Researchers have finally deciphered a Babylonian tablet believed to be the world’s oldest map.
Created between 2,600 and 2,900 years ago, the Imago Mundi provided researchers with a unique insight into the beliefs and practices of the ancient civilization.
The Babylonian tablet has a circular map with text fragments written in cuneiform (an ancient writing system that used wedge-shaped symbols) describing the early creation of the world.
The map depicted Mesopotamia, or the land “between the rivers,” a historical area of the Middle East that was believed at the time to be the entire “known world.”
The tablet map also confirmed their belief in the powerful God of Creation, Marduk, and in mythical creatures and monsters such as the scorpion man and Anzu, the lion-headed bird.
The Imago Mundi, also called the Babylonian Map of the World (pictured), was discovered in 1882 by renowned archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam in Sippar, an ancient Babylonian city in what is now Iraq.
Dr Irving Finkel (pictured) revealed the cuneiform writing on the back of the Babylonian map that revealed the ancient people’s belief in a higher power.
The Imago Mundi was created at a time when the Babylonian Empire was a world leader in architecture, culture, mathematics, and early scientific achievements.
They were known for creating an advanced number system for mathematics and were the first to create a working theory of the planets, including using geometry to track Jupiter.
The map was originally discovered in 1882 by renowned archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam in Sippar, an ancient Babylonian city in present-day Iraq.
Although Rassam discovered the tablet nearly 150 years ago, the Imago Mundi remained in a box with his excavation findings until it was rediscovered in Iraq 29 years ago.
It is currently kept in the British Museum in London.
Since acquiring the tablet, researchers at the British Museum said they have been able to gain insight into the Neo-Babylonian Empire’s belief in mystical creatures and its dominance over the region.
At the bottom center of the map is Mesopotamia, but what is particularly unique are the two circles enclosing the city.
“The double ring is very important because it has cuneiform writing on it that says ‘bitter river’ and this water was believed to encircle the known world,” said British Museum expert Dr Irving Finkel in an article. YouTube video.
The researchers confirmed that the circle on the tablet surrounding Mesopotamia supported the Babylonian belief that the region was the center of the world, although they understood Mesopotamia to be part of a larger land region.
Two circles surrounded Mesopotamia on the map and were labeled the Bitter River to indicate that the Babylonians believed they were the only nation in the world.
Various regions and areas were labeled with cuneiform writing on the map, which Finkel presented in a YouTube video.
There was an additional river, the Euphrates, that ran through ancient Mesopotamia from north to south, connecting the Bitter River to the tablet.
“This is a very important water ring,” Finkel said, “because it meant to the Babylonians, they had an idea of the boundaries of the world where they lived around the 6th century.”
Inside the map are cuneiform inscriptions indicating the name of the city or tribe that lived there, including Assyria, Der, and Urartu.
“So we have encapsulated in this circular diagram the entire known world in which people lived, flourished and died,” Finkel said.
But the map contains much more than the location of the Mesopotamian regions: triangles on the right edge of the tablet were a point of magic and mystery for the Babylonians.
Some people have speculated that the triangles are islands, but Finkel said in the video that they are “almost certainly mountains.”
The cuneiform text labels the area as a place “where the sun is not seen,” which made sense considering the mountains would have blocked it from view.
‘Its location combined with the cuneiform writing on it further supported the theory, because the idea is that if you walk across the water you see these pointy, jutting things over the horizon that are remote lands far beyond the limits of the known world.’
The triangles at the edge of the circle represented mountains and the Babylonian belief that the sun disappeared there.
Some of the cuneiform text also alludes to the Babylonian belief that mythical creatures, including a winged horse, a sea serpent, a scorpion-man, and a bull-man, lived in various regions of the earth.
The British Museum reported that the text of the tablet ‘appears to be a description of the inhabitants, divine, human, animal or monstrous, of the areas beyond the earth, whether the eight ‘regions’ or the ‘Bitter River’ or perhaps the underworld or the waters of the underworld.’
Because the tablet is fragmentary in places, the full text could not be deciphered, but the British Museum reported that it speaks of “ruined cities… which Marduk watches over.”
According to Mesopotamian mythology, Marduk was the god of creation and the patron god of Babylon, who was also worshipped as the god of justice, compassion, healing, and magic.
Finkel said the ancient Babylonian map “has given us tremendous insight into many aspects of Mesopotamian thought.”
He added that “it’s also a triumphant demonstration of what happens when you have a very small, totally uninformative, useless piece of boring writing that nobody can understand and you attach it to something in the collection that’s much larger and a new adventure begins again.”
