III. Jordan and the Early Modern Period: Christian Exploration and the Age of Discovery

The Age of Discovery, or exploration, began in the 1400s, as European nations began expanding outwards to explore the world. This age, naturally, intensified and revived cartography, and these new European maps gained rapid popularity by integrating a Christian worldview. This worldview was translated into world maps by placing Jerusalem in the center. The Holy Land representations of the maps indicated heavily that the exploration was Christian. During the 15^th to the 18^th centuries, these particular maps included both banks of the Jordan, connected across the unifying River.

The 1475 Berlinghieri map was a version of Ptolemy’s map, drafted by the Italian scholar and humanist. 1458 marked a later version, William Wey’s map, drawn on a western-looking landscape, showing a series of population settlements all the way down the eastern and western banks of the Jordan, as if they were medieval castles. William Wey was a famous traveler and author who was born in 1407. The potentially dividing nature of the Jordan River is downplayed entirely to a festival-like interpretation of the region. Wey gives a very religious spin to the map, matching between existing places and biblical names. The northern lake, the lowest freshwater lake on earth, is given four names on the map:  Kinneret, Tiberia, Sea of Galilee, and Gennasereth. The Jordan, and the other rivers, are a uniting, rather than dividing force.  Other maps include the 1459 Fra Mauro map, considered to be the most accurate of its age, drafted by the traveler solider.

Figure 8: William Wey’s Map

Source: Wey, 1867

In 1532 Jacob Ziegler attempted to draw a scientific map of the Levant, though the element of illusion was obvious. In the upper left corner, the sea monster Leviathan dangerously approaches the sphere, representing the origin and longitude around the edges, showing the relationship between myth and science. On the other hand, the northwest direction of the map is much easier to read for modern viewers than the Wey map. As we progress within the ancient maps, we find the maps become progressively more legible. The Jordan River is strategically important at the heart of the map but is not a dividing force within it. There is a series of mountains that host the major settlements. The eastern mountain range, like many other regions of the era, acts as a barrier between the Bible region and the desert on the Ziegler map. The map shows the distance between the eastern mountains and other eastern capitals such as Susa, Babylon and Nineveh. The Mercato map of 1537, drafted by Geradus Mercator, from the County of Flanders, most famous for his world map project, based on the Ziegler map, quotes on it, “Fair reader, greeting! We have drawn this map of Palestine, and the Hebrews’ route into it from Egypt through the stony regions of Arabia.”

Figure 9: Jacob Ziegler Scientific Map

Source: Ziegler, 1532

Henricus Petri’s 1542 map is also based on the Ptolemy paradigm. Its southeastern direction is virtually the exact opposite of the Ziegler map. There is a clear distinction between the East and West Banks of Jordan. The eastern part is sparsely populated and has more forested areas than settlements. The eastern Desert features animals, camel riders, Bedouin tents, and wells (which it seems the caricature user has difficulty pumping!). A sequence of towns and villages east of the desert, seemingly along the Jordan seems to be the barrier between civilization and nature. There is a transfigured Christ who points to salvation in the West, just west of the Sea of Galilee.

Figure 10: Henricus Petri Map

Source: Sebastian, 1545

The 1569 map of Bolognino Zaltieri in Venice follows the style of Madaba’s map, rather than the map of Ptolemy more than any other coast. This is a characteristic of nature. On the corridor between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, is a line of concentrated trees that form a corridor emphasizing the boundary between the Jordan and the Dead Sea. Rachel Haverelock in The Jordan River in Ancient and Modern Times describes the River as the lifeline of the region.^[2] The River flows into Lake Hula, which is North of the Jordan, and as described in the Bible, a twin fountain called “Jor” and “Dan.” A bridge named after James the Bible appears just south of Samachonites Lake, and a Roman bridge crosses the River south of the Sea of ​​Galilee.

The map of Zaltieri, like its predecessor, uses biblical symbols intensively to define the region. There are few landmarks on the east side. The sporadic peaks are intensive. The map gives an aerial perspective of the Holy Land and is spacious and open. We see the Jordan River lined with trees on both banks and incorporating miniature city views, as well as a compass. We see Moses standing on the peak of Mount Nebo in Moab. We see the Dead Sea cities engulfed in flames on the map. We also see on the east bank of the Jordan the figure of Absalom, King David’s 3^rd son who raised a revolt in Hebron, hanging by his hair from a tree.

Figure 11: Bolognino Zaltieri’s Map of the Jordan

Source: Zaltieri, 1569

In 1570 Abraham Ortelius’ map in the Theatrum Obris Terrarum (the first modern atlas) was drafted, which has been described as “loaded with theological, eschatological, and, ultimately, para-colonial Restorationism.” Ortelius was a Brabantian cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer.

I will zoom in most in this section to the first world map to have identified Petra on it. Ulrich Bellwald, a Swiss archeologist notes, “The first map which I detected as showing the exact location of Petra, including an abbreviated view of the city surrounded by mountains, was the one in Palazzo Colonna in Rome,” on a map drawn by Bartolomeo Bonomi in 1572. Commissioned by Marcantonio Colonna, an Italian aristocrat serving the Spanish Crown, the map is titled Portolano del Mediterraneo (or simply Mediterranean ports). Bartolomeo Bonomi was neither a surveyor nor engineer, rather an illustrator and engraver.

Colonna fought in the battle of Lepanto, as an admiral in 1571, where the Ottoman Empire defeated a group of Catholic states organized under the Pope at that time, Pius V. The models for the map are assumed to have originated with the Ottomans.  Indeed, Colona references Kitab-i-Bahriye (which in English means the Book of Navigation) by Hadji Ahmed Muhiddin Piri, published in 1521 as the source. On Piri’s map we see cities such as Petra and Damascus, in addition to the major ports.

The implications of this map are such that the Swiss Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, a famous orientalist, visited the region with full knowledge that Petra must be located within the Wadi Musa area. He was ultimately credited in 1812 with having “discovered” Petra and introducing it to the West.

Piri’s 2^nd edition was printed in 1525. By the 3^rd, it had gained even more popularity, and included maps that were more modern from the Italian cartographers Jacopo Gastaldi and Battista Agnese, and the Dutch Abraham Ortelius. The fact that western cartographers were featured in an eastern atlas shows the influence and cooperation between the two worlds through maps.

Figure 12: Petra in Map – Hadji Ahmed Muhiddin

Source: Rawashdeh, 2019

The northwest orientation of the maps of Europe in the 17^th and 18^th centuries is consistently used. Maps of this period are fairly uniform in terms of the amount of data contained, irrespective of whether they explicitly note place names, and whether or not they include decorative features. All of them depict the eastern bank of the Jordan River, and most of them also include the Eastern Desert. These maps are not interested in modern settlements and preserve and reconstruct the biblical kingdom. In other words, the geographical projection of the map recreates historic Israel while creating a completely Christian environment.

Other maps include Christian van Adrichem, a Dutch priest in 1590; a 1620 translation into Hebrew of this map by Jacob ben Abraham Zaddiq; a 1655 map by Christoph Heidmann from his Palestina siue Terra Sancta;  a 1657 map by Philippe de La Rue; others in 1714 by Adriaan Reland,  Dutch Orientalist scholar, cartographer and philologist; 1745 by Richard Pococke, an English-born churchman, inveterate traveler and travel write,  depicting the Holy Land and Syria; and 1794 by the French Jean Baptiste d’Anville, who improved the standards of map-making.

It is during this period that we see a shift towards more scientific and accurate drafting of the physical landscape. However, the Christian worldview dominates, and maps continue to celebrate religion. During this time, there was also more of a focus on the map’s orientation. It generally appears that how far east the maps extend depends heavily on the data sources of the maps, from religious or historical and political sources. In addition, we see some Western cartographers starting to internalize the Ottoman rule boundaries, a topic we will explore more in the next post.