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[PANEL] 0514 "CARTOGRAPHY AND ITINERARIES": TERRITORIAL KNOWLEDGE AND SPATIAL NETWORKS OF ETHIOPIA AND ITS NEIGHBORS IN HISTORICAL MAPS AND ITINERARIES
Organizers:
Wolbert G. C. SMIDT, Research Centre Gotha, Erfurt University (ETHIOMAP project), Germany / PhD Programme History and Cultural Studies, Mekelle University, Ethiopia
Eloi FICQUET, EHESS (ETHIOMAP project), Paris, France
Paper presenters:
Stéphane ANCEL; KEFYALEW Tessema Semu; Junia FURTADO; ARAMIS Houmed; Eloi FICQUET;
Iris SCHRÖDER; Jan NYSSEN; ETEFA Guyassa; Hugues FONTAINE; Wolbert SMIDT;
FESSEHA Berhe Gebregergis; ASFAWOSSEN Asrat; Axel BAUDOUIN
Widely unknown to most historians and anthropologists, old maps of northeastern Africa can be understood as original and highly informative depositories of local territorial knowledge systems and concepts, and are interesting witnesses of political-territorial changes over decades and centuries. This panel sees them as important sets of archived cultural heritage, and precious additions to history-writing, which deserve greater attention. Older maps often document in greater clarity than later, geographically more exact maps, local ideas of territories, routes, mountain ranges, rivers, frontiers and border regions; in addition, they are often filled with comments, geographical, ethnical, zoological or botanical details and information, notes on archaeological sites, ruins and graves, and thus are visibly results of cultural interaction. This perspective again leads to the question after local concepts of territory and their representation, boundaries and itineraries, such as "oral maps". Researchers who are working on early modern maps of Ethiopia and its neighbors, modern maps until the first half of the 20th century, territorial lists and itineraries, local territorial concepts and techniques of orientation, and any form of documentation and preservation of such knowledge, are welcome to contribute papers.
Contributions on maps can be linked with other archive material and books, travel paintings and photo collections, supporting the "narrative" aspects of maps. How did local information and geographical and ethnographical research questions interact? Which territories are represented and how? What are the representations of areas of "self" and "otherness", are there "enlightened" and "dark" areas? How is the historical plurality of the diverse kingdoms, sultanates and other territories, from Kefa to the Awsa sultanate, represented ? or not, are specific territories missing on maps and why? And in which way were maps produced? Spatial knowledge and experience, a merger between local concepts and the specific views and methods of the researcher, usually coming from outside, were transformed into printed material through a complex chain of technical and communication processes. On this critical basis, we can draw information from the cartographic material to highlight and discuss the above-mentioned questions and further issues: the different perceptions of territorial entities and the dynamics involved in their transformation; the transformation of old regional boundaries into the new framework of international boundaries; the spatial inscription of religious networks or commercial activities, specifically local and/or far-reaching trade and migration routes, and, finally, the creation of modern states as reflected by maps and territorial narratives.
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19TH CENTURY MISSIONARIES’ MAPS OF ETHIOPIA: MEANINGFUL PART OF THE NARRATIVE? [Abstract ID: 0514-05]
Missionaries, like other travelers, published and proposed to their readers maps of Ethiopia in addition to the narrative of their travel in the country. At first glance, the presence of maps in these publications can be explained simply by the need to give to the reader a geographical idea of the country. But a map is not a simple illustration: it definitively reflects an idea of the country. One must consider whether the map proposed and used by missionaries is a part of their narrative and a conscious element – carefully treated, elaborated and developed - of the vision of the country that they want to give to the reader. So this paper aims at presenting the characteristics of maps proposed by missionaries’ publications during the 19th century. This way, it investigates at first the way of production of these maps. How did the missionaries collect their geographical information? Did they used their own network of informants or did they use the previous maps and narratives? Secondly, this paper will question the information given by these maps. Did the religious aspect of Ethiopia have an influence on the data collected and presented in the map? Thirdly, we will consider the way of diffusion of these maps. Finally, we will be able to understand how missionaries used this medium and in which way it represents a part of their narrative about their travel and their vision of Ethiopia.
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CARTOGRAPHIC HISTORIOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE OF MEDIEVAL BALE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ITS REPRESENTATIONS IN OLD AND RECENT MAPS OF ETHIOPIA [Abstract ID: 0514-03]
This article compares and contrasts the viability of old and recent maps in understanding historical geography of the medieval Bale. The study was initiated by inconsistencies and contradictions between Bale’s representation in old maps of Ethiopia and the Horn and that of the 20th century. Therefore, five old maps, one each from Linschoten (1519), Oritelious (1570), Marcator (1607), Legrand (1628) and Ludolf 1684 have been contrasted with five recent maps selected from Huntingford (1955, 1965), Taddesse (1972) and Braukämper (1977, 2004). It also examines how both categories of maps were related to geographical knowledge in oral maps of medieval Bale. Comparison parameters include levels of detail and accuracy, merits and demerits and historical orientation of the maps by using publication date as the base of grouping. Findings show that old maps not only archived geographical features like landscape, rivers, lakes and resources and historical data like key sites, states, distributions of ethnic groups and religions in greater details than recent maps; but also concur with traditions of nomenclature in Bale. In contrast, due to their specialization to specific purposes, the recent maps improved the inconsistency in size, direction and locations of features in the old maps. Moreover, though paradoxically some producers of old maps were never been to Ethiopia, their maps included more oral data like traditions of expansion and itinerary reports than the recent ones. Furthermore, most recent maps resemble each another due to selectiveness and reliance on chronicles than the former. Lastly, old maps were more historical orientated by documenting data of the region before it was marred by wars of conquests and population movements than oversimplified recent maps. However, Bale, being the southern extreme of the medieval Ethiopia, is represented in lesser cartographic detail as compared to the north in both groups of maps. Thus, the study is part of the growing body of research on the Ethiopian Peripheries with significant implications for historians to reexamine maps, cartographic sketches and nomenclature traditions as useful sources of history.
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D'ANVILLE AND THE CARTOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF THE BLUE NILE'S SOURCES [Abstract ID: 0514-13]
The French geographer Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville (1697–1782) in his Carte de l’Afrique and Carte de l'Ethiopie orientale, published in 1727, was the first to cartographically represent the source of the Nile situated in the high mountains of Ethiopia which was in fact the Blue Nile according to the Portuguese Jesuit sources that he used. Father Péro Paez, a Jesuit priest who traveled to Abyssinia in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, was the first to see and describe the source of what was considered to be the Nile. Paez's information was incorporated into the manuscript that, between 1628 and 1644, Father Manuel de Almeida wrote describing the Jesuit actions in the region, as well as in the accounts of father Jerome Lobo, who preached in Abyssinia between 1624 and 1634, and also personally visited the Nile source located in the Dambea lake, in the Abyssinian mountains. This paper will compare the Jesuits written sources with D’Anville’s maps concerning the representation of the Nile source.
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MAPPING THE CHAINS OF SPIRITUAL BONDS CONNECTING THE AFAR WITH THEIR NEIGHBOURS: THE QADIRIYA SILSILA OF AWSA [Abstract ID: 0514-06]
The silsila ‘chain of spiritual forefathers’ of the Qadiriyya Islamic Sufi leaders settled in Awsa, the central territory of the Afar people. It is probably the most complete among Islamic communities in Ethiopia because its connections with the spiritual leaders of Arab countries is well established. This is not the case for the other Ethiopian branches of this transnational spiritual network. The study of the Qadiri silsila of Awsa also reveals trans-regional relations between Ethiopian Muslim peoples and territories, particularly early connections with religious training centers in northeastern Wollo and southeastern Tigray since this Sufi order was introduced in Awsa by Shaykh Ayfarah al-Shafi'i in the 17th c. of the common era (CE). The Qadiriya is also the most widespread Islamic Sufi order in the Horn of Africa region through the Qutbi Clan of the Shaykha-s of Ogaden, heirs of Shaykh Abdurahman al-Zeyla'i, who was a prominent figure of Awsa Qadiri spiritual and scholarly networks. Also, the spiritual chains of the Oromo of Harar and Borana are related to that of the Kabirto of Awsa, descending from shaykh Kabir Hamza, the celebrated author of a great number of religious texts in Arabic and Afar languages. This presentation will thus unfold the spiritual map through which the Afar have defined their interactions with their neighbours on a regional scale.
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MAPPING THE ETHIOPIAN HIGHLANDS IN THE 1860S: EUROPEAN TRAVELERS’ ITINERARIES AND MAPS MADE IN GOTHA [Abstract ID: 0514-11]
During the second half of the nineteenth century a handful of European travelers crossed the Ethiopian highlands, carefully noting the ways they had taken as suggested by their local guides. The respective tracks were put into written itineraries, which contained the directions taken as well as the most remarkable sites on the way: mountains, hills, rivers, settlements and the like. These itineraries including letters and notebooks written “in the field”, as the Europeans would call their travelling destinations, should come to Gotha – a hub of nineteenth century map making in the German lands. Here, chief cartographer, August Petermann carefully took up the information, sorting them in or out, by constructing his maps of the Ethiopian highlands. These maps carefully combined routes of several travelers, as Petermann had drawn together a large amount of geographic data from all over. However, it was his choice how to combine the local knowledge that travelers had transmitted to Gotha and to decide what ought to be put on the map and what should be left out. In my talk I will tackle the issue of travelling local knowledge with regard to the evidence found in Perthes business archives in Gotha. Hereby I will especially draw on the cases of singular travelers like Theodor von Heuglin, Ernst Marno, Joseph Menges and those Europeans who had already gone native like Werner Munzinger.
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ON 'ORPHAN' TOPONYMS IN THE HISTORY OF ETHIOPIAN CARTOGRAPHY [Abstract ID: 0514-07]
By proposing some insights on the processes and limits of scientific cumulativity involved in map-making and, this contribution on the history of Ethiopian cartography will try to reveal the wealth of information that can be found in the layered strata of ‘waste’ data. Like any scientific work, and may be in a more systematic way, map-makers copy each other; take information from one another; ascertain places that were already located and printed; refine measures and positioning of more hypothetical positions; revise published information by crossing them with direct observations from the field, and eventually add new items on previously uncharted lands. The description of these operations of scientific history involves complex technologies of data management. In this perspective, the ETHIOMAP project (EHESS; Erfurt University; CFEE) has undertaken the systematic study of a series of old maps of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa region since Ludolf’s map published in 1683 that was based on a colligation of information collected by the Jesuits and first hand geographic knowledge from an Ethiopian informant, Abba Gorgoryos. Other maps studied in this corpus considered as nodes in the corpus for they brought new information based on field research. The online database provides detailed indexation of each map. It also allows cross-indexing between maps to refer different orthographies of toponyms to a reference transcription. For instance ‘Aouache’, ‘Hawash’, ‘Hauasch’… for Awaš. This systematic work has revealed a number of toponyms that cannot be cross-referenced, that we propose to call “orphan toponyms” for they are not inscribed in a genealogy of cumulative knowledge. The collection of these “orphan toponyms” may provide orientations for research on neglected areas and guides for rediscovering sources.
See Ethiomap website: ethiomap.huma-num.f
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RECOVERY AND USE OF AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS OF ETHIOPIA IN 1935-1941 [Abstract ID: 0514-04]
The Italian aerial photographs produced by the Istituto Geografico Militare (IGM) in 1935 to 1941 have been discovered, scanned and organised, in the framework of a cooperation agreement between Ghent University, the Ethiopian Mapping Agency, and Mekelle University. Until recently, the earliest aerial photographs of the country that were available had been taken in the period 1958-1964. The set of aerial photographs made in 1935-1941 consists of 8281 assemblages on approx. 50 cm x 20 cm hardboard tiles. Each of these tiles holds a label, one nadir-pointing photograph flanked by two low-oblique photographs and one high-oblique photograph. The four aerial photographs were exposed simultaneously and were taken across the flight line. The high-oblique photograph is presented alternatively at left and at right. In many cases, there is approx. 60% overlap between subsequent sets of aerial photographs. One of Santoni’s glass plate multi-cameras was used, with focal length of 178 mm and with a flight height of 4000-4500 m a.s.l., which resulted in an approximate scale of 1:11,500 for the central photograph and 1:16,000 to 1:18,000 for the low-oblique aerial photographs. The surveyors oriented themselves with maps of Ethiopia at 1:400,000 scale, compiled in 1934 by IGM using all older partial maps available, as well as field surveys by spies. The flights present a dense aerial photo coverage of the Tigray highlands (approx. 30% of the area is covered), where they were acquired in the context of upcoming battles with the Ethiopian army. Several flights preceded the later advance of the Italian army southwards to the capital Addis Ababa. Further flights took place in central Ethiopia for civilian purposes. As of 1936, the aerial photographs were used to prepare topographic maps at 1:100,000 and 1:50,000 scales. To re-process the imagery, procedures using digital image-based modelling have been developed. The 1935-1941 aerial photographs, together with those of 1958-1964, 1986-1994 and recent high-resolution satellite imagery, are currently used in spatio-temporal analyses, including change studies of land use and cover, hydrology, church forests, land management and geomorphology in Ethiopia over a time span of 80 years. There is scope for a wide array of additional research concerning for instance historical geography, military geography, urbanisation, or early long-distance tracks.
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ROUTES BETWEEN ZEILA AND HARAR IN THE 1880 [Abstract ID: 0514-01]
I shall use three types of material: the written descriptions made by Alfred Bardey (“Notes sur le Harar”, ’Barr-Adjam: souvenirs d’Afrique orientale, 1880-1888’) ; the map he drew (‘Somal, Harar et pays Gallas’); the picture taken by Edouard Bidault de Glatigné and his itineraries plus some other documents in order to try to establish what knowledge European travellers had of the geographical area between Zeila and Harar in the 1880’s.
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SPATIAL REPRESENTATIONS AND IMAGINATIONS BEYOND MAPS: PRACTICES OF MIND-MAPPING AROUND AKSUM, TIGRAY [Abstract ID: 0514-08]
Modern maps, nowadays more and more used in daily practice in Ethiopia, create the illusion to "understand" a territory, and to have an objective access to it. They represent a territory, as they claim, based on the idea of proportional reproduction of the main features of a land or an area. But what are the main features? And are there possibly other ways of mapping which represent main aspects of a local territory in a totally different way? Anthropological field research, together with the analysis of historical sources, show that there are and were numerous different representations of geographical ideas and realities in traditional Tigrayan society, which are precious sources for the understanding of how a territory was and is perceived. This paper presents research on geometrical, abstract "maps" of Tigray and how they reflect local concepts of territory and practices of interconnections, different from modern maps which rather overlook the social aspect of territories. This is discussed together with other traditions of territorial representations, from natural sites, such as trees, representing peoples from different regions, to practical itineraries.
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THE DOBA'A GROUP: AN INTERETHNIC GROUP - COMPARISON BETWEEN FIELD RESEARCH DATA AND OCCURRENCES ON OLD MAPS [Abstract ID: 0514-12]
The Doba'a are interesting in ethnohistorical studies because in older Ethiopian and foreign sources they regularly appear as an important group in the northeastern fringes of traditional Ethiopia, especially around the wider area of the southeastern Tigray, but from some time in the 19th century they totally disappear from sources. Recent field research could show that they have by no means disappeared, but continue to exist in the form of several interconnected lineages especially in their historical centre in southeastern Tigray, but under other ethnic identities. This poses interesting questions on group organisation and identity. We can observe that these Doba'a lineages are emerged within a larger Rayyaa Oromo identity in Tigray, but in the same time also assume a Tigrayan identity, while field research shows that there are related Doba'a lineages in Awsa, where they now assume a larger Afar identity. Therefore they seem to be an interesting case also for interethnic relations - we can define them as an interethnic group, which played a role in connecting different regions along traditional trade routes. Another area called "Doba" is found in Shewa. There is also a 'Doba woreda' or district in western Harergie. When we compare what is known from field research with older maps until the 19th century, we can also find these groups at the different places where they appear as lineages or sub-groups today. In this paper the maps are used as a basis for reconstructing the territorial diversity of the Doba'a, linking it with recent field research which helps to understand better which Doba'a are those appearing on these maps.
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THE EARLIEST GEOLOGICAL AND GEOMORPHOLOGICAL MAPS OF ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA [Abstract ID: 0514-10]
The highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea (commonly referred to as “Abyssinia” at the time) in particular, and the Horn of Africa in general, were a hotbed of geographical, geological and geomorphological exploration from the 18th century to the first half of the 20th century. Several European explorers documented the geological and geomorphological setting of the highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea along with detailed descriptions of the natural history. Many of the explorers produced geological and geomorphological maps and cross-sections, accompanied by detailed exploratory notes. The most notable works include those of the French naturalists Antoine and Arnaud D’Abbadie (1837-1848), who gave the first systematic geographical and geodetic description of Ethiopia; Majors Ferret and Galinier (1840-1842), who produced the first ever geological map and geological cross-section of Northern Ethiopia; British explorer and naturalist Henry Cook (1866-1867), who produced the first systematic review of the climatic, geological and geographical setting of the Abyssinian highlands; and British explorer and naturalist W. T. Blandford (1867-1868), who provided the first systematic stratigraphic outline of the geological setting of Northern Ethiopia. It is worth noting that the “stratigraphic outline” of Blandford is still in use today with little modification. This paper is a systematic treatise on all accessible geological and geomorphological maps, and related archival materials, of Ethiopia and Eritrea produced during the period 1750-1950. A critical review of these geological and geomorphological maps indicates that the detail and accuracy of observation of these explorers and naturalists was unprecedented, and the maps they produced were generally accurate in view of the contemporary knowledge of Earth Sciences. A comparative assessment of modern geological and geomorphological maps of Ethiopia and those of the 18th to 20th centuries further confirms the great scientific value of the earliest maps. It will also be shown that these maps were useful guides in facilitating the political, economic and military motives of the sponsors of some explorations, such as during the Napier expedition to Magdala in 1867-1868.
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THE MAPS OF ALEXANDRE MEUNIER (1908-1909) DJIBOUTI, HARRAR, ADDIS ABABA. A MAP-READING EXERCISE [Abstract ID: 0514-02]
Alexandre Meunier, a mapmaker of the "Service Géographique" of the "Ministère des colonies" produced in 1908- 1909 a set of 3 maps on a scale of 1:500000, named Carte de la Côte Française des Somalis et des régions avoisinantes. I intend to analyse the contents of these maps as a kind of map reading exercise, by which I want to show and question the limitations and the choices done at that time. The contents may be explicit or not, visible or hidden, detailed or not. Meunier, a «cabinet cartographer» depending exclusively of the available sources at this time (previous maps and travel accounts), managed to produce maps fitting well with their primary function, that is to be the indispensable tool for foreigners on their way into Ethiopia as the railway line from Dire Dawa to Addis Ababa is under completion.