**6. References**

	- http://cif.icomos.org/pdf\_docs/Documents%20on%20line/Heritage%20definitions.pdf

[10] Heuvel C van den (2006) Modelling historical evidence in digital maps: A preliminary sketch. e-Perimetron 1 (2): 113-126. Available: http://www.e-perimetron.org/Vol\_1\_2/ Vol1\_2.htm. Accessed: 2012 Jan 20.

**Chapter 13** 

© 2012 Fuerst-Bjeliš, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2012 Fuerst-Bjeliš, licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Imaging the Past:** 

Borna Fuerst-Bjeliš

**1. Introduction** 

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/46223

**of Croatian Borderlands** 

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

cartography, or as a socially constructed image of reality.

religious and general socio-cultural context.

territories and societies.

**Cartography and Multicultural Realities** 

Maps have long been central to geographical inquiry. The most usual approach to maps and cartography until recently dealt with its role in presenting a factual statement about geographical reality within the frames of actual survey techniques and skills of a cartographer. Recent researches since the end of 20th century tend to subvert the traditional, positivist model in analyzing the maps, replacing it with one that is grounded in iconological and semiotic theory of the nature of maps. According to J.B. Harley, one can understand a map as a social construction of the world expressed through a medium of

Maps always represent much more than merely physical nature and inventory of space. Maps understood and considered as social construction of reality have a number of layers, including the symbolic one. They are conveyors of meanings, messages and perceptions of the world – and not only of an individual cartographer, but also of common societal and cultural values. They reveal what may be called the spirit of time: philosophical, political,

As images, maps should be put and studied in the appropriate context, i.e. period and place. Moreover, maps as images are never neutral or value-free; they are all social, political and cultural. Understood as images, maps can be used on one hand as a tool of disseminating messages, and, on the other hand as a source in analyzing the perceptions of past places,

Researching past images through maps is of particular interest in multicultural spaces, where a variety of different cultures, religious systems, complex ethnic structures and

