Angličtina pro geografy I
Course materials and homework week VIII.
Mapping the Earth: Navigation and Cartography History
Listen to and watch the video, then answer these questions.
1) What did ancient navigators use instead of maps?
………………………………………………………………………………
2) What is latitude and longitude?
………………………………………………………………………………
3) What did ancient Greeks know about the Earth?
………………………………………………………………………………
4) What happened in the 15th century?
………………………………………………………………………………
5) Which modern devices do we use today to create maps?
……………………………………………………………………………..
Listen for the second time and fill in the missing expressions in the sentences.
a) Maps are important because we can …………………………………………
b) Maps reflect the way we perceive and ………………………………………
c) We update them, and ……………..our map making technology.
d) Ancient navigators on water relied on ………………………to determine location.
e) As the wind and current pushed their ships along, ………………………was difficult.
f) Travelers on land used ……………………………….instead.
g) Greeks realized that the Earth was a ………………. and calculated its ……………
h) By observing the Sun´ s ……………. the explorers could figure out their position.
i) In the Arctic, the Sun was relatively low ……………. at noon at high latitudes even in the middle ………………….
j) To determine longitude, navigators used …………that kept time of their ……………..
k) To tell how far east or west they sailed, they compared ……………………….at a given time of the location and their home port.
l) Europeans looked for riches, ……………………………………….
m) Navigators had more tools at their ……………………………
n) They used maps of …………………, crude compasses, and the device known as …………….
o) As Europeans conquered new lands and explored ……………………, maps became ………………………
Mapping the Earth: Navigation and Cartography History KEY
Listen to and watch the video, then answer these questions.
6) What did ancient navigators use instead of maps?
……………sun, stars…………………………………………………………
7) What is latitude and longitude?
………………………………………………………………………………
8) What did ancient Greeks know about the Earth?
…………shape, latitude, longitude…………………………………………………
9) What happened in the 15th century?
……………………explorations……………………………………
10) Which modern devices do we use today to create maps?
…………………satellites, aerial photography…….computers..
Listen for the second time and fill in the missing expressions in the sentences.
p) Maps are important because we can …………keep truck of our environment……
q) Maps reflect the way we perceive and ……organize our world………………
r) We update them, and ……upgrade..our map making technology.
s) Ancient navigators on water relied on ………sun and stars…to determine location.
t) As the wind and current pushed their ships along, …judging their position
was difficult.
u) Travelers on land used …………landmarks…….instead.
v) Greeks realized that the Earth was a ……sphere. and calculated its …circumference
w) By observing the Sun´ s ……angle…. the explorers could figure out their position.
x) In the Arctic, the Sun was relatively low …on horizon…. At noon at high latitudes even in the middle ……of summer….
y) To determine longitude, navigators used …clocks…that kept time of their …home port…………..
z) To tell how far east or west they sailed, they compared …the height of the sun……….at a given time of the location and their home port.
aa) Europeans looked for riches, ………adventure, resources………………….
bb) Navigators had more tools at their ……disposal………………………
cc) They used maps of …Ptolemy………, crude compasses, and the device known as …astrolabe………….
dd) As Europeans conquered new lands and explored …new territories…………………, maps became …increasingly detailed……………………
The new history of cartography
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1991_June/ai_10940835/
A)What may be regarded as the oldest 1………….. map in the world, dated to approximately 6000 BC, was unearthed in an archaeological 2…………at Catal Huyuk in west-central Turkey in 1963. Its subject was the neolithic town of that name. Painted on a wall, it showed the streets and houses in 3……….. form, lying beneath the profile of the mountain of Hazan Dag with its volcano erupting. But though this map, which shows a 4………… corresponding to that of the excavated tow, bears some resemblance to a modern plan, its 5……….. was very different. The site from which it was excavated was a shrine of holy room, and the image was created as part of a ritual act, as a "product of the moment", and not intended to last beyond that event.
B)Only in recent years have maps such as that of Catal Huyuk--and comparable engravings and paintings in the rock art of Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe--been studied as a 6……. category of prehistoric cartography. That this should be so is not merely a reflection of problems of 7………… maps in these early cultures. It is also an expression of a more deep-seated tendency in the history of cartography that has restricted the 8………. of "acceptable" maps.
C) Maps were assigned a position in the evolutionary sequence. The corollary was to exclude from serious study those maps judged to show no signs of progress toward the goal of objectivity. Even some of the earlier maps of European culture, like the great world maps of the Christian Middle Ages, were once dismissed as being unworthy of study. Thus, at the beginning of the present century, Charles Raymond Beazley could describe two of the most celebrated world maps of the later Middle Ages, the Hereford and Ebstorf maps as "non-scientific...monstrosities", and write of their "complete futility".
D) Maps in non-European cultures were considered even further alienated from the epicentre of cartography. Traditional approaches of the history of Islamic cartography, for example, reflect this tendency of European scholars to see the world in their own image. The maps of Islam were explained largely as a Greek heritage, ignoring the extent to which translations into Arabic of works such as Ptolemy's Almagest and Geographia had been ingeniously appropriated and adapted to the specific purposes of Islamic culture and religion. Arab maps such as those of the Balkhi School of geographers in the tenth century were assessed by a Ptolemaic yardstick rather than being understood as a fusion of mapping traditions, even though they embodied Persian as well as Greek elements.
E)The maps of non-European cultures were only allocated more space in Western histories when they revealed features similar to those developed on European maps. The focus was on cartographic similarities in these distant cultures rather than on their differences. Thus the rich history of Chinese cartography--with datable artefacts surviving from the fourth century BC--was recognized by one leading scholar as "the same science" that had earlier developed on the European scene. Much emphasis in this comparative cartographic history was placed on the identification of mathematical aspects of mapmaking, on the codification of methodological principles for cartography (such at those of Pei Xiu [223-271], the "father of scientific cartography" in China), and on the appearance of technical innovations such as grids, regular scales, abstract conventional signs, and even contours--all aspects that fitted the Western model of cartographic excellence. Thus the maps from the Han dynasty found in a tomb near Chansha in Hunan province were seized upon by both Chinese and Western scholars as confirmation of an early scientific development of cartography. They became the lineal ancestors of the modern map.
F) The"scientific" traditions of mapping in China--and their diffusion into Japan and Korea--received an attention that was not accorded to cultures that had no analogy with Western mapping practices. Thus the indigenous maps drawn in India before the British occupation, with their unfamiliar signs and pictorial style, have found no place until recently in conventional accounts of cartographic history. They were either not recognized as maps at all or dismissed as quaint curiosities, to be collected with other ethnographic specimens. Lowest of all on the ladder of rational progress were the "primitive" maps of preliterate non-Western cultures. Ranging from paintings produced by the Aboriginal peoples of Australia to maps of the Native Americans, and from the stick-charts of the Marshall Islanders to the battle plans drawn on the ground by Maori warriors in New Zealand, they were widely regarded as an inchoate stage in the cognitive history of cartography. To the extent that they lacked orientation, regular scales, and the Euclidean geometry of modern maps, or were drawn on unfamiliar media, little effort was made to crack their codes of representation. They remained on the periphery of Western cartographic achievement.
G) In such ways, the history of mapping became a prisoner of the categories and definitions of scholars. The rich variety of ways in which space has been represented in the global mosaic of human culture still had to be recorded. It was to remedy this Eurocentric perspective that in 1987, in the first volume of a new History of Cartography, we adopted a definition of maps that would allow a measure of relativism into the study of the history of maps.
TASKS
1) Pre-reading
a) What did the first maps look like? ………………………………………………….
b) Can you name some well-known cartographers or maps? ……………………………………………………………………
2) Reading
a) Read the first two parts of the text and fill in the missing words.
plan distinctive canon authenticated identifying excavation layout
b) Write down the letter (paragraph) where these topics are mentioned, then supply
some information.
1) maps of Islam………………..
2) maps of aboriginal peoples………….
3) Greek mapping traditions……………………
4) Chinese cartography………………………..
5) methodological principles…………………..
6) Eurocentric perspective………………………
7) “primitive maps” ……………………………..
8) codes of representation……………………….
9) before British occupation…………………….
10) Pei Xiu……………………………………….
c) These jumbled words from the article are instruments or methods which both
ancient and modern geographers used or use, Try to sort them out.
1) enntoairoti………………………………………
2) dgisr…………………………………………….
3) sacrbtt gisns……………………………………
4) lrergua lsecsa………………………………….
d) Decide whether these statements are true or false.
1) The purpose of the first authenticated map was to honour the deceased. T/F
2) The main problem with old maps is their identification. T/F
3) With the exception of the Middle Ages, the history of cartography was regarded as a Western tradition. T/F
4) The maps of Islam simply copied the Greek tradition. T/F
5) Methodological principles of Pei Xiu were the same as in the Western model. T/F
6) The “primitive maps” were seen as very rudimentary attempts at cartography. T/F
7) The first volume of a new History of Cartography adopts a Eurocentric perspective. T/F
3) Word study: Try to find antonyms.
authenticated …………. distinctive………….deep-seated………….traditional………
The new history of cartography KEY
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1991_June/ai_10940835/
A)What may be regarded as the oldest authenticated map in the world, dated to approximately 6000 BC, was unearthed in an archaeological excavation at Catal Huyuk in west-central Turkey in 1963. Its subject was the neolithic town of that name. Painted on a wall, it showed the streets and houses in plan form, lying beneath the profile of the mountain of Hazan Dag with its volcano erupting. But though this map, which shows a layout corresponding to that of the excavated tow, bears some resemblance to a modern plan, its purpose was very different. The site from which it was excavated was a shrine of holy room, and the image was created as part of a ritual act, as a "product of the moment", and not intended to last beyond that event.
B)Only in recent years have maps such as that of Catal Huyuk--and comparable engravings and paintings in the rock art of Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe--been studied as a distinctive category of prehistoric cartography. That this should be so is not merely a reflection of problems of identifying maps in these early cultures. It is also an expression of a more deep-seated tendency in the history of cartography that has restricted the canon of "acceptable" maps.
Jumbled words a) orientation
b) grids
c) abstract signs
d) irregular scales
True false statements 1T
2T
3F
4F
5T
6T
7F
Word study authenticated x uncertified
distinctive x common
deep-seated x unconventional
traditional x new