Centuries-old maps on auction offer unique glimpse on ancient Israel
The collection of maps, illustrations and books of prominent scholar Rabbi Daniel Sperber are going to be on sale on May 5 at Kedem Auction House in Jerusalem.
By ROSSELLA TERCATINClover Leaf Map – Heinrich Bünting – 16/17 Century – Hand-Colored Engraving(photo credit: KEDEM AUCTION HOUSE IN JERUSALEM)
Where is Jerusalem located? The 16th-century German cartographer and theologian Heinrich Bünting had no doubt: at the center of the world.In his 1581 map, he placed the city in the center of a clover whose leaves depict three continents: Europe in pink, Asia in green and Africa in yellow. Surrounding them is a vast blue sea, and far away in the bottom-left corner, a glimpse of America appears.The artifact, originally printed in black and white and colored just a few years later, is part of the collection of ancient maps and illustrations of Jerusalem and the land of Israel and of books belonging to Rabbi Daniel Sperber. The collection is going to be auctioned off at the Kedem Auction House in Jerusalem on Tuesday, May 5.For Sperber, a professor emeritus in Talmud at Bar-Ilan University and a recipient of the Israel Prize for Jewish studies, the Clover Leaf Map and the idea behind it have represented a form of compass orienting his life choices throughout the decades, he told The Jerusalem Post.Sperber was born in Great Britain and for many decades has been living in the Old City of Jerusalem, where he has been able to contemplate the Temple Mount from his windows. Through his career, whenever Bar-Ilan University found him an apartment close to the campus or other institutions around the world offered him a position, he turned them down.“I could not leave Jerusalem,” he said.Living in the Old City, Sperber soon decided that writing about the city was imperative.“According to rabbinic sources, the Old City is the center of the world, a place of extreme holiness,” he said. “I felt it was important to devote some study on the prominence of Jerusalem.”Inspired by the feeling of its centrality, which over the centuries was shared not only by Jew but also by Christians and Muslims, Sperber dedicated to the city one of his books, Midrash Yerushalayim: A Metaphysical History of Jerusalem, 1982.To do so, he started collecting maps, illustrations and books depicting the city, as well the Temple and the land of Israel, by Jewish and non-Jewish artists and authors. They portrayed it in ways that did not necessarily accurately reflect the geographically correct picture but captured the immense spiritual value that its concept never ceased to embody.
Heinrich Bünting – "Travel Book through Holy Scripture" – Helmstadt, 1582 – A Sketch of the Temple (Credit: Kedem Auction House, Jerusalem)“I’m an academic. I research. I look for answers,” Sperber told the Post. “I never liked working at a library. I like working at home. I like having my books all around me ready for me to pull out, and I like to work at night. With my university engagements and 10 children, life has always been quite busy during daytime, and therefore I always preferred to collect the books I needed for my research.”The Jordan River, the Dead Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the hills and other cities in Israel are depicted in the maps dating back to 1525, 1570, 1590 and more and created in places like Antwerp, Amsterdam and Strasbourg. They offer an enchanting depiction of the Holy Land.A hand-colored engraved map from the 1712 Amsterdam Haggadah has all the place-names written in Hebrew and shows the route of the Israelites in the Sinai Desert and the territories of the Ten Tribes. It seems almost able to whisper the words “Next year in Jerusalem,” which typically end the Passover Seder and were likely pronounced over it by its owners for generations.Map of Palestine from the Amsterdam Haggadah – Engraving by Abraham bar Jacob – Amsterdam, 1712 (Credit: Kedem Auction House, Jerusalem)A large collection of books is also going to be auctioned next week, many of which were fundamental for Sperber’s research on Jewish customs, another of his most prominent areas of research.There are many Jewish customs whose origins have been lost over the centuries, he told the Post.“I wanted to understand better why we do certain things, so I started to look into old books, which might help me find explanations, not only by Jewish authors, but also by non-Jews who would witness and write about them,” he said.“Sometimes they were accurate, and sometimes they weren’t,” he added. “Sometimes they carried antisemitic motives; sometimes they portrayed Jews in a positive way.”Parting from some of the items is not easy, especially the Clover Leaf Map, Sperber said.“My feeling was of a very great attachment to this particular map,” he said. “However, I nonetheless decided that I had to give it up. A time comes when you have to downsize your possessions.”
