Mediterranean Nautical Cartography in Arabic and Ottoman Turkish: Islands or Gateways of Knowledge in the Sea of Transcultural and Translinguistic Translation Processes?

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Sonja Brentjes
• Subject Area: History of Science ; Early Modern History ; Islamic Studies, Arabian Studies, Semitic Studies
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 405031642

This project studies transcultural and translinguistic translations in two Arabic atlases of Mediterranean nautical charts and additional material on Islamic sacred geography and timekeeping, two Arabic world charts, as well as an Ottoman Turkic chart of the Mediterranean of the sixteenth century, which the Tunisian and Ottoman producers of the charts undertook in the respective phases of production and which led to the composition of the multilingual and multicultural objects. The project asks in which areas of knowledge accumulation translations, as well as processes of hybridization took place. Furthermore, explores the technical, philological, geographical, mathematical, astronomical/astrological and artistic methods and tools with which the producers worked and the people with whom they possibly cooperated. The comparison of the two atlases, the two world charts and the Mediterranean chart with earlier Arabic world and regional maps, as well as Italian and Catalan nautical charts is undertaken with the goal to uncover processes of change and transformation of geographical knowledge and its visualization. Embedded in the methodologies of the Priority Program, the political and economic contextualization of translations in Asia, and new approaches to interpreting early modern art and knowledge production in Islamicate societies, a holistic interpretive model for Arabic and Turkic nautical charts and atlases shall be formulated that is meant to open up new research perspectives for investigating nautical charts and atlases of the Mediterranean (14th-16th centuries).

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 2130: Cultures of Translation in Early Modern Times