Today's guest map is courtesy of Peter Hill, Junior Research Fellow at Christ Church, University of Oxford
A map printed as frontispiece to Rev. William Jowett’s Christian Researches in the Mediterranean(1822). Three colours are used: blue (or blue-bordered) for ‘Countries professing Christianity’, green for ‘Mahomedan Countries, containing Churches of Native Christians,’ and red for ‘Mahomedan Countries, in which Christianity is nearly extinguished’. Jowett had been despatched by the Church Mission Society of England to investigate the prospects for Protestant missions in the countries around the Mediterranean. The map, and his book, illustrate the opportunities and challenges for missionary activity in the area. They would lead on to the establishment of a mission station in the British-ruled island of Malta, in almost the exact centre of the Mediterranean Sea on Jowett’s map. From here translations of missionary texts and tracts into Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Maltese and many other languages would pour forth over the 1820s and 1830s, mainly destined for those ‘Native Christians’ living in ‘Mahomedan Countries’ in the parts of the map coloured green.