Maps – world geographies

The Imago Mundi

Leave a Comment / Asia, Features, Maps, World / Liam Reid

The Babylonian World Map, also known as the Imago Mundi, is one of the oldest known representations of our world. This ancient map offers a fascinating glimpse into the geographical knowledge and worldview of the Babylonians over two and a half millennia ago as well as their expertise as craftsmen. In this article, we will look at the discovery of the map, its creation, materials, authorship, similar maps, what it depicts, its accuracies and inaccuracies, its impact and legacy, and its current location. Discovery and Background The Map was discovered during archaeological excavations in the ruins of the city of Sippar in the late 19th century. Sippar was one of the oldest cities in Mesopotamia with origins dating back as far as 2900 BC. It was found on the eastern banks of the Euphrates close to Baghdad in modern day Iraq. Sippar was a significant urban center with a population of up to 40,000 inhabitants, comparable in size with other cities such as Ur and Uruk. It was known for its temple dedicated to the sun god Shamash. Given its location on the Euphrates, it was also an important trading outpost. By MapMaster – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3578442 Creation and Materials The exact date of the map’s creation is not well-documented, but it has been estimated at no earlier than the 9th century BC. It was part of a series of finds that provided substantial insights into ancient Mesopotamian civilization. The map was created during the Neo-Babylonian period. It is inscribed on a clay tablet using the now extinct Cuneiform Akkadian language, a writing system developed in the city of Akkad, and used across Mesopotamian. The tablet measures approximately 12.2 cm by 8.2 cm, with a generally better preserved upper half, the lower extremities having been lost. The clay tablet was likely produced by a Babylonian scribe. Although the identity of the scribe remains unknown, there are some clues in the text contained on the front of the tablet. This map is part of a larger tradition of Mesopotamian cartography and geographical texts, reflecting the intellectual and scholarly pursuits of the time. The use of clay tablets was common in Mesopotamia due to the abundance of clay in the region and the durability of baked tablets. What does the map actually depict? By Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42131230 The map is divided into three sections. On the front, the pictorial representation, the map itself, is found on the lower two thirds of the front of the tablet. The upper third is text. On the rear of the tablet is also text. The structure and information of each section differs greatly, implying that the three sections may have been compiled from three different and possibly unrelated original sources. The first thing to notice of the map section are the two circles that cover more than half of the map portion. They are labeled ‘Maratum’ which literally translates as ‘Bitter River’. It is thought that this represents the Persian Gulf. The label refers to the salt sea. The Persian gulf was over 500km from Sippar. Inside the circles, there are 7 additional smaller circles, which are thought to represent 7 cities, with Babylon being represented in the center at the top. The parallel lines at the bottom of the map represent marshland, which could be the current day Iraq Central marshes, Hammar marshes or Hawizeh marshes. A line in the north east corner of the map appears to be the modern day Zargos Mountain range, which runs from south east Turkey, down the eastern border of Iraq and onwards into western Iran as far south as the strait of Hormuz. All of the labeling and annotation on the inside of the circles is in Cuneiform. Seven or eight triangular sections outside the water circle represent named “regions” (nagu). The descriptions for five of them have survived. The map indicates features spread across much of eastern Iraq, an area of many hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. The text above the map describes the creation of the land and sea by Marduk, the patron saint of Babylon. It is written that he parted the primeval ocean, called Tiamat, thus raising dry land. The next few lines refer to at least 15 animals, the Mountain Goat, Gazelle, Lion, Wolf, Monkey (and female Monkey), Ostrich, Cat and Chameleon. Other than the Cat, none of the animals listed were to be found in ancient mesopotamia. The last two lines of the text refer to three legendary heroes: Utnapištim (the hero of the Flood), Sargon (ruler of Akkad), and Nur-Dagan the King of Buršaḫanda (opponent of Sargon). The back side contains at least 29 lines of text and seems to be a description of the nagu, or regions of ancient Mesopotamia. It is assumed that the nagu listed on the rear are the same nagu as depicted on the front. After an introduction, possibly explaining how to identify the first nagu, the pattern for the remaining descriptions is to list the nagu by number, and state the distance in leagues that one must travel to get there from the previous nagu. The distances listed on the rear do not seem to correspond to any scale depicted on the front. This could be because such scale drawings were not helpful when journeys were measured in days or weeks. It could more simply be that the rear of the tablet is referring to a different set of nagu than those represented on the front of the map. A short description is given for each of the eight nagu, but those of the first, second, and sixth are too damaged to read. The fifth nagu has the longest description, but this too is damaged and partially unreadable. There are some rather strange pieces of information that the author though to include, such as: ‘The third nagu may be a barren desert, impassable even for birds: A winged bird cannot safely

The Imago Mundi Read More »

The International Date Line

There’s an imaginary line that circles our planet. It’s a border, of sorts. It runs from pole to pole. Not a national border or country frontier, but its impact is just as profound to those countries that find themselves on either side of it. In order to understand why this line is so weird, and why it exists at all, we need to travel back to 1675 and half a world away to sleepy Greenwich and the establishment of the Royal Observatory. The Royal observatory is an entire subject to itself, but it’s important to understand the impact that the observatory has had on world geography. For mariners and geographers before 1675, Latitude was a well understood concept. The earth was divided into 2 hemispheres with a line running exactly between the two. We know this line as the equator. Two additional lines of latitude were added in the form of the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. These are the two points at which the sun reaches its highest declination. Basically the point at which the sun can be seen directly overhead at its solstice Up until the foundation of the Greenwich observatory, there was no obvious line that longitude should run along. Amongst the many other things that the observatory was responsible for was the creation of the Prime Meridian.The Prime Meridian, which passes through Greenwich, was designated as 0° longitude. Run that line around the entire globe, bisecting the poles and, located at 180° longitude, you will find the International Date line (IDL). Its primary function is to accommodate the Earth’s rotation and the 24-hour day cycle, ensuring that when you cross it, the date changes by one day. Crossing from west to east results in going back a day, while crossing from east to west moves you forward by a day. So far, so simple, but from this fact onwards, international geography starts to take a back seat to international politics. The Northern Reaches: The Arctic Ocean Head due south from the north pole along the international date line and the first land you hit is Wrangel Island, and the Russian Okrugs (Autonomous district) of Chukotka, if the IDL were to maintain a straight line it would move this district to the east of the IDL and separate it from the rest of Russia by one whole day. Further south, parts of the Alaskan Aleutian islands would suffer the same fate in the opposite direction. This was unacceptable to both countries. Here we have our first of many instances of geopolitics. The line bends, first east across the Chukchi sea and into the Bering strait. It dissects the Diomede islands, which, despite being just over 2 miles apart, are separated by a whole calendar day. Big Diomede, belonging to Russia being one calendar day ahead of little Diomede, which belongs to the USA. This unique situation often earns the islands the nickname “Tomorrow Island” (Big Diomede) and “Yesterday Island” (Little Diomede). Once through the Bering strait, the date line takes a sharp turn to the west, ensuring that the St Lawrence island, and the entirety of the Aleutian archipelago remain on the same side of the line as the rest of Alaska. I think we can all agree that these minor deviations to maintain territorial integrity are fine. The deviations around Russia and USA caused roughly a 10° deviation first to the east, and then to the west of the IDL before settling back onto the correct longitude of 180° just south of Alaska. The Northern Pacific Ocean For the next 5,500km, the IDL behaves itself. The line runs due south and encounters nothing but the depths of the pacific. The nearest it comes to anything at all is roughly 2,000km into it’s journey, when it passes Midway Atoll, venue of the famous world war 2 naval battle, roughly 250km to its east. By the time we reach the equator we’ve done literally half the globe with just minor deviations to avoid splitting countries in half. It’s at this point that things get interesting. Moving south through the Pacific, over the equator and into the southern hemisphere, we find an increasing concentration of island nations, atolls, archipelagos and overseas territories. These islands have decisions to make in terms of their political and economic allegiances. You might think that being on the same side of the IDL as the USA would be economically advantageous, but this far south in the Pacific, the US mainland is prohibitively distant for such small economies to rely on. Kiribati: A Country in Two Time Zones The IDL next approaches the Republic of Kiribati, an island nation spread over a vast area of the central Pacific. Kiribati is an interesting case, it used to be bisected by the IDL, causing significant inconvenience. To address this, in 1995, Kiribati moved the IDL eastward to include the Line Islands within the same time zone as the rest of the country. This shift meant that the Line Islands, previously among the last places on Earth to see the new day, became the first. The result of this manoeuvre from Kiribati is that the IDL must thread a course keeping the tiny US Howard and Baker islands on its east, cross the equator and take a turn to the east, running parallel with the equator for over 2,000km. It then makes a turn to the north, and once again crosses the equator to encompass the island chains of Kiribati, before returning back to the south and west, all the while ensuring that the islands belonging to the Cook Islands nation and French Polynesia remain on the west of the IDL. The effect is that the IDL forms something resembling a hammerhead shark extending 2977 kilometres to the east that straddles the equator. Island nations spread throughout the Pacific Ocean Just south of the equator, The IDL returns to roughly 170° and heads south once more. The next islands it encounters are Samoa and American Samoa.