World maps & models

Al-Idrisi’s world map — a sixteenth-century copy

Historical record

Orientation is a cartographic convention, not inversion of the physical Earth.

What this record establishes

Institutional record documented; does not authenticate interpretations.

Record details

Original title
Al-Idrisi world map, MS Pococke 375
Artifact date
1553 copy of medieval work
Creator
Copyist after al-Idrisi
Holding institution
Bodleian Libraries
Classification
South-up world map

Antarctica connection

Contextual visual history; not direct evidence about Antarctica

Relevance and caution

Orientation is a cartographic convention, not inversion of the physical Earth.

Catalog context

Curatorial navigation label; original categories and source identity retained.

Al-Idrisi world map, MS Pococke 375 — 1927 printed facsimile

World map identified in the 1927 plate as Oxford 1, Bodleian Uri 887 (now MS Pococke 375, the 1553 manuscript). Independent monochrome printed facsimile from Miller’s Idrisi-Atlas, not a modern Bodleian photograph or a reconstruction.

Konrad Miller (ed.), Mappae Arabicae VI: Idrisi-Atlas (Stuttgart, 1927), plate II. Selections from the Library, fGA302 M5 v.6, UC Berkeley Library, University of California, Berkeley. Public domain.

The manuscript identity is confirmed by the scholarly crosswalk Uri 887 = Pococke 375. Miller labels the reproduced image p.70 and describes another enlarged two-page version; the modern catalog describes fols.3v–4r. Exact folio/exposure equivalence is not asserted. The modern Bodleian manuscript photograph is linked separately and not reproduced. South-up orientation is preserved. This is historical cartography, not evidence of Antarctica.

Image source record · Reuse terms

Image rights and evidence limits

Public-domain 1927 printed facsimile, independently digitized by UC Berkeley Library. The volume title page dates this edition 1927; editor Konrad Miller died in 1933. Berkeley permits free and open reuse of its online public-domain reproductions without permission, with source attribution requested. This does not license modern Bodleian or HU Berlin digitizations.

Image existence does not prove a linked claim. Consult image-specific captions and reuse conditions.

Sources and what they support

Links document the record, the claim’s circulation, an assessment, or reuse terms as labeled. A source link is not automatically corroboration.

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