SEAMAP · SEAMAP: Early Modern Maritime Knowledge and Cartography in the Atlantic World

SEAMAP explores the history of knowledge of the seas from 1600 to 1800. It focuses on representations of maritime phenomena on maps and charts of four strategic locations, across the five main European-Atlantic empires. By documenting knowledge of maritime natural phenomena, the project challenges the received view that seas were unknown spaces in the early modern period. It puts present-day environmental and social questions, particularly environmental degradation of the seas and the denialism of responsibility for mitigating it, in a historical perspective. In doing so, SEAMAP aligns with the EU Mission in Horizon Europe to ‘Restore our Ocean and Waters’.Through its transnational, digital, and interdisciplinary methodology, SEAMAP will bring out the epistemic, political, and environmental dimensions of the early modern sciences of the seas. It will (1) identify graphical innovations on maps of the seas and explore how these were building on conceptualizations of the underwater world; (2) construct a comparative database to determine to what extent early modern maps and charts visualized maritime phenomena; (3) compare maps of seas with maps of rivers and estuaries to highlight the importance of geographical and social environments to maritime knowledge; and (4) study historical controversies over the use and success of different modes of mapping. The project makes targeted interventions in the history of oceanography, history of cartography, environmental history, and intellectual history of the maritime world. SEAMAP will be carried out by Jip van Besouw at the University of Seville, supervised by Lino Camprubí, with a two-year outgoing phase at EAFIT University in Medellín, hosted by Andrés Vélez Posada, and a three-month secondment at the University of Lisbon, hosted by Henrique Leitão. Results will include various scholarly publications and digital tools, including an open-access interactive website of early modern maritime cartography.