The Power of the Copper Plate – How early Historians and Cartographers created an Island in the Kingdom of Sunda

Sunda Island - A very scarce map reveals another phantasy island in early cartography

Phantasy islands in early cartography

  In around 1500, the Spanish writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo created for his well popular novel “Las sergas de Esplandián” the protagonist Califia. She was a mighty black queen ruling over a people of women, raising male just as food to feed the female of her kingdom: "Know, that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise; and it is peopled by black women, without any man among them, for they live in the manner of Amazons". Califia - that name seems to derive from Khalifa, "Muslim leader", brought to the author's mind by influence of (Muslim) Moor culture which was predominant in Spain during the author’s lifetime. The myth of the paradise island may have been one of the reasons why, in the 16th century, the first maps of California were showing it as an island, and formed, among others, a "scientific" basis for further mapping of California as an island.

In early cartography, California was many times depicted as an Island. Now, a map popped up, which displays another phantasy island - in Southeast Asia.


Other examples, like Korea as an island, are also well known and are still much sought for among map collectors.


Recently, a scarce Portuguese map popped up, depicting "The Sunda Island"

A similar, however much earlier, amazing case of "phantasy island cartography" may provide the "Island of Sunda" in the East Asian archipelago. Sunda Island, a western twin of Eastern Java island. Again, it seems to be an early description, which made the cartographers think about Sunda Kingdom being an island, where no actual island existed:  It was in the early 16th century, when the Portuguese seafarer Tomé Pires most probably laid the foundation of this "island" when he reports in his "Suma Oriental que trata do mar roxo ate os Chins" (1513-1515):

"Some people affirm that the Sunda kingdom take up half of the whole island of Java; others, to whom more authority is attributed, say that the Sunda kingdom must be a third part of the island and an eight more. It ends at the river chi Manuk. The river intersects the whole island from sea to sea in such a way that when the people of Java describe their own country, they say that it is bounded to the west by island of Sunda. The people hold that whoever passes this strait (the river Cimanuk) into the South Sea is carried off by violent currents and unable to return." (Source: SJ, Adolf Heuken (1999). Sumber-sumber asli sejarah Jakarta, Jilid I: Dokumen-dokumen sejarah Jakarta sampai dengan akhir abad ke-16. Cipta Loka Caraka. p. 34.)

Actually, the Hindu Sunda Kingdom (699-ca. 1579) covered the area of all western parts of the Java island as we know it today, which is the western part of Central Java, West Java (the later Dutch trade post Batavia and today’s Jakarta did at that time not play any significant role) and Bantam, today's Banten region. According to historical records, it reached from Sunda strait (separating the land from Sumatra island in the north-west) to the Pamali River (Ci Pamali, the present day Brebes River) and the Serayu River (Ci Sarayu) in Central Java. In reality, the Kingdom of Sunda has always been part of – one, undivided - Java.

With his report, however, Tome Pires has most probably laid the foundation of the misconception of Western Java as a separate island, surrounded by waters all around, especially in the East by the Cimanuk river with its reportedly violent, never-come-back-current. His description is following the indigenous people's belief, that it was just impossible to leave the kingdom of Sunda.

It was Joao de Barros (1496-1570), an exceptional Spanish historian at the court of the King of Portugal, who – based on Pires’ report - was the first to publish a map of the divided Java. His chronicle of the first Portuguese discoveries in Asia, the famous "Decadas da Asia", contained in its fourth book a map of the Sunda Island, physically-geographically and by name separated from the Eastern part of Java.

Today, we can follow the way from an indigenous myth to a global cartographic “reality", how the legend of Sunda island was first reported to a Portuguese explorer, taken up by the king's most important historian, and, thus, found its way to the King's court in Lisbon.

By the power of the copper plate, new "reality" has been created and visually documented, and later, in 1615, published by the Royal Cosmograph Joao Baptista Lavanha (1555-1624). The idea of Sunda as an own Island remained undoubted and unquestioned for a long time.

Source : Private Collection

Descripcao da Ilha de Jaüa, a very rare and the only known coloured version of the map of Sunda Island. This map shows Java dived into two parts: Sunda and Java. Is is one of the very few maps of Java which have been published by the Portuguese. Despite ambitious interest in the East Indian spice trade, the Portuguese have never been taking control of Java island. According to National Library of Australia, this map was published in 1615 by the Royal Cosmograph Joao Baptista Lavanha in the "Decadas da Asia" (Joao de Barros/J. B. Lavanha). It is supposed to be engraved by Diego de Astor, ca. 1609-ca 1650 (catalogue.nla.gov.au/ Record/4316572 ).

 

Much later, in early 18^th century, more than hundred years after the Portuguese have left the East Indies, and the Dutch Trading Company VOC moved its mighty Head Quarters from the Spice Islands (Maluku) to Batavia, what we today know as Jakarta, a Dutch publisher became aware of this map. It was Pieter van der Aa (1659 – 1733), who has always had a specific fable to re-issue and re-engrave copper plates of maps and views from earlier mapmakers, which were out of print. Not much of his output was original.

In 1706, he copied the Portuguese map, replicating the cartographic mistake. In that year, van der AA published a Java map with the title "'t Koninkryk Sunda" (the kingdom of Sunda), not without explicitly referring to Lavanha's description of Java as two islands ("by the Hr. L. B. Lavanha If two Eylenden Described", text in the cartouche on the map's right top). Consequently, van der Aa’s map depicts Java exactly as it was shown in de Barros'/Lavanhas "Decadas da Asia". He just moved the orientation from East to North.

Almost 200 years after Tomé Pires' "Suma Oriental que trata do mar roxo ate os Chins", the Dutch mapmaker Pieter van der Aa issued this map, showing Sunda as an own island, as part of a divided Java.

Source: http://www.swaen.com/os/Lgimg/20084.jpg

It was eight years later and almost exactly 100 years after Barros' map of Sunda Island was published, when in 1714, van der AA finally corrected his previous map and eliminated the imaginary “border” between the “two island” of Java.

Source: commons.wikimedia.org

1714 Java correctly depicted in a “reunified” shape: (Van der Aa: "L'Ile de Java Selon les Nouvelles Observations des Meilleurs Geographes").                                                           

 By the power of the copper plate, Pieter van der Aa finally buried the myth of Sunda Island: Sunda Island does not exist anymore since the year 1714.

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