Le Cours de la Riviere de Wolga Anciennement appellee RHA.

  • Translation

Article ID EUO2002

Title

Le Cours de la Riviere de Wolga Anciennement appellee RHA.

Description

Map shows the lower Volga with magnificent cartouches and depictions of a Tatar market life, camels and rural scenery. Furthermore, a general view of the city of Soratov and Astrakhan located at the mouth of the Volga.

Year

c. 1659

Artist

Olearius (1603-1671)

Adam Olearius was a travel writer, diplomat, regional historian and linguist. Duke Friedrich III. von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf planned the opening of a trade route via Persia and Russia to northern Germany. A contract was signed with Tsar Michail Feodorowitsch (1596–1645) that governed Schleswig-Holstein. Allowed merchants to transport certain personal goods through Russia and to set up storage areas along the Volga. The mission was a diplomatic and commercial failure, but Oleariu's travelogue made it a milestone in geography and ethnology. O. was appointed court mathematician to the duke in 1639 and also took over the position of court librarian in 1649. He supplemented the library with numerous oriental manuscripts that he had collected and also built the later famous "Gottorfische Kunstkammer". In 1654, Olearius constructed a giant globe three meters in diameter, developed a process for grinding para- and hyperbolic lenses and learned the technique of copperplate engraving. Olearius is particularly important as a regional historian. His "Often coveted description of the Newen Orientalische Rejse ... to the King in Persia etc." appeared in 1647 (supplemented and revised in 1656). With this he presented "the first comprehensive description of Persia in European literature and at the same time the most excellent representation of Russia of the 17th century". The work forms a "milestone in the development of the German scientific language". Olearius was not a discoverer of new geographical territory, but rather an impartial observer and researcher of previously poorly known countries and their inhabitants. He is also to be thanked for some striking new geographical and cartographic findings. Since Ptolemy it was believed that the Caspian Sea, like the Black Sea, had its greatest extension in an east-west direction. Olearius, however, correctly assigned it a north-south longitudinal axis. His map of Persia not only included the Iran. The northern border was geographically correct, but for the first time also contained an approximate description of the relief structure based on observation with a central basin surrounded by mountain ranges. The 2nd edition of the "Persian Journey" contains the first realistic cartographic recording of the Volga and the topographical mapping of its bank area. This information from Olearius was adopted by all later cartographers. Olearius' realistic cityscapes deserve special attention and his descriptions of the inhabitants of Russia and Persia, their way of life and customs, which are very detailed, especially in the 2nd edition.

Historical Description

Since the Caspian Sea is not a sea in the legal sense, it is not subject to the 1994 Convention on the Law of the Sea. The oldest cultural evidence can be found on inscriptions on Assyrian pottery and call it a "Southern Sea". the first popular name refers to the tribe of the Caspians who lived on the southwestern bank of the Caspian Caucasus, in today's Azerbaijan, the second refers to the bank near Hyrkania, a landscape on today's Iranian and southern Turkmen coast. The changing history of settlement led to numerous other names such as B. the Tatar name "Ag Deniz", White Sea.

Place of Publication Paris
Dimensions (cm)38,5 x 109,5 cm
ConditionMissing part at upper center perfectly replaced
Coloringcolored
TechniqueCopper print

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