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Previously Hidden Text on a 500-Year-Old Map Reveals New Clues About the Cartographer's Sources and Its Influences on Important Maps That Came Later (nationalgeographic.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

Greg Miller, writing for National Geographic: This 1491 map is the best surviving map of the world as Christopher Columbus knew it as he made his first voyage across the Atlantic. In fact, Columbus likely used a copy of it in planning his journey. The map, created by the German cartographer Henricus Martellus, was originally covered with dozens of legends and bits of descriptive text, all in Latin. Most of it has faded over the centuries. But now researchers have used modern technology to uncover much of this previously illegible text. In the process, they've discovered new clues about the sources Martellus used to make his map and confirmed the huge influence it had on later maps, including a famous 1507 map by Martin Waldseemuller that was the first to use the name "America."

11 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Is that Alaska? by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    No, it's Japan. Yes, too far off the coast for the scale. That point on the east side of Asia is supposed to be Korea.

  2. Re:What about Leif Ericsson by dargaud · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But they didn't draw maps and they didn't make this discovery known to the rest of the world. There's the difference.

    --
    Non-Linux Penguins ?
  3. Just so you know, on Waldseemuller's map ... by Misagon · · Score: 2

    The name "America" was written over what is modern-day Brazil, and referred to the whole continent: north and south ...
    not to a nation that was going to be formed some 270 years later.

    --
    "We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
    1. Re:Just so you know, on Waldseemuller's map ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hmm how weird my map just says "Great" there. Are you looking at the original map?

    2. Re:Just so you know, on Waldseemuller's map ... by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sorry if you get butt-hurt by it, that's how people know us. As Americans. No other country I know of in this hemisphere also wants to be called America. So what's the problem?

      For some reason, people who don't live in Mexico or Canada seem to think Mexicans and Canadians get upset when people living in the USA get called "Americans."

      We don't.

      Signed,
      A Canadian

    3. Re:Just so you know, on Waldseemuller's map ... by DRJlaw · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The name "America" was written over what is modern-day Brazil, and referred to the whole continent: north and south ...
      not to a nation that was going to be formed some 270 years later.

      And then a bunch of states got together, i.e., united, and called themselves the United States of America .

      A bunch of other states of America that preferred not to be united later developed a massive inferiority complex when the rest of the world shorthanded the name and nationality to "America" and "Americans." But they daren't call themselves, e.g., "The Bazilian State of America" and "Americans," because "ewwwwwwww!"

      Super short version: Once you've ceded the name, most people don't want to hear you complain.

  4. Re:Fascinating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Typically foot trails were based on following animal trails. Animals will normally follow contour lines, i.e. not gaining or losing altitude (using the least energy) unless necessary. This resulted in very curvy, but relatively flat trails. These were expanded into cart paths, and finally roads.

    You can see the effect mostly in the East Coast (before sectionalized land and rail roads) where state highways seem to meander endlessly.

    Not lost to time, ask any surveyor who has had to research and recreate property lines from 200 years ago.

  5. Re:Can we... by mrvan · · Score: 4, Informative

    I know right? Two links in the summary, both pointing to the silly article. We're map buffs, not RTFA'ers!

    https://www.nationalgeographic...

  6. Re:What about Leif Ericsson by ffkom · · Score: 2

    The oldest commonly acknowledged surviving written record of Vinland appears in Descriptio insularum Aquilonis, by Adam of Bremen, a German (Saxon) geographer and historian, written in about 1075.

    So they, too, left it to some German to write up the results of their explorations. And neither the Vikings nor the Germans made much use of that knowledge, but left it to the Spanish to exploit the riches of that remote land.

  7. Re:What about Leif Ericsson by ChrisMaple · · Score: 2

    Some people speculate that the Viking colonies in the New World failed because the climate cooled too much. I've also read that hostile natives eventually drove them out. In either case, it wasn't for lack of trying that the Viking entry into the New World was a dead end.

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  8. Re:Can we... by mrvan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's the state of the current web. :(

    Try browsing with JS and all cross-site requests disabled, you'll quickly find that gopher was more informative than the mess we have now...