The origins of the Selden map of China: scientific analysis of the painting materials and techniques using a holistic approach
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Since the ‘rediscovery’ of the Selden map of China, an early seventeenth century map of Asia, in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the importance of the map in our understanding of globalisation in the early seventeenth century has been recognised. One of the unresolved questions is the origin of the map. This paper addresses the question through material evidence provided by a holistic approach using a suite of complementary analytical techniques. The map was examined in situ and non-invasively by a remote spectral imaging instrument (PRISMS) modified for close range imaging, which was followed by a range of complementary techniques applied to a number of detached fragments, though most of the techniques are non-invasive and can be applied to the map directly in the future. The binding medium was found to be a gum, almost certainly gum Arabic, rather than the animal glue commonly used in Chinese paintings. Some of the pigments and their usage were found to be at odds with the common practice in paintings from China. The detection of gum Arabic, a binding medium used by the Europeans, South and West Asians and the use of a mixture of orpiment and indigo, commonly found in European, South and West Asian paintings gives further evidence on the unusual origins of this map. The likely detection of a basic copper chloride, such as atacamite, in the green areas suggests an influence from the South and West Asian rather than the European tradition. Detailed analysis of the various spectral bands of the spectral image cube along with visual inspection of the large scale colour image showed that the map was not fully planned at the beginning but rather painted in stages, at times by trial and error and that it was unfinished. A new hypothesis for the origin of the Selden map in Aceh Sumatra is proposed based on the new evidences.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".