TY - CONF A1 - Lange, Diana A1 - Hahn, Oliver T1 - Colours on Maps - Purpose and Materiality N2 - Colours are an inseparable attribute of most maps. While colouring seems at first glance simply superficial ‘prettifying’ of maps, most maps were given colours for other reasons: colour is an important key to understanding the function and use of maps. The use of colours, the choice of where to assign them and the meaning given to them has accordingly never been static but has changed over time. In this context, the three aspects: colour system, colour scheme, and colour code are of particular importance. Material scientific analysis makes it possible to find out more about the material composition of colourants (pigments and dyes) on maps. The study of colourants provides insights into the production conditions and use of maps. Furthermore, it offers clues about colour changes and forms the basis for appropriate restoration concepts. T2 - Maps. Digital. Analogue CY - Oxford, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland DA - 26.02.2026 KW - Maps KW - Colours KW - Archaeometry KW - Aging PY - 2026 AN - OPUS4-65599 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lange, Diana A1 - Hahn, Oliver ED - Lois, C. T1 - Colours on East Asian Maps N2 - Maps and colours have a close connection. Drawn or printed in black on white, subsequently added colours enhance maps with additional information. Colours were not just there to improve maps aesthetically, but they regulated how they were read and thus reinforced their meanings, significances and ideas. Colour is an important key to a more precise understanding of the map’s purposes and uses; moreover, colours are also an important aspect of a map’s materiality. The material scientific analysis makes it possible to find out more about the making of colours and the process of colouring maps. By skillfully deploying colours, map colourists were able to create mimetic representations of nature or codify information in an abstract form. The use of colours involved many considerations as to the materials. ‘Reading’ colours in this way gives a glimpse into the social lives of mapmakers as well as map users and reveals the complexity of the historical and social context in which maps were produced and how the maps were actually made. Within the scope of the three-year joint research project Coloured Maps (2018–2021), we undertook an in-depth and systematic study of hand-drawn and hand-coloured maps from East Asia in the Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK) in Hamburg and produced between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. With a multi-perspective approach and transdisciplinary methods (humanities and the sciences), we were able to pool and compare the research results from different fields of research on Asian maps. The aim of this publication is to provide a first general overview of the subject of colours on maps in East Asia in the period from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century and to stimulate further research on the topic. KW - Maps and colours KW - Colouring KW - Colourants KW - Dyes and pigments KW - Map production and publishing KW - Non-invasive scientific methods PY - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-569682 UR - https://brill.com/display/title/61839 SN - 978-90-04-54562-5 VL - 2023 SP - 1 EP - 79 PB - Brill CY - Leiden, Netherlands AN - OPUS4-56968 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -