Maps have changed as their purpose has changed, says curator
Map collector Lahoti discussed seven centuries of cartography during a talk at the Kalakriti Art Gallery in Hyderabad on Saturday.
Map collector and curator Lahoti presented a history of seven centuries of cartography at the Kalakriti Art Gallery in Hyderabad on Saturday, October 31.
According to The Hindu, the talk, titled ‘Mapping Memory’, was part of the Hyderabad Art Week and featured a collection of maps and drawings.
Lahoti said that maps have changed over time as their purpose has changed, noting that maps represented how a mapmaker believed the world to be.
The collection included early Indian maps showing pilgrim paths from Haridwar to Badrinath, as well as modern Google maps.
Lahoti stated that printing technology changed both map making and its purpose. He noted that the Ptolemy world map was a collection of information based on descriptions by the historian.
The curator also mentioned that the Portuguese kept their world maps secret until Dutch trader and spy Jan Huygen van Linschoten collected the information for a book.
Lahoti said trade drove geography and that cartographers collected information from travellers and used their imagination rather than travelling to India themselves.