PowerPoint Presentation

[Virtual Presenter] Parchments are a common medieval artifact. Recent studies have shown that recoverable DNA continues to be present in medieval parchment manuscript leaves and that this data can be extracted and analyzed. The species of animal from which the parchment was prepared can be identified and, after enough information is collected and organized into a database, it will be possible to identify the region and localities of the herds, and the genetic relationships of the different animal skins used for the documents. The isolation and analysis of DNA from parchment has the potential to provide a great deal of information that was difficult or impossible to obtain before. None of these recent studies, however, have focused upon cartography and maps as a specific area of study. It is important that scholars come to this field with realistic expectations..

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[Audio] Contrary to what is shown in television and motion pictures, the collecting, processing, and analyzing of DNA cannot be done in an hour..

[Audio] There are some differences in the various methods and processes followed, but basically the sample material is collected, processed, replicated, and analyzed..

[Audio] There are literally millions of pieces of parchment available for DNA investigation ….

[Audio] … but most of them are of texts.. Corpus of Data Tens of thousands of parchment codices H undreds of thousands of pages + Hundreds of thousands of individual parchments & illuminated mss = Millions of parchment sheets of Text s.

[Audio] Only about 1,800 manuscript parchment maps, including portolan charts, are extant..

[Audio] That's less than two-tenths of a percent..

[Audio] One benefit of the collecting and analysis of parchment DNA is greater insight specifically into the mapmaking industry and more broadly into the parchment trade and manuscript culture in general. Though almost half of the important cultural artifacts of Medieval Europe that we know of as portolan charts do not have the date of making, the place of production, or the mapmaker's name, creating an initial baseline database of genetic information from maps with known dates and places of creation could become a valuable tool for determining the origins of manuscript maps and atlases. Already existing DNA data on manuscript texts can serve as initial data points in the survey..

[Audio] There are two types of DNA: mitochondrial DNA inherited from the mother, and nuclear DNA inherited from the father. Mitochondrial DNA is abundant in the cell; there is a lot less nuclear DNA. Thus, it will be easier to identify the mother of a parchment sheet than the father..

[Audio] Most of the extant Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts are made from either calves, goats, or sheep. Regarding sheep, for instance, today, as in the past, different geographic regions had different kinds and breeds of sheep. Sheep were not typically transported over distances greater than that required for seasonal grazing. These different regionally located groups of sheep constitute different "gene pools" from which parchments were obtained. The presumption is that the sheep across Europe were not genetically homogeneous..

[Audio] Can the DNA data we collect give us this level of detail? Will we be able to identify the mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, among the sources of manuscripts?.

[Audio] For the foreseeable future, we will not be able to identify a discrete unit smaller than the herd. Presumably, all members of a longstanding herd of sheep will have the same near or distant female ancestor. They will have the same mtDNA. But, because of the scarcity of nuclear DNA, that is, the paternal DNA, we will not be able to identify the paternal lineage, which would allow us to identify individual sheep..

[Audio] What has been done so far?. What Has Been Done So Far ?.

[Audio] Most ancient DNA studies to date have been to confırm the survival of recoverable mtDNA..

[Audio] The species of goats used for some of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been identified. Most Greek parchments are goat-related species. One discovery has been that the thousands of small, 13th century pocket Bibles made of what was once thought to be uterine vellum has turned out to be instead, based upon the DNA analysis, made by a special production process from the usual postpartum parchment..

[Audio] What can we find out? If an extensive DNA database of parchments of known provenance were available, it would be possible to compare the genetic fingerprint of a parchment of unknown provenance with the database. In an ideal situation that would allow the researcher to identify parchments of known provenance that were genetically identical—or very closely related—to the unknown one, and thus provide information on its geographical origin..

[Audio] Questions that might be answerable through analysis of the DNA in the parchment of portolan charts are: What are the geographical origins of manuscript portolan charts? Which charts can be grouped together as originating from the same or closely related parchments, craftsmen, localities, or herds? Did different mapmakers use parchment originating from various sources for their charts, or did some have specific providers?.

[Audio] What is the provenance of specific manuscript portolan charts? What can we learn about past trade and communication networks and webs of influence and reciprocity? What material connections were there between the monasteries, abacus schools of Northern Italy, and mapmaking ateliers? Does a portolan atlas contain manuscripts from a single locality, or is it a collection representing contributions from a wider area?.

[Audio] An analysis of the DNA of the parchment of the Carte Pisane ….

[Audio] … and Cortona Chart, the Lucca Chart with each other and in comparison with the DNA of other parchments – both cartographic and codical – could resolve longstanding questions about the relationships between these charts to each other, the origin of portolan charts, and add important new information to our general understanding of portolan charts..

[Audio] We could confirm the Cantino planisphere was made in Lisbon, as it seems to have been, ….

[Audio] … and that the Caverio was made in Genoa and not copied in Lisbon, as some have supposed..

[Audio] An inscription on the Juan de la Cosa planisphere on oxhide states that it was made in Puerto de Santa María in Andalusia in 1500. But some have supposed it to be a copy of a few years later. Would this be confirmed if the parchment was from a herd some distance from Andalusia, such as Galicia or Catalonia?.

[Audio] As a side note, it might be interesting to track down the sources of the set of infamous fake portolan charts identified by David Woodward..

[Audio] In fact, such an investigation could perhaps help lay to rest some other map mysteries..

[Audio] You may recall a few years ago the press was announcing the recovery of dinosaur DNA but you may have missed the subsequent announcement that that was contaminated DNA and not from a dinosaur. Better, standardized procedures still need to be developed. Future tests will be faster and cheaper and may be able to recover nuclear DNA that is currently unrecoverable with present methods and technology. One question that has not been asked yet – until today -- is whether there is any recoverable DNA in gallic ink and the vegetable-based paints and pigments used on maps and other types of nontextual illustrations..

[Audio] The establishment of publicly accessible systematic databases of compiled genetic information is an exciting possibility. The development of improved DNA extraction techniques, such as non-destructive testing may become necessary; archivists usually do not like people snipping off pieces of the parchments under their care. It appears current parchment storage methods are adequate for preserving any DNA..

[Audio] One-hundred years ago the great bibliographer, W. W. Greg, said of Bibliography that: "Pens it is certainly interested in, but hardly in their growth or manufacture. It attends to the preparation of vellum, though indifferent to the breeding of calves." I think it is safe to say that this statement is now undergoing a profound revision..

[Audio] The application of ancient DNA techniques to parchment, and other related skin products, has the potential to provide a wealth of new information for codicologists, palaeographers, parchment historians, medievalists, and map historians which is currently largely untapped. The analysis of DNA from parchment fragments will add a new level of critical analysis to our knowledge of books, texts, illustrations, and maps..

[Audio] Will bibliographers and historians of the book have any interest in non-textual material, such as maps? I suspect they will not include geographical depictions as a category for DNA collecting, at least not until they have first made a significant dent in the millions of TEXTUAL manuscripts on parchment, the area of their interest. Our maps will be as bastard step-children left out in the cold and not receiving appropriate attention. To get this work performed on maps and charts, I think we must expose and correct a misconception about the history of cartography. That misconception is that the history of cartography is the history of Humankind's incremental progress over the centuries in making more and more accurate maps correctly depicting geographical knowledge. I suggest this is a misconception that mapmakers, surveyors, geographers, bibliographers, and librarians have thrust onto the world and we historians too have frequently fallen under the spell to this delusion..

[Audio] Yes, it is true that it is often the function of a modern map to accurately depict spatial relationships of geographical features, and, Yes, in Europe the first modern maps, the earliest maps to make conscious attempts to record accurate distances and directions, that included the all-important map scale, first arose eight or nine centuries ago, the very maps that we are here to discuss today – the portolan chart – but to suggest that in the previous millennia the maps that were produced were "distorted" and merely less-accurate attempts at picturing geography is a gross misunderstanding of what the history of cartography is about. I do not propose to suggest what the history of cartography is but I feel confident in saying that it is not simply the history of progressively improving accuracy in depictions of geography. We historians of cartography must not allow the bibliographers, book historians, and microbiologists, who will lead the collection and analysis of parchment DNA, to regard portolan charts as merely technical, scientific artifacts that are the purview of geographers, or simply as an addendum to texts, or even extraneous to texts..