Posted on 11/17/2005 5:42:59 PM PST by blam
Archaeologists find western world's oldest map
By Hilary Clarke in Rome
(Filed: 18/11/2005)
The oldest map of anywhere in the western world, dating from about 500 BC, has been unearthed in southern Italy. Known as the Soleto Map, the depiction of Apulia, the heel of Italy's "boot", is on a piece of black-glazed terracotta vase about the size of a postage stamp.
It was found in a dig led by the Belgian archaeologist Thierry van Compernolle, of Montpellier University, two years ago. But its existence was kept secret until more research was carried out.
"The map offers, to date, for the Mediterranean, and more generally for western civilisation, the oldest map of a real space," the university said recently.
Its engraved place names are indicated by points, just as on maps today, and are written in ancient Greek.
The sea on the western side, Taras (Taranto), today's Gulf of Taranto, is named in Greek. But the rest of the map is in Messapian, the ancient tongue of the local tribes, although the script is ancient Greek.
The seas on either side of the peninsula, the Ionian and the Adriatic, are depicted by parallel zig-zag strokes.
Many of the 13 towns marked on the map, such as Otranto, Soleto, Ugento and Leuca (now called Santa Maria di Leuca) still exist.
The map went on public display for the first time this week in the Archaeological National Museum of Taranto.
Apart from being the oldest geographical map from classical antiquity ever found, it is the first material proof that the ancient Greeks were drawing maps of real places before the Romans.
It was known from ancient Greek literature that the concept of a map existed and that some had been drawn but none had been found.
The ancient Chinese had a well-defined system of map-making, but modern cartography descends from techniques laid down by the ancient Greeks.
Most existing classical maps are Roman and date from the period after Christ's birth.
Experts have suggested that the discovery demands not only a reconsideration of the beginnings of ancient cartography, but also of regional history, in particular that of relations between the local population of the Messapian tribes with their neighbours, the Greeks.
The Soleto map also gives vital new clues to the cultural exchange between the newly arrived Greeks and the Messapi.
They lived in the area but probably came originally from Greece as their language is believed to be a dialect of Illyrian.
The Soleto map is a contemporary of the Greek mathematician Pythagoras, who set up a philosophy school in Crotone, now Calabria, on the other side of the Gulf of Taranto.
His hypothesis that the Earth was round, developed after observing that the height of stars was different at different locations and noticing how ships appeared on the horizon, formed the basis of modern map making.
were ox drive cart burning in france then as well
no?
wonder why
GGG Ping.
Josephus, you should know why.
A bit odd to put that much effort (a map and its settings) into something as small as a postage stamp.
500 years BC, and they are decorating postage stamps?
Exaggerated conclusions by the writer. The fact that ONE PERSON figured out part of the puzzle of the round earth didn't everybody (a) either knew about the theory or (b) believed it!
My wife will admit that if she lived in 400 BC and had access to that map ever since, and was still alive today, she still couldn't read the map.
I bet an alien dropped it...
Charles Hapgood: "Ancient Sea Kings"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0932813429/102-3128249-5688904?v=glance&n=283155&v=glance
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/6396/lightfall051.htm
Worth looking at...
The real genius will be trying to fold it back up.
I'll bet it's not folded right
The Ptolemaic system (2nd Century AD) assumes that the earth is a sphere, and that system was widely accepted throughout Europe from ancient times through the middle ages and the Renaissance, until it was replaced by the Copernican system. So I don't know whether peasants knew or cared that the earth was round, but educated people in general did.
I'll bet even back then, the women had to turn it upside down when they were headed south, and the men couldn't refold it properly.
Picture (and accompanying article) found here
Duh, I didn't notice the link I posted (to the Telegraph) was the same one the thread points to. I guess the picture wasn't up yet when the original poster saw the article.
later.
my wife's family comes from Apulia.
Wow, neat, thank you.
Thanks. I'll probably order that book.
Thanks, good work. The picture wasn't there earlier when I posted the article.
I bet you there was a woman in the back of the chariot insisting that her husband look at the damn thing.
Meh. Restroom graffiti-scrawl...
Name & map to her 'house'? On a WALL? Big deal!
I've managed to draw maps in the snow.
Among the other drawbacks, they had to stay where they were until they melted.
Series, though; this hugh find is too 'finished' ...and on a VASE, no less?...to not imply a long tradition of map making.
It somehow seems like finding a 1940s superheterodyne multi-band radio schematic, and concluding that radios were invented circa 1940, ignoring all that MUST go before such a full blown model is possible.
A maps go, it's pretty lousy.
Actually, the myth of the flat Earth being disproved by Columbus was invented during the 19th century. The spherical nature of the Earth was common knowledge at least as early as the classical Greeks. The fact that the shadow of the Earth on the Moon was circular is one thing that tipped 'em off.
Herodotus had a screwy idea about the Sun (seen in his idea about the source of the out-of-season flood of the Nile, described after he described the correct reason and two others), but knew that the Mediterranean and Atlantic connected with the Indian Ocean (and he doesn't differentiate between the Persian Gulf, Red Sea etc, and the Indian Ocean), and he wasn't the discoverer of that fact, merely reported it 2500 years ago.
And kinda heavy and fragile to lug around from town to town. ;')
Here's a Babylonian world map of 600 BC. Let's all be the judge of whether the Greek map was better or worse. :')
http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/Ancient%20Web%20Pages/103.html
Kinda makes ya wonder what the REST of the vase had on it?!
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was it marked "Frah-Jee-Lay" ( I think it's Italian)?
Thanks blam. Great find.
Greek ping list attention.
If you want to be taken off this informal list let me know.
Eleni
The Greeks had been in Sicily for thousands of years. They were there between 2,000-1,000 BC in the Bronze age, and left significant Mycenaean influence.
Oooh. That could make a good standalone topic. Will check it out later. Somewhere in the GGG catalog there are a couple of ancient music topics, at least a couple. One about ancient Korean flutes, the other about Neandertal flutes.
well no, there weren't any Greeks (or Achaens) in 2000 to 1000 BC. The first civilisation in what is now Greece was, as you know, in Crete, though it is debatable if they were ancestors of current Greeks and/or if they were somehow related to the Phoenicians. They did borrow a lot of things from the Phoenicians though, including religious stories and a script. The next 'Greeks' are the Myceneans. But that starts only at 1200 BC and ends around 1000 BC replaced by the Doric Greeks (I still think they more or less replaced the Ionians -- or was it the other way around?). Anyway, the Greek colonies you talk about started only in the 1st millenium before Christ. Ancient, yes, but not as ancient as the middle-eastern civilisations: the Persian, the Babylonian, the Assyrian, the Hittite, the Egyptian, the Sumerian, the Mitanni, the Indus valley etc.
"well no, there weren't any Greeks (or Achaens) in 2000 to 1000 BC."
____________________________________________________
Actually yes. Ancient Greeks lived in Greece about 3,500 years ago.
AS for Greeks "borrowing" from Phoenicia...traditional approaches are being revised. May I suggest you read this regarding who borrowed from whom.
http://www.grecoreport.com/phoenician.htm
As for Sicily----
"Evidence indicates a Mycenean and Minoan presence in certain parts of Sicily, particularly ports along the Ionian coast, before 1400 BC, possibly for trade."
http://www.bestofsicily.com/mag/art153.htm
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