistency in how and why they were made. Much like today, maps in antiquity meant very different things to different people. Ancient Perspectives presents an ambitious, fresh overview of cartography and its uses. The seven chapters range from broad-based analyses of mapping in Mesopotamia and Egypt to a close focus on Ptolemy’s ideas for drawing a world map based on the theories of his Greek predecessors at Alexandria. The remarkable accuracy of Mesopotamian city-plans is revealed, as is the creation of maps by Romans to support the proud claim that their emperor’s rule was global in its reach. By probing the instruments and techniques of both Greek and Roman surveyors, one chapter seeks to uncover how their extraordinary planning of roads, aqueducts, and tunnels was achieved. Even though none of these civilizations devised the means to measure time or distance with precision, they still conceptualized their surroundings, natural and man-made, near and far, and felt the urge to record them by inventive means that this absorbing volume reinterprets and compares.