Researchers have discovered that a document long thought to be a landscape paintingfrom the Qing Dynasty, is in fact one of China's earliest world maps from the MingDynasty. Han Bingbin reports.
Matteo Ricci, the Italian missionary who arguably published the first Chinese-languageworld map during his long stay in China, was believed to be the source of Chinesepeople's knowledge of world geography. But now a newly appraised Ming Dynasty(1368-1644) world map proves that the Chinese's exploration of world geography hadstarted long before his arrival in 1583.
The Mongolia Mountain and Water Map, a silk hand scroll that measures 30.12 meterslong and 0.59 meters in width, marked 211 places from Ming Dynasty's frontierJiayuguan Pass westward to Mecca of today's Saudi Arabia, named as Tianfang on themap. The "Mongolia" in the map refers to the Mongol Empire that fractured into fourkhanates.
Stretching over Asia, Europe and Africa, the map covers more than 10 countries whichexist today, such as Uzbekistan, Tunisia and Turkey. The Chinese names of the placeswere transliterated from nine languages including Mongolian, Arabic and Greek. Whatthe map depicts is the exact route of the Ming Dynasty Silk Road, so it's now also knownas the Ming Dynasty Silk Road Big Map.
According to Peking University's archaeology professor Lin Meicun, the map wascollected by the Kyoto-based Museum of Fujii Yurinkan in the 1930s. But for a long time,it was treated as purely a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) landscape painting and its realvalue was not known to the Japanese academic circle.
It was first identified as a Ming Dynasty map by historian Fu Xi'nian in 2002 when themap came back to Beijing after various efforts. From 2004, Lin Meicun embarked on acomprehensive study of the map. The academic value of the map was finally unveiled ina 200,000-word book in 2012, the fruit of Lin's painstaking eight-year research.
After studying the construction period of the buildings on the map, Lin concluded themap was painted between 1524 and 1539. Further evidence, such as block-printededitions of this map, led to a more surprising conclusion that it's highly possible the mapwas used by the Ming Dynasty's Jiajing Emperor (1522-1566).
Besides its geographical value, Lin says the map possesses great artistic value. There isevidence of influence from the painting style of the Wu school, a party of Suzhou andWuxi-based literati painters - featuring the well-known Wen Zhengming and Tang Bohu -who were particularly fond of the mountainous landscapes.
The map will tour to Jiayuguan in Gansu province, followed by Beijing, Shanghai,Suzhou and Hainan. It will then be put under the hammer during Poly Auction's springsales. The map's reserve price is 80 million yuan ($12.8 million).
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