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I. Cartography [German version] A. Definition In the following, ‘maps’ are defined as graphic representations with the purpose of easing the understanding of spatial-geographical concepts. The extent to which Greeks and Roman produced and used maps has been the subject of controversy in recent times, not least, because it touches on the wider question of how far we can safely assume that our own cultural attitudes and expectations were shared by classical antiquity. Talbert, Richard (Chapel Hill, NC) [German version] B. The concept of maps It is obvious that antiquity had no con…

[English version] Maps - in the broader sense of graphical representations facilitating spatial understanding - were made by the Greeks and the Romans in many forms since early times. The assumption - still detectable in novels and films - that maps played in those cultures a role comparable to their function in our contemporary world is widespread. However, recent research is skeptical about this. It assumes that the maps used by the Greeks and the Romans were only rarely relevant for the organiz…

[German version] I. Ancient Orient and Egypt The oldest sources for the geography of Mesopotamia consist of topographical lists (3rd millennium BC), of which one lists a total of 289 eastern and central Mesopotamian places. Clay plates from the 3rd to the 1st millennium BC occasionally show schematised city maps with labels (Babylon, Nippur, Uruk, Sippar) as well as regional area maps (Nuzi, Tellō, Nippur, Euphratis region, Sippar). These were probably created in the context of land surveying. A world map exists which is unique in its central orientation towards Babylon ( c. 5th cent.…