For nearly one hundred and fifty years, researchers have been trying to understand one of the most famous Mesopotamian artifacts:A picture of the world. It’s done now, the experts The British Museum After providing a solid explanation of the utility of this map drawn three thousand years ago.
There is a bullet in it. soilsoil Apparently very simple, marked with the characteristic logogram The cuneiformCeniform. But on the lower part of the object, a single inscription stands out: we observe a double circle with other inscriptions. Discovered in 1882, archaeologists have been trying to decipher the meaning of the tablet for decades. The persistent efforts of the researchers finally paid off. Professor Irving Finkel, Curator The British MuseumExplained in a video aired on 1.is It was said last August that it would be the world’s first known map, designed in Mesopotamia and, more precisely, Babylon, some 3,000 years ago.
The oldest map of the world. Comments by Irving Finkel © British Museum
Mapping the World in Mesopotamian Antiquity.
When writing appeared around 3300 BC, it gradually spread throughout the ancient city-states of Mesopotamia, marking a change. Rather than being a mere administrative tool, cuneiform writing continued to evolve, improve, and become more complex. Over nearly 200 years, archaeologists have excavated between 500,000 and 2 million tablets from various periods. Among these primary sources, we find mythological stories.The epic Law codes, or even astronomical and astrological treatises composed during the reign of Gilgamesh, Hammurabi and other dynasties.
These examples are only a small fraction of the subjects recorded in writing in Mesopotamia. The entire region is particularly fluid politically, militarily and even socio-economically. At the beginning ofis By the millennium BC, the Middle East was divided into different spheres of influence. From Assyria the Assyrian Empire developed, while Babylon tried to maintain its power despite the influx of Aramean and Chaldean populations. However, this does not stop scientists from trying to define the limits of the known world.
A picture of the world
When archaeologists discovered the tablet in 1882 at Sapar, 60 kilometers north of Babylon, it had been shattered. But by piecing together the fragments, scientists realize that the lower part therefore forms an outline beneath a block of text in Akkadian. In order to understand the map, it was necessary to understand the ancient abbreviations. The latter adopts a mythological and theological reading of the creation of the world by the Babylonian patron god Marduk. Marduk’s importance was such that his statue was sometimes “exiled” when the city was attacked by the neighboring Elamites or Assyrians. The prominent mention of Marduk is an important clue to the tablet’s origin.
The inscriptions in the double circle refer to the “Bitter River”. For years experts have debated the symbolism of this circle. Does it represent the Euphrates or another river? In reality, the reading of this diagram is not purely literal. This circle would represent the world known to the Babylonians at the time of the tablet’s design, around the 8th century.e VIIe Within the 1st century BC circle, rectangles and small circles symbolize waterways, possibly the Euphrates and surrounding cities. The map creates a cosmogony that places Babylon at its center. HistoriansHistorians Then take his name OmgOmg The market. The types of points seen on the outside of the circle give rise to the four cardinal points. So the reading points to the ancient beliefs of Lower Mesopotamia, but this oddity is actually the oldest map ever found.
