Eratosthenes' map and modern similarities. SRS cartography antique maps. Discovery of Australia and Antarctica
Geographic maps were created and improved over two millennia by measuring the coordinates of an increasing number of points on the Earth's surface. The “blank spots” between known objects were filled with pictures based on the stories of travelers, as well as drawings from nature. Gradually the maps became more and more detailed and accurate. The appearance of the Earth, its parts, and localities was reflected in drawings, paintings, diagrams, and blueprints.
Ancient Greek geographers distinguished only two parts of the world - Europe and Asia. At that time, Europe included the countries located to the north and west of, and Asia included the eastern territories. During the period of Roman rule on the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, the name of the third part of the world - Africa - appeared on maps.
In Figure 4 on p. 33 shows the map of Eratosthenes. He created it according to his ideas about the populated part of the land around the Mediterranean (Inland) Sea: Southern Europe, and the western part of Asia. To compile his map, Eratosthenes used the coordinates of a dozen points. The meridians on it are drawn not at equal intervals, but through certain points, for example through Alexandria, Carthage. Parallels are also drawn. Nevertheless, the grid of parallels and meridians allowed Eratosthenes, using known distances, to correctly show the relative positions of continents, mountains, rivers and cities.
Another great ancient Greek scientist, Ptolemy (2nd century AD), compiled an even more accurate map, using the geographic coordinates of eight thousand points. His cards were considered the best at that time. So much ground damage was applied to them geographical objects that one might think that land occupies almost the entire earth's surface. Nevertheless, detailed detailed images of the Earth's surface were worth their weight in gold among the Greek seafarers. An accurate depiction of the coastline was vital to them. After all, ships that went on long voyages to unknown shores risked without proper detailed map crash on rocks and reefs.
Cities, roads and rivers on ancient maps
No less than sailors, merchants traveling to overseas countries on trade matters needed accurate maps. They needed to know exactly where they stood big cities with rich fairs and bazaars. The cards gave them the information they needed. Such settlements- large centers of trade - were shown on them: with reduced images of the walls of a fortress, city or gate. The number of inhabitants was not indicated on ancient maps.
Fresh water has always been of particular value to travelers.
As you know, its main source is rivers. Therefore, large waterways were shown on maps along with cities located on the banks. Still, most maps of that time were inaccurate. The followers of Eratosthenes, creating them on the basis of rumors and approximate descriptions of travelers, designated the rivers as they pleased, with some kind of winding lines, or even showed only the direction of the flow. Therefore, the exact location of many rivers was unknown to people.
There were far fewer waterways in the Mediterranean at that time than caravan trade routes. Most merchants preferred to transport their goods by land. The very first roads were built in the 4th millennium BC. e. In states Ancient world the construction of roads was very important due to the need to carry out campaigns of conquest and organize trade. Roads with stone covering existed in the Hittite kingdom, Assyria, and the Achaemenid empire.
The Roman Empire had a developed network of roads. In modern times, certain sections of the ancient tracts have still been preserved. This was facilitated not only by the caring attitude of Italians towards monuments ancient culture, but also a favorable climate.
Ancient geographical maps of the strangest shapes
The first geographical maps appeared on Earth almost simultaneously with the emergence of human drawing skills. True, these were not exactly maps, but their distant prototypes, but one thing is clear: as soon as a person began to move long distances, he began to try to comprehend his movement and, possessing a natural spatial sense, tried to display this in drawings. Maps in the form more or less familiar to us appeared much later, but also incredibly long ago - even before our era.
Initially, the “ancestors” of cards looked like schematic drawings on the walls of caves, dwellings, ancient dishes (for example, plates), and stone slabs.
For example, this “star” fresco, found by archaeologists, was created in ancient Jordan and, according to scientists, is a cosmological map. In the center are the "known world", "first ocean", "second world" and "second ocean". From eight points, which most likely symbolized the islands, were located the “transcendent world” and the “celestial ocean.” The rectangle located at the bottom right, according to historians, is not relevant - it is a drawing of some building (possibly a temple).
The oldest map of the world
One of the first surviving maps that scientists know about is considered to be an ancient relic found in Iraq. This map, which became very famous and influenced people's ideas about the world, was created in Babylon.
The world on it is depicted as flat, round, and its center is, as you might guess, Babylon itself. The image, found on a piece of clay slab, dates back to the 7th century BC.
Anaximander was ahead of his time
A real breakthrough in the field of geography and cartography occurred when the map compiled by Anaximander of Miletus (610 - 540 BC) appeared. He imagined the earth in the form of an oval, which stretches from east to west.
Anaximander, whom Aristotle himself respected and considered a great sage, was not only a geographer, but also an astronomer. He tried to compare the Earth with other cosmic objects, and also thought a lot about the origin of the Universe, coming to the conclusion that it is born, reaches the peak of its development, dies, and then is reborn again.
Neither the world map itself, drawn by Anaximander, nor its copies have survived to this day, but Herodotus wrote that the ancient scientist depicted the world on it in the form of a drum, around which the ocean is located.
Information has also reached our days about the map of Hecataeus of Miletus, who lived around the same period, but a little later. According to it, the world consists of three parts - Europe, Asia and Libya. All three “continents” are located around the Mediterranean Sea. His map was made based on data from Anaximander.
The priest-encyclopedist Isidore of Seville depicted this idea of the world very similarly in his work “Etymology” (7th century). The "T" shape represents the sea, and the "O" shape represents the ocean. And Africa is already here.
Schematic and accessible: T - sea, O - ocean. Historians call this type of map “T-O”
The father of geography (in fact, he was the first to introduce this term) is considered Eratosthenes, who in the 2nd century BC. wrote a three-volume work, which was called “Geography”. It indicated that the earth has the shape of a ball, and the scientist confirmed this statement with his mathematical calculations. Alas, this work has not reached modern scientists in its original form - it is known from retellings of Roman authors. The map of Eratosthenes has also not survived, but it had an invaluable influence on the research of medieval geographers.
By the way, it was Eratosthenes who was the first to designate meridians on maps - however, these designations were not yet so accurate. And it was he who divided the world into five climate zones.
The most interesting ancient maps
But this map was created in the 400s BC by the historian Herodotus:
The map of Pomponius Mela, the earliest Roman geographer who created the scientific work Descriptive Geography, divides the Earth into five zones, three of which are uninhabited. Mela believed that the southern lands of our planet were inaccessible to the northerners, since they were separated from the temperate latitudes by an arid territory of unbearable heat.
Like many of his predecessors, he considered the Caspian Sea to be a bay of the Northern Ocean. And this is no wonder, because in 43, when Pomponius Mela created his work, most of our planet was unexplored.
Another interesting find, a mosaic map, discovered in Madaba (Jordan) during archaeological excavations of the early Christian temple of St. George, represents ancient Jerusalem. The panel was made around the 6th century. It depicts churches and other buildings. They are shown so realistically that modern scientists have even been able to identify them - for example, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher located in the center is clearly visible. According to scientists, this is the most old map Holy Land.
Ptolemy's map as a guide for posterity
The great scientist from Alexandria, Claudius Ptolemy, did a great deal of work. Around 150, he compiled a map of the world, which was accompanied by about 30 separate, more detailed maps. The entire treatise was called "Manual of Geography."
Ptolemy outlined the location of even very remote zones - from Egypt to the Scandinavian lands and from the Atlantic to Indochina. This relic was discovered many centuries later and for a long time, right up to the era of geographical discoveries, it was the main cartographic document for travelers and scientists. It was subsequently improved.
Continents such as Asia, Europe and Africa became more formalized on the revised map, and instead of Babylon, Jerusalem was indicated as the center of the world.
Ptolemy's map is divided into equal parts by parallels and meridians. The Mediterranean zone and the Middle East are depicted more or less correctly, but as Ptolemy moves further south, Ptolemy's knowledge of other lands becomes more vague. For example, he designates the Indian Ocean as an inland sea, and the unexplored part of the African continent in the south expands and surrounds it, connecting with Asia. There are no ideas about Antarctica yet - it is an “unexplored land”. Well, Asia, in his opinion, was so huge that it even occupied the territory on which, as it turned out many years later, the Pacific Ocean was located.
Recently, the University of Chicago digitized all the ancient maps and published a six-volume work on the history of geography and cartography with explanations. This large-scale project on ancient cartography began in the 1980s and, perhaps, it will still be supplemented by new archaeological and historical finds.
Eratosthenes was the first to measure the size of our planet. Traveling around Neil, Eratosthenes noticed that on June 22, in the southern city of Aswan, the sun's rays fell vertically. The sun illuminates the bottom of deep wells, palm trees do not cast shadows. On the same day, in the city of Alexandria, located to the north, the sun's rays fall at an angle. Eratosthenes was able to measure this angle, equal to 7°12".
This value is 1/50 of the circle that contains 360°. This means that if you measure the distance between Aswan and Alexandria and multiply it by 50, you can find out the circumference of the entire Earth. Eratosthenes determined the distance by knowing how many days and at what speed it took trade camel caravans to cover it. The circumference of the Earth was 39,500 km. Eratosthenes' calculations turned out to be very accurate: The circumference of the Earth is 40,000 km.Material from the site
Eratosthenes Map
Eratosthenes compiled the first map of the world known at that time, taking into account the sphericity of the Earth. This map, as well as Ptolemy’s map of the world, created approximately 500 years later, was used by many generations of travelers.
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He created the first geographical map of the world in 240 BC. e. Ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, astronomer and geographer Eratosthenes of Cyrene(c. 276 - 194 BC). The geographical map of Eratosthenes gives an approximate geographical idea of the location of cities and countries of the ancient world. Eratosthenes was born in Cyrene (North Africa), and educated in Alexandria and Athens. Eratosthenes of Cyrene was the tutor of the crown prince at the court of the king of Egypt, Ptolemy III Euergetes of the Ptolemaic dynasty, and was in charge of the Library of Alexandria around 225 BC. e., and compiled a catalog starry sky, noting 675 fixed stars in it.
Eratosthenes of Cyrene founded a scientific system of chronology in which dates were counted from the time of the conquest of Troy. He proposed introducing one extra day into the calendar every 4 years to coordinate the calendar with the movement of the Sun.
Inscribed by the hand of Eratosthenes geographic map from the ancient world has not reached us, but it can be fairly accurately recreated from surviving descriptions. The geographical points through which the mapmaker drew parallels and meridians are well known, and what the distance between the parallels and meridians was in the Egyptian stages. 
Among the astronomical works of Eratosthenes, the most famous are the first measurement of the arc of the earth's meridian, the determination of the circumference of the Earth in 240 BC. e., and calculated the distance from the Earth to the Sun and Moon. To do this, Eratosthenes carried out measurements, finding out the height of the Sun at the time of the summer solstice, and measured the distance between the cities of Syene (in the south of Egypt) and Alexandria, which lie approximately on the same meridian. Eratosthenes knew that the Earth was a sphere, and calculated its circumference in Egyptian stages. According to Eratosthenes' calculations, the circumference of the Earth is 250,000 stadia. It is known that one Egyptian stage is equal to 157.7 meters. 
As a result of calculations using Eratosthenes' map, the circumference of the Earth was 39,690 km; in fact, he was wrong by only 319 km, making the Earth's circumference smaller than it actually was. Summarizing the stories of contemporary travelers of the ancient world, Eratosthenes of Cyrene estimated the length of Eurasia from west to east at 11,000 km, gave a geographical description of the ecumene - the entire then known world, and came to the conclusion: “If it were not for the enormous size of the ocean surrounding our ecumene, it would be possible, sailing west, to reach India.” 
1. Eratosthenes made the island of Rhodes his starting point, and he called all the countries south of Rhodes “southern”, and the countries north of Rhodes “northern”.
2. In the Library of Alexandria, Eratosthenes made all his discoveries and left his works.
3. Having measured the distance between Alexandria and Syene (Aswan), Eratosthenes took measurements of the height of the Sun at the moment of the summer solstice and calculated the length of the meridian.
4. Eratosthenes knew that one of the branches of the Danube flows into the Adriatic Sea. The Thracian name for the Danube is “Istr”, lat. Istros or Hister.
5. Eratosthenes considered the extreme western point of Europe to be the Sacred Cape (Sao Vicente), the southwestern point of modern Portugal.
6. The Strait of Gibraltar, known in the ancient world as the Pillars of Heracles, according to Eratosthenes, was formed during the Trojan War.
7. The northernmost point of the earth where the ancient Greeks visited, presumably Thule, is located on the coast of Norway. Eratosthenes considered the lands located north of Thule unsuitable for life.
8. Eratosthenes marked the border of Europe and Asia along the Tanais River (Don River). The lower reaches of the Don are still considered the border between Europe and Asia today.
9. The ancient Greeks thought that the Caspian Sea was a gulf of the Northern Ocean.
10. At the latitude of the island of Taprobane (the island of Sri Lanka), according to Eratosthenes, it is so hot that the southern part of the island is uninhabited.
