# The Selden Map of China > Unknown Chinese (probably Fujianese) chartmaker, working in Southeast Asia - c. 1607-1624 (window established by internal evidence; the Bodleian's own conservation project dates it to the 1620s, Robert Batchelor argues c. 1619, Timothy Brook argues c. 1608) > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/unknown-fujianese-selden-map-chartmaker/selden-map-of-china-bodleian/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-15 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unknown Chinese (probably Fujianese) chartmaker, working in Southeast Asia - **Date:** c. 1607-1624 (window established by internal evidence; the Bodleian's own conservation project dates it to the 1620s, Robert Batchelor argues c. 1619, Timothy Brook argues c. 1608) - **Medium:** Black carbon ink, watercolour and mineral pigments on Chinese paper, multiple sheets joined - **Dimensions:** Approximately 158 x 96 cm (the Bodleian's own conservation project page rounds this to 1.6 x 1 m) - **Object type:** Map - **Period:** Late Ming dynasty, Chinese maritime Southeast Asia - **Current location:** Bodleian Library, University of Oxford - **Attribution:** unknown ## Summary A large hand-painted Chinese merchant chart of about 1608 to 1624, showing shipping routes with compass bearings radiating from a Fujian port across the South China Sea to Japan, the Philippines, Java, Sumatra and the Indian Ocean beyond. It is not the territorial, China-centred map its cataloguers assumed for three centuries; it is the earliest surviving record of a private Chinese maritime trading network that appears on no other map of the period, official or otherwise.Bequeathed to the Bodleian by the lawyer John Selden in 1659, it was studied once in 1687, dismissed as inaccurate by Edmond Halley some time after, and then effectively forgotten in the stacks for roughly three centuries. Historian Robert Batchelor recognised its significance in January 2008; a major conservation campaign followed in 2011; scientific analysis of its pigments in 2016 proposed a origin far from where most scholars had assumed. Where exactly it was made, for whom, and when its compass rose and route grid were set down relative to the coastline beneath them remain open and actively disputed questions.This record treats every one of those disputes as live, names who holds which position, and states plainly what has not been settled. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 1608-1624** Unknown maker and, if Batchelor's hypothesis is followed, an unnamed merchant patron possibly connected to Li Dan `[disputed]` (origin) Made by an unidentified Chinese, probably Fujianese, chartmaker working in the maritime trading world of Southeast Asia. Place of manufacture (Manila, Java/Banten, or Aceh) and exact date within the window are each argued differently by Batchelor, Brook and the 2016 Kogou pigment study, with no consensus reached. - **c. 1608-1650s-1653** Unknown intermediate holders, then an unnamed English commander `[unknown]` (gap and capture) How the map left Chinese or Southeast Asian hands is not documented. John Selden's own 1653 will codicil states the map was 'taken both by an englishe commander', a word implying seizure, but does not name him. Timothy Brook's proposal that the captain John Saris obtained it in 1608 and brought it to England in 1609 is a scholarly inference, not a documented identification. - **by 1653-1654** John Selden `[documented]` (possession) The map, with an accompanying Chinese-made compass, is described in a codicil to Selden's will dated 11 June 1653. Selden, the jurist and author of Mare Clausum, died in 1654. - **1654-1659** Selden's estate, in probate `[documented]` (bequest pending) The map passed to the Bodleian under the terms of Selden's will following his death in 1654; the library records its arrival in 1659. - **1659-1687** Bodleian Library `[documented]` (acquisition and initial obscurity) The map entered the Bodleian's collection in 1659. Its Chinese text remained untranslated and largely unread at Oxford for nearly three decades. - **1687** Bodleian Library `[documented]` (annotation) Thomas Hyde, the Bodleian's librarian and an orientalist, worked with the visiting Chinese Jesuit convert Michael Shen Fuzong to add Latin marginal translations of the map's Chinese place names and legends. - **early 18th century-20th century** Bodleian Library `[unknown]` (display as curiosity, then obscurity) Later secondary accounts describe the map on display in the Bodleian's Anatomy School by the early eighteenth century, and describe Edmond Halley dismissing its cartographic accuracy at some later point, a judgement credited with its subsequent neglect. Both claims are carried in this record only via a tertiary source (Wikipedia) and were not independently verified against a primary account for this record; they should be replaced with a primary citation before this provenance line is treated as settled. - **1919-2011** Bodleian Library `[documented]` (damaging remounting) The map was remounted, apparently in 1919, with a thick paper border and cloth lining to permit wall-hanging display, causing severe cracking of the original paper support that worsened with each unrolling. - **2008** Bodleian Library `[documented]` (rediscovery of significance) Historian Robert Batchelor, working with the Bodleian's curator of Chinese collections David Helliwell, recognised the map's shipping-route network and its significance in January 2008. The map itself never left the Bodleian; what changed was its correct identification. - **2011** Bodleian Library `[documented]` (conservation and public unveiling) Conservation led by Robert Minte and Marinita Stiglitz, with Keisuke Sugiyama (British Museum) and Mark Barnard (British Library), combined Western and Far Eastern paper-conservation techniques. The conserved map went on public display in the Bodleian's autumn 2011 Treasures exhibition (30 September - 23 December), with a one-day scholarly colloquium of about fifty specialists. - **2016** Bodleian Library `[documented]` (scientific analysis) A team led by Sotiria Kogou (Nottingham Trent University, with the Victoria and Albert Museum's science section) published pigment, binder and multispectral imaging analysis proposing Aceh, Sumatra as the map's place of origin. - **2019-2020** Bodleian Library `[documented]` (loan exhibition) The map travelled outside Oxford for the first time in its documented history, shown jointly with the National Library and Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore, alongside a parallel display at the Bodleian's Weston Library, both running into early 2020. - **2021-present** Bodleian Library `[documented]` (continuing research and access) The map remains at the Bodleian under shelfmark MS. Selden supra 105, accessible as a full zoomable image through Digital Bodleian and the dedicated project site seldenmap.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. Research continues, including Wesa Perttola's 2021 computational analysis of the map's routes against historical monsoon wind data. The map has never been sold; no export question has arisen, since it has not left institutional custody since 1659. ## Open questions - Where exactly was the map made. Three ports have each been proposed on different kinds of evidence - Manila (Batchelor), Java or Banten (Brook), Aceh in Sumatra (Kogou et al., 2016, on pigment chemistry and magnetic declination) - and none has displaced the others. - When exactly was it made within the 1607-1624 window. Brook argues c. 1608, tied to a proposed 1608-1609 transmission by John Saris; Batchelor argues c. 1619, from the density of Taiwan detail. The two datings differ by roughly a decade. - Who commissioned it, and why. Batchelor's proposal of the merchant-pirate Li Dan as patron rests on circumstantial convergence (a unique motif near his documented base at Hirado) and has not been adopted by other scholars; no commission, contract or named patron is documented. - Whether the compass rose and shipping-route grid belong to the same drafting campaign, by the same hand, as the coastline and place names beneath them, or were added afterward, possibly by a different hand. Construction-sequence evidence (Davies) establishes an order of drafting marks but not whether that reflects a continuous campaign or a later, separate intervention; no source consulted for this record confirms a second-hand theory outright, despite it being discussed as a live possibility. - The identity of the 'englishe commander' named, but not identified, in Selden's own 1653 will codicil, and the precise circumstances - a word Selden himself renders as 'taken' - under which the map and its accompanying compass left Chinese or Southeast Asian hands. Brook's proposed identification of John Saris is an inference, not a documented fact. - What happened to the map between the 1687 Hyde-Shen Fuzong annotation and its twentieth-century remounting. Its display in the Anatomy School and Edmond Halley's reported dismissal of its accuracy are carried only by a tertiary source (Wikipedia) in the research for this record and were not independently verified against a primary Bodleian or biographical source. - Whether the rutters (sailing directions) that evidently underlie the map's route data survive independently anywhere, in Chinese, Fujianese-diaspora or European archives, or whether the Selden Map is the sole surviving trace of that specific body of navigational knowledge. ## Sources - [1] Bodleian Libraries, 'The Selden Map of China conservation project'. - [2] Robert K. Batchelor, 'The Selden Map Rediscovered: A Chinese Map of East Asian Shipping Routes, c.1619', Imago Mundi 65:1 (2013). Accessed via the author's Digital Commons deposit page. - [3] Stephen Davies, 'The Construction of the Selden Map: Some Conjectures', Imago Mundi 65:1 (2013). - [4] Sotiria Kogou, Sara Neate, Chris Coveney, Adam Miles, David Boocock, Lucia Burgio, C. S. Cheung and Haida Liang, 'The origins of the Selden map of China: scientific analysis of the painting materials and techniques using a holistic approach', Heritage Science 4:28 (2016). - [5] Phys.org, 'Scientists unlock secrets of oldest surviving global trade map' (2017), reporting the Kogou et al. 2016 study. - [6] The Selden Map of China, dedicated Bodleian project site. - [7] Digital Bodleian, object record for MS. Selden supra 105. - [8] World Archaeology, 'Object lesson: Selden Map of China'. - [9] New World Cartographic, 'The Selden Map: A Ming Dynasty Maritime Marvel'. - [10] South China Morning Post, 'Selden seen', on the 2011 unveiling and conservation. - [11] Hannah Theaker, 'The Selden Map of China', China Channel (Los Angeles Review of Books), 11 February 2021. - [12] ChinaSage, 'John Selden's map of 1608'. - [13] Wesa Perttola, 'Digital Navigator on the Seas of the Selden Map of China: Sequential Least-Cost Path Analysis Using Dynamic Wind Data', Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory (2021). - [14] Wikipedia, 'Selden Map', consolidating institutional history including the Anatomy School display and Halley's dismissal of the map's accuracy. Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with a primary Bodleian or biographical citation for those two specific claims. - [15] Wikimedia Commons, File:Selden map.jpg, image record and licensing metadata. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.