Originalkarte von C.Mauch's Reisen im Innern von Sud-Afrika

The interior of South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe showing the independent Transvaal Republic and the region's native kingdoms. Goldfields are coloured in yellow, and the routes of several explorers are marked on the map.

The map focused most heavily on the journeys of Karl Mauch, a German explorer who set out in 1865 to find the lost Biblical city of Ophir, believed to be the source of the Queen of Sheba's gold. Instead he discovered the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, the capital of the Iron Age Kingdom of Zimbabwe. Maur was unwilling to accept that an African Empire could have constructed such large ruins and believed that he had indeed discoverd Ophir, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The Geographische Mitteilungen, in which this map was originally published, is the oldest German language geographical journal - its first issue was in 1855 and it finally closed its doors in 2004. The magazine was conceived and edited by August Heinrich Petermann and published by the venerable firm of Justus Perthes in Gotha, Germany.

Its first article reported on an expedition into North Africa and the Sahara by Heinrich Barth and Adolf Overweg. This report was enough to secure a circulation of 4000 for the fledgling magazine and, more importantly, encouraged other important scientist-explorers of the day who were attracted by the magazine’s heavy scientific emphasis to send in their own reports. These included Hans Meyer, the first man to ascend the Kibo crater on Mount Kilimanjaro, Sven Hedin, the Swedish explorer of Central Asia and the Himalayas, and Alfred Wegener, the geoscientist who pioneered the theory of continental shift which led to the modern theory of plate tectonics.

In comparison to its contemporaries, such as the Geographical Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, the Mitteilungen had a far greater interest in ethnography and the physical and natural sciences, leading to the inclusion of many fascinating, but sometimes obscure, maps on the most recent theories related to climatology, meteorology, botany, and zoology.

Printed colour. [AFR4570]