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Those lines are written on a map of the world on display at the Library of Congress in Washington through April. The map is so rare - only six copies are known to exist - that to a fan of cartography, its exhibition is a bit like giving a devout Christian a chance to hold the Holy Grail. Prepared for the court of Emperor Wanli of the Ming dynasty by Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary in Beijing, the map places China at the center of the world, just where Chinese scholars thought (and think) appropriate. It was purchased last year...
...extraordinary collection of Jesuits who went to China in the 16th and 17th centuries, taking Western learning with them. It was not a one-way exchange: Ming China was no slouch when it came to science and technology, and China's cartographic tradition was long and rich. Ricci's map is thought to be the first Chinese representation of the world as a sphere. But the map is at its most detailed in its depiction of China itself, an indication, as Professor Cordell Yee of St. John's College in Annapolis, Md., says, that Ricci was able to draw...
Beyond China and its immediate environs, the map relies on the great European voyages of exploration of the previous 120 years. Unsurprisingly, those areas that had already been settled by Europeans are drawn in greatest detail: the coastline of Mexico, right up to Baja California, for example, is astonishingly accurate, while that of the Northeastern seaboard of North America is much less so. (See 25 more asian experiences...
...those used to antique Western maps, Ricci's work - displayed here on six tall screens - is not especially beautiful. The map is densely covered not with gorgeous cartouches and drawings of unicorns, whales and horrible monsters of the land and sea but with text, including endorsements from Ricci's Chinese friends and passages naming territories ("Ka-na-ta," for example) and describing the habits of those who live there. That's how we can be sure that Ming China knew about hammocks. In parts of South America, Ricci wrote, "men sleep without beds or mattresses, but make nets of knotted...
...capital, so much as use his nation's gas resources to move what was once a tribal, Bedouin society into the modern world with Muslim culture and values intact. Qatar, say state officials, will never try to do the kind of high-volume business that put Dubai on the map but also made it so vulnerable to a speculative bubble. "Dubai is all about numbers and bringing in huge infrastructure projects," says Stuart Pearce, head of the Qatar Financial Centre. "When investors look at Qatar they see stability. Doha doesn't have a whole lot of office buildings that...