Maps & Documents Archive

  • deadlynames

    The book of deadly names

    Posted on June 22, 2010 | No Comments
    Sorcerers who mastered the art of summoning powerful djinn walked the lands of Andalusia and North Africa. One such sorcerer left behind a handwritten manuscript containing forbidden secrets of the most terrible and powerful of all the evil djinn. Something about this particular manuscript was...

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  • Poverty_map_old_nichol_1889

    Rookery

    Posted on May 23, 2010 | No Comments
    A rookery (also sometimes described as a stew) was the colloquial British English name historically given to a city slum occupied by poor people and frequently also by criminals and prostitutes. Such areas were overcrowded, with low quality housing and little or no sanitation; poorly constructed dwellings were often crammed into...

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  • 754px-Musei_Wormiani_Historia

    Cabinets of Curiosities

    Posted on May 23, 2010 | No Comments
    Two of the most famously described 17th century cabinets were those of Ole Worm, known as Olaus Wormius (1588–1654) (illustration, above right), and Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680). These seventeenth-century cabinets were filled with preserved animals, horns, tusks, skeletons, minerals, as well as other types of equally fascinating man-made...

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  • hic sunt dracones

    hic sunt dracones

    Posted on January 31, 2010 | 2 Comments
    “Here be dragons” is a phrase used to denote dangerous or unexplored territories, in imitation of the medieval practice of putting sea serpents and other mythological creatures in blank areas of maps. The only known historical use of this phrase is in the Latin form “HC SVNT DRACONES”...

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  • Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas

    Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas

    Posted on April 28, 2009 | No Comments
    Biography His father, Roderigo de Tordesillas, and his mother, Agnes de Herrera, were both of good family. After studying for some time in his native country, Herrera proceeded to Italy, and there became secretary to Vespasian Gonzago, with whom, on his appointment as viceroy of...

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  • The Voynich manuscript

    The Voynich manuscript

    Posted on March 5, 2009 | No Comments
    By current estimates, the book originally had 272 pages in 17 quires of 16 pages each. About 240 vellum pages remain today, and gaps in the page numbering (which seems to be later than the text) indicate that several pages were already missing by the...

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  • Dieppe Maps

    Dieppe Maps

    Posted on November 1, 2008 | 1 Comment
    131 The Dieppe maps are a series of world maps produced in Dieppe, France, in the 1540s, 1550s and 1560s. They are large hand-produced maps, commissioned for wealthy and royal patrons, including Henry II of France and Henry VIII of England. The Dieppe school of...

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  • The 4th Crusade

    The 4th Crusade

    Posted on October 1, 2008 | 1 Comment
    There was something very odd about the 4th crusade (1202-1204). For one – they didn’t head for the Holy Land, choosing instead to go after Constantinople, then Capital of the Byzantine Empire. Which was virtually entirely christian at the time, it was seen as one...

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  • Piri Reis Map

    Piri Reis Map

    Posted on September 27, 2008 | No Comments
    In 1929, a group of historians found an amazing map drawn on a gazelle skin. Research showed that it was a genuine document drawn in 1513 by Piri Reis, a famous admiral of the Turkish fleet in the sixteenth century. His passion was cartography. His...

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