A MING dynasty nautical map, the Selden Map of China, represents a world engulfed by a wave of changes that happened in the South China Sea (SCS) region since the arrival of the Europeans. Its maker and origin are still mysteries waiting to be solved. It is named after its owner, the English jurist John Selden, who wrote Mare Clausum (1635), which promoted the idea that the sea could be territorialized like land, in response to what Hugo Grotius argued in Mare Liberum (1609), which endorsed the notion of the sea as free for all mankind. It was bequeathed to the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford in 1659, five years after Selden died.