Sotheby’s auction of maps and atlases time travels in Middle East 10 May 2021 Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer Open for bidding now (online auction: Apr. 27 - May 13), Sotheby’s Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History auction features rare highlights from Middle Eastern history, including an engraving from 1791, showing a panoramic view of Makkah. Measuring 430 x 865 mm, the engraving — the largest of its kind produced at the time — depicts pilgrims from as far as the mountain of Arafat arriving for the Hajj, charting their journey into the holy city. The print has long been considered unobtainable, with very few copies appear to have survived a fire in Pera in 1791. The engraving carries an estimate of £12,000 -18,000. Works of topography through the ages abound, from early accounts of travels in the Near and Middle-East (Nicolay’s Navigations, peregrinations and voyages made into Turkie, 1596) to a photographic record of travels in Tibet and Lhasa, made in the 1930s.