This early engraving shows Suratte from the sea.
Situated on a bend in the river Tapti, Surat was an important Mughal trading port from the late 16th to the late 18th centuries. In 1615, Sir Thomas Roe successfully negotiated a treaty in order to set up English Factories at Surat and other suitable sites. Dutch, Portuguese and French merchants were also permitted to trade at Surat during the 17th and 18th centuries but by the late 18th century the British had complete control of the port.
Pieter (or Petrus) Schenk (1660–1711) was a German-born engraver and cartographer who operated a highly successful publishing house in Amsterdam. He was later appointed as the court engraver to Augustus the Strong.
"Hecatompolis, sive Totius orbis Terrarum Oppida Nobiliora Centum" (literally translated from Latin as "A Hundred Cities, or One Hundred of the More Noble Towns of the Whole World") is a highly celebrated town atlas published in 1702.
The work stands as a monumental geographic record of the 17th-century European trading empires and major global civilizations.
True to its title (Hecatom- meaning 100), the volume contains a title page, an index leaf, and exactly 100 finely engraved city views and ports.
While heavily focused on European power centers, the collection is famous for its broad global reach with maps of
European Seats of Power and important colonial ports and trading cities across Asia, the Americas, and Africa, including Tripoli (Tripolis Numidica), Cochin (Kochin on the Indian coast), and Goa.
