I was reading news and I ended up on the BBC site where they have this interesting slideshow of old maps of the African continent that are part of the exhibition by the Royal Geographical Society, Rediscovering African Geographies.
I’ve learned a lot, for example that the name of the continent comes from a tribe of the Sahara, the Berber, who called themselves the Afarika and that in a 14th century map are positioned in what is now Sudan. There are other theories of where the name comes from, but I prefer this one since attributes the name to the Africans and not to white colonizers.
I’ve also learned that the old name of the south Atlantic Ocean was “The Ethiopian Ocean” and that comes from the Greek word Ethiopia that refers to someone who’s black, so that means that they considered it the “black people sea”. In a map of 1625, the names of many tribes of Africa appear written with a lot of detail and again this has been attributed to the the African population that traveled throughout the continent and then told the European explorers of their knowledge.
There are more modern maps of Africa marking the trading routes of the different products that were exchanged, including unfortunately, slaves. Later maps of the 19th century appear with the first straight borders drawn by Europeans, not Africans and have lost all the richness of the different African tribes. The culture and the original owners of the land have been erased becoming instead a land to conquer and possess.
Do you want to see a part of the oldest map of Africa ever discovered? Do you know when it was drawn and by whom? Here it is:
It dates from 1389 and was created by China about 100 years before Western explorers reached the continent!
Here I include two maps of Abyssinia/Ethiopia. One from 1658 by Sanson d’Abberi and the other by cartographer O. Dapper: :
It’s incredible how much a map says about the times it was made and about the people who made it and the political power it contains.
Watch the short slide show about mapping Africa at the BBC site.
The exhibition just ended in London.
Royal Geographical Society
Early Maps of Africa
African Maps
Africa’s oldest map unveiled
Mapping Africa: Problems of Regional Definition and Colonial/National Boundaries by Ralph A. Austen
The History of Cartography related to Africa
 A Short History of the Cartography of Africa (African Studies) Jeffrey C. Stone |
 Maps of Africa to 1900: A Checklist of Maps in Atlases and Geographical Journals in the Collections of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Thomas J. & Yvette Scheven |
 The Rediscovery of Africa, 1400-1900: Antique Maps & Illustrations William R. Jacobson |
Maps and Politics Jeremy Black |
AliciA
2 users commented in " Mapping Africa "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI forgot to add to the post that on May 19th 2001, the Anglo-Ethiopian Society in London, UK, will host the lecture “The European Mapping of Ethiopia, 1573-1856″ by Prof Christopher Clapham at 7:00 PM to talk about the maps of Ethiopia published in Europe. For more details go to http://www.anglo-ethiopian.org/events/
Thank you for publishing this. Most of the present day information about Africa is highly distorted or just an attempt to cover the truth. I have also conducted numerous researches about Africa and discovered these maps dating far back to the 14th Century. I’m impressed with your 1389 map created by China as that is the only one I had not come across.
The present day country of Ethiopia is not the original Ethiopia. The country was formerly known as Abbysinia. The whole region of Central and Southern Africa including parts of East Africa was what was known as Ethiopia. As far back as 4 AD (in the days after the ascension of Jesus Christ) natives of Africa were known as Ethiopians. A sure fact about one of them is recorded in the Bible in the incident where an “Ethiopian” who was an important official in the Queen’s service had traveled to Jerusalem to worship. As can be seen from most of these maps there were kingdoms (as in royal kingdoms) in many parts of the continent and some of them were ruled by Queens. The Ethiopian eunuch who went to Jerusalem was riding a chariot which means there were chariots in the continent back then. He was also reading a book which means that these people were exposed to literacy. The fact that he traveled to a foreign country implies that he must have been fluent in Hebrew or Aramaic which then implies that these people could speak foreign languages. He was obviously clothed but historians would rather have us believe that Africans had never been exposed to clothing prior to their colonization. Thank you again for this blog. In these days of the internet no truth remains concealed.
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