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The History of Cartography related to Africa
Maps and the history of science
The history of cartography in Europe is sometimes treated as a linear progression from
simple, general, and often distorted (though charming and decorative) early maps to
increasingly complex, detailed and accurate modern ones (based on advances in science and
expanding exploration around the globe). There are a few purposes, a dealer's
catalog perhaps, for which this heuristic chronological approach might be considered
satisfactory. History, however, is not chronology; not merely a linear organization
of facts over time. A simplistic model of linear progress cannot provide a framework
capable of organizing the many important aspects of the history of cartography.
Rather, a broader and more integrated approach is needed to incorporate the many advances
and setbacks, the various approaches of the different intellectual schools, their
alliances and rivalries, and the discoveries and technical advances as well as
the tenacity of certain ideas handed down through the ages and accepted on authority.
The history of western mapping and cartography is interwoven with many important themes
and trends: the history of navigation and exploration, economic development and the
expansion of European mercantile interests, the encounter with non-western peoples (and
the subsequent re-introduction of classical traditions into the west), the rivalries of
competing European interests, the relationship of scholars and elites within and among
nation states, the development of printing, the increasing need for control over the newly
encountered territories from the contact period through colonialism, along with the
technology of integrating text and graphics in printed works, the economics of commercial
publishing, and so many more topics that one way or another impact upon this story.
Herodotus (c. 484-425 BC) is considered the first known historian of the western
world. He reported (quite skeptically) the Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa
(Waterfield 1998, 4:42). He also documented a scribe's account of the sources of the
Nile, which was accepted until the late 19th century: "The account of
Herodotus, based on a story told him by a scribe, that the Nile had its source between the
two conical peaks of Crophi and Mophi and flowed in two channels to the north and south
had considerable influence on future geographers. It accounted for the undue
prolongation of the Nile to the south and for the erroneous ascription of the same source
to the Nile and the Zambezi" (Lane-Poole 1950:3). The tenacity of this account
is truly astounding, as evidenced by the fact that David Livingstone "was still
pursuing the Herodotan myth" in the middle of the 19th c. (Lane-Poole
1950:3).
History of European exploration of Africa. Coast vs. interior. Chronology.
The map as cultural text
In "Deconstructing the map" Harley (1992) provides a useful context for
considering maps very broadly as cultural artifacts: they are cultural productions
first and foremost, and as such they present (and therefore can misrepresent) social
realities. The use of metaphor and rhetoric in the presentation of the landscape is
common, even in "scientific mapping", and is not simply to be found in the
decorative elements of popular maps.
Cartouches, legends, scales, vignettes, sidebars, and textual elements of maps can
provide important material for analysis, and can be considered integral to the
presentation of its contents (see Clarke 1988, for a consideration of the iconography of
North American maps before and after US independence from Great Britain). Cultural
information is sometimes communicated (or masked) in more subtle ways, however.
Consider, for example, the case of a map in which all religious buildings are depicted
with the same symbol (often a cross). In some cases the masking of diversity,
sectarian strife, or other important cultural information in this way can be seriously
misleading; imagine this is a map of Israel, Ireland, or South Africa. The
simple choice of such symbols can convey or gloss over important features of the cultural
landscape. Another interesting example is the choice of place names employed,
especially in the colonial setting. Or consider the difference between using a
generic label for a federal facility versus a specification that this particular property
is a nuclear waste storage site. Finally, simply the labeling of government or
institutional buildings at all while private establishments are left unnamed can have an
effect of how the map reader interprets the social setting (see Monmonier 1991).
Maps and cosmology
The relationship of mapping and cosmology (the "mapping" of spiritual systems
of thought onto physical space) was historically close in Europe and frequently remains
culturally close in other traditions. Most early European maps belonged more to a
cosmological tradition than they did to any effort to transmit geographical knowledge as
science (Macrobian maps
are the exception--note that many of these images include extensive accompanying texts). Medieval "T-O"
and "Y-O" maps
represent the continuation of a simplified cosmological mapping tradition originating in
the Ionian philosophy of the 5th c. BC. It is interesting how Asia dominates over
the smaller and essentially equal continents of Europe and Africa in these depictions.
These traditions diversified greatly as round manuscript mappae-mundi in
Europe (see Brotton 1998:28, and note that many more manuscript and printed examples with
explanatory texts from a variety of time periods are available: see the Index of Cartographic Images
Illustrating Maps of the Early Medieval Period 400-1300 A.D.).
Early modern Europe and new mercantilist uses
Claudius Ptolemy (c. 127-151 AD) was the official astronomer and geographer of the city
of Alexandria. He had access to the vast resources of the library there, whose
policy it reportedly was to copy any maps in the possession of traders and merchants
passing through this important port (keeping the original and returning the copy).
His eight volume Geography was a standard text for Arab geographers, though it
(and the Greek traditions of scientific geography it transmitted) were largely lost to
Europe until the late 14th-early 15th c. It is through Ptolemy that the
"scientific" tradition of geography and mapping was reintroduced into Europe
during the Renaissance via Arabic sources. Manuscript copies of Ptolemy became
cherished as valuable in themselves, for their practical utility in trade, and also as
symbolic of broad knowledge and great wealth. Brotton (1998) uses the Bernard van
Orley tapestries (The Spheres, c. 1520-1530) as an example of the new attitude
towards maps and the world. They were created in celebration of the wedding of
Catherine of Austria and Joćo of Portugal, depicting the two monarchs as gods,
overlooking their expansive combined empires.
African indigenous mapping was previously believed to be entirely non-existent or
derivative of other traditions (Adler 1910). Recent work places African traditions
in light of a better understanding of the context of early European and other world
regions' map making traditions (Bassett 1998; Maggs 1998; Woodward and Lewis 1992, 1998).
The earliest African maps may be the petroglyphs found in the Sahara as well as in
southern Africa. Some of the southern African examples appear to be cosmological,
while others appear to depict kraals (livestock corrals). Although none of
these petroglyphs has ever been linked to a particular kraal, there is a
documented case of children playing at trading livestock with large and small pebbles
representing cattle and goats being moved from one kraal to another (Maggs 1998).
Bassett (1998) provides the examples of a wide variety of indigenous African mapping
traditions: Ethiopian maps, various mnemonic maps (including Tabwa scarification
patterns and Luba lukasa boards) used in initiation ceremonies and in the ritual
retelling of history, and documents at least a dozen cases where "ground maps"
were drawn by Africans (e.g. using a stick in the sand) in response to European explorers'
solicitations for directions. In some cases these provided indications of relative
distances, village sizes, and scale, and a number of explorers remarked on their
surprising accuracy. Effective communication across cultures through such techniques
seems deceptively obvious, but on reflection rests upon a set of assumptions for both map
maker and reader that are obvious or seem to be innate.
Looking back on the history of European exploring, mapping, and conquering Africa from
this perspective, the differences between African and European traditions are more often
than not emphasized. But seen in the light of this comparison between early European
mapping traditions and the ways in which Africans developed their own maps and
participated in the European mapping of their own continent, the similarities and common
points are more markedly highlighted. This is a good place to begin looking at how
the European mapping of Africa proceeded from the fifteenth century onwards.
As Harley (1992) points out, the history of European mapmaking from that time to the
present is not simply the development of a single line of increased detail, scientific
accuracy and the elimination of errors. A more nuanced approach yields a richness of
detail and a better understanding of the historical proceesses at work.
Bibliography for further reading
The images on this page are adapted from scanned images from
original antique maps in the Map Library's collections:
Thanks go to Jennifer Farrington of the Map
& Imagery Library for the scanning of the original images. All are copyright
©1999 University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries. |
