A book newly acquired by the Thammasat University Libraries helps us see the importance of maps for understanding history. The noun cartography means the practice of drawing maps. The word cartography originally derives from a Latin term for maps, and literally means drawing maps. History of Britain in Maps by Philip Parker offers over 90 maps, giving an idea of the history of Britain. Part of the challenge in understanding the history of any country is having an idea of where events occurred. Unless we have visited all the areas involved ourselves, it can be difficult to get an exact notion of where things happened and why. The author Philip Parker has worked in the British diplomatic service. He studied history at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and international relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Bologna, Italy. He has written about the Vikings, Ancient Rome, and world history. Cartography or mapmaking has been an occupation of humans since the days of cave paintings, many thousands of years ago. The first surviving maps were drawn of the sky, since people wanted to know about the locations of the stars more urgently than places on earth. As we know, if we know where the stars are in the sky, we are informed about our position if we are sailing on the sea. A cave painting in the Czech Republic of a mountain, river, valleys and routes dates back to around 25,000 BCE. An example of the sort of map focused on in History of Britain in Maps is the Hereford Mappa Mundi. A mappa mundi is any European map of the world from the Middle Ages. These range in size from only one inch across to over 11 feet in diameter. The term mappa mundi originates from Latin words meaning chart of the world. Of about 1,100 of these maps known to have survived from the Middle Ages, the Hereford Mappa Mundi is the largest one. It is currently on display at Hereford Cathedral in Hereford, UK. It is drawn on a single sheet of calf skin measuring 64 by 52 inches. Researchers have suggested that it was drawn around the year 1300. The map illustrates the philosophy of the medieval Church, showing Jerusalem at the center of the world. The map also contains around 500 drawings of cities and towns, Biblical events, plants, animals, birds and monsters, people, and images from classical mythology. Christopher de Hamel, an authority on medieval manuscripts, has said of the Hereford Mappa Mundi:

It is without parallel the most important and most celebrated medieval map in any form, the most remarkable illustrated English manuscript of any kind, and certainly the greatest extant thirteenth-century pictorial manuscript.

For TU students who are fascinated by the map, there is currently a job listing for an assistant in the cathedral shop, near where the map is displayed. Applicants should be at least 18 years old. If they are 21 years old and over, they are offered a somewhat higher hourly salary.

Thailand and Maps

As all Thais know, how and when maps were first drawn of Siam tells us a lot about the Kingdom and how it was viewed by people long ago. Dr. Dawn F. Rooney an independent scholar and art historian based in Bangkok, has researched this subject. Dr. Rooney is the author of a number of books in the collection of the TU Libraries. They include Folk Pottery in South-East Asia; Thai Buddhas; Ancient Sukhothai: Thailand’s Cultural Heritage; Betel Chewing Traditions in South-East Asia; Ceramics of Seduction: Glazed Wares from Southeast Asia; Sukhothai and Si Satchanalai Ceramics: Inspiration and Realization; Royal Porcelain from Siam: Unpacking the Ring Collection, and other titles of interest. Dr. Roone is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society in London, an advisor to the Society for Asian Art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, and co-chairperson of the James H.W. Thompson Foundation Advisory Board, Bangkok, and the Thailand representative for the International Map Collectors’ Society. In a paper presented at the International Map Collectors’ Society [IMCoS] Symposium, Singapore in November 1991, Dr. Rooney noted:

The mapping of Thailand began in the south. There, ports along the coast of the gulf have provided shelter and resources for mariners since the first millennium. It is likely the Chinese had charted the east coast and named locations by the third century, even though there are no extant maps. By then, the Chinese were actively trading in the Southern Ocean (Nanhai).

By around the year 300, Chinese mapmakers were aware of Thailand, but in the West, it took much longer before people became generally aware. By the 1500s, Dr. Rooney adds,

Although this phrase, ‘Kingdom of Siam’, appeared persistently on European maps, it was incorrect. The kingdom was Ayutthaya. The origin of the word ‘Siam’ seems to be a foreign one. Accounts of visitors in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries support this origin. For example, Guy Tachard (1688) wrote that the capital was called Siam and that it was a name given by the Portuguese. Since its founding in the middle of the fourteenth century, the kingdom called itself ‘Muang Thai’, the name by which the country is still referred to in modern Indonesian (and its capital Ayutthaya or Sri Yo-thi-ya, a Thai variant of Ayodya). Engelbert Kaempfer (1690) wrote also that the natives use the name “Muan Thai”. Native inhabitants descended from a ‘Tai’ cultural group and have called themselves ‘Thai’ since the beginning of the first modern kingdom at Sukhothai in the middle of the thirteenth century. Simon De La Loubere (1688:7-8) wrote that “The Siamese give to themselves the Name of Tai. or Free…”. Other Asians, such as the Chinese, Persians, Cham,, and Khmer,, used ‘Siam’ as a name for the area known today as Thailand and ‘Siamese’ for the Thai people. Later, Europeans adopted ‘Siam’ as a name for either the country or the capital.

As we see, a name inscribed on a map can tell us much about how countries were identified or identified themselves at certain times. She continues:

Another milestone in Thailand’s cartographical development of the sixteenth century was the publication in 1596-8 of the first separate map of the kingdom. ‘Regnum Siam’ (in Speculum Orbis terrae) by Johannes Metellus, a German scholar, was based on information from maps by Gastaldi (1548) and Ramusio (1554).

Not until 1828 was the earliest known town plan of Bangkok published in a journal of John Crawfurd’s mission to Thailand (Journal of An Embassy to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China). Books about John Crawfurd and his mission are also available in the TU Libraries. Dr. Rooney concludes:

This paper is only an introduction. More work needs to be done. Many maps of Thailand undoubtedly lie buried in the archives of Burma and India. The records of all nationalities of missionaries in Thailand need to be conscientiously examined. And, the search for indigenous maps must continue. It is in these directions that I shall turn my future research.

Naturally all these early pioneers in mapmaking were surpassed by the scientific approaches of the Royal Thai Survey Department (RTSD). In 1990 the RTSD issued a satellite map of Bangkok with soil, water, and buildings clearly represented. A wide range of such developments may be admired at the the Therd Phra Kiat Room at the RTSD’s headquarters on Kalayana Maitri Road, Phra Borom Maha Ratchawang, Phra Nakhon, Bangkok. As the Bangkok Post reported:

Displaying map-making tools and old maps, [the museum] provides a clear picture of the history and development of cartography in Thailand since the reign of King Rama V in the 19th century… On view are plane surveying, chain surveying and compass surveying tools, old-style stationery and passometers (step counting tools). Also there are modern machines, such as mirror stereoscopes, aviagraph stereoplotters, colour separation tools and computers. Through the map-making equipment and old maps, visitors can learn about the evolution of map production in Thailand. The modern science of cartography from the West was introduced to Siam after King Rama V’s visit to the Malay peninsula, Java and India in 1873 when the monarch decided to hire Henry Alabaster (1836-84), former deputy British consul to Siam, as his personal adviser. Alabaster suggested the use of modern sciences in developing the nation. In 1875, the king established the map-making division and Alabaster was nominated to head things up. His team surveyed certain areas of Bangkok and produced maps for constructing roads and telegraph systems and protecting territorial waters.

The RTSD was founded in 1885, with James F. McCarthy, a British expert on map-making, as director-general under the title Captain Phra Wipakphuwadon. Therd Phra Kiat Room is open from 9am-3:30pm on weekdays. Admission is free. Groups must make reservations. Contact the Royal Thai Survey Department on 02-223-2837 or visit www.rtsd.mi.th

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)