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Name : Babylonian Map of the World ( " Imago Mundi " in Latin )
What it is : A clay pad scratch with the oldest jazz map of the ancient mankind
The map depicts how Babylonians perceived the world thousands of years ago.
Where it is from : Abu Habba ( Sippar ) , an ancient Babylonian city in what is now Iraq
When it was made : roughly the sixth century B.C.
concern : Ancient Egyptian headland cones : inscrutable headgear that could be pertain to sensuality and fertility ritual
What it tells us about the past tense :
This tablet , which portray how Babylonians perceived the world thousands of old age ago , is peppered with details that offer perceptiveness into an former sentence . For example , the ancient world is shown as a singular disc , which is encircled by a anchor ring of water send for the Bitter River . At the globe ’s center sits the Euphrates River and the ancient Mesopotamian metropolis ofBabylon . Labels written in cuneiform , an ancient textual matter , mark each position on the map , accord toThe British Museum .
Interestingly , map maker may have used some creative license . For instance , " Babylon " is mark on only one end of the Euphrates , even though it occupied both banks for most of its chronicle .
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Above the map is a block of text describing the founding of the world by Marduk , the primary graven image of Babylonia . The verbal description name calling more than a dozen animals — include a mountain caprine animal , lion , Panthera pardus , hyena and wolf — as well as several noted rulers , such as Utnapishtim , a queen who live anepic flood .
On the back of the map is more text describing eight outlying neighborhood , known as nagu , each with a short verbal description .
The tab , which measures 4.8 inches tall by 3.2 inches wide ( 12.2 by 8.2 centimeter ) , is part of The British Museum ’s permanent collection .
