Author: Cameron DeVries

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.

Cameron DeVries

Blog Post #5

The Travels of Marco Polo: India

November 13, 2025

For my final blog post, I am looking at Marco Polo’s time in India, which makes up one of the final chapters of the book and is one of the larger sections dedicated to one place. Marco Polo’s descriptions of India are far more in depth in comparison to some other sections like the islands between China and India in the last section, both due to the larger amount of time Marco Polo spends in India, and India’s established place in the world of “civilization” and economy.

Here, he jumps right into the marvels and wonders of India and what he encounters there. One of the first things he mentions is the dress of the people in the kingdom of Maabar, which does not leave much to the imagination. He notes how everyone walks around stark naked except sometimes for a simple loincloth type covering, and even the king goes mostly naked. He maintains his matter of factness about this, which is interesting considering how he would have seen the same thing in the previous section and called the people savages. This is similar to when he mentions the Brahmans, or the guys that use enchantments and incantations to protect the pearl divers from dangerous sea creatures. Marco Polo has been wary of magic in other sections, but kind of just mentions the Brahmans in a matter of fact way here. Later in the chapter he even talks about how the Brahmans may be cleaner and live longer than any others because of their lifestyle, and how they have great connection to birds and beasts.

Another immediate point of interest here are the great signs of wealth, which I can connect to the points I have already mentioned. The king, who is mostly naked like his people, is differentiated by the absurd amount of gems and jewels he wears on himself as a sign of his great wealth. Marco Polo also talks about the natural wealth through pearls, which are collected from oysters by the pearl divers along the shore, who are protected by the aforementioned Brahmans. All across India, he marvels at the gems and shows of wealth he sees, as well as spices such as pepper and ginger, which he sees an abundance of. This makes sense as India would have been a central location for trade and the flow of luxury goods during this time. Like many of the other places he visits, he also makes note of the interesting wildlife, such as exotic birds, big cats, monkeys, and elephants that are used for warfare.  He also talks about cows, and how they do not eat them here.

This goes into the religion, and how Marco Polo still holds strong to his Christian faith and does not believe those who worship other religions are exactly on the right track. He sees how the Hindus do not eat cows, and sees the different deities they worship, and once again just labels everyone as idolators. Still, even when seeming confused by the temples and religious customs such as those of the Yogis and their nakedness, he is not super harsh or judgmental here and seems like a curious observer, reporting back to the Khan and recording all he finds. Some other customs he encountered was he culture of loyalty, where when a husband died their wives would burn themselves alive alongside him. The king was also allowed to choose anyone to be his wife with no argument, and he even married the wife of his brother.

As per usual, he does not talk much about his own living situation, but mentions how hot it was in India, and how the climate could be harsh. He also warns against certain places where traveling upstream would lead to pirates that were known for taking all your goods. This is a large chapter, and there is a lot to cover here, but he generally keeps his same attitude of curiosity and level headedness, while also maintaining his position as a Christian. At the end of the day, he is also an important merchant, so while the customs may confuse him, something he understands very well is how to report back for the purpose of trade. He always lists the spices, animal products, gems, and other goods that may be valuable and where they can be found, as well as potential dangers to traders such as pirates.

Cameron DeVries

Blog Post #4

The Travels of Marco Polo: Lesser Java

November 6, 2025

In the section entitled “From China to India”, I chose to look at Marco Polo’s descriptions of the island he calls “Lesser Java”, as this is one of the longer descriptions of this section and the place during this leg of the journey in which he runs into the most people and provides interesting descriptions. This area is part of Indonesia, and was part of his long journey by ship throughout the islands of Eastern and Southern Asia on the way to India. One thing to note first is that this is one of the few places in the narratives where Marco Polo gives a brief description of his own living conditions and interaction with the place he is staying in. When talking about Sumatra, one of the various kingdoms he encounters across the island, he says that he spent 5 months there due to weather. His descriptions showed some amount of struggle but also the ways that he and his people adapted to living in this uncharted territory. He says, “we dug a big trench round our encampment” and recalls using the timber from the area and supplies from trading with the native islanders to create wooden towers and fortifications that they lived in.

The reason for digging these trenches and building fortifications ties back to his writings on the people of Lesser Java, which is one of the aspects of this journey that he writes very harshly about in this section. This is a large island, and Marco Polo refers to eight different kingdoms, each with individual rulers and languages, and how all of them are idolaters (besides the people of Ferlec, having been converted to Islam). It is with these people that Marco Polo dives into his judgmental and denigrating comments – he claims they “live like beasts”, eat “every other sort of flesh, clean or unclean”, and “whatever they see first when they wake in the morning, that they worship.” To me, this section is interesting due to how matter of fact Marco Polo had remained before (for the most part) during his travels throughout Europe and the more mapped out parts of Asia. Here, he attacks dress, hygiene, diet, religion, appearance, and seemingly anything else he can think of. In the kingdom of Sumatra, he refers to the natives as “nasty and brutish folk who kill men for food.” This all goes hand in hand with the general attitude of this entire China to India chapter, where he ranges from the trite “savage” comments, to describing these islanders as looking like dogs and all sorts of other things.

Something that remains in line with Marco Polo’s attitude and position as a merchant is his view of the natural resources and “treasures” of the region he is passing through. Some comments he makes on this front detail how “the island abounds in treasure and in costly products”, including descriptions of how delicious wine is made in tree stumps, how the fish and camphor are the best in the world, and how all kinds of precious woods, spices, fruits and plants can be found in Lesser Java. Kind of going hand in hand with this is description of the wonders of wildlife he encounters, such as elephants, monkeys, and rhinos, which he calls unicorns.

It is interesting to see Marco Polo’s mercantile nature and outlook on exotic goods continue to come out here, but also now to see how his views on wealth are tied into the people nearby and the ways in which they use it. He approves of nature’s wealth here, but seeing as this part of the world may have been considered off the beaten track or apart from what was considered “major civilization” during this time, he doesn’t document a lot of large empires, structures, or shows of wealth in this region, which was something that impressed him throughout China. He seems curious and sees potential for trade, but still lets slip his Eurocentric and Christian nature, and his judgment comes out when presented with these more drastically different ways of life across Indonesia.

Cameron DeVries

Blog Post #3

The Travels of Marco Polo: Kinsai

October 16, 2025

In the chapter entitled “From Peking to Amoy”, the city of Kinsai is one of the Great Khan’s most important cities in the South-Eastern Manzi province, and is known also as the “City of Heaven.” It is clear from the start that Marco Polo was a fan of Kinsai, as he talks about how it is the “most splendid city in the world” and “amply provided with all the means of life.” One of the first things he notices and shows interest in with this city is some of the architectural aspects, one of which seems to be a functioning system of sewers or waterways. It seems that the city is between a lake and a flowing river, and the city is filled with waterways and canals that flow from the river to the lake and pull the filth to the latter. He notes that “the whole city lies in water and surrounded by water”, so a lot of people travel throughout via boats as well as the main streets, and there are a plethora of bridges needed to traverse the city. The descriptions he gives of these architectural functions make the city sound almost like Venice, which, being an Italian merchant, could be one of the reasons he was impressed by this kind of layout across Kinsai.

He next talks about all the bustling businesses and people throughout the streets, and how there are great markets that spread across the city as well as many smaller marketplaces, businesses, and luxuries. Some that he mentions are the cold bath-houses, which the locals use to stay clean and in good health,  and “women of the town”, which I read to be a large number of prostitutes or brothels throughout the city and interestingly seem to earn the city its title of “city of Heaven” for Marco Polo. There are many other crafts as well such as doctors, astrologers, and teachers. Marco Polo once again seems very business savvy and impressed with the sheer abundance of thriving trade, even noticing the daily consumption of pepper alone, which added up to 43 cart-loads. Not to mention all of this took place in a beautiful city lined with “stately mansions with their gardens.” Not to talk too much more about the trade, but he goes on and on about the merchants and how they are “great men” that “never sold their hands with work at all, but live a life of as much refinement as if they were kings” and how their wives are “refined and angelic creatures.” This really does give a sense as to the type of people Marco Polo respects, and how he continues to be in comfort when surrounded by wealth and those that ply their trade with success. He also admires the Khan for allowing these traders to retire once they have reached said success.

This economy of trade ties directly into the people themselves in Marco Polo’s eyes, and he describes them overall as being very peaceful, honest, diligent, generous, good looking and opposed to conflict of any kind. They even seem to take very good care of the sick and poor in Kinsai. No details are specified, but given Marco Polo’s good review, one could assume that during his stay he probably took advantage of some of this luxury, and lived in comfort while he visited. While he was very impressed by a socially and architecturally sophisticated and refined city, you could also say that this point is something he was astonished by, and needed to report back on in order to convey the unexpected “wonders of the East” he was finding that even rivaled his luxuries back home.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=13531Eb_0CAQceQjtGwrNvYPxAlyzdmA&usp=sharing

This is the link to my map!

For Categories:

This may be simplifying things a bit, but for the colors of my points, I based them off of the attitude and general impression Marco Polo was giving off when he encountered a new place. This would generally be based on the people he encountered, which seemingly ruined his experience on multiple occasions. Green are for places he seemed more generally in awe of or respected, due to the wealth and society he encountered. Red are for places where his disgust in the people seemed to create a negative impression and override any natural beauty to be found, and where he notes people to live like “brutes” or “savages” or to be unbearable. Yellow are just for places he really said nothing about or were uninhabited.

Cameron DeVries

Blog Post #2

October 2, 2025

The Travels of Marco Polo: Shang-Tu

Marco Polo goes on and on for a long time about the Great Khan and all of his palaces, cities, and places he stays during various seasons, and I could write about any one of them. I was most interested in this city of the Khan’s, called Shang-tu (or Shangdu), because I did some research and saw that it was also known as Xanadu in the West.  I remembered from my film class when we watched Citizen Kane that Kane lived in this very opulent mansion on a hill that was called Xanadu, and it seems that the word has derived from the times of the Khan and is still used today to represent places of great beauty and wealth. For the majority of this section, this seems to be what Marco Polo is mainly focused on.

Again, Marco Polo does not seem overly concerned with the details on himself, such as the dates of his arrival or the places he stayed in. However, he does note that the Khan stayed in Shang-tu during the Summer months of June, July, and August, and based on the ways in which he tells certain stories and makes descriptions, it can be assumed that Polo was there during these months, although I am not certain. Something else to be noted about Marco Polo before getting into specifics is the fact that he came from a merchant family in Venice, Italy, so he would not be a stranger to wealth or that sort of lifestyle. It could be for this reason that he seems so attracted by and appreciative towards the decadent structures and signs of wealth that he is seeing around him, and the Khan’s lifestyle in general.

We can kind of say that Polo was focused on the buildings and the environment here, because the environment seems to consist mostly of the works of Kubilai Khan and the ways in which he has formed the city to his liking. He talks about the Khan’s great palace with all its columns, rooms, and adornments, as well as the Khan’s huge park that contains (besides another palace of its own) multitudes of species of wildlife, such as stags, leopards, and falcons. This is also the section in which Marco Polo seems to show his great interest in animals more, or maybe it is just because the Khan has so many animals to be spoken of. Marco is impressed by the tens of thousands of pure white horses, and notes how the Khan leaves this city at the end of every summer in conjunction with the ceremony of throwing his mares’ milk on the ground before he leaves, in order to appease the spirits and gain protection over his lands and subjects.

Something that seems to shock him a little more is the presence of the Bakhshi, or the “enchanters” that are called in to dispel the rainy weather when it appeared. It seems like magic and enchantments are something that Marco Polo is a little wary of, because he says he believes their spells to be the work of the Devil rather than holy work as they claim. However, he seems to get past this shock quickly and become interested in their practices; even when he is saying that they live in squalor and look ragged, he is still just saying this in his matter of fact manner, and does not seem judgmental. Similarly, for the Sien-seng people that he describes, he just states that they are “austere” after talking about how they eat only flax, own virtually nothing, and sleep on mats. Going back to the Bakhshi and how they would levitate cups up to the Khan seemingly through magic, it was funny when Marco said “What I have told you is the plain truth without a word of falsehood”, like he was trying to just convince himself, accept it, and move on. Marco Polo continues to write respectfully and in a straightforward way, and is interested in but not judgmental of those with different practices, and is pretty enchanted by the great wealth of Kubilai Khan.

Cameron Devries

Blog Post #1

September 17, 2025

The Travels of Marco Polo: Persia

            Going from the prologue into the main readings of Marco Polo, it makes sense why Kublai Khan appointed Marco Polo as his emissary, with the straightforward yet broadly ranging accounts of the lands he traveled through. It seems that Polo took a great interest in trying to analyze many different pieces of the lands he encountered, while also trying to remain objective – this shows that in addition to his own interest, he was clearly trying to please the Khan and keep him accurately informed as part of his role. It is hard to get a picture of the journey’s practical aspects, as it is less of a narrative that tells how long he stayed in a place or which route he took to get there, but it often just says something like “now let us leave this kingdom and go to this one.” In his beginning journeys through the Middle East, the largest passage recounted thus far is the one regarding Persia, and I am able to get a sense of this objective writing style through Polo’s talk on religion, political organization, nature, wildlife, people, possessions, and more. One of Polo’s greater interests seems to be in religion, and here I can also note that he also is fond of inserting stories in the narrative in order to explain or expand upon certain things he encounters.

            He generally talks about people by first noting which religion or which division of a religion they follow, this section on Persia gives an interesting account of why the people are “fire-worshippers”, retelling the story of the three king. This story seemed almost like an interpretation of Jesus’s birth story with the wise men and their gifts, but now with the addition of a magical stone being tossed into a well and bringing fire down from above, which the people in Persia now worship. Still, Marco Polo simply says “for the men of this town do worship fire. And I will tell you why they worship it” (pp. 58-59). He remains objective and does not question or act appalled when confronted with different beliefs.

            The one point where Marco Polo may insert some of his own judgment is when he labels some of the people with the Persian kingdoms as “brutal and bloodthirsty” (p. 61). I am not really aware of Persia’s complete history, but even in this case it seems possible that Polo’s interpretation may be founded on evidence, because Persia at this time seems to have been attacked and ravaged by the Tartars, and there are many groups of fighting people and robbers across the land killing each other. Tying this to the religion aspect, there was one line in this reading that did make me question Polo’s objectivity so far. Following the account of the “bloodthirsty” people who “slay and harry them [merchants] unsparingly”, the final line of the paragraph reads, “And I can assure you that they all observe the law of Mahomet their prophet” (p. 61). This does seem to be a sort of backhanded comment about Islam and the beliefs of those that follow Mahomet, if those beliefs have led them to committing such violent actions.

            There are a few other things to be noted, such as how Marco Polo is generally good at including the current political organization of the place he is travelling through. He includes the current lineup of the 8 kingdoms making up Persia, these organizations likely being some of the more important information to bring back to Kublai Khan. Descriptions of the landscape are intertwined with this, as Polo recalls the borders and which nations are bordering Persia, as well as the traveling conditions such as the climate and the presence of geographical points of interest such as deserts, mountains, narrow valleys, bodies of water, etc. Finally, he is interested in the goods and commodities of an area, noting the types of crops, fruits, riches, and animals maintained throughout Persia. There seems to be a specific attraction to the lavish signs of wealth he encounters, as he often makes note of silk and embroideries and talks about how beautiful they are.

            It is clear that Marco Polo seems intent on providing an extensive and truthful interpretation of his travels, and that he is good at providing some information on all aspects of the lands he travels through. As he gets further from home there may be more religious tension or surprising opinions, but I suppose that will come in later blogs. As I finished this post, I was thinking about the fact that the actual book did not seem to be written by Marco Polo, but from the prologue it is someone else recounting the recounting of Marco Polo’s travels, which I am confused about. But I have just been assuming it to be truthful as if they are writing exactly what Marco Polo said.