08-03-2004, 05:37 AM
I'd like to point out just a tangential piece of information, even though it is not a real evidence.<br>
During the second half of Middle Age, it was in common use among Mediterranean sailors a kind of map called 'portulan', which featured Europe with the main mediterranean ports and marked with lines the shortest routes joining them for aligning the ship with a compass. The shores are closely packed with names of harbours, but the inner lands are mostly devoid of details and filled with decorative figures and banners... Totally non-Roman!<br>
BUT<br>
The shapes of Europe, Near Asia and North Africa are remarkably exact, even close to modern standards but the really curious thing is that the exactitude abruptly disappears when the map trespasses the borders of the former Roman Empire. The most striking thing is that the shape of Great Britain is accurate until Hadrian's wall line, Scotland is as sketchy and unaccuratedly depicted as Ireland or Denmark!<br>
There is a theory which tries to explain this odd fact resorting to a now lost Roman map, from which only the contour had been once copied for maritime use and that copy had survived and been re-copied until the late Medieval period.<br>
It is clear that Romans hadn't enough technology as to trace even barely accurate maps from the sea but they could trace them from the land! Roman land surveyors were excellent, their surviving grids of agricultural fields are strikingly exact when viewed from the air, and they could probably trace much better maps than the Peutinger map (What would they say of our surveying techniques if, for instance, only the train or bus maps of our big cities would survive?<br>
IMHO, Romans could trace exact maps from lands, but only after conquering and colonizing them.<br>
<br>
Aitor <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=aitoririarte>Aitor Iriarte</A> at: 8/3/04 7:44 am<br></i>
During the second half of Middle Age, it was in common use among Mediterranean sailors a kind of map called 'portulan', which featured Europe with the main mediterranean ports and marked with lines the shortest routes joining them for aligning the ship with a compass. The shores are closely packed with names of harbours, but the inner lands are mostly devoid of details and filled with decorative figures and banners... Totally non-Roman!<br>
BUT<br>
The shapes of Europe, Near Asia and North Africa are remarkably exact, even close to modern standards but the really curious thing is that the exactitude abruptly disappears when the map trespasses the borders of the former Roman Empire. The most striking thing is that the shape of Great Britain is accurate until Hadrian's wall line, Scotland is as sketchy and unaccuratedly depicted as Ireland or Denmark!<br>
There is a theory which tries to explain this odd fact resorting to a now lost Roman map, from which only the contour had been once copied for maritime use and that copy had survived and been re-copied until the late Medieval period.<br>
It is clear that Romans hadn't enough technology as to trace even barely accurate maps from the sea but they could trace them from the land! Roman land surveyors were excellent, their surviving grids of agricultural fields are strikingly exact when viewed from the air, and they could probably trace much better maps than the Peutinger map (What would they say of our surveying techniques if, for instance, only the train or bus maps of our big cities would survive?<br>
IMHO, Romans could trace exact maps from lands, but only after conquering and colonizing them.<br>
<br>
Aitor <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=aitoririarte>Aitor Iriarte</A> at: 8/3/04 7:44 am<br></i>
It\'s all an accident, an accident of hands. Mine, others, all without mind, from one extreme to another, but neither works nor will ever.
Rolf Steiner
Rolf Steiner
