His theories were later proved to be true by Aristotle in his studies of astronomy. Even earlier than that, in the 6 th century B.C.E., Pythagoras predicted that the world was actually round in shape. There are no surviving copies of his globe, but later writers described it as being spherical in shape. The first globe is thought to have been created by Crates of Mallus, who was a Greek philosopher from what is now modern day Turkey. These were given vague names such as “beyond the flight of birds.” These lands were said to be inhabited by mythological creatures and dangerous beasts, indicating that cartographers combined both geographical concepts with legends and beliefs of the time.Ĭartography from the Greeks was perhaps the most sophisticated of the ancient worlds. Additional triangular shapes are shown even farther from the central area to represent unknown lands and mysterious societies.
and depicts Babylon and the nearby Euphrates river as large squares in the center, with round shapes on the outskirts to represents Assyria and Susa. The oldest known map was created in around 600 B.C. Religiously important cities, for instance, were often depicted as being the center of the world.īefore any of the maps we know today, the Babylonians created the first known maps of the world on clay tablets. Early maps not only showed geographic locations, but they were also heavily influenced by belief systems and religions of the time.
Since almost the beginning of society, humans have had a desire to map out the world around them. Meanwhile, flat maps have been around even longer – since the Babylonian times. Globes have actually been around much longer, although they were not widely utilized until the Age of Exploration in the 15 th and 16 th centuries. Have you ever wondered how the world went from using flat maps to globes? While there are romantic tales of Christopher Columbus sailing toward the New World, intent on proving the Earth was a sphere while searching out new routes to the Indies, this isn’t the full story.
0 kommentar(er)
