https://www.thedigitalgallery.org/ 

Ed Lanfranco is a writer in Southern California who lived and worked in China for twenty years (1988-2009), indulging his passion for collecting all things cartographic. He applies the knowledge and insight gained from his time as Foreign Correspondent and Bureau Chief for United Press International in Beijing City to mapping matters.

Ed Lanfranco is a writer in Southern California who lived and worked in China for twenty years (1988-2009), indulging his passion for collecting all things cartographic. He applies the knowledge and insight gained from his time as Foreign Correspondent and Bureau Chief for United Press International in Beijing City to mapping matters.

Map One, Front

• Object composition is a laminate: metal, paper and cardboard; it is slightly bowed outward and is in the original plastic shrink wrap from time of acquisition. 
• Top Center: People’s Republic of China- Flag and National Emblem
• Top Left Corner: Hands-on China Map (Magnetic Combination)
• Bottom Left Corner: Puzzle Piece Index- Red Dots say Provincial Administrative Centers; Bold lines are Rivers
• Center: A 26 piece children’s jigsaw puzzle map of China cut into different colored provinces. The Chongqing Municipality (unlike Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai) has its own piece. Taiwan is a puzzle piece.
• Right Side, Top to Bottom:  Macau Flag and Emblem; Hong Kong Flag and Emblem; Inset map showing China’s claims in the South China Sea, without the nine dash line. 

Map One, Back

• Illustrations Identifying China’s 56 Ethnic Minority Groups, 38 Women, 18 Men Clad in Indigenous Costume
• There is a cardboard stand in the center to display the front side.
• Bottom Left says, 56 Nationalities, 56 Hybridizations, Below that, the two columns say  The Chinese nation has many brothers (left), 56 Families can make songs (right). It then lists all 56 nationalities by name.
• Bottom Right is publication information: China Cartographic Publishing House edited the created the map; two Beijing companies were involved in printing and production. Distributed by Xinhua Bookstores. Cao Yinghong was the Editor-in-Chief.
• First published May 2005 Fourth Printing February 2006.  
• Price: 16.80 Yuan (Approximate USD equivalent in February 2006 : US$2.02)

Map Two, Front

• The object is a paper and cardboard laminate, bowed slightly inward, and sealed within the original plastic shrink wrap from the time of acquisition.
• The neatline framing the map are names of China’s Provinces, Autonomous Regions and Municipalities including abbreviated form identities given in parentheses.
• First line top center of the map says, Good Kids Jigsaw Puzzle; the line underneath (at Mongolia’s northern border with Russia) states, China Political Areas.
• The puzzle has 32 interlocking cardboard  pieces (No Kong Kong or Macao pieces; Beijing and Tianjin Municipalities are one piece; The Shanghai Municipality is part of the Zhejiang Province piece. Taiwan is part of the puzzle.
• The object has a standard map legend inset on the bottom left corner and an inset on the bottom right showing China’s claims to the South China Sea including the nine dash line (aka the cow’s tongue)
•  Writing on the bottom between the neatline and edge of object says: Title (China Political Areas); Edited by Xi’an Cartographic Publishing House, its address and postal code; Editor-in-Chief Wang Xixiu; Printed by the Shenzhou Baofeng Company; 787x1092mm, an enigmatic 1/8; first published February 2002, second printing February 2002. Price 12.80 Yuan (USD equivalent at time $1.55
• Writing on the right side of the neatline and the edge of the object asks four questions read left to right then top to bottom: Q. 1 asks how many political units comprise the country. A. 1 says 34: 25 provinces, 5 Special Autonomous Areas, 4 Municipalities and 2 Special Administrative Regions.
• Q. 2  Asks the area of China. A. 2 6.9 million sq. km. Q. 3 Asks how many countries border China. A. 3 15 countries by land, not listed by name. It gives the length of the land boundaries at over 22,000 km. It adds that China borders the Yellow Sea, East Sea, South Sea and the Sea of Japan. Q. 4 Asks to identify some of China’s famous National Historic Sites. A. 4 Answers include the Forbidden City and Guilin Stone forest, among others.

Map Two, Back

• Title: National Flags for Each Country
• Flags are organized by continent, then alphabetically by their pinyin lettering A to Z.
• The one exception is at the top left corner where Asia begins with China, not Afghanistan
• The remaining continental order and beginning country flag:
• Europe starts with Ireland; Africa starts with Cape Verde
• Pacific States starts with Papua New Guinea; North America starts with Antigua and Barbuda 
• South America starts with Argentina 

Martin’s focus as a collector has been on maps of the Holy Land and Jerusalem.  He has been comparing each early edition map and researching differences and similarities - by cartographer and engraver and by watermarks, etc. From this study, a book entitled SACRED GEOGRAPHY AND SACRED SPACE, 15th TO 19th CENTURY MAPS OF THE HOLY LAND AND JERUSALEM, A WINDOW INTO CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH ESCHATOLOGY., has resulted. As the Executive VP, Corporate Secretary, Treasurer and Director of Zion Oil & Gas, Inc., he usually makes a yearly trip to the company’s offices in Israel.  His is B.E., Vanderbilt University; J.D., St. Mary’s University; M.B.A. and LL.M., Southern Methodist University; sitting on the Advisory Board of the Jewish and Israel Studies Program, University of North Texas. Author of Jews and Christians, Fellow Travelers to the End of Days, (2nd ed. 2020).

Martin’s focus as a collector has been on maps of the Holy Land and Jerusalem.  He has been comparing each early edition map and researching differences and similarities - by cartographer and engraver and by watermarks, etc. From this study, a book entitled SACRED GEOGRAPHY AND SACRED SPACE, 15th TO 19th CENTURY MAPS OF THE HOLY LAND AND JERUSALEM, A WINDOW INTO CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH ESCHATOLOGY., has resulted. As the Executive VP, Corporate Secretary, Treasurer and Director of Zion Oil & Gas, Inc., he usually makes a yearly trip to the company’s offices in Israel.  His is B.E., Vanderbilt University; J.D., St. Mary’s University; M.B.A. and LL.M., Southern Methodist University; sitting on the Advisory Board of the Jewish and Israel Studies Program, University of North Texas. Author of Jews and Christians, Fellow Travelers to the End of Days, (2nd ed. 2020).

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Julian is a collector of antique maps of Malaysia (namely Johore and Penang), Singapore, and Hong Kong, and owns over 50 antique ‘blueback’ and British Admiralty Hydrographic nautical charts depicting the island of Penang, the Malacca and Singapore Straits, HK, the Chinese Coast, and the Burmese coast, some of which are exceptionally rare.  He has previously spoken on the subject of cartography at Cambridge University and the National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. Having read Engineering at Magdalen College, Cambridge, Julian graduated with a 1st in 1991, having added a Masters’ Degree. His career as an investment banker with several major layers took him all around the world. He left the industry in 2007 to focus on Private Equity and investments. After a year working pro-bono as a special advisor to the Chief Minister of Penang, Julian is currently working on a series of short articles about the history of Johore from the early 19th century. 

Julian is a collector of antique maps of Malaysia (namely Johore and Penang), Singapore, and Hong Kong, and owns over 50 antique ‘blueback’ and British Admiralty Hydrographic nautical charts depicting the island of Penang, the Malacca and Singapore Straits, HK, the Chinese Coast, and the Burmese coast, some of which are exceptionally rare.  He has previously spoken on the subject of cartography at Cambridge University and the National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. Having read Engineering at Magdalen College, Cambridge, Julian graduated with a 1st in 1991, having added a Masters’ Degree. His career as an investment banker with several major layers took him all around the world. He left the industry in 2007 to focus on Private Equity and investments. After a year working pro-bono as a special advisor to the Chief Minister of Penang, Julian is currently working on a series of short articles about the history of Johore from the early 19th century. 

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Deirdre works as a paediatrician, specialising in neurodevelopment and the health of looked after children. Her interest in antique maps started towards the end of 2016 when she bought her first antique map. Deordre’s main focus is miniature or small maps of the African continent and the areas around Kenya, Malawi and Zimbabwe produced prior to 1800. However she does stray outside those boundaries at times! Why Africa? Her childhood was spent in Africa and she likes the fact that many of the maps were based on legends rather than fact. Most of her maps are completely useless when it comes to finding your way around.

SLIDE 1: Introduction to the map

Small map of Africa, sized 15 x 18 cm.  It’s written in Latin and blank on the verso. I bought it with a date of 1799, but I think it is more likely to be from mid-18th century, and I’ll explain why later.

The map itself shows quite a lot of detail in Northern Africa, but very little in Southern Africa and this area is depicted smaller than on later maps. It still shows the 2 Ptolemic maps, on the left Lake Zaire / Zemba  and Lake Zaflan on the right. On this map they are both called Nili Palus, which translates as Nile swamp. The Mountains of the Moon lie to their south.   By the early 18th century some map makers had started to remove the Ptolemic lakes from their maps and De’Lisle was the first map maker to place part of Lake Maravi (now known as Lake Malawi) on a map in 1722. The thing that really caught my eye about this map was the vignette. Vignettes on small maps are uncommon, and this one seemed to be telling a story, which I’ll come to later.

SLIDE 2: The Atlas the map is from

I have found 2 copies of this map on-line, both in books. One is held in the Bavarian State Library and the other I found on Google Play Books, both dated 1750. It consists of a cover,  title page (shown here) and 11 maps. The colouring on the Google Play Africa map is almost identical to mine, whereas in the Bavarian atlas the map has out-line colour to the map itself, but not the vignette. I think it likely the colour is contemporary.

The map was based on work by Johann David Köhler and produced by Adam Gottlieb Schneider und Weigel publishers.  Köhler was born 1684 and died in 1755. He was a German historian whose academic focuses were on Roman coins, ancient weapons, and genealogy. He also contributed to the early library science literature. He studied at the University of Wittenberg, and was a professor of logic and history at universities in Altdorf and later Göttingen. He served briefly as university librarian at Altdorf. Adam Gottlieb Schneider und Weigel publishers closed in 1805.  According to information on the Geographicus website they employed Conrad Mannert as an engraver and published only a few maps, all of which are rare.  

Both Atlas have a date of either 1822 or 1825 written on them, along with someone’s name. The reason for a book of maps without any text confused me, but with help of people from the Antique Map Collectors Facebook Group, I think I have some idea about their purpose. On the title page is written “in Usum Scholarum”, meaning for use in schools or for educational purposes. The dates and names may have been written by owners or students, and that the books may have ended up in another classroom or educational establishment, after the closure of the Altdorf University in 1809. I think it possible that the university, lead by Kohler, asked the publishing house to produce these atlases, perhaps primarily for their own use. I think the date of 1750 is more likely than 1799 because Köhler had died decades before the later date.

Links to copies:

https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb11165087?page=,1 

https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=J3VgAAAAcAAJ&pg=GBS.PP1&hl=en   
 

SLIDE 3: The Vignette

One of the most interesting things about this map is the vignette. It depicts the story of the Phoenician Queen Dido's founding of Carthage in an area within what is now Tunis, as told by Virgil. According to the story, Dido, having fled from Tyre in Lebanon, landed on the coast of Africa and requested from King Hiarbas as much land as an oxhide could cover. That agreed, she then had the hide cut into strips, laid them out around a piece of land, and claimed the ground surrounded. There have been various tales of the "oxehide measure" being used by Europe colonists in parts of Asia, Africa and America in order to trick the indigenous people into agreeing to hand over larger tracts of land than anticipated from the original request, as well as stories of it being used in Britain. It is possible, however, that the Anglo-Saxon measurement, the hide, was linked to the roots of this myth. The old English word, hid, is thought to have been derrived from hiwan, meaning household. Hid was considered to be a unit of land large enough to support one family.

SLIDE 4: Why “the Phages of Africa?”

So why is this entitled “The Phages of Africa”? Well, first of all I had to give a title, but secondly a number of “phagi” are shown on this map. Phage is derrived from Greek and means “to eat”. The term is used in medicine a lot. So dysphagia means difficulty swallowing, hypophagia eating too little, hyperphagia eating too much, aerophagia swallowing air, acuphagia swallowing sharp objects, tricophagia eating hair and bacteriophage is the term for cells that destroy bacteria.  All of these I have come across in working practice and my learned team (who I’ll introduce in the last slide) all have their own particular phagias. 

On the image on the left Köhler has shown where the Anthropophagi people live, the man-eaters or cannibals. On the image on the right, he has shown where Rhizophagi (root eaters) live, seen in the middle of blue-green area. Then there are the more exotic Elephantophagi (elephant eaters), which you can see in lower left corner of the image, to the right of the lake, and the Strutophagi (ostrich eaters), seen just above the green area on the map. I guess Queen Dido could be termed a Geophagus, an earth eater, in the absence of a specific word for swallowing a chunk of land.

SLIDE 5: Other People’s Real and Imagined

The map depicts quite a number of ancient peoples / tribes. In the middle of the image on the left is written Agysmba Regio. This was an unidentified country mentioned by Ptolemy and based on the writings on Marinus of Tyre. He wrote that in the early 1st century the king of the Garamantes claimed that the inhabitants of Agysmba were his subjects.  It was said to be a 4 months journey south Fezzan, in Lybia, and to have large animals, such as elephants and rhinos, and tall mountains. Around this time a trader, Julius Maternus, travelled to this region and came back with 2 rhino horns. Modern historians think Agysmba preceded the Kanem Empire located on the shores of Lake Chad, some distance from what is now southern Africa.

In the image on the right you can see the Troglodytes (cave dwellers) along the red sea coast. They were pastoral people living on the meat, or a mixture of milk and blood, from their animals. They were said to have been hunted and enslaved by the Garamantes (seen in middle left of the image). There is very good evidence of the existence of the Garamantes in the southern part of Lybia. The Romans came across them and traded with them and the Garamantes left behind cave art, ruins, tombs and artefacts. They were very sophisticated and had their own chariots. They were able to survive in a desert as they had worked out how to mine underground water and channel it to where they needed it. Then you have the Blemmyes, near the bottom middle of the image. They were a race of people who didn’t have heads, their faces were located on their chests. It’s been theorized that this may have been based on sightings of Bonobo chimps.

Here ends my “Phages of Africa”.

SLIDE 6: Questions

Mark started his career in the British Royal Navy as a Weapons Engineer. He is now a Manager for London Underground working in electrical Power Distribution, managing a team of Engineers that educate and licence apprentices, power engineers and managers in the many technical disciplines that we have, for work on substation equipment. He has been working in the electrical industry for 37 years. Mark’s love for map collecting started almost 25 years ago with a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. He now also collects globes and cartographic reference books & material.  He has been a member of IMCoS for well over 15 years, offering his services as photographer for IMCoS events; and has now been invited to join the Executive Committee in the role of Secretary. Mark’s collecting area of Interest is Antarctica and the Southern Hemisphere. 

Mark started his career in the British Royal Navy as a Weapons Engineer. He is now a Manager for London Underground working in electrical Power Distribution, managing a team of Engineers that educate and licence apprentices, power engineers and managers in the many technical disciplines that we have, for work on substation equipment. He has been working in the electrical industry for 37 years. Mark’s love for map collecting started almost 25 years ago with a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. He now also collects globes and cartographic reference books & material.  He has been a member of IMCoS for well over 15 years, offering his services as photographer for IMCoS events; and has now been invited to join the Executive Committee in the role of Secretary. Mark’s collecting area of Interest is Antarctica and the Southern Hemisphere.         

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In 2010 Andrew retired from decades as a consumer and business data/processing consultant — most recently from Dun & Bradstreet, where he was awarded with patents for domestic and global address maintenance. He began collecting antique maps in 1988 and built the first version of his site “LithuanianMaps.com” — which now has over 4,000 images and 65 pages — in 2008. He was invited to become Secretary of the New York Map Society in September 2014, and, a year later, also became its webmaster. He now also partners with Steve Hanon and Laura Ten Eyck in society program development. His map-related presentations include “The Influence of Maps on Society and Contemporary Art,” at Seton Hall University in November 2013, and “How Maps and Map Collecting Helped an Immigrant Find His Place in the World,” given February 2016 at the New York Public Library, and again in February 2017 at the Lithuanian Consulate in New York. The consulate also hosted a two-month exhibition of his maps of the historic Lithuanian area in 2017: “300+ Years of Lithuania on Maps: 1552 – 1862. “ Andrew’s B.A. in Biological Illustration from City College, New York, was leveraged only once: for a 1974 college biology textbook, for which he drew all the illustrations and wrote three chapters.

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David Rumsey

Barry Ruderman

A sailor and navigator since the 1980s, Mark has long taken an interest in the sea. As a result, he has sailed in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, along with the Mediterranean, South, and East China Seas as an amateur and professional, including a period as Ship's Engineer in the private sector. Having completed a PhD in Public International Law (Western Influences on the Development of Chinese Maritime Law, 1860-1970), he lectures on International Maritime Law, History, and International Relations of China. Throughout his research, maps and cartography generally have played an important role in their portrayal of Chinese perceptions to the wider world.

Source: Wikipedia

SCAP = Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers

Source: Wikipedia

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Chuck has operated RareCharts.com online since 2010. He began collecting primarily French nautical charts and then after several years decided to build and operate RareCharts using tech skills acquired over the prior 15 years.  After Chuck retired the whole thing just spiralled out of hand and he bought more quantity, broadened geographical focus and his taste as exposure to antique paper expanded.  Today, as well as nautical charts, he collects/sells pictorial maps, map-themed posters, blueprint maps, and unusual paper artifacts with character and in most cases, a nautical connection.

I have operated RareCharts.com online since 2010.  I began collecting primarily French nautical charts and then after several years decided to build and operate RareCharts using tech skills I had acquired over the prior 15 years.  After I retired the whole thing just spiraled out of hand and I bought more quantity, broadened geographical focus and my taste as my exposure antique paper expanded.  Today, as well as nautical charts,  I collect/sell pictorial maps, map-themed posters, blueprint maps, and unusual paper artifacts with character and in most cases, a nautical connection.

Best,

Chuck Ashman
Tega Cay, SC  USA
803-389-9972

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