HEADLINE: Tupaia's Chart and the Future of Pacific Archaeology AUTHOR NAME: Nicholas Thomas SUMMARY: During Cook's first voyage, the Tahitian priest and navigator Tupaia created a unique diagram—"not quite a map"—detailing many Polynesian islands. This c
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 22 September 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
HEADLINE: Tupaia's Chart and the Future of Pacific Archaeology
AUTHOR NAME: Nicholas Thomas
SUMMARY: During Cook's first voyage, the Tahitian priest and navigator Tupaia created a unique diagram—"not quite a map"—detailing many Polynesian islands. This chart, compiled from personal voyages and traditional history, reflects the extraordinary geographic knowledge and navigational ability of Polynesians. Modern archaeology is rapidly advancing, giving increased space to the expertise of Pacific Islanders themselves.
1900 PALAU
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| 0:29.5 | This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Baxter. I'm Professor Nicholas Thomas is here. His new book is Voyagers. Many avenues that we've not had time to explore, but now the great big mystery that just |
| 0:35.4 | sits there and makes you laugh is like the Game of Thrones or trying to figure out the world by reading Greek history. |
| 0:43.3 | All right, here we go. |
| 0:44.7 | It's a map, not quite a map, constructed by two pie. |
| 0:49.4 | I say that incorrectly, Professor, forgive me. |
| 0:52.9 | What are we looking at? |
| 0:54.1 | Because you reproduce it in your book. |
| 0:58.6 | On Cook's first voyage, the ship spent several months off the island of Tahiti, |
| 1:07.4 | and the British developed close relationships with a host of islanders. |
| 1:13.1 | It wasn't one of these passing encounters where they exchanged a few things or interacted violently. |
| 1:19.9 | It was a sustained interaction. |
| 1:21.5 | And one of the most extraordinary aspects of this interaction was that Tupaya, who was a priest, a navigator, a political player |
| 1:32.3 | in the dynamics of the Tahitian kingdoms at that time, he was clearly extremely interested |
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