I selected the “Mappa Mundi” Project, a digital humanities effort by Hereford Cathedral in the United Kingdom to provide access and information on the Mappa Mundi, one of the cathedral’s treasured possessions. The project displays an interactive visual representation of the map, containing thumbprint icons on spots that the research team has identified as being of interest to the viewer. However, the site user cannot move around or zoom on the map itself. He or she may click on the thumbprints to see further information about the highlighted locations on the map. Another way of navigating the site is through the options on the right side of the screen. The categories “Myths and Legends,” “Bible Stories,” “Beasts of the World,” “Strange Peoples of the World,” “Towns and Cities,” and “3D Scan” enable the viewer to access the locations on the map based on their content rather than their position relative to the points of interest. Each category contains between four and eleven points on the map, with the most belonging to the category of the 3D scan, which provides physical information about the map.
The dominant primary source for the project is the Mappa Mundi, an artistic map of the world known to Christian Europeans around the year 1300 on a single piece of vellum. Conveniently for the project, which is managed by the Hereford Cathedral, the map belongs to the cathedral and is on display there as well. Each thumbprint, or point of interest, contains a descriptive summary of what the map depicts or demonstrates in the location. However, the descriptions do not provide a reference to where the information in them is sourced. In addition to the Mappa Mundi, the Hereford Cathedral site also offers digital exploration opportunities on the Chained Library and the Magna Carta.
In processing the information of the Mappa Mundi, the most difficult aspect was likely creating the original scan, the color-enhanced scan, and the 3D scan that shows the texture of the map. The site does not specify how this was accomplished, but care was evidently taken to avoid damaging the original document. Once the original scan existed in digital form, a computer program similar to photoshop may have been used to enhance the colors and restore the map to how it may have looked before centuries of the colors fading. The 3D scan appears similar to LiDAR maps that I have seen before, so a similar but smaller scale technology may have been used to achieve this. Finally, the “makers” used web design techniques to impose the thumbprints and the icons representing the categories such as the helmet, mask, pawprint, and castle, which serve to guide the user to a desired location on the map. In addition to the symbols, the category titles appear when the user scrolls his or her mouse over a button. The actual descriptions of the map locations are concise and fit into the website’s setup.
I appreciate the display of the website, as the functions move fluidly on the screen and the information is pertinent and useful. The website encourages the user to visit the cathedral, which I would like to do if I go to England. It also easily links to the other parts of the website, the timelines detailing the history of the Chained Library in the cathedral and the Magna Carta. I would like for the map to be more interactive, so that I can zoom in on sections that are not pre-identified with thumbnail icons. I also think it would be helpful for the website to contain more information about how the project created the different scans and where they found the information regarding the points of interest. A further reading section would be useful to anyone conducting research on the map who wants to learn more about it. Finally, I am left with an understanding of the physicality of the map and the meaning behind some of its depictions, but without a context for how the map fit into the society that created it. I am interested in learning more about the cultural history of Hereford and how the map informs us about life in Hereford during the Middle Ages. Was it a community eager to learn more about the far reaches of the known world? The website does not answer questions about the map in its society, and limits itself to the physical features of the map and its artwork.
The site predominantly engages with the academic fields of history and archaeology through its exploration of a physical artifact from the Middle Ages. It does not make a unified argument, but rather seeks to explain details that appear on the map through careful analysis. The target audience is an educated public, with a goal of encouraging people to visit the cathedral and see the physical version of the Mappa Mundi. Links are available to the “visit” page with information on the admission cost and location of the cathedral. The website is open to anyone and no login credentials are required. The project is directed by the Hereford Cathedral, but specific names of people who worked on it are not provided.
