Gough Map

The Gough Map ( Gough Map ), named in English as Bodleian-Map/Karte according to the place of storage is probably the oldest map (large) Britain.

Creation

The question of the unknown period of production is only approximately solved by other questions: Who, when and how has been created or the Gough map? It was probably created 1355-1366. Clue for 1355 is a walled city of Coventry, which was first built in 1355. Clue for 1366 is to rename the city " Sheppey " in " Queensborough ".

In the Bodleian / Bodleyan Library in Oxford Gough card is issued.

Large items are: ( large) UK; England and Scotland imaged with 600 places. It is not a Mappa Mundi ( world map ). Was named the map after its owner Richard Gough (1735-1809), who donated the map in 1809 the Bodleian Library.

Meaning and content

The Gough map is important because it breaks with the tradition or the norm, to be constructed theologically ( religious).

She is the first traffic map of the UK with roads and paths. Distances as the Romans ( with reference to the measuring stick in the ancient Roman Empire ) are in red.

The length unit is " League ", which means three miles, 1 League or 4.8 kilometers. It is used for the first time significantly before the 17th century. The Watling Street (Old English: Wæcelinga Straet, from pre-Roman times, and today used by the A2 and A5 ) between St Albans ( Verulannium, north of London ) and Canterbury ( Durovernum ) - continued up to Wales west of Gloucester - is also included in part. For the first time the British coast is geographically completely covered.

The Kingdom of England is captured much more accurately than the Kingdom of Scotland.

Special cities such as London and York are registered in gold, and in addition the most important buildings of the city from the idea ( maßstabsungetreu ) is located. Maßstabsungetreu are islands and lakes (small ) and rivers that have (greater ) is entered, all strategic importance. Mythological about turning the card at the landing of Brutus in Devon.

The Gough Map is the standard-setting card (large) Britain until the 16th century, according to UNESCO until 1671 ( Thomas Jenners map).

Author unknown

Either someone has created the card, who did his on a campaign King Edward I., because of the good drawing of the environment through which the campaign came through. Or the English cities South Yorkshire or Lincolnshire could be original home of the artist, as these areas were very well drawn.

Research subject

The interdisciplinary science group of Gough-Map-/Karten-Projekts it comes to work and research in the field of " Linguistic Geography ". The sciences geography, history and cartography particular, are represented. It's the scientists about how you can both (historical ) understood cards, read, and interpreted. For this purpose, it is more important for them to learn more about their origins, and eventually to develop technologies of detecting and interpreting graphic! The " Linguistic Geography " is also about the relationship between image and text, and therefore also to the property of an artificial map, " consumed " and to be " produce". This includes also linguistic expressions on the map itself

The project staff have put into the map in their official Internet site. For the card can work interactively and visually edited. In addition, supplementary on those main source material, a blog, information about the project as well as a search function for matching publications are made available. A video is available on Youtube. The Gough Map Project is located in the official responsibility of King's College (Department of Digital Humanities ) in London. Other co-responsible are the government "Arts & Humanities Research Council " with the "Beyond Text" institution, the Bodleian / Bodleyan library of Oxford University and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

At a research meeting in Oxford of 23 - 25th June 2011 it was about the Internet presentation of the map, and more precisely to various aspects of research, such as Place names. The place names of origin, pronunciation, meaning are important. Also previous cards were used.

The physical state is interested in the research: in particular, whether the item is still in original color, or whether he ( makes sense) was painted over. The map was digitized in 2005 and processed by information technology with the computer program ArcGIS (Scan 2005 ). The scan of 2010 in red color (2005 in blue) showed a significantly better fidelity. The research relevance remains important for the "Linguistic Geography ".

Public and award

In the British television 2008 series to search for traces of Medieval Britain was (English: "In Search of Medieval Britain " ) aired in which Alixe Bovey undertook a series of journeys through Britain with the Gough Map as a travel base.

A great success recorded by the Gough map and their staff with the award of the UNESCO World Documentary Heritage in May 2011.