The oldest map of the world has been deciphered – it is a Babylonian inscription almost 3000 years old

British Museum In his video he announced that the oldest map of the world had been deciphered in a Babylonian inscription almost 3000 years oldT.

The tablet, dating back to the 6th century BC, depicts map of mesopotamia – roughly where modern-day Iraq is – and what the Babylonians believed to be beyond the then-known world. The ancient artifact, discovered in the Middle East, was acquired by the British Museum in 1882 but remained a mystery until recently, when curators found a missing piece and deciphered its cuneiform writing.

Map of Mesopotamia

The inscription consists of several paragraphs of cuneiform on the back and above a map-diagram describing the creation of the Earth and what its author believed existed beyond it. On the map, Mesopotamia is surrounded by a double ring, which the ancient scribe called “Bitter River”which created a border around the world known to the Babylonians.

Inside “Bitter River” The small circles and rectangles represent various Mesopotamian cities and tribes, including Babylon, and the other rectangle represents the Euphrates River.

“You are limited to this circular diagram – the entire known world in which people lived, prospered and died,” says British Museum curator and cuneiform expert Dr Irving Finkel in the video.However, there is more to this map,” he emphasized. «When it comes to stepping outside the known world into the world of fantasy, this inscription is extremely important,” added Finkel.

The Babylonian scribe also mapped what he believed existed beyond his world, including mythical creatures and lands, as well as a reference to a now-familiar story—essentially a Babylonian version of the biblical story of Noah's Ark. The ancient Babylonians believed that the remains of a giant ark built in 1800 B.C. were their version of Nov by name Utnapishtim by God's command, they are located beyond the Gorkaya River on the slope of a mountain – the very one on which, according to the Bible, Noah's Ark crashed.

«It's quite an interesting thing to think about because it shows that the story was the same and, of course, one thing led to another,” Finkel concluded.

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