Geospatial.com mapping blog

mike robel

I found this blog entry very interesting this month and it talks about the earliest known map and Soviet mapping in great detail. Highly recommended.

https://geospatial.com/blog/

Wyvern

The Babylonian map is very famous certainly (though I may be biased, as ancient Mesopotamia is one of my particular areas of interest!). It's possible there were earlier ones, now lost. There's a damaged stone statue of one of the more famous rulers of the city-state of Lagash, Gudea, where he's seated with an inscribed tablet across his lap on which is drawn what appears to be the wall-plan for a building Wikimedia Commons image:

[Image_15036]

This may be a temple, partly from its appearance - the "corrugated" outside wall style is very typical for temples at this period in ancient Mesopotamia - plus there's a lengthy inscription on the rest of the statue regarding Gudea's pious rebuilding of the temple complex in the city of Girsu, part of the Lagash city-state. It dates to circa 2130 BCE (middle chronology).

It's interesting too that circular maps of the known world centred on some key city, essentially what the schematic Babylonian map depicts, continued in use well into the European medieval period.

Monsen

Interesting read Mike, thanks for posting it.

(I turned it into a clickable link for you)

mike robel

Thanks Monsen.

jslayton

Posted By: WyvernIt's interesting too that circular maps of the known world centred on some key city, essentially what the schematic Babylonian map depicts, continued in use well into the European medieval period.

If I'm a ruler, I'm automatically at the center of the universe. If I'm paying somebody to draw something for me that others get to see, you'd best believe that I'm going to be at the center of that drawing!

Wyvern

Though it wasn't always rulers that dictated this, given those maps from Christian societies that centred theirs on Jerusalem, for instance.