Our Oldest Maps May Not Be Our Wisest Maps...

New to the gallery is this very rare mid-16th century coloured print of the Island of Sumatra (Fig 1.), referred to in the title but named Taprobana on the map, a name often given to the island of Ceylon, modern-day Sri Lanka and frequently confused with the Island of Sumatra in 16th and 17th century cartography. This map, which is a wood cut, was published by the German geographer, cartographer and theologian, Sebastian Munster (1488-1552) in his first edition of Ptolemy’s Geographia (Geographia universalis, vetus et nova, compectens Clavdii Ptolemaei Alexandrini enarrationis libros VIII …) in 1540 which makes this map the oldest in Bartele Gallery at 470 years of age.

Geographia contains 27 maps of the old Ptolemaic canon and are supplemented by 21 new maps

drawn by Munster, including the map of Sumatra/Taprobana, supposedly reflecting new geographical knowledge. The name, shape and position of the island in the Indian Ocean is in fact derived from an earlier world map derived from Claudius Ptolemy contained in a 15th century (pre-1470) manuscript volume (Codex La. V F.32 in the National Library Naples) and illustrated in Fig. 3 on the following page.

Bartele GalleryKantor Taman E3.3 Unit A1 4th Floor (Via Cazbar)Jl. Mega KuninganJakarta, IndonesiaTel: +62 21 5764575Fax: +62 21 5764576Email: bartele@me.com

(Fig 1.) Sumatra ein groffe Insel fo von den alten Geographen Taprobana... Modern colour; very good

condition; measures 250 x 339 mm.

The island is much larger than either Sumatra or Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and is centred in the Indian Ocean to the south of the Indus delta, to the southwest of nascent triangle of the Indian sub-continent and the Ganges delta in the East and represents a vestige of the mythical islands of Ptolemy’s land-locked Indian Ocean (Mare Indicum). This beautiful map of Taprobana (Fig 1.) shows the island bisecting the equator with some mountains, rivers and towns named located to the southwest of PARS India. The western third of the print shows an Asian elephant and part of a tree with a cartouche below,

containing old Gothic text referring to Taprobana as Sumatra. Munster corrected the geography of the Far East four years later in 1544 in his monumental work Cosmographia where a recognizable Island of Sumatra is located to the southwest of peninsula Malaya as shown in Fig. 2 above. This later map of Sumatra is the second oldest map we have, at 466 years of age. Both are a must-see at Bartele Gallery.

(Fig 3.) The World of Ptolemy. The world map by Claudius Ptolemy (pre 1470), where the island of Toprabana can be seen in the Mare Indicum (Indian Ocean).

(Fig 2) Sumatra ein grosse insel so vonden at en Geographen... Sebastian Munster, 1544; measures 239 x 251 mm.