Monthly Archive: February 2024
The development of the European cartography of north-east Africa was strongly associated with the 18th-, 19th‑ and early 20th-century missionaries and explorers. These travellers’ insights were informed by the local knowledge of indigenous people. Prior to the mid-19th century, European geographic knowledge about the diverse kingdoms in the south and south-west of Ethiopia was sparse compared to the more northern...
Northern Abyssinia (northern Ethiopia) is home to the ancient Aksumite Kingdom. Although its capital was in Aksum, the cultural boundaries of the kingdom extended as far as the modern state of Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula. According to Ethiopian and Eritrean sources, local borders were formulated using indigenous techniques to separate autonomous and semi-autonomous provinces. Borders that fall under this...
Reaching a big milestone in 2023, we completed the digitisation of more than 35,000 maps from the Perthes Collection in Gotha. It comprises cartographic pieces that were collected as well as produced by Justus Perthes, one of the world’s leading geographic publishing houses in the 19th century. Some of the most interesting maps and corresponding research have already been introduced...
