07/10/2020
MAPS
For thousands of years, sailors and explorers have navigated land and sea in the quest to discover new lands and their secrets. The history of cartography is a long and complicated story, determined by your country, status and religion. Let's start at the begining...
The earliest world maps date back to the 6th Century BCE (2,600 years ago) and are based on the flat Earth paradigm. T and O maps were popular at this time, showing Europe, Asia and Libya surrounded by ocean. These maps were created by Greek mathematicians and geographers (which is why Athens tends to be depicted in the centre).
China was first depicted in European maps during the Roman Empire (c. 120 BCE).
In around 150 CE, Greek geographer Ptolemy was one of the first cartographers to use a projection implying the world was curved. His writings spoke of a sphere shape.
The use of T and O maps continued into the Medieval era with an increasing religious influence. Generally, Asia would be depicted at the top of the map, as the sun rises in the east, and Jerusalem was at the centre.
The Martellus World Map, produced in 1490, contained fine details discovered from Portuguese explorers The race to map the world was on, with Columbus at the forefront of exploration. In 1492, the first globe was created, unfortunately, just a year too early...
After the discovery of America in 1492, many new maps were produced with many differing ideas of how these new lands connected to Asia. The Age of Discovery was upon us!
The second oldest printed representation of the New World was by Johannes Ruysch in 1507. Ptolemy's conical projection was used along with combined details from Spanish and Portuguese expeditions.
The first atlas depicting all known lands (including all of Australia) was published in 1630 and shows the world as two hemispheres (east and west). In 1658, Nicholaes Visscher elaborated on this style of atlas by publishing details of the poles.
The art of cartography is not extinct. Now we use radar, sonar, laser and optic technology to map the deepest ocean floors and other planets in our solar system.
