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Tower of Babel

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Carl von Dittmar wrote historical and ethnographic studies of the peoples of Kamchatka based on his travels there between 1851 and 1855. This map is dated 1853; he published a detailed explanation of the categories represented in the map legend in 1854. If you read German, you can consult it here (see pages 16-18). 

This "modern" spin on ethnographic mapping involved not simply evoking the presence of a diverse group of peoples (which was the hallmark of a great empire in the 18th century), but imposing order on that diverse group of peoples. In a sense, von Dittmar's map is an attempt to bind certain peoples to certain spaces through washes of color (and certainly through those neat, horizontal blue lines marking Russian settlements).
 

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  1. Kamchatka Map Derby Lineup Kelly O'Neill

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