- 1 day ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:05I'm going left to my favorite coffee shop which does the best coffee on the street then I come
00:11straight back out and I'll call into the paper shop because my friend Casey runs it and we
00:16always have a joke and I come out of there go left curve down here big new build place here
00:24intrigued at what it's going to do to the house prices in the area so I'm always looking to see
00:27how that's going on and then I keep left cross a bridge which goes over the canal and I'm going
00:33right along here passing all the boats and then I'm going up right here go left and there I am
00:42I'm out into Oxford station and they're in 10 minutes and then I'm on my way map making is a
00:49basic human instinct it's one of the ways we make sense of the world around us I've been studying and
00:57writing about maps for most of my working life I'm fascinated by the way they're like windows
01:02onto different times and different cultures the map that I've produced is absolutely unique to me it's
01:11totally subjective I'm not interested in what's going on over here I haven't filled any of this
01:16area out it's dead to me I've edited out what I don't want I'm doing what map makers tend to
01:22do
01:22they offer a specific perspective from their own subjective experience and the map reflects that
01:30in this series I'm going to explore how maps give an insight into the political and cultural forces
01:37that drive society wow I'm going to dig beneath the surface of some extraordinary maps to reveal stories
01:49of power plunder and possession in this program I'm going back to where map making began I'll find out
02:03what first drove people to create maps even before they could ride and how they then evolved not
02:09just to depict the world but also to exert power and authority over it I'll discover some of the great
02:17scientific advances that made this possible and I'll explore how the style of modern maps which we take
02:23for granted as objective even natural is nothing of the sort
02:37oh
02:51Valca Monica in northern Italy home to one of the oldest settlements in Europe
02:59for a map fanatic like me it's most famous for being the cradle of map making
03:10the map created here is considered one of the oldest in the world this is cartography's year
03:16zero and it gives us some vital clues as to why people were compelled to make maps
03:20before they even learned how to write
03:27the map is located high in the eastern alps near the small village of bedelina
03:33it has survived for nearly 3 000 years and was only identified by archaeologists 80 years ago
04:02so here it is it's extraordinary and as i look at it what's really interesting is that there's
04:10clearly a structure there's a kind of code there's a system about what's being represented here you
04:16can see these rectangles with dots in them represent fields and throughout these lines which appear to
04:25represent some notion of the landscape there's timber framed houses down here there's the roof and the
04:33main body of the house there there are stick figures these warriors down here you can see a deer with
04:40four clearly marked legs and for me it's actually incredibly moving because this is where it all
04:46began this is the beginning of map making this is the origin of what i've been thinking about for all
05:03the origins and purpose of the bedelina map have mystified archaeologists for years
05:11this is not a geographically accurate map of the area you couldn't use it to get from a to b
05:17so what was
05:18it for after analyzing rock drawings and using comparative dating techniques archaeologists now
05:26believe it was created by an ancient tribe the community at a critical moment in their history
05:33three thousand years ago the community were pioneering a whole new way of life agriculture was
05:40replacing the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and creating a more complex social structure
05:48archaeologist alberto moretta thinks this is the key to unlocking the map's secrets
05:54we have evidence from rock art from the archaeology that in valcamonica there were aristocracies here
06:04some sort of small groups of people controlling the small communities and probably controlling the land
06:12and do you think that that's important in terms of how they use the map
06:18i think that this group of people these aristocracies are symbolizing through the map
06:26the possession of the landscape that they had in this part of the valley
06:35it seems that the tribal elites were using the map to celebrate their ownership of the land
06:42they draw the map probably to represent not a real landscape but to represent
06:50an ideal landscape it was some sort of supernatural representation of the landscape as it should be
07:00after you and after your sons and then and after your your time has passed on so it's a very
07:08symbolic
07:08image yeah in some sense it is highly symbolic alberto believes these images of well-ordered fields and
07:17plentiful crops were a vision of future prosperity the map was designed to bolster the power of the ruling elite
07:25by reassuring the community people that life would improve under their leadership
07:31the map is a fascinating window into an ancient culture
07:36and it reveals that map making was bound up with power and politics right from the start
07:49as ancient societies became more complex so too did their maps
07:55within the next 1000 years the romans were using maps to help them build the greatest empire in the world
08:02world they created maps of their towns regions and colonies
08:13many have been lost this is a copy of one of the few to have survived and it's quite spectacular
08:30this is a map of the world in roman times it's the longest map i've ever seen in my entire
08:36life
08:36it stretches all the way from sri lanka and india down here in the east
08:44east right along here to the furthest western point which shows the southern coast of great britain
08:55it's an absolutely extraordinary map it's six and a half meters in length scholars actually believe
09:00that it was longer and that it's lost about two meters which rather tantalizing would have given us
09:06a much better picture of the british isles
09:11a much better picture of the north coast of europe
09:20here's germany labeled alemannia just squeezed into a few centimeters up here on the north coast of europe
09:28there's the river rhine running right along there
09:35and here's the mediterranean like a long
09:39snaky river right down there
09:47and probably the most prominent land mass on the entire map not surprisingly is italy stretching
09:53right down here there's rome it goes all the way down you can see the boot and there's sicily
10:00but nothing like we understand it today
10:06now what's really striking about looking at this map with the depiction of europe north africa and asia
10:13in this shape there's no way that this can be an accurate representation of how the romans saw the world
10:21the geography is obviously way out and yet there are some details of astonishing accuracy
10:29these red lines that crisscross the map are the famous straight roman roads running across its surface
10:37and above them are symbols exhibiting the distance between places in terms of leagues or miles depending
10:45on where you are and there's a good example of it here there's rome
10:49on the red roman road the vatican a symbol just above it shows that it's just one mile
10:56but the map is covered with these kind of symbols
11:00you have another one here which shows the distance from strasburg which is shown there
11:07to mines there and what happens is that the roman numeral tells you how far you're going from strasburg
11:13to the next town or village which is labeled with seven the distance here is 18
11:21all the way to mines which is 74 leagues all together
11:26route markings distance is clearly annotated towns where people could stop off for the night
11:33these details led to the belief that the map was the equivalent of a modern road atlas
11:41but just look at this map it's hardly pocket size is it can you imagine strapping this to the back
11:46of
11:46your horse and then hauling it out every time you lost your way as a route finder it's completely impractical
11:57to understand the purpose of this map we need to look back to the time when it was created
12:02around 300 a.d by then the empire had already been under attack from invading barbarians
12:10to meet the threat rome's armies had expanded and citizens lived in the grip of authoritarian rule
12:21but the map shows only peace and harmony spa and bath towns are clearly marked all over the map
12:31so where are the fortifications and garrisons and where are the divisions between regions
12:38this seems to be a land without borders in reality the empire was divided and ruled by four competing
12:45leaders it's been suggested that this map of the roman world may have hung behind one of their thrones
12:53with its remarkable details of roads and distances this map was designed to give the impression of order
12:59and control
13:02so while the bedelina map in the alps promised the people a better world to come
13:07this map is trying to hide the fact that the power and riches of empire are under threat
13:18this map glosses over the messy complex reality of internal tensions and external threats its main
13:25message is one of unity and that made it an incredibly powerful political tool
13:40by the 12th century sophisticated map making was an essential tool of imperial power
13:45and chinese maps were among the most sophisticated on earth
13:50i'm going to pembroke college in oxford to have a look at one
13:57i'm it's called the ug2 and it was carved onto a meter wide stone that was erected in a chinese
14:02school yard in 1136 remarkably it has all the hallmarks of a modern map it shows the whole empire from
14:12an
14:12aerial perspective and the grid lines suggest it's drawn to scale but just how accurate is it
14:21historian hilda deviet is using a special technique to compare it with a 21st century map
14:33so we start out by picking a few points on the historical map to map onto the modern map
14:42so in effect you're going to overlay an early 12th century map onto the modern map that's correct okay
14:49we'll pick some places along the coast to start out with and typically we want to pick a place that
14:55we know hasn't changed too much the first point we'll pick is a prefecture called taijo we see it here
15:06one by one hilda picks out some of the towns and locations that are marked on the historical map
15:18she then enters their modern coordinates allowing the map to be positioned against a satellite image
15:26first of all it allows you to place a historical map very accurately
15:33the similarity between the maps is immediately obvious
15:39you can tell the coastline the modern coastline correlates to the coastline as it is depicted on the
15:46historical map but the really astonishing thing is that the 37 locations chosen by hilda are remarkably
15:54close to their position on the modern map
16:11wow that's extraordinary so that's an incredibly close fit between the contemporary modern coordinates
16:18and the 12th century coordinates it is indeed quite striking and we wouldn't be able to do that for a
16:23lot
16:23of other historical maps that's amazing we have no record of the surveying techniques used to make this
16:34astonishingly accurate map and there's a mystery here for all its accuracy the ug2 contains a number
16:41of glaring geographical errors the source of the yellow river is marked hundreds of kilometers away from
16:49its real location and here's a river which doesn't even exist so what's really going on here
17:00the answer to this map making mystery can be found in the pages of this historical text it's called the
17:08yu gong it's a description of the landscape of china during the lifetime of king yu a legendary leader from
17:15the 21st century bc the great yu was said to have possessed comprehensive knowledge of all of china
17:23and it was this book that formed the basis of all chinese geography these writings were greatly revered by
17:30the chinese it was almost a sacred text the name of the 12th century map yu g2 translates as the
17:50map of the tracks of yu
17:52this reveals its connection with the text of the yu gong
17:56the positioning of the source of the yellow river isn't the result of a 12th century survey it's been
18:02mapped according to the words of the yu gong that's why it's in the wrong place
18:11and that extra river over here the hei shui or black river is referred to in the yu gong
18:17so it was drawn on the map even though it didn't exist the map seems to be an attempt to
18:24portray an
18:24up-to-date image of china without undermining yu's ancient vision of the empire
18:3512th century map makers must have known that this information was inaccurate
18:39but the important thing was fidelity to you not geographical realism or accuracy
18:59and it would be another 400 years before the means were available to fund a national mapping project
19:06in england
19:10in 1539 henry the eighth commissioned a survey of the entire english coastline
19:18but henry didn't just want an impressive image of his kingdom he wanted to defend it
19:28local artists were ordered to make sketch maps of the coast
19:34their drawings were sent to london where they were compiled into master maps for the king
19:47of the arabic
20:00It's a beautiful map and it's a really, really important step in the move towards geographical representation.
20:08You see places in a level of realism that the English had never seen before.
20:14You've got Exeter in bird's eye view, which is quite clear.
20:20You have Plymouth represented here in a way that was completely new.
20:26It's absolutely extraordinary, the colouring, the whole detail.
20:31But this isn't just a beautiful map, it's also an extremely strategic map with a very specific end in mind.
20:39It's about coastal defence and it's about repelling invasions.
20:44And we can tell that by looking at the description of the forts that pepper the entire coastline, saying, made.
20:55Not made.
20:57Or half made.
21:00So for instance, here we can see a fort which is labelled not made, but it's quite clearly been drawn
21:07over the coastal location at a later point.
21:12So probably over several years, Henry looks at the entire scene and he says, this is where I need my
21:19coastal fortifications.
21:24Divorce from his Spanish wife, Catherine of Aragon, had led Henry to fear a Spanish invasion.
21:29He wanted to build new forts like this to defend his realm.
21:35To help identify where these defences were needed, the map makers prioritised the most vulnerable places.
21:48Certain areas, particularly inlets and sandy bays, where invading forces could land, are mapped in absolutely minute detail.
22:02Other areas on the map, for instance, rocky outlets or clifftops, where you can't really land a ship, are not
22:09really mapped very accurately at all.
22:14It didn't matter to Henry that this map was not exactly to scale.
22:18What mattered to Henry was that he could now sit in London and he could survey this entire coastline and
22:24he could decide exactly what he wanted to do with it, where he wanted to put his fortifications.
22:31Henry's realisation of the power of maps reflected a sea change in European attitudes to cartography, but to all intents
22:38and purposes, his coastal map was still just a picture, more art than an accurate representation of geography.
22:49It was in 17th century France, under the patronage of the Sun King, Louis XIV, that the crucial component of
22:56modern map making fell into place.
23:06When we think of a modern map, we tend to imagine an entirely accurate representation of the world on paper.
23:12The reason I've come here is because this is where that idea was born.
23:21It happened here, at the Paris Observatory, because of an extraordinary collision of power, politics and scientific progress, the Enlightenment.
23:32King Louis wanted to make a map more accurate than any other, but there was still a huge obstacle to
23:38the true measurement and mapping of larger areas.
23:40The Earth isn't flat like a map, it's a sphere.
23:49The leading astronomer at the observatory was Giovanni Domenico Cassini.
23:54He found the solution to the problem of accurately measuring distances across the globe in the science of astronomy.
24:05The map makers already knew how to measure latitude, the distance north or south of the equator, by observing the
24:11height of the Sun.
24:15But a way to measure longitude, the distance east or west of a point, had still to be found.
24:25Thanks to a dramatic increase in the power of telescopic lenses, Cassini found the answer by observing the eclipses of
24:33Jupiter's moons.
24:39He timed the eclipses in Paris, then compared this with the time the same eclipses were seen in Brest, 600
24:46kilometres to the west of the city.
24:49The apparent time difference between the two observations was then used to help calculate longitude.
24:57Cassini sent out teams of astronomers to record the timing of the eclipses as they occurred along the French coastline.
25:11This is just a sample of the voluminous correspondence that came back to Cassini here at the observatory by his
25:19surveyors spread right over France.
25:21Every location that they went to, they took detailed measurements, feeding those measurements back to Cassini to start to put
25:29together an accurate measurement of longitude right across France.
25:32This is a letter from Brest with one of his surveyors assessing the eclipses, giving an exact time at which
25:39they took place.
25:40And this kind of precision had never been applied to map making ever before.
25:46Finally, in May 1682, the King's surveyors were able to present him with the first true outline of France.
25:57The coastline was revealed to be astonishingly different from the way it appeared on earlier maps.
26:04France was shown to be 20% smaller than all previous estimates.
26:09Louis was horrified.
26:12Science, said Louis, had cost him more territory than any invading enemy.
26:29The shape of the coastline was now established.
26:32But there was an even greater task ahead, to map out the whole of the interior of France.
26:40In the mid-18th century, surveyors arrived here at Chateau de Champs-sur-Marne, just outside Paris.
26:48They'd come to calculate the smaller distances between a series of fixed points in the grounds.
26:53To do this, they used another scientific technique called triangulation.
26:57France was about to be divided into hundreds of carefully measured triangles.
27:11Historian of map making Daniel Schellstrater is about to show me how it was done.
27:19In order to create a triangle, first of all they had to measure the distance of a straight line.
27:25The problem back then was that measuring it was very hard and took a long time.
27:32So they had to find ground that was totally flat or work for several days stopping and leveling it, which
27:39was very difficult.
27:41And the rulers that were used were only four meters long.
27:48Despite these difficulties, a straight line would have to be measured between the two fixed points.
27:53It was called a baseline and it formed the first side of a triangle.
28:00Standing at one end of the baseline, Daniel is demonstrating how they worked out the rest of the dimensions of
28:05the triangle.
28:13So, we want to look over there at the statue, which you can see is at the other end of
28:17the line.
28:18And if you look through the lens, you can see that the image is upside down.
28:22And then we look over to the pigeon house through the other lens.
28:28The pigeon house marks the third point of the triangle.
28:33And then the instrument shows you the angle of the corner of the triangle, 75 degrees.
28:42Now the task is repeated at the other end of the baseline and a second angle is measured.
28:49From this information, the lengths of the other two sides of the triangle can be worked out using the laws
28:55of trigonometry.
28:57The operator would take the measurements and then write them down in a notebook.
29:04We're lucky to have an original notebook from these times, with the name of the operator and observations made on
29:12the plane of Paris and Moe.
29:16So these are the measurements for this exact spot?
29:19Exactly, yes.
29:22So, here is the description. You have a chimney. Here's a reference to the pediment.
29:29And everything that was located would be written down.
29:32And when it was necessary, there are even a few sketches.
29:38Obviously, the secret, the impressiveness of creating these maps, lies in integrating all this information across a whole territory.
29:46It's all thanks to the principle of triangulation.
29:52The dimensions of one triangle were used to create another.
29:56Slowly, a network of triangles was used to calculate accurate distances between places all over France.
30:07This ambitious enterprise would transform the nation.
30:12At that time, France was a collection of diverse regions, each with its own identity.
30:18There were hundreds of French dialects.
30:20But now the whole country was slowly being brought together in one map.
30:34The Carte de Cassini was finally completed in 1789, by which time Louis XVI was on the throne.
30:41Over 120 years, four generations of the Cassini family had devoted their lives to mapping France.
30:51This is the Carte de Cassini and it's the first time I've actually seen it.
30:54And what strikes me, of course, as I open it, is this isn't just a map, it's a book of
31:00maps.
31:01And this is the map of France.
31:04Down the left-hand side, table of longitude and latitude.
31:11You look at the map itself and it's a series of squares created from the triangulation process.
31:19Here it is, the whole French nation, mapped in exact scientific detail.
31:30And if we turn to the map of Paris,
31:34we can see all the regions of Paris mapped.
31:39You can see the centre here.
31:41And that's where we are, down here on the observatory, just there.
31:45And it goes right through the entire country.
31:51Page after page are of different areas of France,
31:56but the way in which they're being portrayed is exactly the same.
32:02All the symbols, all the signs are standardised.
32:07The symbols for forests.
32:14The symbols for forests.
32:20The symbols for towns.
32:28And what's also significant here is the fact that the language is also being standardised.
32:33This is Parisian French.
32:36Page after page is using the same kind of language.
32:40Standardising the language, standardising the map.
32:50The scale is also exactly the same.
32:53Down here, the scale bar, which tells you exactly the scale that's being used on this map.
32:59It's actually 1 to 86,400.
33:01It is that precise.
33:05And it's staggering.
33:07To look at this is absolutely amazing.
33:10This is standardisation, but it's beautiful standardisation.
33:13These are maps for the king.
33:15It wants to look beautiful as well as being precise.
33:21But the map made to serve the king was about to become a tool of revolution.
33:34On the 14th of July, just as the finishing touches were being made to the map, the revolutionary mob was
33:40storming the Bastille.
33:44Two days later, they invaded the Paris Observatory.
33:51The new regime claimed the Carte de Cassini as national property.
33:58They used it to help carry out their sweeping administrative reforms.
34:02This was the map on which the boundaries of the new departments were drawn,
34:07the regional administrative units still used today.
34:29The Carte de Cassini would have an even greater legacy.
34:32It would help forge a powerful new national identity.
34:37For the very first time in history, here was a map which centralised and standardised an image of the nation,
34:44of France.
34:45It allowed all kinds of regional variations to be subsumed into one nation-state image, the map of Cassini.
34:54People could identify, despite their regional variations, right across this map, even with people that they'd never even meet.
35:01It was an image of a unified nation-state, even at the time that the country was being torn apart
35:07by the revolutionary terror.
35:16This triumph of science and enlightenment had become a potent political tool.
35:22This was France as these revolutionary nation-builders wanted it to be.
35:27One language, one nation, one map.
35:38One language, one language, one language, one language.
35:46While the French were uniting around their new national map, the British, with their expanding overseas empire, were charting the
35:53oceans.
35:57Captain James Cook was one of Britain's pioneering explorers and navigators.
36:02In August 1768, he embarked on an epic voyage bound for the Pacific.
36:14The latest scientific inventions gave Cook's maps a new kind of authority
36:19and the power to lay claim to the territory they depicted.
36:25Cook's mastery of science and navigation confirmed him
36:28as a great hero and genius of the Age of Enlightenment.
36:36But on the island of Tahiti, Cook met his match in a local navigator called Topaya,
36:41who'd never even drawn a map in his life.
36:52Topaya could sail across the Pacific, a third of the Earth's surface, without the use of paper maps.
36:59This went against all Cook's training and experience.
37:03He was so intrigued that he asked Topaya to draw a chart of the ocean,
37:08showing the location of all the islands that he knew.
37:11This is a copy of the map Cook encouraged Topaya to create.
37:19The sheer scale of Topaya's knowledge shown on this map is absolutely astonishing.
37:2374 islands, half of which weren't actually even mapped by the Westerners,
37:29but here they are being shown by Topaya.
37:33Cook wrote in his journal that Topaya knew more of the geography of the islands
37:37situated in these seas than anyone he'd ever met.
37:41He said that any ship would be better off with Topaya aboard.
37:47Tahihari Pariente is one of Topaya's descendants.
37:50A Polynesian navigator himself, he studied the techniques used by his ancestors.
37:57Well, the navigator had knowledge over the stars,
38:00he had knowledge about climate,
38:02he had knowledge about how the time would go by in a year,
38:06so the difference between seasons.
38:08I mean, there is no Polynesian culture without navigation.
38:12We're islanders, so we hop from islands to islands.
38:17For 3,000 years, the Polynesians had been exploring and colonizing the islands of the Pacific.
38:23They'd even reached America at least a century before Columbus.
38:28Topaya was drawing on ancestral knowledge passed down through countless generations.
38:34When you get out from an island, until it disappears behind the horizon,
38:39you use the island as a bearing, so then you start using the stars.
38:44But then, you don't have stars all the time, you have clouds, you have rain.
38:48Then you use the wave patterns in the ocean, then you pull out the certain fish,
38:53they know this fish only comes that far away from the islands, or that kind of birds.
38:59They know how far away they can fly, so you have to understand what's around you.
39:07When Topaya drew his map, he was encouraged to place his knowledge within a Western framework.
39:12But on closer inspection, it reveals a Polynesian perspective.
39:16Even the way of indicating direction is different.
39:22All the Western maps here are north-south.
39:26The one thing you see on every map is north.
39:29We didn't really care about the north.
39:31We only cared about the west, because that's where everything goes.
39:35That's where the sun goes down, that's where the stars go down, that's where the wind blows.
39:41This map is the result of a clash, isn't it, between two different ways of navigating.
39:46There's a Polynesian way of navigating, and there's the Western method that Cook uses.
39:51And they're, in a sense, colliding with each other.
39:53They both work, but you can't really put them together, can you?
39:58No.
39:58The Polynesian side of mine is totally opposite to the Western one.
40:03We don't go anywhere.
40:04We stay where we are, and the island comes to you, or your destination comes to you.
40:09So in Western navigation, we go to the island, but in Polynesian traditions, the island comes
40:15to you.
40:16You don't move.
40:17The canoe don't move.
40:18It's your center.
40:19It's where you are.
40:20And if we look at this map, what's particularly significant about it?
40:24The scale, for example, on the map is not related maybe to the distance of the real scale of
40:31the geographic place, but maybe related to the importance of the place.
40:36Like Rotuma is drawn really big, but it does echo in a lot of legends and myths and stories.
40:44So it is big in history, not in width or height.
40:50It's like a code.
40:52If you don't have the key, you won't understand the message.
40:57Topiah's map is an extraordinary document, and not only for what it shows about Topiah's
41:02deeply ingrained knowledge of the Pacific Islands.
41:07Despite the great scientific leaps forward in the West, Topiah's map shows us that other
41:12cultures had different but equally effective ways of navigating their way across the Earth's
41:19surface.
41:31By the early 20th century, the mapping of the world was well under way, and each culture
41:36and nation took a different approach to the task.
41:45As a result, there was a bewildering range of map-making styles using different scales, symbols,
41:52and languages.
41:56But a bold new initiative set out to create a map that could be understood by everyone.
42:04It was called the International Map of the World.
42:07International because each country would create a map of its individual territory according
42:12to agreed standards.
42:14There would be two and a half thousand maps, and when they were all put together, they would
42:18depict the entire world.
42:21At a conference in Paris in 1913, 34 nations agreed to create a comprehensive series of regional
42:28maps on a universal scale of one to a million.
42:32They would be known as the Millionth Maps.
42:38This is the millionth map of the south coast of England.
42:43This one shows northwestern America around San Francisco.
42:50Both these maps look rather different, and that's mainly because of the varying terrain that
42:55they both show.
42:55But there are also many similarities.
42:58Greenwich is the prime meridian, and relief is marked by contour lines, whose height is
43:04all measured in metres.
43:05The colours are also completely standardised here, so the roads are all in red, the railways
43:12are in black, and of course the scale on this map is one to a million.
43:21Each country would adopt the same set of standards in the spirit of international cooperation.
43:28The combined result would be a standardised map of the world that was intended to transcend
43:33national differences.
43:36But not every nation had the power and resources needed to send surveyors into the unmapped territories
43:42of the world.
43:45This shows the areas mapped according to the principles and the standards of the international
43:50map of the world by the mid-1920s.
43:53It's a fascinating snapshot of the world at that time, and not only because it shows where
43:58had been mapped, but also by whom.
44:01All these areas in Africa, which at the time are under French colonial rule, Morocco, Algeria,
44:08Niger, Chad, are all mapped by the French.
44:11Over in Indonesia, Dutch dominions here are mapped by the Dutch.
44:18The British Empire, marked on the map here as GB, is also mapping its own imperial territories.
44:26Most of India here is mapped by GB.
44:29Whole parts of East Africa, Southern Africa, and also parts of the Middle East.
44:39Despite the project's best intentions, the millionth maps were being used to further the imperial
44:44interests of the West.
44:48By the outbreak of World War One, the project's original spirit of international cooperation
44:52was fading away.
44:57Far from transcending national differences, the international map of the world became an extension
45:15of them.
45:16Up to 40% of all the developing world's national borders were defined and mapped by the British
45:23or the French.
45:26Flushed with victory after the First World War, they would use maps to consolidate their
45:31power in the Middle East.
45:35For centuries, the region between Mesopotamia and Saudi Arabia had been a land without fixed
45:41frontiers, as this British Army map from 1907 illustrates.
45:46This is a map without divisions and boundaries.
45:51What it shows is the movement of nomadic Arab tribespeople across this whole region.
45:57So if you look down here in the bottom left-hand corner, you have the Shema.
46:00This is generally their region.
46:02But they're also described as wintering up here.
46:05So this is the movement of peoples being shown in a very fluid way, without any linear boundaries
46:11imposing restrictions upon them.
46:20I belong to the Shema tribe, and the region of North Arabia was predominantly populated by
46:26nomadic tribes with their own territories.
46:32But these territories, we cannot describe them as rigid or fixed.
46:38They had fluctuating boundaries.
46:40These tribal groups would travel all the way up to the north in search of pasture and water.
46:46But in the very, very hot months, they would actually retreat either near Oasis or go even
46:52further to a cooler climate.
46:56So migration in that part of the world was a common feature of life.
47:03Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War,
47:07the victorious European powers decreed that a new nation state was to be carved out of Mesopotamia.
47:13It would be called Iraq.
47:21The border between Iraq and Saudi Arabia was decided by two men at a conference in 1922.
47:30Sir Percy Cox of the British Colonial Office had an uncompromising approach.
47:35He wanted to draw a line straight through the desert.
47:40For Ibn Saud, the king of Saudi Arabia, this was an alien concept.
47:46Ibn Saud argued that to impose linear boundaries upon his tribe's people was completely unsuitable,
47:53because it didn't work for the way in which they moved and they transmigrated across this whole space.
48:00What he suggested instead was to keep the boundaries fluid and to keep them open.
48:07This idea of making a map to reflect fluidity and openness was mocked by the British.
48:14This is an eyewitness account written about the conference by one of the translators.
48:19At a private meeting at which only Sir Percy Ibn Saud and I were present,
48:25he lost all patience over what he called the childish attitude of Ibn Saud in his tribal boundary idea.
48:32It was astonishing to see Ibn Saud being reprimanded like a naughty schoolboy by His Majesty's High Commissioner,
48:40and being told sharply that he, Sir Percy Cox, would himself decide on the type and general line of the
48:48frontier.
48:49Sir Percy took a red pencil and very carefully drew in on the map of Arabia a boundary line.
49:03So from that moment, this local tribal population, brothers, lineages or clans would find themselves divided.
49:11Some of them would be part of Saudi Arabia, others would have become Iraqis,
49:15and yet another branch would have become Kuwaitis.
49:18And they could not continue as animal herders, and therefore the animal economy collapsed,
49:24because nomadism was definitely based on the seasonal migration.
49:28So economically, yes, the region was affected.
49:32But in addition, networks of hospitality, of trust and solidarity, all that had to vanish.
49:45The precision of Enlightenment science had combined with the rule of empire
49:49to make a map with the power to destroy an ancient way of life.
49:58Map makers throughout history have created wonderful windows on the world.
50:02And Western science has provided the tools to make modern maps more accurate than ever before.
50:09But the mapping of Iraq is a stark reminder that maps can also be devastating tools of political power.
50:16And we are still living with the consequences to this day.
50:192
Comments