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Extract

At Oxford in the late summer of 1989, I was kindly escorted by Professor Gurney to visit Mr. Roger Mason, among whose recent discoveries was the so-called Medici-Lazara map of the Alanya fortress, now published in AS XXXIX 83–105. I had the privilege then of seeing the map itself and, although this was not an occasion for detailed discussion, obtained a clear understanding of its importance. Before I left Mr. Mason was good enough to provide me with copies of the maps and of the long article on the subject which he was about to publish. The latter consists primarily of an impressive dissertation on the historical setting of the document and its place in the early development of paramilitary cartography, followed by an examination in great detail of its topographical accuracy, as related to the evidence of the surviving ruins. For purposes of comparison, reference had necessarily to be made to the survey carried out by the present writer in collaboration with Dr. D. S. Rice, published in 1958 by the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara (Alanya (Ala'iyya)).

In conversation with Mr. Mason and in his writing, I became aware of his strongly felt affinity with the Florentine cartographer—his professional predecessor by almost four centuries—who had produced this “multiplane perspective” from the sketches and reports of “naval observers”, probably onboard ship. By whatever means it was achieved, the result is a remarkable historical document, well meriting the industry which Mr. Mason has applied to its detailed examination and the many pages which he has devoted to the consideration of its overall veracity. Nevertheless, in reading the arguments which are explored in these pages, one is conscious of two weaknesses in his approach to the task which he has set himself.