Some of the thematic maps here might not seem like maps at first. They are time-series maps. They treat time as the abstract element of data. They each represent a sequence of events in two physical dimensions, making the relationships between the events apparent.
Abū al-Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī (973?–1048). The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology. Translated by R. Ramsay Wright (1852–1933). London: Luzac, 1934.
Al-Bīrūnī’s visualization of the moon’s phases as seen from earth is one of the earliest examples of thematic cartography as data visualization. The moon is depicted at eight stages of its orbit around the Earth (in the centre). Somewhat confusingly, the dark portions of the moon represent those parts illuminated by the sun (pictured at the top), while the white parts are those obscured in shadow. What is most interesting is that al-Bīrūnī’s diagram is a time-series map of the sky. Each phase of the moon represents a distinct, ordered interval of time, collected and displayed simultaneously. The image is an abstraction: no one ever sees eight moons in the sky. This is a familiar technique to modern audiences, but it required a leap of genius nearly a thousand years ago.
Christoph Scheiner (1573–1650). Rosa Ursina. Bracciano: Apud Andream Phaeum, 1630.
Galileo’s (1564–1642) discovery of sunspots set off a heated theological debate. Christoph Scheiner, a Jesuit priest, inventor, and mathematician, was upset to find the Sun, thought to be a perfect manifestation of the Good, besmirched by Galileo’s spots. He invented a mechanical device to copy and enlarge drawings and used it to draw observations he made of the Sun’s alleged spots. By 1630, Scheiner had meticulously recorded hundreds of observations showing how the spots moved, rotated, expanded, or contracted. This example shows observations from the eleventh to the twenty-third of May 1625 (398 years nearly to the day of the exhibition). One can see letters denoting the same sunspot at each observation. It is a time-series data visualization similar to al-Bīrūnī’s. And, much to Scheiner’s chagrin, the data confirmed that Galileo was correct. The sun had spots.
Richard Budgen (1730–1789). The Passage of the Hurricane from the Sea-Side at Bexhill in Sussex to Newingden-Level, the Twentieth Day of May 1729, between Nine and Ten in the Evening. London: John Senex, 1730.
Richard Budgen’s The Passage of the Hurricane is the thematic offspring of al-Bīrūnī and Scheiner. The image is a graphical representation of a storm’s path, size, and location as it travelled roughly 20 kilometres inland from the English Channel in 1729. Budgen depicts multiple times simultaneously—a series of connected instances—as a variable plotted over a conventional map. It is another time series data visualization and a direct predecessor of modern weather maps. Interestingly, to collect the data for his map, Budgen relied upon first-hand observations made by the individuals who had been affected by the storm.
Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904). Muybridge’s Complete Human and Animal Locomotion: All 781 Plates from the 1887 Animal Locomotion. New York: Dover Publications, 1979 [reprint].
Eadweard Muybridge’s famous photos of human and animal motion might be hard to recognize as examples of thematic cartography, but they are direct descendants of earlier time-series maps in this exhibition. This image depicts the locomotion of a goat (usually overlooked among the scores of animal photos in favour of Muybridge’s more celebrated photo of a galloping horse). The background, containing gridlines, remains substantially uniform as the goat passes, creating a visualization remarkably similar to Scheiner’s sunspot maps.
Muybridge took the project one step further. Realizing that static images were less compelling than moving images, he turned his sequential photos into a kind of animation. He had silhouettes of the photos painted onto glass discs that could be rotated by crank past a light source, thus projecting the images onto a screen and making them appear to move. His invention was an early version of a cinematograph. He called it a ‘Zoöpraxiscope’. You can see what these first annimations looked like in the video below.
Wikimedia Commons animation of Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904). Muybridge’s Complete Human and Animal Locomotion, 1887. Created by Waugsbergfor Wikimedia Commons in 2006
