Bolan - TUT9201 - Mapping Marco Polo

Introduction:

Marco Polo’s travelogue “The Diversity of the World” was one of the earliest and most influential accounts of the wider world to a European audience. As the title suggests, this work highlights the wide range of cultures and locations visited by Marco Polo himself on his nearly 3-decade journey. According to Polo, in 1269 a young Marco Polo set out from Venice to China with his father and uncle. Their route followed the Silk Road, and they eventually came to the palace of Kublai Khan, then ruler of China and the larger Mongol empire. Upon meeting the Great Khan, Marco Polo claims to have been placed in the khan’s employ as an ambassador of sorts, tasked with exploring and recording the details of what he saw (Puchner p.919 - 924). During the seventeen or so years in this position, Marco went on several such journeys for the Khan. On one such journey, which will be the focus of this mapping project, Marco visited the island of Sumatra and later modern-day Sri Lanka, fancifully describing wonders of these lands, but also providing valuable insight as to the development of civilizations in these places. Marco’s entire account highlights a world rich in culture, but also a changing world. Between his home of Venice, the new Yuan dynasty established by the Khans, and the young kingdoms of Sumatra, this mapping project seeks to place Marco’s journeys in the context of both the distance traveled and the cultural forces at work at each destination when he visited.

In this mapping project, three locations and objects associated with them have been specially highlighted, tied together by tracing first the silk road and then the coast of Asia to indicate Polo’s path. The first of these locations is Polo’s hometown of Venice, which serves as both the beginning and ending of his travels. Accompanying this is a gold signet ring of the type worn in Venice around this time, as Polo was a wealthy merchant upon his return and likely would have had such a ring. The second location is by the palace of Kublai Khan in northern China, accompanied by tea bowls of the style which would have been in use at the time. The third location is on the island of Sumatra, where Marco Polo described no less than eight kingdoms and made interesting note of their religions. Of note, Polo’s account is one of the first to describe the Islamic tradition taking a foothold in Sumatra (Hill), and so a coin minted by one of the Islamic kingdoms in Sumatra has been included. From these locations and these objects, we see the diversity of the world claimed in the title of Polo’s work. More importantly, we see evidence of global change in Marco’s account, even in the most geographically distant locations visited by Polo. Though Polo was one of the first threads tying these locations together, growth and change were occurring everywhere as the cultures he visited were beginning to intermix on a worldwide scale.

Space:

               Marco Polo’s account crosses vast levels of both physical and social geography. The popularity of his account is likely due to the rich detail with which his tales paint a variety of societies from the corners of the world in a time when such information was scarce. Furthermore, due to the length of time his account spans, there is a temporal aspect to the Journey as well. During the course of his travels, he was witness to changes in Venice, the new Yuan Dynasty in China, and some of the first Islamic kingdoms in Sumatra.

The first way in which space is relevant to Polo’s journey is just in the physical distance covered by his Journey. He began in Venice, crossed all of Europe and Asia to reach the city of Dadu, then eventually found his way south to Sumatra and then Sri Lanka. As Polo travelled so widely, he provides a diverse choice of settings from which to examine the medieval world.  In his time, the wide range of nations visited was a primary reason people were attracted to his travelogue (Norton 919), and the account leans into this. Details like the inability to see the North Star from the southern hemisphere are included to demonstrate the length of Polo’s travels, and more fantastic details and sights such as the Sumatran Unicorn are included to invoke this feeling in the reader. However, this is not the only way Marco Polo’s account deals with a diverse space. He makes a special point to report upon the diversity of cultures and practices he has encountered.  This demonstrates itself in a few ways, perhaps most obviously in his accounts of Sumatra and Sri Lanka. For the eight kingdoms on Sumatra, Marco Polo highlights all the details which he knows will be most shocking to his European audience. For example, he devotes great detail to the diet of the people of the kingdom of Sumatra, praising their fish and their more exotic dishes. With this praise comes a similar dose of more frightening reports, notably the reports of cannibalistic practices. In Sri Lanka, the report is peppered with exaggerated descriptions of Buddhist practices and their mythical abilities. The overall effect of this is to paint a picture of a diverse world, filled with peoples whose beliefs are miles apart. This hearkens back to the title of Marco Polo’s work, The Diversity of the World. The final way in which the work and space interact is more temporal. Viewed in historical context, Marco Polo’s account gives interesting insight into times of upheaval at many of his destinations. In particular, the great Khan who he speaks to is the grandson of Genghis Khan, a ruler of a diminishing empire attempting to establish the Yuan dynasty in China. In Sumatra, kingdoms based around the Islamic faith have begun to arise, and Marco Polo is there to witness their infancy. In particular, he describes the Islamic kingdom of Ferlec, which has only recently adopted the faith from merchants (Norton 925). Finally, we see how Marco and his home of Venice has changed during his travels, from when his father and uncle first returned to find Marco had grown up, to when Marco himself returns and eventually gets thrown in prison.

Digital Map:

First and foremost, this project functions as a map of part of Marco Polo’s travels. Marco’s Journey starts in Venice, travels along the Mediterranean to by the city of Antioch, and then eventually makes its way onto the silk road. Polo then follows the silk road until reaching Dadu in northern China, where he met the Great Khan. Not shown on the map is Polo’s journeys into mainland China on behalf of the Khan, instead the path follows the second of Polo’s major journeys down the coast of China to Sumatra. Finally, Polo’s return home via modern Sri Lanka and then the Arabian sea is shown.

               The objects and points of interest I have chosen to highlight on this map accompany Polo’s journeys by placing the travels in context of the societal changes occurring at each point of interest. The ring recalls Venetian society, a reminder of Marco’s own change and changing social status in Venice. The Song dynasty tea bowls are from the dynasty prior to the new Yuan dynasty in China, remnants of what the Khan had overthrown not many years ago. Finally, the Sumatran coin was minted by an Islamic kingdom on the island, which Marco was one of the first to describe as such kingdoms were the recent result of Islamic traders visiting Sumatra (Hill). Together, these objects remind the viewer of the map that Marco was not visiting static and distant lands, but rather societies which were only just beginning to interact seriously on a global scale and changing because of it.

               By completing this assignment, I was forced to map several old and vague descriptions of places and their names onto their modern-day equivalents. Indeed, it seems that it is not even entirely clear to scholars where exactly Polo’s eight Sumatran kingdoms were situated (Hill). By attempting to reconcile polo’s description and the map on pages 920-921 of the Norton with the modern world, I not only learned geography of the medieval world but of the modern world as well. By forcing me to consider the space in the story, I understood better the magnitude of Polo’s travels and the diversity of the peoples he wrote about. I also gained an appreciation for the ancient cartographers who were able to produce even remotely reasonable maps without a compute or satellite imagery. While creating this map, I also learned about the process of digital map making in general. I was quite surprised that software as specific as Neatline and Omeka already existed – I had supposed such maps required some hefty web design experience. I was also quite infuriated by my apparent inability to draw curves more complicated than piecewise linear ones in Neatline. Though modern digital mapping technology in many ways is far superior to the technology of medieval cartographers, at times I wish I could simply draw the shape of the silk road on some parchment instead of wrestling with my mouse.

Works Cited

  Hill, A. (1963). The Coming of Islam to North Sumatra. Journal of Southeast Asian History, 4(1), 6–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0217781100000739

Puchner, Martin. The Norton Anthology of World Literature: Volume 2. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2018. Print.

The British Museum “coin” https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_1913-0502-1

The British Museum “signet-ring; bezel” https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_AF-568

The British Museum “tea-bowl” https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1922-1118-1