"the book of pleasant journeys into faraway lands"), most often known as the Tabula Rogeriana is one of the most comprehensive maps
ever plotted.
Commissioned by Norman King Roger II of Sicily in 1138,
it took Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi 15 years to complete. To produce the work al-Idrisi interviewed experienced travelers
individually and in groups on their knowledge of the world and compiled
"only that part... on which there was complete agreement and seemed
credible, excluding what was contradictory.
The map depicts the Eurasian continent in its entirety,
but only the northern part of the African continent. It is uniquely oriented with
north at the bottom.
For three centuries geographers copied al-Idrisi’s maps
without alteration. In fact, when Baker and Stanley traced the position of the
lakes that form the Nile more than 700 years later, their relative position was
almost the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment