TheSelden Map of China (Bodleian Library, MS Selden Supra 105) is an early 17th century map ofEast Asia formerly owned by the legal scholar and maritime theoristJohn Selden. It shows a system of navigational routes emanating from a point near the cities ofQuanzhou andZhangzhou inFujian province, from which a principal route goes northeast towardsNagasaki and southwest towardsHoi An, thenChampa, and then on toPahang, and then with another route heading pastPenghu towards a point northwest byManila.
The map, largely unseen and forgotten since the 18th century, was rediscovered in 2008 by the historian Robert Batchelor at anOxford University library. Batchelor recognized the significance of the system of routes depicted on the map.[1] As the earliest surviving Chinese merchant map of East Asia, it has been recognized as one of the Treasures of the Bodleian.[2] 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.[3]
The map is mentioned in the 1653 will ofJohn Selden. 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 afterEdmund Halley dismissed its accuracy.[4] 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 historianTimothy Brook favors an earlier date, based on his argument thatJohn Saris obtained the map in 1608 and brought it back to England in October 1609.[5] 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 bySamuel Purchas.[6] 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.[7]
The debate over the dating of the map also involves a debate over its composition. Brook believes that the map was made inJava, based on the Saris theory of acquisition and his sense that the southern half of the map is the most "geographically informed."[8] Batchelor believes the possibility that it was made in, or at least passed through,Manila as he argues that the density of ports aroundLuzon as well asJapan andVietnam make a northern source more likely, possibly someone who made it for the merchant/pirateLi Dan, the patron ofZheng Zhilong, father ofKoxinga.[9] According to theEast India Company factorRichard Cocks, Li Dan had spent time as the head of theChinese community in Manila, before being imprisoned by the Spanish and later escaping toNagasaki. A pair of bright redchrysanthemums, unique on the map, mark a spot nearHirado, Nagasaki, 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 atNottingham Trent University published a chemical analysis of the paper that they state backs a hypothesis that the map was composed inAceh, Sumatra, based on spectral analysis of the binding medium and pigments used.[10]
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 theShunfeng Xiangsong (順風相送) owned byWilliam Laud and now also in the Bodleian, themaps ofZheng He'svoyages in theWubei 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 betweenNagasaki andPahang was revealed along with hash marks indicating the rule used for determining the length of lines.[11]
Authority control databases: National |
|---|