Ancient maps

[Epictetus]

I think old maps are fascinating. They show how people visualise the space around them, or how they graphically make use of information for specific uses.

I know of the Severan Marble Map that dates to the early third century. Then there is the Peutinger map, which is a Medieval copy of a source which could ultimately date back to the time of Augustus.

Besides these two, does anyone know of any other surviving ancient maps?

[Arminius Primus]

Ave Fratres,

I believe there is a thread that covers at least one more map. I think it is mostly of the black sea area. Tried the search function and rapidly got nowhere , either too many returns or none. Obviously using the wrong search terms....... If my poor memory serves me right, this map was once thought to be a shield design but later investigation pointed to a wall hanging of sorts. The posts on this thread had images that included some funky sea monsters or fish or something similar. I distinctly remember that the Greek settlement was indicated that later became Odessa. The map may have been from Dura Europos but couldn't find a reference way too many returns on a Dura search.

....and the map issue is a good one to consider, as that gives a person a good sense for the feeling of how the ancients saw their place in the larger world.

Regards from a very sunny and unseasonably warm Balkans

Arminius Primus aka Al

[Rumo]

Tabula Peutingeriana is not a map as we understand it today, but a road map. I am not sure the information dates from the time of Augustus, what can be reasonably be held is that the archetype of this map was created after the Trajanic conquest of Dacia but some speculations based on the names along the roads could set a terminus ante quem, too. Many names have nice parallels in Ptolemy's Geographia (a work which probably had a real map attached, but that was lost so we only have now the list of geographical features and settlements and their coordinates). Tabula Peutingeriana can be double-checked with Ravenna Cosmography, too, as apparently they drew the information from the same source road-map.

[Epictetus]

The "tapestry map" sounds really familiar to me too, but I can't find anything via google or the site's search functions.

I've read the Peutinger map described as being similar to a modern subway map, which I thought was a good analogy. On a more general level it is interesting that someone would take the time to make such a large road map, when long-distance travel would probably have been safer and quicker via water.

[Rumo]

Here's the RAT thread on Dura Europos map. Unortunately I cannot see the pics, but there's a nice bibliography.

For many people moving in the Roman Empire the road network was unavoidable. A nice overview you'll find in the volume edited by Colin Adams and Ray Laurence, Travel and Geography in the Roman Empire.

[Arminius Primus]

Ave Fratres,

Yes , That is the thread!

The graphics come up for me , but I know IT systems get weird when you need them !They are both a boon and a modern curse.

I had always hoped it was a shield cover. But everyone seemed to just accept that it was a map fragment after all. Still..... even as a map the perspective is unique. Thanks for finding it. This time I am going to save the images.

Regards from a cold and blustery Balkans,

Arminius Primus aka Al

[Epictetus]

I stumbled across this gem that has a multitude of examples: Harley, The History of Cartography, 1987.

The book discusses the Dura Europos on page 249, and there is an image on 250.

[Rumo]

You're right! Most images do come up. I was discouraged by the red X (in some other contexts it's a signal there's no image available) but also when I clicked on "mapupclose.jpg" I got a "selected attachment does not exist anymore" message.
The other images are available, and I saved them, too.

This study persuaded me there's no "shield map".

[szaboa_22]

which is a Medieval copy of a source which could ultimately date back to the time of Augustus.

The Tabula Peutingeriana is not dated to Augustus, it is dated to the middle of the third century A.D. according to the Dacian fortlets and cities it shows...but even the fact it shows Dacia provincia rules out the era of Augustus as the time of the creation of the map.

[Epictetus]

The theory is that the map was a compilation from multiple sources dating over hundreds of years. Sorry, my post isn't really clear on that point. I mentioned the time of Augustus because the theory is that the oldest source dates to Marcus Agrippa. Also, the town of Pompeii is on the map as well as a kingdom in the Alps that disappeared after 63, so this dates one source quite earlier than others.

Jona Lendering has a very nice article about it.

[Rumo]

That is only what some scholars assumed. To be sure we know very little of the map of Agrippa. Benet Salway wrote in the aforementioned volume (p. 29): "it seems unlikely that roads were depicted in maps of this type" and "the Porticus Vipsania map and its kin cannot serve as plausible archetypes for the lists in the Antonine Itinerary or the routes on the Peutinger table". An assumedly odd ratio of the map of Agrippa or the account of Pliny on Spain (where Agrippa's map is invoked for distances, but not on roads!) do not prove the case.

The name of Cottius in segment 2 (Cotti Regnum) seems to me not different from name of Alexander in segment 11. Moreover this Cottius and his kingdom were mentioned by later authors, for instance, they show in the history of Cassius Dio, 60.4, which is an early 3rd century work.

Pompeii is a different case because it's also a node in the road network.

[Epictetus]

Good information. Thanks.

But I assume you mean Cassius Dio 60.24?

Marcus Julius Cottius received an addition to his ancestral domain, which lay in that part of the Alps that bears his family name, and he was now for the first time called king.

I didn't see anything under 60.4.

[Rumo]

Yes, you're right, it's 60.24.

I also forgot to mention that for Benet Salway the original map which later was copied as TP was not an imperial map, but the result of a private initiative, a compilation (reaching the final form around 350 CE) of itinerary data (not all up-to-date, that's why we have cities like Pompeii), rooted in travel experience.

Besides milestones along the public roads there were these tabellaria. Check CIL XI, 3284: A Gadibus Roma(m) / Ad Portu(m) XXIIII / Hasta XVI / Ugiae XXVII / Orippo XXIIII / Hispali VIIII etc.or the most impressive base of a statue of Claudius, discovered at Patara, showing all routes of the new province Lycia (SEG 44.1205/1994): http://books.google.com/books?id=W9dEaFMqSUQC&pg=PT24