PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
July 2018
411
accurate map to date. It was created
in two mediums, an atlas of over 70
double sized pages, and a solid silver
disc over 2 meters in diameter.
Western Exploration – The
Rediscovery of Maps in
Antiquity
With the exceptions of Italian Giaco-
mo Gastaldi’s published “Arabia Felix
Nova Tabula” in 1548, and German
Christoph Weigel (1720), both of whom
largely reiterated the early works of
Al-Idrisi and Ptolemy, the peninsula
was for the most part ignored by west-
ern cartographers. The intense trade
had long since been relegated to the
dust bins of history, instead the riches
of sub-Sharan Africa and the new
world beckoned, with ivory, gold and
slaves. As the empirical and qualitative
science of measuring the world’s surface
expanded and more of the hereto now
unknown continental interiors were
mapped, a greater scientific curiosity
became pronounced to discover and
explore. This largely started with the
easiest methods of mapping, mostly by
ship or water craft, up navigable rivers
and streams, and then connecting such
headwaters via known native routes.
Arabia Felix however, unlike Sub-Sha-
ran Africa and the Americas, lacked
for any easy water borne access.
Even though many of the maps being
published in the period had accurate
coastal surveys, the interiors were
almost without exception, derived
from the imaginations of their cartog-
raphers. Flanked by mountains to the
west and south, the isolated Ottoman
Empire to the north, and a waterless
empty quarter to the east, Arabia was
less than conducive to travel. Without
a single navigable water way, it was
readily bypassed for more hospitable
routes. Thus, it wasn’t until the latter
half of the 18
th
century, that the first
purely scientific European expedition
was launched to Arabia in 1761 at the
command of King Frederick V of Den-
mark. The expedition included a doctor,
Figure 2. Credited to Al-Idrisi derivative work: PHGCOM - TabulaRogeriana.jpg, Public Domain,
Figure 3. By Christoph Weigel the Elder -
: Qatar
Foundation, Heritage Library, Public Domain.
