The Catalan Map
Historic geographical maps are inherently never accurate. But what they lack in accuracy is well compensated by the clues they offer in what the cartographer knew or believed to be the case about the world when the map was prepared.
This map was made in 1375 by a Jewish cartographer Abraham Cresques from the Spanish island of Majorca in the Mediterranean, for the king of France and is called the Catalan map. The map was prepared more than 100 years before the European discoveries of India and America. The later discoveries were made in the late fifteenth century.
One can make interesting observations based on what is shown and also not shown on the map. For example, the map is mostly depicting the Eurasian continent with some almost mythical references to places beyond. In the west, it refers to the mythical island of Brazil beyond Ireland. In the Far East, it shows the island of Sumatra, where according to the map description, dark-skinned people, who eat strangers and white people, live. Africa is shown truncated in the south, missing the Cape of Hope. Though India is shown in a triangular shape, it still doesn’t show the southern tip of Kerala.
What is noteworthy about the map is that it consists of portolan charts characterized by rhumb lines that connect major port cities and depicts the sailing and trade routes across. The map is designed to be viewed laying flat on the ground, so the viewer can walk around and view it from that perspective. It, therefore, appears rather complex and hard to read with some figures, writings and drawings upside down in these attached pictures.
The map uses information from earlier accounts of travels. Here, one of the panels shows the entourage of Marco Polo traveling through Central Asia. The map also includes political and religious affiliations with ruling figures at each different location and a Christian cross or a mosque dome for religious markers. It shows the rulers of the Mughal hordes, Jhanibeg (Jochi), Kebek (Central Asia including Kazakhstan), and Kublai Khan (China). It shows the two rulers of India, the Sultan of Delhi and the Hindu King of Vijayanagar.
These photos are from the copy of the map in the history museum in Almaty Kazakhstan. The original map is in the national library in Paris. One can spend a lot of time studying the Catalan map and using it as a launching pad (pun intended) to learn about the contemporary worldview, whether it is religious, political, geographical, cultural, or economical (with trade routes). I found the following short YouTube video worth viewing, though it doesn’t cover everything shown on the map.