Early Appearance of Bischa for the Modern State of Qatar
Striking regional map of the Turkish / Ottoman Empire, centered on Turkey and Asia Minor, and showing the Eastern Mediterranean, Balkans, Greece, Persia, Saudi Arabia, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
The map identifies the "Golfo di Bassora o D'Elcatif ol Sinus Persicus" and fascinating early recognition of the competing claims to control over the inland sea between the Arabian Peninsula and the Kingdom of Persia.
The appearance of the name Bischa is of perhaps greatest historical note. This would seem to be an early printed appearance of the name "Bishita," a name which dates back to the 8th and 9th Centuries, when it appeared in Eastern Syriatic documents of the Old Testament, "referencing the prosperity of the 'Bayt Qatarya' region." (see, Khalid Al-Jaber, Media In Qatar, Katara (Publishin House 2021), p. 23)
Includes a decorative cartouche in the lower left corner.
Matthäus Seutter (1678-1757) was a prominent German mapmaker in the mid-eighteenth century. Initially apprenticed to a brewer, he trained as an engraver under Johann Baptist Homann in Nuremburg before setting up shop in his native Augsburg. In 1727 he was granted the title Imperial Geographer. His most famous work is Atlas Novus Sive Tabulae Geographicae, published in two volumes ca. 1730, although the majority of his maps are based on earlier work by other cartographers like the Homanns, Delisles, and de Fer.
Alternative spellings: Matthias Seutter, Mathaus Seutter, Matthaeus Seutter, Mattheus Seutter