1729 Kingdom of Tunis
By: Thomas Shaw
Date: 1729 (dated)
Dimensions: 17.5 x 13.5 inches (44.5 cm x 34.3 cm)
This scarce antique map has an unusual history. It was done by Thomas Shaw, an English cleric and cartographer in the early eighteenth century.
Born about 1692, Shaw went to Queen’s College, Oxford where he took his master’s degree in 1719. On entering orders, he was appointed chaplain and sent to Algiers where he stayed till 1733. The map was actually drawn while he was still in Algiers in 1729. On his return to England he took his doctor’s degree and was elected a member of the Royal Society. In order to disseminate the knowledge gained during his travels, he wrote his authoritative Travels in Barbary and the Levant, which was published at Oxford in 1738, in which a slightly different version of this map of Tunis was finally published.
Having lived in the area for so many years, he was able to make corrections of the observations and descriptions of more ancient origin, such as those of Ptolemy and Pliny. His book itself also contains a map of the remains of Carthage, illustrated and delineated in great detail. This map covers the entire Kingdom of Tunis as it was known at the time, and Shaw describes all known geophysical features, including ruins of many of the ancient cities which he explored, and an ancient aqueduct.
The map is dedicated to the ‘Honourable Sir Hans Sloane Bar’ dated July 7, 1729, by Shaw himself.
Condition: This map is in B+ condition with some minor foxing, damp staining and creasing in places.
Inventory # 10736
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