Surveyed plan with compass bearings and distances
A ground plan of a building complex annotated with directions (east, north, south) and measured lengths
A ground plan of a building complex drawn in ink and red chalk, with rooms, a colonnade and staircases, carrying mirror-script labels and the numbers 115 and 8. Around the upper margin runs a traverse of compass bearings and distances — so many to the east, north, and south — the kind of running record made in surveying a site on the ground. The plan and its bearings together read as a topographical survey of a place rather than a design; the drawing itself is untranscribed and is described from the image.
On this page
A traverse of compass bearings and distances
Read clockwise from the top margin, the notes give a sequence of directions and figures: 53 to the east, 112 to the north, 55 to three-quarters east, 6 to the south, 38 to the quarter of east, 225 to the south, then a run of shorter numbers. This is the tally of a ground survey, pairing bearing with measured length.
Ink and red-chalk plan of rooms and colonnade
The drawing lays out a building complex in plan: rectangular rooms and courts, a colonnade, and staircases indicated at several points. Faint mirror-writing labels and the numbers 115 and 8 are set among the walls.