A new bilingual (English and Arabic) online resource has emerged giving access to digital copies of archival materials from the British Library collections relating to Persian Gulf history and Arabic science. Over 500 maps had been catalogued and contextualised with geospatial metadata produced. The descriptions and high resolution zoomable images are available at http://www.qdl.qa/en

Detail of A copy of a chart of the Persian Gulf produced in the second half of the 17th century by an anonymous Dutch chart maker. British Library shelfmark: IOR/X/414/220.

The core of the cartographic resources is formed of official maps associated with the records of the successive British administrations in the region and comes from the India Office Records (IOR) map collection.

The selection available on the portal comprises maps, plans and sections dating from the mid-18th to mid-20th century. The geographical scope covers the Persian Gulf region, including the general maps of the whole Arabian Peninsula, the coastal depiction of the Gulf, nautical charts with navigation features, and detailed maps of smaller areas within the region, revealing locations of tribes, various routes (travel, pilgrimage and sea routes etc.) as well as historical events and communication technologies (telegraph lines etc.). Moreover, as the IOR material was produced or copied for administrative purposes and regarded as a reference tool, a large number of items bare extensive annotations making them a unique research resource.

View of the town of Maskat, detail, from A revised map of Omân and the Persian Gulf, in which an attempt has been made to give a correct transliteration of the Arabic names. By the Rev. George Percy Badger, F.R.G.S. British Library shelfmark: IOR/X/3210.

The portal developed by the British Library Qatar Foundation Partnership was launched on 22 October and contains up to 500,000 digital objects over a wide range of formats including archives, manuscripts, maps, visual material and sound recordings, including oral histories and music.

Magdalena Peszko, Map Curator, British Library Qatar Foundation Partnership

This weekend in the 1971 football season Leeds Utd won a thriller against Everton 3-2 at Elland Road. Brian Clough’s Derby County, who would go on to be league champions that year, beat Arsenal 2-1. Of those clubs only two are in today’s top league, and of today’s Premier League line-up, all but 7 of the clubs were there in 1971.

John Carvosso, Football History Map of England and Wales. Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1971. British Library Maps 1190.(177.).

The 1971 football history map, published by Bartholomew and endorsed by the FA, is one of the maps included in a new book entitled ‘A History of the 20th Century in 100 Maps.’ The map is a fabulous celebration of football heritage, showing every English and Welsh Football League club ever to have existed, with their location, colours, crest and dates of foundation included. The vast majority of them are recognisable, though many have changed their badges and grounds. Sunderland, for example, would remove the ship from its crest after the closure of the last shipyard on the River Wear in the 1990s. Chelsea's and QPR's badges are just two of many to have been given fashionable makeovers since.

A number of other clubs featured on the map have since left the Football League, and some have sunk completely. John Carvosso, the map’s author, must have had a difficult job to trace, for example, Clapham Rovers and Bridlington Trinity.

In 1971 England could still look back to its world cup win 5 years earlier. Colour tv enlivened broadcasted games and publications like Shoot! fed the insatiable appetite for football. But the modern game was just around the corner. Crowd violence and hooliganism of the later 1970s was set against a backdrop of economic malaise and widespread unemployment. Football’s traditional supporting heartlands were working class, urban areas which were losing their industries (see Sunderland, above). These were the same areas on whose football terraces had stood the volunteers of the Pals battallions, decimated on the Western Front a half century earlier. 

In the wealthy modern game, heritage is celebrated and preserved provided it does not hinder profit. Famous football grounds such as Maine Road, Highbury, even Ayresome Park, centrally located sites, some even with listed status, have been demolished in favour of larger grounds capable of providing greater match day revenue to their clubs. Historical spaces of virtually sacred memories have disappeared under modern housing developments. You can just about make out the former locations of some of them on Google Earth, rectangular areas of housing with slightly newer looking roofs than those around them. 

A History of the 20th Century in 100 Maps is published by the British Library

Published today, ‘A History of the 20th Century in 100 Maps’ navigates a path through those infamous/violent/extreme/no longer contemporary 100 years via 100 maps made during the course of them (actually there are nearer 110 maps, but don’t tell anyone) Most of them are from the map collection of the British Library.

Telling history through objects has become very popular over the past few years: Neil MacGregor’s ‘History of the World in 100 Objects’, Jerry Brotton’s ‘History of the World in 12 Maps’, and Peter Barber’s superb ‘London, a Life in Maps’ - this latter which showed showed how deeply a place’s past is inscribed in its cartography -  these books examine the past through its objects. But surprisingly, until now, the 20th century has not been really looked at through its key object, the map.

Anon, 'Coronation Edward VIII 1937', British Made, textile, 1936 [British Library Maps CC.5.a.298]. 

The point that Tim Bryars and I want to put across is that the 20th century was THE map century, when maps ceased altogether to be elitist artefacts and became the essential objects we have around us and in our pockets (in whatever form) today. Ultimately, today we understand the world as much through maps as through the reality of our surroundings. That is a consequence of the 20th century and the things that happened in it.

Don't the 1980s seem such a very long time ago now? The Weetabix Wonderworld Atlas, Burton Latimer, c. 1983. [British Library Maps. 260.a.1]

The second point is that while maps survive (and survive they do in the British Library where approximately two-thirds of its 4.5 million maps are from the 20th century), these often random scraps of paper are our way of understanding the recent past, the legacy of which is still with us on the News at Ten and on the front pages. Britain? The EU? Israel? Understand them through the objects that realised them in peoples' minds.

A History of the 20th Century in 100 maps is published in North America by the University of Chicago Press

 The Map Library is pleased to announce the acquisition of no less an item than the earliest recorded set of geographical playing cards, and the first playing cards to have been manufactured in England, engraved, printed and published in London in 1590.

 William Bowes, [Playing card map of England and Wales] engraved by Augustine Ryther, 1590 [British Library Maps C.44.d.90]. 

 This treasure, purchased with the help of the Friends of the British Library, has now been catalogued and digitised (You may also have seen it on display recently in the Treasures of the British Library gallery). The set contains 53 cards without suit markings, each containing a tiny engraved map of an English or Welsh county, plus a general map of England and Wales. They are the second earliest engraved county maps after the maps of Christopher Saxton, whose atlas was published in 1579 and later. They were probably copied, in fact, from Saxton’s general map of England and Wales.

 Anglia hominūnumero reruḿoB feré omniu copijs abundans, sub mitissimo Elizabethae ... Reginae imperio ... florentissima. Christophorus Saxton descripsit. Augustinus Ryther Anglus sculpsit ... 1579 [British Library Maps C.3.bb.5] 

The counties are arranged into 4 sets of similar geographical region (Wales, North, West, East) and numbered I to XIII in order from the smallest county to the largest. Each set has a different engraved pattern border, which have been engraved with wonderful expression (which may also be rushed, after all, the engraver had 52 of them to complete). The maps are accompanied by excerpts from William Camden’s 'Britannia', which had been published in 1586, four years earlier.

They were engraved in copper by Augustine Ryther. Ryther, possibly from Yorkshire, was one of the few English engravers employed to engrave Saxton’s maps (the best engravers in England at the time were Dutchmen, many of them protestants having fled persecution from the continent).

Ryther is an interesting man, a key figure at a crucial time of map and image printing in Elizabethan England. Peter Barber believes that Ryther went on to be agent and seller of Saxton’s maps after a time. He was also an instrument maker, engraver of the earliest English astronomical chart and the earliest surviving English map of London. This latter is included in one of the 3 other surviving sets of the playing cards, which is in the British Museum.

The county map cards tell us much about material culture in Elizabeth England, but also how people had begun to think more about their surroundings, their country, and to visualise them through maps, and literature.

Unlike Ryther, the cards’ craftsman, the author is more shrouded in mystery. The imprint (on one of the text cards) reads ‘Englan: Famous Plac (which we take to mean London) : W.B. inuent,1590’. The identity of W.B. has long been debated, but it was discovered (by Mann and Kingsley) that a William Bowes is associated with a later pack of playing cards produced in 1605, who was the brother of a Ralph Bowes, who was granted a license to import playing cards in 1578.

Bowes may have been the author, but it is without doubt Ryther who takes the spoils for this compelling set of survivors.

Below are images of the first ‘suit’, the counties of East England. The other three suits (South, North and Wales) will follow. Enjoy!

 

 

William Bowes, [playing card maps of counties of East England]. London, 1590 [British Library Maps C.44.d.90] 

Maps are still hidden in amongst the million images on Flickr, and we want to find them!

You are invited to the British Library for a day-long digital maps tag-a-thon event on Friday 31 October. The main activity will be reviewing Library images in Flickr to identify those that are maps. Once we have the maps consolidated, they can be included in the next round of BL Georeferencer, which will place them to their geographic location, increasing findability and allowing overlays on modern mapping. Register to attend here!

Above is one example of what can be discovered. This map of Cerro de Pasco in Peru is from a 1868 book.  The volume was scanned and images released on Flickr; this one was tagged "map", and so was included in the last round of BL Georeferencer. Sure, that effort was successful, but it has been estimated that there are 10,000 more maps in Flickr that we do not know about! We need help finding them.

Participants do not need to possess technical knowledge, but rather an interest in historic maps and a desire to bring them to life digitally. We are lucky to have experienced wiki-editors who will be present on the day to edit the wiki, answer questions, and update our statistics online. (Jheald provides a explanation of the technical process he designed and how it will work.)

Other activities are planned for the day, including a visit to the Maps area, brief updates on digital activities, and a look at the Gothic exhibition. See the event details and full agenda and registration here.

This is a joint event sponsored by the British Library Labs project and supported by OpenStreetMap and Wikimedia UK. I hope to see plenty of map aficionados and BL Georeferencer participants there as well, and I encourage our Maps and Views blog readers to attend!

 

How coincidental that one of Sir John Franklin’s boats should be discovered in the Arctic at the same time as the British Library’s free exhibition ‘Lines in the Ice: Seeking the Northwest Passage‘ takes shape. The show opens in November, and we’re particularly delighted that one of the discoverers of the discoverer, marine archaeologist Ryan Harris, will be speaking at the Library in December.

Sir John Franklin is one of the most famous explorers to have attempted to find a way through over the top of Canada to Japan and China beyond. By 1845 there had been at least two and a half centuries of explorers similarly unsuccessfully attempting the same thing. But Franklin was a hero of the Napoleonic wars, and his status, the mystery, politics, and subsequent efforts to discover the truth have created a compelling narrative which continues to today with the present discovery. 

It could have been much simpler. Perhaps the Inuit who knew exactly what had happened and who communicated it at the time, could have been properly listened to.

Or for those who believe everything they see in maps, perhaps Gastaldi’s world map of 1561 has the answer, even illustrating the culprit.
 

Detail of Canada and the Arctic, from G. Gastaldi, Cosmographia Universalis et Exactissima iuxta postremam neotericorum traditio[n]em. Venice, 1561 [British Library maps C.18.n.1.]

'Lines in the ice: Seeking the Northwest Passage’ opens on 14 November.

In just 28 days from release, 3,220 maps have been geo-located online by participants in the BL Georeferencer project.  For this quantity of maps to be completed at such a speed is truly impressive, and testifies to much scrutiny of maps and online research by many people.

On behalf of the British Library, I'd like to thank the volunteers that contributed their time and energy over the last four weeks to make this happen (the top 25 are recognised here).  Our two star participants, Maurice Nicholson and Susan Major, have once again shone; both assigned approximately 12,500 control points. Their commitment to this project, for this release and those before, has been remarkable, as has the work of many, many other contributors!

The maps have started to be added to Wikimedia Commons in their own British Library Georeferencer subset, thanks to the efforts of Wikipedia's user Jheald and others, providing another point of access in addition to the original Flickr British Library maps subset. Both contain links to the overlays in BL Georeferencer; the geospatial metadata (world files) are available from within the application. Together, this enables full and free download and use of these public domain images and metadata.

We have come a long way since our very first release of maps via BL Georeferencer in February 2012. One year ago, we could boast "only" 2,236 maps georeferenced maps online; since then 6,000 more have been added. As soon as the public can identify and tag another substantial chunk of maps from amongst the images in Flickr (here) or Wikimedia (here), we'll follow this up with more!

In the meantime, check out the placed maps here, where they can be accessed geographically, until they are reviewed by our expert panel for quality, and then added to the Old Maps Online portal with other collections of online historic maps. 

We are in the last quarter of maps of this BL Georeferencer release.  I always like to review at this stage what has been accomplished and what remains. The maps left can be the most difficult ones, so those who like a challenge and want to undertake some tricky online research, this is your time!

Some of my picks for greatest challenges:

Hand drawn! Transliterated from a non-Roman alphabet! On its side!

This map is from W.J. Reid's account of his exploration of western China and eastern Tibet, Through Unexplored Asia. It depicts a mountainous and relatively remote area in central China. There are not a great number of placenames for this area in online maps, and even these may not be spelled the same as the handwritten map labels. Thanks to the volunteer ("digger"), who solved it by using the lat-long references on the map.

I should add that no-one likes a map on its side - one participant said "Help me please, before I need to visit my chiropractor"! Unfortunately, because these maps were semi-automatically extracted from the texts and posted online, this is not an option for now.

Early mapping! Medieval script! Book in Hungarian!

This map is a reproduction of a medieval map within an 1895 book in Hungarian, A magyar nemzet tortenete. 

Unless the map is already familiar to them, the participant will need to read the Hungarian text and decipher the map's medieval handwriting to place it - not a straightforward demand. (This one is still available, so Hungarian-speaking medievalist georeferencers, come forward!)

For every difficult map, however, there may be numerous more familiar ones.

This map of Essex is one of 46 from the 1813 Topographical Dictionary of the United Kingdom.

If you've a talent for geography and curiosity about historic places and spaces, your input to BL Georeferencer will be valuable indeed. There are 762 maps remaining, waiting to be placed!