The holidays are over and the new year has come, thus it is a good time to give a small update showcasing the new maps I am currently working on. At the moment, I have three different projects from very different eras in development.
The Bronze Age World: Sadly, progress on this map was very slow since early summer last year. I am pessimistic that this will change much until I can again freely visit and work in our University library, which is currently not possible since the beginning of the pandemic.
The next edition of my Parthian Empire map. Expanded from DIN A0 to B1 it includes additional territories to the east, showing the entire area between the Roman and Chinese Empires in the later 1st Century.
The Silk Road and the Parthian Empire: An expansion of my old Parthian Empire/The Roman Era Orient map to the east. The map area will be increased from DIN A1 to B1, the scale will not change. All territories held by the Kushan Empire and the western most client states of the Han dynasty’s Chinese Empire in the Tarim Basin will be included on the main map, while a new small ancillary map will show the ancient Silk Road from the Chinese capital Chang’an to the Tarim Basin. At the moment I am researching the western portions of the Han era great wall. I intend to replace the current Parthian Empire map with this new edition sometime in summer.
A section of the Han era Great Wall running west of the Jade Gate towards the ancient Lop Nor lake.
Image: Google Earth
Age of Sail - Middle America: The large sailing ships and the era when they connected the world are things that always fascinated me. Hence since I begun making maps I had the desire to one day cover this epoch of human history too. Finally, I’ve begun working on a first Age of Sail map over the holidays. The map will cover the islands and countries around the Carribean Sea during the colonial period in about the early decades of the 18th century. The political borders will probably reflect the situation after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession with the peace of Utrecht in 1714.
My new map project in its infancy. So far there are already about 200 named places and other labels scattered around the canvas.
Ideally, I want to eventually cover the entire world, but I have not yet decided how to achieve this goal best. Some kind of small scale ancillary map, a series of maps covering various parts of the world or one separate DIN A0 world map are all options I am evaluating. So far I am using a Robinson projection for the new map, so that I can add new places everywhere on the globe while using a single project file and create seamless maps at will.
For the Americas I intend to include the founding date of each settlement and, where applicable, also the (ruined) cities of pre-Columbian cultures.
Herman Moll's excellent work: "A Map of the West-Indies or the Islands of America in the North Sea; with ye adjacent Countries; explaining what belongs to Spain, England, France, Holland &c. also ye Trade Winds, and ye several Tracts made by ye Galeons and Flota from place to place. According to ye newest and most exact observations"
The Middle America map is inspired by the contemporary, fantastically detailed, Herman Moll map of the West Indies. First published in ca. 1720 with new editions subsequently released in the following decades. Indeed, my first idea was to simply make a modern version of it with correct geography, but as always the concept has already begun to evolve and will to do so until a completed version is in sight.
Write a comment