- cross-posted to:
- map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz
More info here: https://exhibits.stanford.edu/ruderman/catalog/mz230kn1495
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Now I really want to see an animation of what the European discovery of the planet looked like. Imagine a time lapse of a Civilization game, as the map is slowly revealed. I want to see that, except actual history.
i like how our boi did highlighter colors.
superior india is just right of china. probably quinfay there is “shanghai”.
there’s also that canibali place with bush tents hung with a leg and a happy face.
Obviously the green part is the ocean.
The only label on the map that’s both on Latin and in old German.
cuba has always been cuba?!
I’m guessing the Taino called it something else.
ha, good point. i was just kinda shocked to see a legible ‘cuba’ and ‘florida’
Looks like they called it Cuba
FWIW, this gives a somewhat different origin, although says it is derived from the local name.
either “great place” or “where fertile land is abundant”
So…first impressions pretty positive?
IIRC their word was something like “Kolba”
Anyone know what Zipangri is? Could that be Baja California, or what?
Edit: Japan. Is apparently just off the coast of Mexico
This makes sense given the popular knowledge at the time. The reason Columbus set sail wasn’t because he was a genius that knew the Earth was round when everyone else didn’t. We knew the Earth was round since antiquity. I can’t remember who, but some ancient Greek had calculated the circumference of the Earth using the angle of a shadow, distance to an equinox, and simple trigonometry. They guy was less than 5% off with his rudimentary calculation, which is impressive considering that he paid some dude to measure the distance between two towns by walking it. Anyways, the Western Europeans thought that Japan was farther east, somewhere around where the words “Terra florida” are on this map if I recall correctly from memory. When the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Marimba (party boat! jk, it was Santa Maria named after the “virgin”) landed on the most beautiful land that human eyes had ever seen, they knew they hadn’t landed on Zipangri/Cipangu/Japan. Instead, they thought they had landed on some island off of India, which is why they called the locals “Indios” (Indians). Anyways part 2, they thought that Japan was much further east than it was. I imagine that since they hadn’t found it for this map yet, they though it must be right out of sight of the western coast of North Vespucci (America).
What I’m curious about is that 7448 inflating archipelago. Anyone have an idea on what that’s about?
Santa Marimba
I’m stealing this! 😂
lol, I updated it with a silly link for more even fun 😋
The El Niña weather event, the Piñata and the Santa Claus.
perfect! 😆
It’s not “inflating”, it’s “insularum” (they also used to use the tilde as a shorthand for m and n), using the old long s
I had guessed it was Sri Lanka since it is also shown just off the coast of India. Then I figured it was more likely Indonesia given it’s surrounded by so many other islands and not that close to India. But yeah, now that I know it meant Japan I’m wondering if it’s depiction on the map is a conflagration of accounts of Indonesia and Japan.
Given the lack of shape, it could be just about anything - I wonder if it was one report, or hearsay with no details and they filled in something
Sibera was part of India back then.
Ships were huge in the 1500s!
So are we not gonna talk about the whole area labels for cannibals?
How in sam hill are their vowel Vs and consonant Us in this‽
Man what a shit map, they are horrible at cartography /s
This dumbass didn’t even know the Maps app is free.
Where’s the dragons tho?
You have to Imagine them.
We are the dragons
They be here.
The water is colored green. Took my mind a bit of time to realize the land is water and the water is land
“Regio Gigantum?” So below the Cannibals and Ze German Belt, lies the land of giants?
wow. spain is north of florida.
As it should be… Navigators could determine latitudes pretty accurately by using astronomy. It was the longitude that was a big problem (maybe that’s part of the reason Japan is placed in the middle of the Pacific).
There was a British miniseries about John Harrison, the clockmaker who figured out how to measure longitude, with Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon. Worth watching if you can find it or want to watch the shitty quality versions on YouTube.
I absolutely love wildly inaccurate old maps. They have so much charm.
