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[Music plays]
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(Narrator) Archipelagus
Orientalis
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is the most important map
documenting Australia's presence
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prior to the arrival
of the British.
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It is the map on which all subsequent
maps of New Holland are based.
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Blaeu's Archipelagus
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has the distinction of including,
for the first time on a map,
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details of the sighting of
Tasmania by Tasman's crew
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aboard the Zeehaen
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on 24th November, 1642.
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(Dr. Martin Woods) It's
a magnificent chart,
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and it actually has nine
individual copper plates,
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and we've got a few
challenges with it.
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You can see it's constructed of
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an intaglio chart with letter-
pressed text around the outside
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telling the story of Tasman's two
voyages and some of the discoveries.
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(Narrator) It's
long been thought
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that only three examples
of the Archipelagus
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had survived since the copper
plates were created in 1659;
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however, this map,
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found in a storage facility
in Sweden in 2010,
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was put up for sale by a small
auction house in Stockholm
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with a modest price listing.
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You can see why the sale room
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might have had doubts
about this rare wall map,
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for even a digital image shows
that sections of the text
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on the map are flaking away, or
already missing from the woven cloth
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on which it's been mounted.
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(Robin Tait) The paper itself
is extremely good; however,
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as you can see with the
outlines of the islands,
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particularly up in Indonesia,
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and also on the outline of
Australia and Tasmania,
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there's quite a significant
browning and cracking
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of the paper support,
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and this is due to the Verdigris
which was a pigment...
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(Dr. Martin Woods) Which
is the pigment. Hmm.
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(Robin Tait)... yes,
that's been used.
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And it's also been used in
the cartouche here, and that
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has contributed to a
lot of the damage
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by the degradation of the paper.
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(Narrator) The survival of this,
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the first large scale
map of New Holland,
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and its acquisition by the
National Library in 2013,
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350 years after its creation,
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represent the triumph of chance
over the vicissitudes of time.
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A few examples of the map
were known worldwide,
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but none had come to light
since the 17th century.
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(Female) There we go. Ooh,
then it's free (Chuckles).
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(Male) Pop. There we go.
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(Robin Tait) So we'll
be collecting all this
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so called fluff and
actually examining it
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under the microscope,
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and that will give us some clues as
to where this item has been stored
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previously.
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It's quite interesting to
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look through what time
deposits on objects.
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(Narrator) A few examples of
the map were known worldwide,
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but none had come to light
since the 17th century.
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The map is not listed
in any catalogues
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we can find since
it was printed,
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with the exception of a listing in
the collection of antiquarian dealer
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Pelle Thulin of
Amsterdam as early as 1950.
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Before this its
provenance is unknown.
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The map's condition probably
reduced its attractiveness
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to the map-collecting market,
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which is naturally drawn
to beauty over substance.
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The National Library,
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already with the largest collection
of Dutch Golden Age mapping
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relating to Australia
and the East Indies,
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was an obvious fit,
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as we're fortunate to have the
conservation skills needed
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to restore some of the
map's former glory.
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The map was offered to the
Library early in 2013,
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and acquired with the assistance
of the federal government.
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It's a rare occasion to
acquire a map such as this,
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and we're delighted that
the stabilisation work
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done by our expert
conservation staff
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means that we can show it to
you in Mapping Our World.