Andrew Dury's map of the present seat of war,between the Russians,Poles, and Turks (1769)

Abstract

The chance assembling of a number of different impressions of Andrew Dury's Map of the present Seat of War between the Russians, Poles, and Turks (1769) in the British Library led the authors to examine the map's carto‐bibliographical history. Nine states of the map, two of which were sometimes sold with printed paste‐ons, have been identified to date. The two earliest states of the map are now in the State Historical Museum, Moscow. Although both are best described as proof, or pre‐publication, impressions, each bears evidence of intensive use at the highest levels of the Russian army command. Indeed, the circumstances leading to the creation of the map by Andrew Dury and Peter Bell and to a succession of different versions over the three decades or so of intermittent Russian‐Turkish hostilities highlight the interplay of international politics, individual initiative and commercial factors in late eighteenth‐century map production in London.     

Stamped Signs on Manuscript Maps in the Renaissance

Abstract

The cordiform projection employed by Oronce Fine, Gerard Mercator and Abraham Ortelius may have had a hermetic meaning. The focus in this paper is on Ortelius, for recent studies have suggested connections between Ortelius, Christopher Plantin and a clandestine religious sect in Antwerp, called the Family of Love (Family of Charity), whose emblem was the heart, source of divine illumination and of Free Will. It is argued that Ortelius's contemporaries in the radical religious circles of northern Europe would have perceived the Theatrum orbis terrarum in such a light. As Guillaume Postel's evaluation of Ortelius's work demonstrates, the atlas was considered a talismanic book based on the power of the images.     

Looking at Domestic Textiles: An Eye-Tracking Experiment Analysing Influences on Viewing Behaviour at Owlpen Manor

Decorative textiles were once ubiquitous and important, occupying a significant social and cultural space in the early modern interior, yet their impact upon how individuals engaged with domestic spaces is largely unknown. One way of approaching their impact is through an exploration of how present-day individuals engage visually with them in relation to other objects as they walk around an historic space. This article reports on one such investigation, an eye-tracking study which explored responses to the narrative hangings in Queen Margaret’s Chamber at Owlpen Manor in Gloucestershire. Using eye-tracking equipment, we compared the viewing behaviour of two groups of participants, to whom we gave key information before they entered the room. We found that both the expertise of the viewers and the information provided influenced their viewing behaviour. Our findings highlight the importance of individual understanding and information provided to viewers when engaging with historic spaces, and can inform museum and heritage practice as well as enhancing our comprehension of how viewers engage with such textiles in historic spaces.     

Social and Material Connections: Otis T. Mason’s European Grand Tour and Collections Exchanges

As a method of collections building within the practice of natural history, the exchange of duplicate specimens was carried out by anthropology curators and collectors in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This paper examines exchanges resulting from a three-month tour of European museums by Smithsonian Institution Curator of Ethnology Otis T. Mason in 1889. Framed by the idea of a network of social and institutional ties, we evaluate the role of specimen exchange in the development of anthropology and museums on an international scale.     

The age of the Takatika Grit,Chatham Islands,New Zealand

Hollis, C.J, Stickley, C.E., Bijl, P.K., Schiøler, P., Clowes, C.D., Li, X, Campbell, H. March 2017. The age of the Takatika Grit, Chatham Islands, New Zealand. Alcheringa 41, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518.

The oldest Paleogene strata on Chatham Islands, east of New Zealand, are the phosphatized conglomerates and sandstones of the Takatika Grit that crops out on the northeastern coast at Tioriori and unconformably overlies the Chatham Schist. An intact Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary transition is not preserved at this locality. New biostratigraphic analysis of dinoflagellate, diatom and radiolarian microfossil assemblages confirms that the Takatika Grit is of late early–middle Paleocene (New Zealand Teurian stage) age but contains reworked microfossils of early Campanian (Early Haumurian) age. Vertebrate fossils found in this unit are inferred to be a mixture of reworked Cretaceous and in situ Paleocene bones and teeth. The overlying Tutuiri Greensand is of middle–late Paleocene age in its lower part and also contains reworked Cretaceous microfossils.

Christopher J. Hollis [c.hollis@gns.cri.nz], Chris Clowes [c.clowes@gns.cri.nz], Xun Li [x.li@gns.cri.nz], Hamish Campbell [h.campbell@gns.cri.nz], GNS Science, PO Box 30-368, Lower Hutt 5040, New Zealand; Catherine Stickley, Evolution Applied Limited, 50 Mitchell Way, Upper Rissington, Cheltenham GL54 2PL, UK [catherine.stickley@gmail.com]; Peter Bijl [p.k.bijl@uu.nl], Marine Palynology and Paleoceanography, Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, 3584 CS Utrecht, the Netherlands; Poul Schiøler [poul.schioler@mgpalaeo.com.au], Morgan Goodall Palaeo, Unit 1/5 Arvida St, Malaga, WA 6090, Australia.