By Joy Ndamukunda
This is the Polus Antarcticus Map, published in the late 1630s by Henricus Hondius, a Dutch cartographer and engraver. The map is among the earliest to show the South Pole region, which wasn’t thoroughly explored or charted until centuries later.
During the course of around sixty years, the map underwent multiple alterations and was reprinted by several publishers. The color images that adorn the edges of the atlas pages portray a range of native peoples and activities based upon known discoveries elsewhere because, at the time these maps were released, nothing was known about Antarctica.
The pictures include scenes of boating, fishing, and hunting against a backdrop of verdant, almost tropical, scenery. They also offer an intriguing look at two peculiar native creatures: “sea lions” and penguins. Native people are depicted using a spear to hunt a penguin in the backdrop of the artwork on the lower right cover of the atlas page (see below).
Alongside a human in the foreground is a large penguin. Although exaggerated in size, the depiction of penguins, which are also found at the southernmost points of South America and Africa, is rather realistic. However, rather than the flippered marine mammals that we are familiar with today, sea lions, which must have been considerably less recognizable to European publishers, appear like African lions playing in the shallow seawater.
Sources:
Chronicling Cartographic’s Oldest Record: The Polus Antarcticus Map