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October 3rd, 2014 
David Schulberg Among the banks of the Euphrates river, a damaged clay tablet discovered in the late 1800’s said to be the oldest map of the world. The damaged clay tablet, now housed at the British Museum dates back to 600BC according to researchers and depicts an early interpretation of our world. With Babylon in the center, the tablet contains a map of the Mesopotamian world.
Cuneiform writing are seen on the tablet which were carefully etched onto the tablet. Babylon is surrounded by two concentric circles that represent the ocean, named “bitter water” or the “salt sea.” It is labeled with Babylon, Assyria, and Elam. Eight triangular areas labeled as “Regions” or “Islands” surround the Salt Sea, and are labeled with distances, descriptions of the regions and their unique characteristics.
The southern marshes are indicated at the bottom of the map by two parallel lines, and a curved line near the top shows the Zagros Mountains. The Euphrates River is shown running from the mountains above, through Babylon, to the marshes below. Within the center of the map are seven labelled areas that appear to represent cities. Due to damage the tablet has suffered, it appears that three islands are missing from the lower corner. Other than that the tablet seem well preserved and it proudly wears the title as one of the oldest maps of the ancient world to have been discovered.
Map of the World
Three of the islands are labeled as:
- “place of the rising sun”
- “the sun is hidden and nothing can be seen”
- “beyond the flight of birds”
1.“Mountain” (Akkadian: šá-du-ú)
2. “City” (Akkadian: uru)
3. Urartu (Akkadian: ú-ra-áš-tu)
4. Assyria (Akkadian: kuraš+šurki)
5. Der (Akkadian: dēr)
6. Unknown
7. Swamp (Akkadian: ap-pa-ru)
8. Elam (Akkadian: šuša)
9. Canal (Akkadian: bit-qu)
10. Bit Yakin (Akkadian: bῑt-ia-᾿-ki-nu)
11. “City” (Akkadian: uru)
12. Habban (Akkadian: ha-ab-ban)
13. Babylon (Akkadian: tin.tirki), divided by Euphrates
14 – 17. Ocean (salt water, Akkadian: idmar-ra-tum)
18- 22. Mythological objects
according to researchers, the maps was actually intended to depict all of Earths continents, It is unique in its inclusion of the islands beyond the ocean since all other maps that have been discovered were localized to the area in which they were created due to the fact that at that time the oceans were considered the end of all the lands.
Source Article from http://www.ancient-code.com/babylonian-map-world/
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