Browse Exhibits (8 total)
This exhibit, though poorly written, is Sarah's example of how to use the Omeka Exhibit Builder. This text is in the "Description" field of the main Exhibit page. It acts as your landing page.
Leave "Slug" blank (it will auto-generate).
List all group members in the "Credits" field.
You can choose to attach a Cover Image on the main page of the exhibit. It won't show in the exhibit, but when you look at the list of exhibits (https://hist231.hist.sites.carleton.edu/exhibits), that will be the image you see.
Seeing Cities explores a series of 16th-century maps depicting cities and cityscapes from various cultures, traditions, and for various purposes. Alongside providing a glimpse into Renaissance cartography, this exhibit seeks to illustrate what variables informed mapmakers' artistic and infographical choices in their works, what commonalities or differences are shared amongst them and why. This selection includes maps of Constantinople (Istanbul), Rome, Germany, and settlements in colonial Spanish Mexico.
An exhibit for HIST 231.00: Mapping the World before Mercator, taught by Prof. Dr. Victoria Morse at Carleton College; Anton-August "Ashton" Macklin '27, Melissa Uc '27, and Molly Horstman Olson '27.
Omeka exhibit put together by Anton-August "Ashton" Macklin '27.
How did medieval cartographers illustrate outer space?
Where is heaven?
What did the solar system look like for medieval map makers?
How did astronomy, astrology, and Christianity interact?
Medieval European cartographers thought about these questions (and more!) when they sought to represent the Earth and the heavens. With the influence of Christianity and a lasting respect for classical knowledge, a variety of map models sought to chart the big wide world, a world that was getting bigger. How do you illustrate a place unexplored and unreachable? It seems that mapmakers had full and complex ideas about the cosmos, even if they could only observe it from our earthly home. Their question is not all that different for cartographers charting the far east or areas south of the Mediterranean. The problem of charting something great and foreign was not new. Imaging space beyond earth brought a new set of creative techniques and philosophies.
Discover the medieval universe and the maps that explain it by navigating our pages on the right!
Our exhibit discusses methods of mapping three different regions: Africa, Asia, and Europe. It does so by describing the characteristics and histories of a variety of different map types, including portolan charts, world maps, and regional maps.
This exhibit explores the ways in which seas and oceans were represented in maps, charts, and atlases: primarily those created in the 15th and 16th centuries.
During the medieval time period in Europe, mapmakers often included an image of paradise in the far east of their world maps or mappaemundi. Mapmakers had to create ways to depict this location as being connected yet separated from the earth.
When comparing three maps ranging from 975 to 1442, there is clear continuity, as paradise is labeled on all three maps. However, the three mapmakers developed very different ways of showing what they thought Paradise should look like on a map.
Where does one draw the borders of Europe? How do you define what a European is?
While the European powers gradually expanded their influence across the globe over the course of a few centuries, they were working on answering some of these very questions. Through the use of maps, Europeans were able to define both themselves, and the “other.”
Our exhibit explores three key aspects of creating and defining Europe.
First, we discuss Europe’s efforts to portray itself as geographically important, especially as European cartography transitioned from medieval-era conceptions to Mercator’s projection of the world. Second, we explore how the eastern and northern borders were newly defined on maps and in atlases. As the eastern border of Europe changed over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries, exactly who was defined as a “European” changed as well. The northern border expanded so that Scandinavia was newly considered a part of Europe in the 15th century. Third, we examine the ways in which Europeans utilized new cartographic ideas embodied by the portolan chart to define the Mediterranean Sea and Europe’s borders.
This exhibit examines the ways in which early mapmakers represented their world. Specifically, we investigate depictions of rivers, mountains, and landscapes to better understand how these mapmakers were interacting with and making sense of the natural world.