Visualising Time-Space in East Asia: Mapping ‘Round Heavens & Square Earth’ from Ancient Rotating Devices to Late Modern Commercial Maps
Maps belong to the oldest forms of human communication and thus represent an important historical record of space. Yet, maps are much more than just a visual presentation of a territory during a certain period of time, they are a reflection of the historical, political, religious and cultural contexts in which they were compiled.
This series of lectures invites a fresh critical view on mapping; its role in the global circulation of knowledge; influence on state sovereignty and royal authority; colonialism, imperialism, and national identities throughout history.
Berlin is an apt place for this topic. It has historically been a meeting point of mapping practices from all over the world. The city played a key role in the genesis of the history of cartography as a distinct branch of the history of science. It hosts a huge variety of samples of the material culture of mapping across many institutions that illustrate how a map is strongly conditioned by the space and time in which it was created (historical context), by people who created it (mapmakers), and by the audience and purpose for which it was intended (users). Maps are, therefore, to be understood as complex social constructs representing the power of knowledge.
Germany is now a major repository of mapping efforts through history, making Berlin a perfect setting for this lecture series. The lecture series will be continued (Part II) from January 2025 onwards.
The lecture series is jointly organized by Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, and Einstein Center Chronoi.
Registration is required, for more information click here For further information contact: Franziska Urban franziska.urban@bbaw.de
Early Chinese astrological devices, shi 式/栻 , usually translated as “cosmographs,” “diviners’ boards,” or more recently as “diviners’ mantic astrolabes” or simply “cosmic models,” are known from the 2nd century BC. Made of lacquered wood, these portable instruments consist of a static square plate, representing the Earth, and a rotating disc placed on top of it, representing the Heavens.
Development of “commercial” printing for commoners in late imperial China gave rise to schematic cosmographic maps (ca. early 17th century, onwards). Their structure strikingly resembles shi, with the difference that the square Earth is placed in the centre of the round Heavens. These maps were then transmitted to Korea. They apparently served as one of inspirations of the circular world maps found in popular Korean atlases (18th-19th centuries).
The aim of this presentation is to show how the ancient Chinese concept of ‘Round Heavens & Square Earth’ visualized as a time-space relationship continued to be in use in East Asia until the beginning of the 20th century, co-existing with modern Western science.
This is the second in the Maps and Mapping lecture series organized by Dagmar Schäfer (BBAW, MPIWG) Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann (CNRS Paris; EC-Chronoi and MPIWG) and Ute Tintemann (BBAW), in cooperation with the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.
The other dates are:
11 November 2024
Maps and Mapping in Global Cultural Perspectives: Temporality in Map History
19 December 2024
The event flyer is available for download below.