Historic Map : Jeffreys Wall Map of India and Ceylon, 1768, Vintage Wall Art

This is a staggering wall size map of India and Ceylon issued in 1768 by Thomas Jeffreys. Covers the Indian subcontinent from Mekran in the west to Assam and Aracan in the east, and from Bhutan in the north, south to Ceylon and the Maldives. Offers extraordinary detail throughout, with numerous notations on matters geographical, historical, and cultural. Shows roads, caravan routes, oases, temples, cities, treaty lines, archeological sites, mountain ranges, lakes, swamps and rivers. This map offers a smorgasbord of information for the historian interested political changes in India during the 18th century. Identifies Delhi (or Shah Jehan Abad), Agra, Bombay, Goa, Calcutta, Pondicherry, and countless other major and minor cities. Our map predates the definitive Alexander Dalrymple mapping of India in the 1770s and so is quite vague in a number of areas - especially those controlled the independent Maratha Confederacy southwest of Bihar. In this area there are several speculative rivers as well as large lake, labeled Chilea or Ganga. Nonetheless, the theory of Lake Chimmay was ultimately disproved and it disappeared from maps entirely by the 1780s. On the far east of the map, Jefferys identifies the Kingdom of Arakan, which flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries. The city of Mrauk-U, marked here as Arakan, was once described by Portuguese merchants as one of the most beautiful locations on earth, is today a spectacular but derelict ruin. All in all a spectacular map with much to offer and a welcome addition to any serious collection focusing on the subcontinent. This map was prepared by Jefferys and originally published by Sayer and Bennet. This is the second edition, and was published by Laurie & Whittle in Kitchin's 1794 General Atlas .