Thursday 20 August 2009

Map found, history uncovered

You can't lose something you don't know you ever had. But the serendipity of finding something you never knew you owned is always a pleasure.
Take the tale of the librarian at Oxford University's Queen's College who recently uncovered two remarkable treasures which had lain unknown among its manuscripts since at least the 18th century.
It turned out that they dated from 1816 and while no further details were available the librarian, Veronika Vernier, traced them to the cartographer, Joao Teixeira.
According to the Times Higher supplement, Nick Millea, map librarian at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, directed Miss Vernier to a six-volume "bible" of Portuguese cartography.
Mr Millea told THS that the atlases were "stunningly attractive" and "a very important find, because so few copies of this material exist and the ones at Queen's look almost new".
"It's great that they found them and that they were able to work out just how important they are," he added. "You don't get discoveries like this every day or even every year: I don't remember anything of similar quality turning up at Oxford since I joined the Bodleian in 1992."
It just goes to show, sometimes you can find something you weren't looking for and discover real treasure.

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Friday 7 August 2009

Mapping history in Spain

Check out this story from the Daily Mail website - a British newspaper which specialises in stories such as this.

It says: We all rely on maps, be they the sat nav in your car or a traditional A-Z, and archaeologists have found our ancient ancestors were no different.
They have unearthed what they believe to be the oldest map in Western Europe, in a Spanish cave steeped in legend.
The complex etchings were engraved on a hand-sized rock 13,660 years ago, probably by Magdalenian hunter-gatherers.

Read more here and enjoy the images which do make for compelling evidence for a cogent argument.

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