History of map-making

Antique maps are categorized as imaginative illustrations of their subjects: creative nonfiction and it might apply to the art of map-making.

For this reason, these pioneers of map-making felt it necessary to separate their ideas of ‘true’ map-making from maps that relied on exaggeration or imagination.

The idea of map-making was known in Egypt, where plans of particularly districts or objects as mines, houses and temples were being drawn up a early as 1400 BC.

Anaximander (611-547 BC) was the first among the Greeks to represent the details of the surface of the earth by maps. His map showed the world as a flat disc with named parts for the Mediterranean, Italy and Sicily.

The earliest periods in mapping in both the Western world and China involved understanding the earth’s shape and size. Contrary to popular belief, the essentially spherical shape of the earth and been recognized by the Greeks as early as the fourth century BC.

Claudius Ptolemy (98-168 AD), a Greek who lived and worked during the peak of the Roman Empire, is the foremost figure of map-making history.

His major contribution to map-making was a book known as Geographia, which included instructions for making map projections, for making world and sectional maps and for using latitude and longitude which also listed coordinates for about 8,000 places.
History of map-making

Around 3500 BC: ancient Egyptian develop timekeeping device

Understand the time of day and the seasons was crucial for prehistoric man’s ability to comprehend on for survivals. Once agriculture was invented, the time to plant and harvest could only be predicted by following the changing rhythms of the universe from season to season.

The ancient Egyptians recorded their dates according to the regnal year of the reigning king. So when a new king entered the throne, they started counting ten years again from one.

The ancient Egyptians were the first to introduce the concept of twenty-four hours in a day. Night and day were both divided into twelve hours. Prior to 127 BC, the length of the hours varied depending on the season. Early time keeping devices and calendars depended on the movement of the Sun and Moon.

Around 3500 BC, one of the first timekeeping devices, the gnomon is developed in ancient Egypt.
A gnomon is composed of a vertical stick that casts a shadow on the ground or a stone base when left in the sunlight. Scholars estimate the time by looking at the position of the shadow.

The gnomon is a precursor to the sundial. A sundial is a device for measuring the hour of a day. In general, a sundial consists of the gnomon that is also called the style and the surface engraved with the timescale for indicating the time of a day.

The shadow of the gnomon is projected on the surface. When the sun moves in the sky, the corresponding gnomon’s shadow moves in the surface. According to the position of the gnomon’s shadow, the hour of a day is identified.

And by 1500 BC, in Egypt, the sticks were replaced with monumental decorated spires called obelisks, which were built in city centers.
Around 3500 BC: ancient Egyptian develop timekeeping device