It's All About The Maps
You could hold the whole world in your
hands if you cradled this ostrich egg. Its carved surface shows what is
thought to be the oldest known depiction of the New World on a globe –
ousting the Hunt-Lenox Globe held by the New York Public Library.
The globe shows North America as an
unnamed group of scattered islands. Regions of South America are
labelled as Mundus Novus or "New World", Terra de Brazil and Terra
Sanctae Crucis, or "Land of the Holy Cross".
There are also depictions of ships,
monsters, intertwining waves, a shipwrecked sailor, 71 place names and
the sentence "HIC SVNT DRACONES" – "here be dragons".
The globe was bought by an anonymous private institution at last year's London Map Fair and then lent to independent researcher Stefaan Missinne, who published his analysis this week in The Portolan, the Washington Map Society's journal.
Judging by the density of its shell,
Missinne reckons that the egg globe dates from around 1504 and notes the
influence of Leonardo da Vinci's workshop on the globe's style. It may
even have been the model for the Hunt-Lenox globe.
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