Antique Maps

The oldest known map ever found.

The University of Pennsylvania was excavating in Nippur (Iraq) from 1889 until 1900 and during that time they discovered thousands of clay tablets. This map may have been discovered at that time, but its importance was not recognized until quite some time later.
Photo source - University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
This artifact was on loan until 2008 to the Beijing World Art Museum for their rotating exhibit on Great Civilizations.

Picture Source - Wikipedia This artifact was discovered in Iraq close to the Euphrates river in the late 1800s and first published (or written about) in 1899. It has been dated to around 600 BCE. This was the oldest known map for several decades until the Nippur map (see above) was finally published. The Babylonian Map is currently in the British Museum.

Picture Source - Wikipedia - Eratosthenes' map of the world, originally dated approximately 194 BCE. Erastosthenes was also the man who figured out the size of the Earth by using the noon sun on the day of the summer equinox to measure shadows at both Syene and at Alexandria.

Claudius Ptolemy was a geographer, an astronomer and a mapmaker from Alexandria in Egypt. He was born around 90 CE and died in 168 CE. This version was actually a woodcut made in 1427 CE and is the earliest surviving known version of Ptolemy's map which was originally made in 150 CE.

Ptolemy also wrote the Cosmographia - a book with lists of stars with names and brightness levels (called magnitudes) - a scale that Ptolemy himself created and I beleive is still used today.

Picture Source - Wikipedia. This is one of the earliest T-O maps still surviving. It was made around 1300 CE and can be seen at the Hereford Cathedral in Hereford, England, UK

Picture Source - My blog - Ancient Books of Timbuktu
The above portolan map is part of the Catalan Atlas that was created in 1375 CE by one Abraham Cresques from Catalonia. The full original map can be seen here.
The earliest known surviving portolan map is the Carta Pisana which was made around 1275 to 1300 CE.
More about Catalan Maps - Wikipedia

World map of Henricus Martellus Germanus (Heinrich Hammer) made around 1490 CE
Picture Source - Wikipedia

Picture source - Piri Reis Map - Wikipedia

This is a portolan map created by a Turkish Naval admiral named Piri Reis in 1513 CE. It is a very controversial map because the experts cannot decide if the land shown at the bottom is the Antartica or whether it is just part of South America. The significance of this is that the Antarctica was not actually discovered and mapped until 1818 CE. I have now also made a lens about the Piri Reis Map.

The first ever map made with a projection that helped with navigation. Published by Gerhardus Mercator in 1569 CE. The Mercator Projection has been an essential part of cartography now, for over 400 years

Septentrionalium Terrarum descriptio - This map was published in 1595 by Rumold Mercator - son of Gerhardus Mercator (who had died in 1594).

This Upside Down Map was first published in 1979. There are some places on this planet where people do grow up with a slightly different world view you know - including me!! LOL

One of my most favourite scenes in all the Star Trek movies is this one from Star Trek Generations (1994).

This scene involves Captain Picard having to discover where the Nexus is going to show up next. He orders Data to plot the projected course of the Nexus Ribbon through the galaxy - and this is done in the Stellar Cartography Department.

This scene could easily be the future of cartography. Once we have mapped our planet and the solar system, humanity will then spread out to map the galaxy.

Image source - NASA launches a Home Version of Star Treks Stellar Cartography Computer

Eyes on the Solar System from NASA