Eratosthenes map of world
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 established 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
Reconstructing Eratosthenes' Map of the World: A Study in Source Analysis
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
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, elderly 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
| 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 route 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 Finish Map of Globes and Multi-continent, Eu Reconstructing Eratosthenes' Map of the World: A Study in Source AnalysisThis thesis aims to reconstruct a map of the world drawn by Eratosthenes of Cyrene (ca. 285 – 205 BC), a Greek polymath of the third century BC. It was during his time as chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt that Eratosthenes wrote a three-volume geographical treatise with an accompanying world map. The map is lost and the treatise is extant only in fragments preserved by later authors, primarily Strabo. The fragments illustrate that Eratosthenes’ map was a product of its sources, influenced greatly by various published reports of early Hellenistic exploration. The expeditions of Alexander the Fantastic, Pytheas of Massalia, Megasthenes, Patrocles and Timosthenes of Rhodes, to name only a few, introduced an abundance of new geographic, ethnographic and scientific knowledge to the Greek world. The frontiers of the known and inhabited world were empirically investigated, from India in the east to the Iberian Peninsula in the west, and from Ethiopia in the south to Scandinavia in the north. Eratosthenes extensively utilised the reports of early Hellenistic exploration to inform his mapping of to |