[Appendix] Reconciliation of Map with the Modern Day
An important part of my analysis was understanding how this map connects to modern-day Mumbai. It was not immediately clear how the different place names (labeled in Portuguese) corresponded to today’s Mumbai. Through a series of trial-and-error with a team of devoted friends, I was able to reach this conclusion.
The underlying theory is that waterways are probably mapped fairly accurately, while land forms may be subject to greater variance.
1) One of the first labels we added is label 7, as the mountain/volcano could only exist in a park.
2) Using the waterways – labels 1, 3, and 4 – as guidance, we ascertained that the map should be rotated counterclockwise by 90 degrees.
3) Label 5 was fairly straightforward to place as a result, because of its location between 7 and 4.
4) We looked for small pieces of land that jut out (label 2) and found today’s Navi Mumbai to be an aptly placed jut.
5) Lastly, we did label an island with label 6 in the old map, which corresponds to a part of the mainland. However, this is because we guessed that the explorers may have assumed the narrow waterways to be continuous around the chunk of land, when indeed the waterways are not.
Ultimately, it proved challenging to reconcile the two maps though I feel reasonably satisfied with my outcome. Although there is no direct connection between my final analysis and this appendix exercise, I did think it was important to investigate whether there are any remaining artifacts from this era in the mapped areas, and this was my first step in doing so. (I ultimately found that there were no remaining artifacts to connect from 1635 to the present day.)