News Letter Page 13

Newsletter of the Society for the History of Discoveries
Page 13	May 2006

of the Washington Map Society.

William R. Stanley has been very busy this past year while collecting frequent flyer miles. On September 21, 2005, he presented a paper in Natal, Brazil entitled “Globalization Hits Home – A Rural County in the Southeastern United States Faces Hard Realities,” On December 1, at the International Geographical Union meeting in Sarajevo, Bosnia, he read “Dayton’s Potemkin Village,” and a week later, he was in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where at the First International Nursing Congress, he presented “Less Publicized Costs of Inadequate Emergency Health Services in Rural Areas – Examples from Saudi Arabia and South Carolina.” Between January 14 and March 10, Bill conducted research in Namibia.

Richard Stephenson wrote: “I remained active in 2005, both professionally and in community affairs. I delivered the II Voorhees Lecture in the History of Cartography on April 9th at the Library of Virginia in Richmond. My topic was an overview titled “Mapping of the American Civil War.” I was asked to repeat the lecture at Shenandoah University’s Knowledge Point on November 5th. In October at the SHD conference in Williamsburg I made a powerpoint presentation: “The Remarkable Dr. Thomas Walker: An Explorer, Surveyor, and Mapmaker of Virginia’s Back-country.” The March 2005 edition of North and South published my article entitled “General Lee’s Forgotten Map-maker: Major Albert Campbell and the Department of Northern Virginia’s Topographical Department.” This year I began work on an exhibit on the Confederate mapmaker Jed Hotchkiss and his mapping of the Shenandoah Valley. The exhibit will be held in 2007 at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester, Virginia.

Locally, I continue on the board of the French and Indian War Foundation, and as an instructor and member of the advisory committee, Shenandoah University’s Center for Lifelong Learning, and in November, I finished my tenth and final year on the Handley Regional Library’s board of directors. I am also an academic adviser to the Library of Congress’ Philip Lee Phillips Society.”

Daniel Terkla published “The Original Placement of the Hereford Map,” in Imago Mundi (56.2, July 2004, pp. 1-21), and his article “Ocular Pilgrimages: Teaching

with the Hereford Map” will be forthcoming in Geotema. Daniel also wrote the entries on William of Rubruck and Ludovico de Varthema for The Oxford Companion to World Exploration. He gave a talk as part of the Maps & Society Lecture Series at the Warburg Institute in London in January 2006. He is involved with three sessions he has organized at the International Medieval Congress to be held at the University of Leeds in July 2006. He also will present “The Voices of Those not Present: Speaking the Hereford Map” at the 41st Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies at West-ern Michigan University in May 2006.

Gunnar Thompson sent this message: “This has been an exciting year for scholars researching ancient Chinese voyages to the New World. My presentation on Marco Polo and the Yuan dynasty foundation of the New World mapping was well received at the May 16, 2005 16th Zheng He Symposium at the Library of Congress. I am serving my second year as cartographic consultant to British author Gavin Menzies and the 1421 Team. His book and website have resulted in a widespread search for new evidence; and this has led to several ancient Chinese maps documenting Zheng He’s New World expeditions. I have led the authentication effort of these maps with respect to their morphological and thematic place in the overall history of cartography. It is now apparent that Portuguese authorities obtained Chinese maps that aided in their first voyage to India and their efforts to mislead Columbus. I have also recently uncovered cartographic evidence of Francis Drake’s discovery of the Golden Gate and San Francisco Harbor in 1579. This year (2005) also witnessed publication of the discovery of ancient Chinese coins at an archaeological site near my home on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. My book on Marco Polo’s secret voyages to the New World will be published in 2006. Further details can be found at the website: http://marcopolovoyages.com.”

John Thrower wrote: “My paper on Colonial Nombre de Dios, presented at the SHD meeting in 2000 and published in Terrae Incognitae (vol. 33, 2001), drew attention to the unique opportunity for colonial archaeology at this important site which is in danger of destruction. Hence, I am very pleased that the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA, plans a full archaeological examination that should start in 2006.

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