Dr. Emilie Savage Smith '62 stood proudly behind a podium bearing her alma mater's name, in front of a screen reading "Mapping the Earth in Medieval Islam," in the Watson Forum on Tuesday night.
Smith, who is the Emerita Professor of the History of Islamic Science at the Oriental Institute of Oxford University, presented the Horizon Lecture on the topic of Arabic geographers mapping the earth.
Smith discussed three things one should keep in mind when studying medieval maps: there were no European regional maps made at the time, European maps only had one or two cities on them, and all European and early Islamic world maps had a ring which represented the encompassing ocean, not intended to be the edge of a flat disc.
"Not only scholars, but sailors ... knew the earth to be spherical," Smith said. "Not flat, not disc-like."
Smith said it was commonly accepted that the earth was round because people realized that the sun does not set at the same time everywhere on earth. She then introduced four different historical approaches of mapping the world: the Balkhi school in Baghdad in the 10th century, Egypt in the 10th century, Sicily in 1154 and maritime charts in 1513 and from 1521 to 1526. She discussed instruments in Baghdad used to measure minutes only in regional terms and designs of the coast of the "New World" in the 1600s.
There were laughs throughout the audience as Smith found humorous ways to describe some of the maps. For instance, she compared one world map illustration to the modern-day map of London's subway system, since it was composed entirely of vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines with circular arts.
"It was, as you might say, a reader's digest guide to the universe, the book of curiosities of the sciences and marvels for the eyes," Smith said.
Though Smith indicated that there was no evidence that the original designer of London Underground ever saw those medieval maps, the audience seemed to nod in agreements in the similarities between the one produced in the 20th century and those produced in the tenth century.
"They must be counted among the best maps conceptually produced," Smith said.
Nahyan Fancy, associate professor of history at DePauw, introduced the lecture by praising Smith's investigation on those topics and other extensive work authoring, coauthoring and editing 11 different books.
"[She is] notwithstanding her physical stature, a true intellectual giant in the field," Fancy said.
Religious studies professor Harvey Stark's favorite part of the talk was seeing how the map illustrations developed over time.
"It was terrific," Stark said. "It made an otherwise unknown subject really approachable."