662 Reviews of Books

Guoping, but that is of no concern here. There are similar books with a comparable arrangement, for
example Clive Willis’ China and Macau (2002); however, the edition prepared by Girard and Viegas is
definitely better and clearly superior in annotation. The notes, at the end of the book, are rich and
well-structured; generally, they provide explanations necessary to understand larger contexts, while
avoiding niggling trifles related to the level of individual words and phrases.
In sum, this book is a very mature work; it provides a fair and balanced synthesis which takes account
of many conflicting variables and vantage-points; readers will access the complicated story of Pires’
mission, as seen through Girard’s eyes, with great ease. To conclude: Prisonniers is a welcome addition
to the field of Asian maritime history, and the introduction in particular reads like a state-of-the art
report. One ought to thank the Gulbenkian Foundation for having supported the publication of this
book and Chandeigne Press for having accepted it into the beautifully printed “Collection Magellane”.
<ptak@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>.

Roderich Ptak
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich

Menggu shanshui ditu d d d d d d.By Lin Meicun d d d. pp. 6, 288. Beijing, Wenwu
chubanshe, 2011
doi:10.1017/S1356186314000285

This highly representative work is a heavy weight in the best sense of the word: It is printed in A4
format, on thick glossy paper, and sold in a beautiful book casket. The internal layout is very elegant
and at their outer margins the pages are gilded. Wenwu chubanshe, the publisher, known for its
many art books, had good reasons for equipping this four kilogram item with so much extraordinary
decoration: It presents what one may call a national cartographic treasure – a sixteenth-century map
only found some years ago in Japan. Its current title is Menggu shanshui ditu, or Mongolian Landscape
Map. Together with the so-called Zheng He chart, the Ming world map of 1389, several Jesuit
works and two or three other pieces, it definitely belongs to the most important and most impressive
traditional of Far Eastern works made accessible to the public since the beginning of modern Chinese
studies.
Lin Meicun, who wrote a detailed analysis of the Menggu shanshui ditu and its background for the
present book, is a professor at Beijing University and has extensively published on related themes,
including maps and Sino-foreign exchange along the so-called Silk Routes. His analysis, in Chinese,
covers slightly more than 200 pages and is followed by a detailed English summary. This in turn is
followed by the map as such, which appears, in segmented form, on pp. 218–283, by an English table
of contents and by the author’s postscript.
The original version of the Menggu shanshui ditu is a hand scroll in ink and colour on silk. It
measures 31.2 meters in length and has a width of 0.59 meters. From internal evidence, Lin arrived
at the conclusion that it was drawn between 1524 and 1539. Its artistic layout is halfway between a
landscape scroll and a simple map that outlines an itinerary in stages from point (a) to point (b) – in
this case, the route from Jiayuguan  in northwestern China through Central Asia and Iran to
Mecca (Tianfang guo ) on the Arabian peninsula and Rongdimian  on the African side
of the Red Sea, more or less opposite of Jidda. Rongdimian thus seems to stand for Baranis (Berenice,
etc.), once an important port in southeastern Egypt.
Generally, the map features mountains, deserts, rivers, important cities and other landmarks along
this long route. There are 211 toponyms in all, mostly of cities, which usually appear as squared entities,

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 Reviews of Books 663

with blue walls and round gates. Inside these compounds one finds trees and buildings, the idea being
that travellers would essentially go from one oasis to the next, when moving through what was then
still called the “Western regions”, or Xiyu . Some special locations, for example the astronomical
observatory wangxinglou () associated with the important city of Samarkand, appear differently.
Moreover, the squared cities / states vary in size, perhaps to rank them according to importance. The
landscape seems to derive from the techniques used by the Wu  school; Lin mentions the names
of Shen Zhou  (1427–1509) and Qiu Ying  (1494–1552) in particular. These similarities
can best be gathered from the colour arrangement and the shape and structure of the mountains. On
pp. 34–35 Lin provides a table of comparable landscape scrolls.
Besides describing the artistic layout of the map, Lin undertook respectable efforts to identify each
toponym and to explain the relevant geographical features shown on the scroll. To that end he provides
modern maps, which assist readers in locating the relevant sites. However, more important than that,
Lin has also found out that the toponyms and in fact the overall arrangement of the scroll can be
compared to two other Ming works: the first appears in the Shaanxi tongzhi  by Ma Li
, the second in the anonymous Shaanxi si zhen tushuo . By juxtaposing these
sources to the Menggu shanshui ditu Lin arrived at the conclusion that the “westernmost” part in the
latter is missing – the section which would show the area of modern Turkey, parts of Syria, and parts
of the North African coast.
Chinese ethnographic accounts usually link the Gulf and Red Sea areas to the land route running
from northwestern China via Central Asia to the eastern Mediterranean. There are only some
exceptions, for example in the context of Zheng He’s voyages, when Chinese envoys accessed
Hormuz, Aden and other areas around the Arabian peninsula by sea; therefore, during this period
parts of West Asia appear in association with the maritime world. The Menggu shanshui ditu stems from
the post-Zheng He period; it thus follows the earlier tradition. Another observation concerns the
toponyms. By and large they follow “standard” conventions, but some are rather special. The version
used for Tabriz, for example, is not very common in Ming contexts. Some items also pose questions.
One case is Wengulu cheng  (not on the Menggu shanshui ditu, but in Shaanxi tongzhi);
according to Lin, this name seems to mirror the form “Maghrib”, but there are other options as
well.
In his discussion of the different toponyms and their possible background the author draws on
a large number of sources, mostly from Yuan and Ming times. This is also true for those parts in
which he attempts to reconstruct the travel route, or comments on the political environment of a
particular location during the period in question. These paragraphs expose Lin’s scholarly expertise
and his long experience in dealing with historical geography. The earlier chapters, on important
cartographic works, especially of the Yuan and Ming periods and mostly related to Central Asia,
provide further details and may serve as an excellent introduction to this field of study. These parts
also contain beautiful illustrations of various other maps, including the ones found in the Shaanxi
chronicles.
The bibliography appears at the beginning of the book. It comprises many Chinese titles
and lists selected works in Japanese and European languages. Once again, all these sections are
carefully arranged and apt to guide students through the history of Chinese cartography and Ming
relations with Central and West Asia. For those interested in the mutual perception of West
and East Asia, by reading, for example, Hyunhee Park’s Mapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds
(Cambridge, 2012), or Politik und Handel zwischen Ming und Timuriden. China, Iran und Zentralasien
im Spätmittelalter by Ralph Kauz (Wiesbaden, 2005), Lin Meicun’s stately book is more than just
a welcome supplement. Indeed, it sets a very high standard and ought to become a treasured
item in all modern libraries dealing with the history of cartography and the Silk Route area in
particular.

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 664 Reviews of Books

Finally, Lin also summarises the story of the Menggu shanshui ditu’s discovery. Extraordinary and very
fortunate circumstances led to its acquisition in 2002. At that time, no one knew exactly how to deal
with it and that it would become such an important and unique work in the eyes of modern science. Its
current title does not show up on the scroll; one only finds it on the back, next to a remark that points
to its temporary possession by the Shangyoutang , a book dealer active in Ming and Qing
times. Evidently, in the 1920s it went to Japan. Now that it has become available to a broad public,
similar to the famous Selden Map, ‘unearthed’ only a few years ago in Oxford, it will certainly serve to
initiate fresh studies in the rapidly changing field of Asian cartography. <ptak@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>

Roderich Ptak
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich

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