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The Selden Map of China (
Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in ...
, MS Selden Supra 105) is an early 17th century map of East Asia formerly owned by the legal scholar and maritime theorist
John Selden John Selden (16 December 1584 – 30 November 1654) was an English jurist, a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law. He was known as a polymath; John Milton hailed Selden in 1644 as "the chief of learned m ...
. It shows a system of navigational routes emanating from a point near the cities of
Quanzhou Quanzhou is a prefecture-level city, prefecture-level port city on the north bank of the Jin River, beside the Taiwan Strait in southern Fujian, China, People's Republic of China. It is Fujian's largest most populous metropolitan region, wi ...
and
Zhangzhou Zhangzhou (, ) is a prefecture-level city in Fujian Province, China. The prefecture around the city proper comprises the southeast corner of the province, facing the Taiwan Strait and (with Quanzhou) surrounding the prefecture of Xiamen. Nam ...
in
Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...
Province, from which a principal route goes northeast towards
Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...
and southwest towards Hoi An, then
Champa Champa (Cham language, Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ, چمڤا; ; 占城 or 占婆) was a collection of independent Chams, Cham Polity, polities that extended across the coast of what is present-day Central Vietnam, central and southern Vietnam from ...
, and then on to
Pahang {{Infobox political division , name = Pahang , official_name = Pahang Darul Makmur , native_name = , settlement_type = States and federal territories of Malaysia, State , image_skyline = , imagesize ...
, and then with another route heading past
Penghu The Penghu ( , Hokkien Pe̍h-ōe-jī, POJ: ''Phîⁿ-ô͘''  or ''Phêⁿ-ô͘'' ) or Pescadores Islands are an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait, about west of the main island of Taiwan across the Penghu Ch ...
towards a point northwest by
Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...
. The map, largely unseen and forgotten since the 18th century, was rediscovered in 2008 by the historian Robert Batchelor. Batchelor recognized the significance of the system of routes depicted on the map. As the earliest surviving Chinese merchant map of East Asia, it has been recognized as one of the Treasures of the Bodleian. The map itself has no title, and the "Selden Map of China" was chosen by David Helliwell as curator of Chinese collections at the Bodleian. The Chinese title 東西洋航海圖 (''Dongxi yang hanghai tu'': "Navigation Chart of the Eastern and Western Oceans") has been proposed by Chen Jiarong.


Date and composition

The map is mentioned in the 1653 will of
John Selden John Selden (16 December 1584 – 30 November 1654) was an English jurist, a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law. He was known as a polymath; John Milton hailed Selden in 1644 as "the chief of learned m ...
. It became part of the Bodleian's collections in 1659. Thomas Hyde and Shen Fuzong ( Michael Shen Fu-Tsung) studied and annotated it extensively in 1687, but it was largely relegated to the status of a curiosity after
Edmund Halley Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, H ...
dismissed its accuracy. There is no firm documentary evidence for the date or location of the map's composition or its whereabouts before 1653. Scholars studying the map after its rediscovery have put forward competing theories as to its provenance. Generally it is agreed that the map was made sometime after 1606 and before 1624. The historian
Timothy Brook Timothy James Brook ( Chinese name: 卜正民; born January 6, 1951) is a Canadian historian, sinologist, and writer specializing in the study of China (sinology). He holds the Republic of China Chair, Department of History, University of British ...
favors an earlier date, based on his argument that John Saris obtained the map in 1608 and brought it back to England in October 1609. Like many Europeans in the late 16th and early 17th century, Saris was interested in Chinese maps and subsequently obtained a different map of China, famously published by
Samuel Purchas Samuel Purchas ( – 1626) was an England, English Anglican cleric who published several volumes of reports by travellers to foreign countries. Career Purchas was born at Thaxted, Essex, England, Essex, son of a yeoman. He graduated from St J ...
. Robert Batchelor argues for a later date of around 1619, noting that certain features on the map, such as the detailed depiction of two landings on Taiwan, indicate knowledge not held prior to the 1610s. The debate over the dating of the map also involves a debate over its composition. Brook believes that the map was made in Java, based on the Saris theory of acquisition and his sense that the southern half of the map is the most "geographically informed." Batchelor believes the possibility that it was made in, or at least passed through,
Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...
as he argues that the density of ports around
Luzon Luzon ( , ) is the largest and most populous List of islands in the Philippines, island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the List of islands of the Philippines, Philippine archipelago, it is the economic and political ce ...
as well as Japan and Vietnam make a northern source more likely, possibly someone who made it for the merchant/pirate Li Dan, the patron of
Zheng Zhilong Zheng Zhilong, Marquis of Tong'an (; April 16, 1604 – November 24, 1661), baptismal name Nicholas Iquan Gaspard, was a Fujianese (Hokkien) admiral, merchant, translator, military general, politician, and pirate leader of the late Ming dyna ...
, the father of
Koxinga Zheng Chenggong (; 27 August 1624 – 23 June 1662), born Zheng Sen () and better known internationally by his honorific title Koxinga (, from Taiwanese: ''kok sèⁿ iâ''), was a Southern Ming general who resisted the Qing conquest of Chin ...
. According to the
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...
factor Richard Cocks, Li Dan had spent time as the head of the Chinese community in Manila, before being imprisoned by the Spanish and later escaping to Nagasaki. A pair of bright red
chrysanthemum Chrysanthemums ( ), sometimes called mums or chrysanths, are flowering plants in the Asteraceae family. They are native to East Asia and northeastern Europe. Most species originate from East Asia, and the center of diversity is in China. Co ...
s, unique on the map, mark a spot near
Hirado, Nagasaki is a city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 28,172, and a population density of 120 people per km2. The total area of the city is Geography Hirado City occupies the northern part of Nagasaki P ...
where Li Dan had his factory. Both historians use a process of elimination to make arguments for the map's date and composition, and there remain numerous candidates for where the map was made, for what reason and for the actual cartographer. In 2016, researchers studying the map at
Nottingham Trent University Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is a public research university located in Nottingham, England. Its origins date back to 1843 with the establishment of the Nottingham School of Design, Nottingham Government School of Design, which still opera ...
published a chemical analysis of the paper that they state backs a hypothesis that the map was composed in Aceh, Sumatra, based on spectral analysis of the binding medium and pigments used. The routes and locations on the map have parallels with but do not match two famous accounts of navigation from the early 17th century, notably the ''Shunfeng Xiangsong'' (順風相送) owned by
William Laud William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I of England, Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Caroline era#Religion, Charles I's religious re ...
and now also in the Bodleian, the
maps A map is a symbolic depiction of interrelationships, commonly spatial, between things within a space. A map may be annotated with text and graphics. Like any graphic, a map may be fixed to paper or other durable media, or may be displayed on ...
of
Zheng He Zheng He (also romanized Cheng Ho; 1371–1433/1435) was a Chinese eunuch, admiral and diplomat from the early Ming dynasty, who is often regarded as the greatest admiral in History of China, Chinese history. Born into a Muslims, Muslim famil ...
's voyages in the '' Wubei Zhi'' (ca. 1628) and Zhang Xie's (張燮) ''Dongxi Yangkao'' (東西洋考, 1617). After the back was removed in 2011 as part of restoration by Robert Minte and a team of experts, a draft of the main route running between
Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...
and
Pahang {{Infobox political division , name = Pahang , official_name = Pahang Darul Makmur , native_name = , settlement_type = States and federal territories of Malaysia, State , image_skyline = , imagesize ...
was revealed along with hash marks indicating the rule used for determining the length of lines.Batchelor, "Selden Map Rediscovered," 42


See also

* History of Chinese cartography * Cartography of China *
Mao Kun map Mao Kun map, usually referred to in modern Chinese sources as Zheng He's Navigation Map (), is a set of navigation charts published in the Ming dynasty military treatise '' Wubei Zhi''. The book was compiled by in 1621 and published in 1628; the ...


References


Citations


Sources

* Robert Batchelor ''London: The Selden Map and the Making of a Global City, 1549-1689'' (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, January 2014) * Robert Batchelor, "The Selden Map Rediscovered: A Chinese Map of East Asian Shipping Routes, c. 1619," ''Imago Mundi: The International Journal for the History of Cartography'' 65:1 (January 2013), 37-63; http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03085694.2013.731203 * Timothy Brook, ''Mr. Selden's Map of China'' (New York: Bloomsbury, October 2013) * Chen Jiarong, "Brief analysis of the composition, date, features, names and routes of the Selden Map of China’ (編繪時間﹑特色及海外交通地名略析, in Chinese), ''Hai jiao shi yan jiu'' 2 (2011): 52–66. See also http://www.world10k.com/blog/?p=2025. * Stephen Davies, "The Construction of the Selden Map: Some Conjectures," ''Imago Mundi: The International Journal for the History of Cartography'' 65:1 (January 2013), 97-105. * David Helliwell and Robert Batchelor, "The Selden Map of China" (2011) http://seldenmap.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ * Patricia Seed, ''Oxford Map Companion'' (New York: Oxford University Press, August 2013) * "A cartographer's dream," ''The Economist'' (January 18, 2014), https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21594229-two-books-tell-fascinating-tale-rediscovered-map-china-cartographers-dream * "The origins of the Selden map of China: scientific analysis of the painting materials and techniques using a holistic approach" ''Heritage Science'' (September 2, 2016), http://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40494-016-0098-x


External links


The Selden Map (zoomable)
This is the official Bodleian Library site
Robert Batchelor's Selden Map Page
This includes links to a Google map with locations identified from the Selden Map as well as a key to the Chinese on the map itself. {{Authority control Historic maps of Asia Maps of China 17th century in China 17th-century maps and globes Bodleian Library collection