The oldest map of the world is the best and easiest way to chart the course of humanity throughout the many centuries of interesting history.
Humans have been making maps for countless thousands of years. These tools are some of the oldest modes of communication that mankind has ever used and even predated written language. However, only a handful of the maps made during the earlier times managed to survive.
The good news is that some of them still exist to this day, including the examples drawn from different places and periods. These ancient maps give people a glimpse of the diverse and fascinating ways that the early ancestors identified their locations in the world.
These maps that went through development and improvement through the years showcase the ever-changing thoughts and beliefs of the human race, with some of them even serving as great indicators of civilizations and cultures.
Table of Contents:
Anaximander’s World
Anaximander, the Milesian philosopher in Greece, pursued the goal of mapping the entirety of the world. Although his original work was already lost in history, several scholars have attempted to reconstruct it with the use of the descriptions from Herodotus, the historian.
This was circular and flat similar to a disc with the ocean surrounding it. The centre is filled with the three land masses of Asia, Europe, and Libya with the Black and Mediterranean Seas and the Nile River separating them.
One of the oldest maps of the world is a map of Milesian Hecateus, who was was an early Greek historian and geographer.
The philosopher is often dubbed as among the founders of Geography together with his fellow Milesian Hecataeus who enhanced the map further with even more details.
Australian Songlines
Several prehistoric cultures came up with less conventional kinds of maps. The Indigenous People of Australia perceived their world in the so-called songlines. These are oral maps that were based on the landscape’s sacred features.
Songlines are the Aboriginal walking routes that crossed the country, linking important sites and locations. Sonlines are oral country and city maps and pathways of knowledge that crisscross the continent.
For starters, these maps record the traditional beliefs regarding the Dreamtime, which is a mythological era during which the world that people see and live in now has been shaped by the ancestors of different living creatures.
