While it was sometimes difficult to plot the points of Marco Polo’s journey onto a modern map due to ancient locations and names not lining up with those of the modern day, it seems even more confusing trying to map these modern points onto my ancient map simply because of the visual differences and artistic vision of the two separate maps. Looking through a strictly visual lens to start, it is clear that the Tabula Rogeriana as an ancient piece of cartography carries different perspectives on the world from what we know today, the space being represented in physically and culturally different ways.

                  At a first glance, the Tabula Rogeriana looks like a completely different world, and the landmasses look like something you would see in the front pages of a high fantasy fiction novel. But turning the map upside down and taking a careful look will show that it does indeed represent the majority of mainland Europe and Asia, as well as Northern Africa. The difference in appearance comes from how the map has been oriented upside down, at least according to our traditional Eurocentric views on what a map should look like. Instead, and this is due to the map’s creator being Muslim, the map takes on an Islamic view of the world where South is oriented towards the top of the map.

                  The Tabula Rogeriana also provides an outlook that is more interpretive and is put together through scholarship and beliefs about the world, as well as the desire to see pathways and obstacles in relation to trade. It is organized into a kind of grid, where one might be able to pick out a certain section of the map and do a cursory analysis of the region based on the important features drawn in. Individual settlements, forests, mountains, lakes, rivers, and roads can be seen clearly on the map, as they are drawn to stand out sharply as features of note for a traveler through the region. Being able to see all of these geographical features from such a wide lens on the map offers an important but also very vague interpretation of direction and landscape across the continents. This is opposed to the digital modern maps of today, where a zoomed out view will show general topography and borders, but zooming in allows for extremely precise location tracking, names of roads and buildings, directions, and more.

                  This contrast carries over on a grander scale as well when looking at the organization of the world and its continents on the Tabula Rogeriana. With the precise tools, mapping, and satellite views of today, we have been able to carefully and accurately map out landmasses with greater care for scale. It is clear when looking at the ancient map and trying to plot points, there was not a lot of knowledge or care for the true scale of things, but the real focus was giving a simple regional overview. Compared to other ancient maps, this one is surprisingly easy to interpret when trying to make out the picture it is painting of the globe. You can see the European peninsula and the extension of Italy clearly, and make out the Middle East, Eastern Asia, and Northern Africa as separate entities – albeit ones still blocky in form and completely off scale. This becomes more of a problem when looking at all of the various islands, which generally are not differentiated from one another much, and are really just grouped together tightly to show that they are all in the water over there somewhere, but the distances between the islands are not mapped at all.

                  Based on all of these things you can point out between the two maps, I would generally say that when we look at maps today and all of our navigational devices, we are using them strictly directionally and for the sake of knowing where we are and which direction to travel next. In ancient maps such as the Tabula Rogeriana, I would say there is more cultural weight behind the cartography, and while the geography was not as well known, the cartographers of the period aimed to implement more cultural knowledge and ideas about how the world was connected. Growing trade and travel necessitated clear pathways and markings of what settlements were in a region, as well as potential geographical roadblocks to be encountered. Using my previous points I plotted on the modern map in relation to Marco Polo’s journey, and trying to plot them on this ancient map, it is interesting to see how difficult travel must have been and how impressive it was for him to include multiple measurements of distance, especially seeing how vague distances were when looking at the Southeastern Asian islands. Today, we would look at our GPS and think about ourselves, where we are, what our next stop is – ancient technologies were less precise, but the growth in travel subsequently grew the desire for knowledge of the wider world.