OLD GLOBE

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Quite by accident I stumbled upon an old globe. Being on an occasion in Moscow, I went to visit and…. I jumped up when I saw it. The owner of the globe was very surprised at my reaction, his wife gave it to him for his 55th birthday and, except as a bar with alcohol, he did not even consider it. As it turned out, there is an Italian company (perhaps more than one and not only Italian) that makes souvenirs by copying old globes. In a specific case, this is a copy made as a bar for alcoholic drinks. But for me this is secondary, I was primarily interested in the globe itself. It is of excellent quality and all the labels are easy to read. There are sites on the Internet where photos and even 3-D models of some old globes are presented, for example, on this site. A search on sites known to me did not give any result. I could not find a specific globe from which this particular copy was taken. I also did not come across a similar option when looking for it as a souvenir in online stores. Apparently, a small number of them were made and sold.

Now to the globe itself. There will be a lot of photos, especially observant ones. The LJ format does not allow inserting large format photos, if someone is interested in a specific place on the globe, I am ready to post an enlarged fragment in the comments.

What can be determined based on what is on the globe itself. This is a reproduction of the Zoffoli antique club, this is Italy, and this is 1949. One of the signatures has the word Paris, but since I do not speak languages, it is difficult for me to understand in what context the word Paris is used. Based on the analogue of maps and cross-comparison of toponyms on the globe, most likely this globe should be dated from the mid-16th century to the mid-17th century. If someone has their own thoughts and their own options for reading the inscriptions, I will be very grateful.

Now, just in order of the photo. I will give my small comments under some photos.

First, a general view of the globe. The stand is made like a man kneeling down.

Now directly a photo of individual parts of the globe. Immediately, I note that the meridians are drawn every 10 degrees, the zero (aka the 360th meridian) passes to the right of the one indicated by the bold dashed line and does not coincide with the modern one. The thick dashed line is the 350th and 170th meridians. The 10th meridian passes through England. London is not indicated, but it would be somewhere around the 16th meridian.

Here I will note that Germany is signed as Bermania. As is known in German and English, BER is a bear. And in the old Russian language, ber is also a bear, hence, by the way, the den, that is, the lair of the ber. And "Berlin" is simply "bearish" in our way. The fact that Germany is a distorted Bermania did not occur to me until now. Now everything is clear and understandable.

Further. The northern hemisphere in a circle, continue.

Next is a photo of the equatorial part. Note that the South Atlantic is labeled as the Ethiopian Ocean. Unclear. Where is the ocean and where is Ethiopia. Apparently at that time Ethiopia was not there, or not only where it is now.

The Indian Ocean is signed as the Eastern Ocean (orientalis from Latin).

Further, note that the Pacific (Pasifi) was called the sea, that is, only a part of the ocean.

Meridionalis is a modern adjective midday. Wikipedia writes that this is a derivative from Proto-Indo-European. In Russia, until the end of the 18th century, the south was referred to as noon, the north as midnight, partly this is still preserved in the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages. That is, America Meridionalis is South America.

Now a bit of the southern part.

Antarctica is signed as New Holland. By the way, everything is very vague here. Allegedly, in 1606, some lands were discovered by the Dutch, someone at the same time believes that this is Australia, someone that this is Antarctica, someone that this is generally a fictional continent that existed as a supposed one and the Dutch took everything for themselves in advance. What then did Bellingshausen and Lazarev discover? In general, dregs. What is important to us is that some lands on the site of modern Antarctica are designated and have a name.

Now the very north. It is unclear whether this land is marked, or an ice field. If the ice field, then it turns out that the "Northern Sea Route" was free. This means that the climatic conditions were different from the modern ones.

Further, in more detail local areas that may be interesting to someone.

Personally, I am extremely interested in the following area, because the history of antediluvian Petersburg is extremely interesting to me and, in fact, is my main direction in research. I am deeply convinced that in the "ancient" times there was a city on the site of St. Petersburg, with a very high metropolitan status. I have a number of articles devoted to this. I consider the most probable date of his death in the 13-14 centuries, the death occurred as a result of a catastrophe that flooded the city. The consequence of this flooding in the subsequent was the formation of the modern Neva and the modern outline of Lake Ladoga by the turn of the 17-18 centuries and, accordingly, the beginning of the restoration of the old city by Peter I. I will not go further into this topic, read my articles, I will only note that there is no Ladoga Lake on the globe, nor the Neva. But Onega is also signed. There is a signed city Vikrik, apparently it is somewhere in the area of modern Narva or Kingisepp. Esto (estonia?) Is drawn above Onega. Two lakes are drawn between Onega and the Baltic. Perhaps they will later become Ladoga.

Central Europe.

Southern Europe. Please note that Istanbul is signed as Troy. Not a clear photo, but readable.

Muscovy. Pay attention to the place names Yaroslavia, Rostoi and Vlodimiry.

Russia. Astrakhan, Tyumen.

Tartary. From left to right in small letters Siberia, Lukomorye, south of Yugoriy.

The Chinese wall is drawn. Katay north of it, south of Chin. Mongul in the middle reaches of the Lena. If it's Lena, of course.

Tartary completely.

North America completely. Septentrionalis from Latin north.

Atlantic sea.

North Africa. Pay attention to where the barbarians lived (Algeria) and where was Libya (modern Niger).

Red (rubrum) sea.

Here you can clearly see Troy (Istanbul).

India.

Japan. For some reason Lapan.

China.

Here is a more detailed inscription in the region of southern Africa and Madagascar.

At the end of the video review of the globe.

On this I take my leave. If this review is useful to someone, I will be glad.