Babylonian world map (Imago Mundi)
Mapa del mundo babilónico (Imago Mundi)
- Date
- c. century VI a.C. (copia de un original posiblemente anterior) · confidence medium
- Place
- Sippar (Abu Habba), Baghdad, Iraq
- Credited to
- Babylonian scribes
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What it is
A clay tablet with a circular scheme of the world: Babylon at the centre, the Euphrates, neighbouring lands and an encircling ocean with eight regions beyond. It is the oldest surviving world depiction with a cosmographic purpose.
The tablet (British Museum, BM 92687) is a late copy found at Sippar; the accompanying cuneiform text suggests an earlier original, perhaps 9th century BC. Its exact date and degree of geographic realism are debated.
What it led to
- the Mesopotamian image of the world as a disc ringed by water
- a scheme that would influence later Near Eastern and Greek cosmographies