Antique Paper & Ephemera

Maps have been around for dozens of centuries.  It’s rather mind-boggling to think about how our ancestors were so accurate in their depictions.  It is only proof that humans have always been intelligent and resourceful.  The earliest drawn map ever discovered dates back to the ancient Babylonians.  It’s sometimes referred to as “the world’s first map”, and it was discovered in modern Iraq in 1930.  It’s estimated to be nearly 3,000 years old!

Since then, cultures from around the world began drawing maps.  As the centuries passed, maps became larger and more detailed.  Sometimes historic maps had strange things drawn on them, such as unidentified objects in the sky, “creatures” in the sea, and even land masses that were never known to exist.  Were the ancients just using their imaginations, or did they know things about the world that we can only guess at?

Historic maps, for the most part, only depicted three continents at the most: Europe, Asia, and Africa.  Sometimes Jerusalem would be drawn exactly in the center.  The middle ages was a time for Christian maps, Anglo-Saxon maps, Indian maps, Arabic maps, Native American tribal maps, etc.  The Chinese, however, were usually ahead of the world with their map-making capabilities.  They had developed advanced map-making capabilities during the time of Ancient Rome.  By the time the rest of Asia, Europe and the Middle East caught up, the Chinese already had many maps drawn with considerable detail.  When the continents began trading with one another, Chinese maps would often come in handy.

Although many of the earliest antique world maps were drawn flat, round world maps have been made for centuries. One of the earliest world globes is the Martin Behaim Globe, which was produced in 1492.  North and South America were not shown on it, since its completion was done before Christopher Columbus’s fated journey.

Thanks to modern technology, we can now recreate historic maps in great detail.  Replicas of historic maps are now made and sold.  Some collectors even go so far as to buy antique world maps themselves — the real things!  Our fascination with maps has lasted for dozens of centuries, and because of our curious nature, we’ll continue making maps and globes for centuries to come.

Tags: About, Ancient, Maps

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 15th, 2010 at 10:34 pm and is filed under antique map. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.