Ships on Maps: Pictures of Power in Renaissance Europe. By Richard W. Unger

Abstract

In the Reclus-Perron cartographical collection held in the Public Library of Geneva, a recently discovered map by the explorer Henri Coudreau seems to have been essential, together with other published and unpublished cartographic materials, in deciding the 1900 Swiss arbitration of the Franco-Brazilian border dispute. These materials provide an opportunity not only to analyse the political power of maps, but also to explore a different European way of conceiving maps and geography, that of anarchist geographers, which diverged from the uncritical hagiographies of colonialism and geographical discoveries that were typical in European science during the Age of Empire (1875?1914).     

Roman Roads in the East of England

The West Wansdyke is a major earthwork in the former County of Avon, now Bath and North-East Somerset, which is thought to date to either the late Roman or early post-Roman periods. A series of cross-sections excavated across the earthwork showed, firstly, that it originally existed in some areas where there are no longer any visible remains, but, secondly, that there are still some unexplained gaps. The research suggests that the monument was of a very consistent and uniform design and dimensions, a feature which implies strategic planning and co-ordinated management during construction. Evidence from two particular sites, Blackrock Lane and Compton Green, indicated that significant stretches of the dyke bank originally had a timber revetment, but that, where it was easily available, stone was used, as at Binces Lane, Stantonbury. Little artefactual dating evidence was recovered during the work, although the presence of Romano-British and earlier pottery, and prehistoric flints from bank construction deposits does not preclude the established, post-Roman, context, but can also allow a late Roman date. Construction techniques indicate work in a Roman military tradition, possibly re-using an earlier structure.