Middle East

  Four large photographs with German titles depicting Aden in the late 19th century  

  A very rare lithographed postcard map of the Aleppo Vilayet in Ottoman script was made in Istanbul during the Young Turks Regime by a Romanian born publisher Tüccarzâde İbrahim Hilmi Çığıraçan.

  Lithograph with original colour: 18 x 23 cm (7 x 9 inches) (soft fold, slightly stained in the upper margin).

Chromolithograph. 9 x 13,5 cm (3.5 x 5.3 inches). Slightly stained.

The seminal map of the Baghdad region used by British Imperial forces during World War I’s Mesopotamian Campaign for operational planning during their two attempts to take the Iraqi capital, being the extremely rare ‘Degree Sheet’ survey of the area predicated upon the best available sources, published in 1915 in Calcutta by the Survey of India on the orders of…

Postcard. Lithography in colour (Very Good, slightly age-toned, tiny tears and chips in margins ) 10 x 14cm (5.11 x 3.5 inches).

A stellar and unique artefact of World War I in the Middle East - an advanced topographical map of north-western Syria and the adjacent parts of Anatolia issued by the German Army in May 1918, with extensive contemporary manuscript additions in coloured crayon added by an Ottoman officer depicting the key military actions during the Battle of Aleppo and the…

Chromolithograph. 9 x 13,5 cm (3.5 x 5.3 inches). Minor staining, overall in a good condition.

Chromolithograph. 9 x 13,5 cm (3.5 x 5.3 inches). Minor staining, overall in a good condition.

Postcard. Lithography in colour (Very Good, slightly age-toned) 10 x 14cm (5.11 x 3.5 inches).

A fascinating large format map of greater Beirut made by the U.S. Defense Mapping Agency to aid the CIA and the American military early in the Lebanese Civil War when the city was a hotbed of espionage and major faultline in the Cold War; an extremely accurate and detailed depiction based upon satellite reconnaissance, it labels every major building, street…

The colossal, authoritative general map of Anatolia, the Levant, Lower Egypt and western Iraq made for strategic use by the French Army on the eve of World War I; these regions all being scenes of pivotal military action and espionage operations during and in the wake of the conflict, from which France played a critical (and controversial) role in the…

  The very first distance-time-route map of the Ottoman Empire, one of the great masterpieces of Hamidian Era thematic cartography, it depicts the entire realm of the Sublime Porte from Albania to Yemen, noting the travel times between hundreds of locations, including various routes of the Hajj; devised by the General Staff of the Ottoman Army and published in Istanbul.…

  A very rare and important Arabic language school atlas of Egypt, commissioned by the country’s Education Ministry and Ministry of Finance, emblematic of the country’s emerging national awakening whereby Egyptians gradually regained control over their country’s economy and institutions from the British quasi-colonial regime; in this vein, such cartographic works in the Arabic language, made for the use of…

  4 sheets, not joined, colour lithographs. Each sheet circa 95 x 111 cm (37.4 x 43.7 inches), if assembled: circa 180 x 203 cm (70.8 x 80 inches). Small tears and holes in folds and margins, tiny creases on surfaces, old repairs, partly with postal slips from 1984 in English language, and traces of tape, later annotations in the…

  Extremely rare – the complete series of the 3 maps (on 4 sheets) of the Ottoman-Persian Boundary Survey in the vicinity of the Shatt Al-Arab waterway, along today’s Iraq-Iran frontier, above the head of the Persian Gulf, as mandated by the Anglo-Turkish Declaration of July 29, 1913; this boundary settlement was surveyed by Indian Army engineers under the supervision…

  The rare first edition of the first accurate and highly detailed topographical general map of Central and Southern Iraq, Kuwait and Khuzestan (Iran), created by the British War Office, the culmination of three generations of espionage and exploration missions, capped by late breaking discoveries; the authoritative map used by both sides during World War I’s ‘Mesopotamia Campaign’, Britain’s dramatic…

  A fascinating artefact of World War I’s Mesopotamian Campaign – an Ottoman map of the vicinity of the Siege of Kut al-Amara, one of the conflict’s most dramatic events and one of the greatest defeats in British Imperial History; crudely lithographed in theatre by Ottoman engineers, based upon a “captured” British map that was itself based on fresh, detailed…

  Colour print, 73 x 60 cm (28.7 x 23.6 inches), verso text, illustrations, photograph and a map (soft folds, otherwise in a good condition).  

  Very rare and historically important – the most detailed and accurate Ottoman map of the Kuwait and the Basra region of Iraq, issued by the General Staff of the Ottoman Army for strategic and operational planning early in World War I and during the twilight of the reign of Sheikh Mubarak Al Sabah, the ‘Father of Modern Kuwait’; depicting…

A map from Umûm Vilayât-ı Şâhâneyi Hâvi Küçük Atlas - Umûmî Küçük Atlas (General Small Atlas)   Chromolithograph. 9 x 13,5 cm (3.5 x 5.3 inches).

عثمان نورى [Osman Nuri, Sabık Coğrafya-yı Askeri Muavini Piyade Kol Ağası / Senior Chief Military Cartographer for the Infantry]. جغرافياى عسكرى و عثمانى درسلرينه مخصوص سوريه قطعة سى [Part of Syria for Specific Military and Ottoman Geographical Operations / Lessons] Inset Map: حجاز دميريولى كذركاهى [Hicaz demiryolu güzergah / Route of the Hejaz Railway] Istanbul: مكتب حربيه مطبعه سى [Maktaba…

  The very rare first edition of the foundational map of the British colonial regime in Egypt; created by the Intelligence Department of the War Office on the eve of the Anglo-Egyptian War (1882), whereby Britain forcibly made Egypt a protectorate, so gaining dominance over the Suez Canal; predicated upon the best sources, the very large four-sheet work was the…

An exquisite ‘objet d’art’, being a unique example of William Faden’s map of the Battles of Abukir and Alexandria (1801), France’s ‘last stand’ in Egypt, printed on silk with details richly embroidered in coloured silk thread, clearly a prestation piece made for a highly important figure.   Copper engraving on silk with details contemporarily heightened in embroidery of coloured silk thread, contemporarily…

Chromolithograph. 9 x 13,5 cm (3.5 x 5.3 inches). Minor staining, overall in a good condition.

  Chromolithograph, 51 x 34 cm (13.4 x 20 inches), (small repaired tears in the fold, sporadic light staining in white margins, but otherwise in a good condition).   Istanbul: Matbaa-I Amire [1307-1309 AH [1891-1893 AD] Atlas] – Mahmud Bey Matbaası 1309 AH [1893 AD] [date on the map].  

  Exceedingly rare and classified - one of the first accurate surveys of the Ahwaz area of the Arabistan region of Persia (today Khuzistan Province, Iran), importantly showcasing a great stretch of the first oil pipeline in the Middle East, completed in 1912, which connected the Masjed Soleyman Oilfield with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s refinery at Abadan; published in the…

The very rare, spectacular and complete portfolio of 8 very large format maps and 2 Topographical Cross-Sections from the ‘Ordnance Survey of the Peninsula of Sinai’ (1868-9), the ambitious exploring expedition led by the Royal Engineer captains Charles William Wilson and Henry Spencer Palmer that conducted the first scientific mapping and archaeological reconnaissance of the interior of the Sinai, both to…

  Exceedingly rare – one of the great monuments of Late Ottoman cartography, being the only official large-format Ottoman transportation atlas, including 26 double-page maps of an original, ingenious proto-modernist design, of which 8 maps concern the Arab World, including 1 map showcasing Hejaz and 1 map depicting Mecca & Jeddah; backed by detailed text explaining numerous itineraries for the…

  The map showcases the region between the Sanjak of Zor to Basra, with an inset map representing the area of today’s Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain with marked Kuwait, Qatif, Manama, Najd and Al-Ahsa.   Colour lithography, 19 x 27 cm (7.5 x 10.6 inches), (slightly age-toned and stained in the margins, otherwise in a good condition).

  A gigantic late 19th century map of the Ottoman Empire  

  Map of the Ottoman Empire with the Arabian Peninsula in the middle. Marked are the most important cities and the Hejaz Railway.   Colour lithography, 26 x 38 cm (10.2 x 14.9 inches), (soft fold in the middle slightly stained with tiny repaired holes and tears).

  Colour lithography, 27 x 19 cm (10.6 x 7.5 inches), (slightly age-toned and stained in the margins, otherwise in a good condition).

Very rare – a stellar example of Hüseyin Hüsnü Emir Erkilet’s map of Palestine, a large separately issued work predicated upon field surveys made by Ottoman and German military engineers during World War I, all brought to print on a single map for the first time; issued in Istanbul in 1921 by the Army Press, it was the very last…

  An exceedingly rare map of a port in the Red Sea, printed on thin paper in Italian language, was sold separately for navigational uses.   Lithograph on thin paper, each 31 x 23 cm (12.2 x 9 inches).

  An exceedingly rare map of a port in the Red Sea, printed on thin paper in Italian language, was sold separately for navigational uses.   Lithograph on thin paper, each 31 x 23 cm (12.2 x 9 inches).

  Published at the beginning of the Kingdom's historic First Five-Year Development Plan (1970–1975), this exceptionally rare, gigantic thematic atlas details the infrastructure plans for areas around Riyadh and Dhahran—roughly covering the eastern portions of today's Riyadh and Eastern Provinces—with a primary focus on transportation, oil fields, and spatial geography.  

Postcard. Lithography in colour (Very Good, slightly age-toned, verso small later annotations in the corner, a tiny piece of corner missing) 13 x 9 cm (5.11 x 3.5 inches).

Postcard. Lithography in colour (Very Good, slightly age-toned, tiny tears and chips in margins ) 10 x 14cm (5.11 x 3.5 inches).

Rare - a seminal map used for strategic planning by German commanders during the Sinai and Levant theatre of World War I, a classified work created under the supervision of the orientalist Franz Gustav Taeschner for the German General Staff, it depicts all details necessary to inform broad military movement during one of the most dramatic and surprising campaigns of…

  An incredibly important survivor – a top-secret ‘General Headquarters Map’ made for the use of German General Liman von Sanders and his senior staff to oversee the ill-fated Ottoman-German ‘last stand’ in World War I’s Palestine Campaign at the ‘Battle of Megiddo’; composed of two joined exceedingly rare topographical maps of Central Palestine and Eastern Jordan, drafted and printed…

Rare – one of the most important of the maps made by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force during World War I, depicting Southern Palestine with the Ottoman-German Gaza-Beersheba defensive line, as well as the vicinity of the Battle of Jerusalem (1917), one the great British triumphs of the war in the Middle East, published in Cairo by the Survey of Egypt…

An impressive paring of colossal related maps, being 1) a map of North Yemen (a country that existed from 1967 and 1990, until Yemen was unified) constructed from NASA Landsat imagery, leading to the creation of 2) the first edition of the first scientific geological map of North Yemen; highly sophisticated works created by the geologists Maurice J. Grolier and…

  The first edition of the first scientific geological map of North Yemen, officially the Yemen Arab Republic (centred on its capital Sana’a), a country that existed between 1967 and 1990, until Yemen was unified; a highly sophisticated work published on 4 large, brightly coloured sheets in Hannover by West Germany’s Federal Institute of Geosciences and Natural Resources, predicated upon…

  [Report on Yemen. A Statement about the Improvement of the Situation in Yemen, Presented to the Ottoman Parliament by deputy Nureddin Bey from Siverek]   8°, 48 pp., folding colour map, later brown cloth binding with mounted original wrappers (wrappers slightly age-toned and stained with tiny pieces of paper missing, inside in overall good condition).