Scholars uncover oldest map in Western world

SCHOLARS HAVE discovered the Western world's oldest surviving map - a one-metre long cartographic manuscript dating from the first century BC. Drawn in black ink on ancient Egyptian papyrus paper, it is the only substantial map to have survived from the classical world, and appears to depict Spain.

The map is only now being studied in detail by academics - although it is thought to have been in the possession of a private collector for a considerable time. Until last year, only photographs of parts of it had been seen - and then only by two scholars. A detailed examination of the whole papyrus is now under way and will be completed in three years.

Featuring towns, villages, roads, rivers and what appear to be the northern and south-eastern coastlines of Spain, the map forms part of a papyrus scroll, 2.5 metres long, which includes a lengthy description of Spain and a philosophical introduction to the discipline of geography.

Papyrologists have already been able to identify the scroll as part of a series of long-lost geographical works written by a Greek geographer from the late second century BC called Artemidorus. Until now his works were only known through references in the works of more famous classical geographers, such as Strabo and Pliny the Elder.

Although the works of Artemidorus covered the entire known world - from India to the Atlantic - the main area he personally explored before settling in Alexandria was the western Mediterranean - including the coasts of Spain and probably Gaul (France).

Thus some of the information on the papyrus map was almost certainly gathered at first hand by Artemidorus himself. The copy which has come to light was almost certainly made in Alexandria, probably a few decades after his death.

The precise circumstances of its discovery are not known. It is thought to have been found in an ancient rubbish dump in the Greco-Roman town of Antaiopolis in Upper Egypt. However, it is not known when it was dug up.

It was only in 1994 that a small number of scholars learnt of its existence, but until last year no academics had succeeded in gaining physical access to it.

Now two papyrologists, Professor Claudio Gallazzi, of Milan University in Italy, and Professor Barbel Kramer, of Trier University in Germany, have been able to examine the map, and have just published the first academic account of its existence - in a Leipzig-based journal, Archive fur Papyrusforshung (Archive for Papyrus Research).

When they first set eyes on the papyrus it was in hundreds of fragments. Indeed the map itself was in 20 pieces. Work over the recent months has therefore been devoted to piecing it all together.

The map itself was never completed. The place names - and around 40 per cent of the towns and villages - are completely missing. Perhaps the map's would-be purchaser cancelled his order or maybe the copyist's boss wasn't satisfied with the quality of the work. The unfinished papyrus was then re-used for other purposes.

The only other piece of detailed cartography to have survived from the Greco-Roman world is a small 20cm-long fragment of a third century AD map of the northern Black Sea coast. It is fragmentary and is only a tenth of the size of the Artemidorus papyrus. Indeed, the only comparably sized maps are medieval copies of classical works - copies made more than a thousand years after the Artemidorus papyrus was drawn. Only in China are there maps which pre-date it, by about 150 years.

Research work on the papyrus is expected to be completed by 2002 when a complete image of the map will be published for the first time.