Eratosthenes map of world
Reconstructing Eratosthenes' Map of the World: A Study in Source Analysis
Cartography-in Companion to Mediterranean History ed Horden and Konoshita
Emilie Savage-Smith
A Companion to Mediterranan History, 2014
Chapter twelve: Maps illustrating the Mediterranean Sea that have been preserved today from antiquity and the medieval period were not intended to be used as a modern map might be. For the most part, they were theological maps, or historical narratives, or entertainments, or plans for dreams of ambitious rulers. In other words, these early maps provided visuality to larger schemes of power and position. It was not until the rise of portolans that maps reflected maritime travel narratives, and, even then, most extant portolans are vivid and highly decorative statements of power and dominion and not guides for sailors. As such, they, like all maps from the earliest examples to Google Earth, have a great deal to tell us about the way the world-or in this case the Mediterranean-was conceived in political as well as practical terms. Although the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy (d. c. 168 Ce) composed a detailed and technical book on world maps, with instructions for variou
Description: A facsimile of the world map by Eratosthenes (around 220 BC). Eratosthenes is the ancient Greek mathematician and geographer attributed with devising the first system of Latitude and Longitude. He was also the first know person to calculate the circumference of the earth. This is a facsimile of the map he produced based on his calculations. The map shows the routes of exploration by Nearchus from the mouth of the Indus River (325 BC, after the expedition to India by Alexander the Great), and Pytheas (300 BC) to Britannia. Place names include Hellas (Greece), Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea), Mare Caspium (Caspian Sea), Gades (Cadiz), Columnæ Herculis (Gibraltar), Taprobane (Sri Lanka), Iberes (Iberian peninsula), Ierne (Ireland), and Brettania (Britain), the rivers Ister (Danube), Oxus (Amu Darya), Ganges, and Nilus (Nile), and mountain systems. The map shows his birthplace in Libya (Cyrene), the Egyptian cities of Alexandria and Syene (Aswan) where Eratosthenes made his calculations of the earth's circumference, and the latitudes and longitudes of several locations based on his measurements in stadia.
Place Names: A Complete Map of Globes and Multi-continent, Eu
Meaning Lab
I’m flying to Vietnam this week, where I’ll be based for the next four months. I had big plans for how I was going to get way ahead on my writing during the holidays. That didn’t happen. So I’m offering myself, without judgment, the clemency of reposting an essay from the archives. Luckily, I’ve been meaning to post this one for a while. It’s one of my favorites. Back when I lived in Cambridge, MA, I walked into a store selling defunct street signs, old maps, and logistically-themed antiquities of that nature. I was rifling through a bin when I saw it. I recognized it instantly from my studies—“that’s a cognitive map!” It was the Map of Eratosthenes. (A version of this essay was originally published in Nautilus.)
“The world is all that is the case.” —Ludwig Wittgenstein
In the first half of the sixth century BCE, a Greek man named Anaximander, born in Turkey, sketched the world in a way no one had previously thought to do.
It featured a circle, divided into three equal parts. He labeled those parts Europe, Asia, and Libya, and separated them by the great waterways of the Nile, the Phasis river, and the Mediterranean. To call it a map would perhaps be a bit
Digital Maps of the Ancient World
Eratosthenes’ Map
Eratosthenes (276–194 BC), a polymath of antiquity, stands as a beacon in the history of cartography, having drawn an advanced world map that synthesized insights from the expansive campaigns of Alexander the Great and his successors. His map was a revolutionary step, particularly in enlarging Asia to align with the newfound understanding of its actual size.
Remarkably, Eratosthenes wasn’t just a mapmaker; he was the first to introduce parallels and meridians into the realm of cartography, a groundbreaking realization affirming his grasp of the Earth’s spherical nature. In his magnum opus, the three-volume “Geography,” Eratosthenes not only described but meticulously mapped the entirety of his known world.
His contributions didn’t stop at representation; Eratosthenes ingeniously divided the Earth into five climate zones—an intellectual leap that showcased his profound understanding of geography. From the freezing zones around the poles to the temperate zones and the equator-tropics region, his categorization laid the groundwork for comprehending global climatic variations.
Eratosth