OXFORD, UK.- Three of the Bodleian Library’s oldest and the most important medieval maps are on display for the first time in the United States at the Field Museum in Chicago.

Dating from around 1360, the Gough Map is the earliest surviving map of Great Britain to show routes across Britain and to depict the island with a recognizable coastline. Although the identity of the map-maker is unknown, the map can be accurately dated by historical reference and the hand writing on the map.

The anonymous artefact – which takes its name from Richard Gough, an 18th-century antiquary and authority on British topography – has been under continuous analytical scrutiny, for centuries.

In order to prepare it for its first trans-Atlantic journey, the Gough Map has undergone extensive conservation work over the past year. Thanks to the generosity of a private benefactor, the map is now mounted in a new stainless steel and glass frame. The map will undergo further conservation on its return to Oxford as part of a long-term preservation project.

Three maps showing Mediterranean Sea, Tigris River, and Sicily which are part of The Book of Curiosities will also be on display in Chicago. The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences and Marvels for the Eyes is an illustrated anonymous cosmography, compiled in Egypt during the first half of the 11th century. The only known copy of this manuscript, probably made in the late 12th or early 13th century, was acquired by the Bodleian Library in 2002. Its 17 unique maps and diagrams include: a rectangular map of the world with a graphic scale (the earliest surviving example of such a map), the earliest map of the island of Sicily (drawn while under Arab rule before the Norman invasion), the earliest map of Cyprus (then under Greek Byzantine rule), unique schematic drawings of the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans, maps of the five great river systems, and two world maps.

The third map on loan is the medieval Islamic world map from the book titled Entertainment for Someone Who Longs to Travel the World compiled in 1154 by al-Idrisi, a Moroccan geographer working for Roger II, the Norman king of Sicily. The map comes from a 16th-century copy of the treatise containing many regional maps and descriptions of countries throughout the known world, bought by the Bodleian in 1692.

Nick Millea, Map Librarian, Bodleian Library, said: ‘The Gough Map is one of the Bodleian Library’s greatest treasures. There is no record of any similar contemporary map at such scale or indeed accuracy: such is its quality and detail that it remained the blueprint for cartographers for 200 years.’

Emilie Savage-Smith, Professor of the History of Islamic Science said: ‘The Islamic maps are coming from a different tradition of map-making. The Book of Curiosities itself is incredibly important, containing some of the earliest and most stunning cartography of its kind. The maps are unparalleled in other recorded cartographic materials.’

The maps are on display at the Field Museum in Chicago as part of a major exhibition entitled ‘Maps: finding our place in the World’ which runs until 27 January 2008.