Political map of Europe at the beginning of the 17th century. Ancient world maps in high resolution - Antique world maps HQ. What if you print out the map and hang it on the wall?

For our ancient ancestors, the world was often limited to the land that surrounded and fed them. But even the earliest human civilizations still tried to measure the scale of this world and made the first attempts to draw maps.

The first such map is believed to have been created in Babylon over 2,500 years ago, and it shows the world beyond the Babylonian kingdom as poisonous waters and dangerous islands where (they believed) people could not survive.

Over time, maps gradually became larger in scale as people's knowledge of what lay beyond the Mediterranean grew. With the beginning of the era of wanderings and exploration in the 15th century, the concept of seeing the world changed, the East began to appear on maps, and a huge unexplored ocean appeared in place of America. And with the return of Columbus, maps of the world began to take on a form that was already understandable to us, modern people.

1. The oldest known map of the world is from Babylon (6th century BC). At the center of the world is the Kingdom of Babylon itself. There is a “bitter river” around him. The seven points across the river are islands that cannot be reached.

2. World map of Hecataeus of Miletus (5-6 century BC). Hecataeus divides the world into three parts: Europe, Asia and Libya, located around the Mediterranean Sea. His world is a round disk surrounded by ocean.

3. World map of Posidonius (2nd century BC). This map expands on the early Greek vision of the world, including the conquests of Alexander the Great.

4. World map of Pomponia Mela (43 AD)

5. Ptolemy's world map (150 AD). He was the first to add latitude and longitude lines to the world map.

6. Peitinger Tablet, a 4th-century Roman map showing the road network of the Roman Empire. The full map is very long, showing lands from Iberia to India. In the center of the world, of course, is Rome.

7. Map of the world by Kozma Indicoplov (6th century AD). The world is depicted as a flat rectangle.

8. A later Christian map in the form of a multi-colored clover leaf, compiled by Henry Banting (Germany, 1581). In fact, it does not describe the world, or rather, according to this map, the world is a continuation of the Christian Trinity, and Jerusalem is its center.

9. World map of Mahmud al-Kashgari (11th century). The world is centered around the ancient city of Balasagun, now the territory of Kyrgyzstan. Also included are places (countries) predicted to appear at the end of the world, such as Gog and Magog.

10. Map “Book of Roger” by Al-Idrisi, compiled in 1154. It was created based on information received from Arab traders who traveled around the world. At that time it was the most accurate and extensive map of the world. Europe and Asia are already clearly visible, but so far only the northern part of Africa is visible.

11. Hereford world map of the 14th century by one Richard of Haldingham. Jerusalem in the center, East at the top. The circle in the southern part of the map is the Garden of Eden.

12. Chinese map “Da Ming Hunyi Tu” from the late 14th century. The world through the eyes of the Chinese during the Ming Dynasty. China, of course, dominates, and all of Europe is squeezed into a small space in the west.

13. Genoese map, compiled in 1457 based on descriptions by Niccolò da Conti. This is how Europeans see the world and Asia after the opening of the first trade routes to Mongolia and China.

14. Projection of the globe Erdapfel (“Earth Apple”) by Martin Beheim (Germany, 1492). Erdapfel is the oldest known globe, showing the world as a sphere, but without America - instead there is still a huge ocean.

15. World map of Johann Ruysch, compiled in 1507. One of the first images of the New World.

16. Map by Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann from 1507. This was the first map to refer to the New World as "America." America looks like a thin strip of the east coast.

17. World map of Gerard van Schagen 1689. By this time, most of the world has already been mapped, and only small parts of America remain empty.

18. Samuel Dunn's 1794 world map. By charting the discoveries of Captain James Cook, Dunn became the first cartographer to depict our world as accurately as possible.

Today we will talk about ancient Russian maps. The post will be short. Simply because, in general, they simply don’t exist. I have seen thousands, if not tens of thousands, of foreign maps from this period. The situation with our cards is even stranger.
The first Russian atlas, which is in open access, is the Atlas of Kirilov, created between 1724 and 1737. (Download link). The atlas is not complete, unfortunately, it does not contain maps of all regions and localities of our country. But this is essentially the beginning of Russian cartography, no matter how strange it may sound.
There is indeed the so-called Drawing Book of Siberia (1699-1701), Remezov. (Download link) And also “Chorographic Book of Siberia” (1697-1711). But their dating and correspondence to reality raise a lot of questions for me personally. As an example, I give a map of Perm the Great from the Drawing Book. All pictures are clickable to large sizes.

These are the cards children draw in 1st grade. North is on the right here (but this is very conditional). In general, in his works, Remezov clearly did not bother with the orientation of his “maps” to the cardinal points. From map to map they constantly jump around the sides of the sheet. Concepts such as scale and proportion are completely absent from the word. At the same time, maps were already being created in the West that were almost close in accuracy to modern ones.
User palexy one excerpt:
I have a map by D.G. Messeshmidt from 1721 (a section of the Ob tributaries of the Tom and Ini) which almost completely copies the map Remezova. The date of Messerschmidt’s expedition is indisputable since there are tons of documents on it, but here is an excerpt from the diary given by Nevlyanskaya: “Captain Tabbert went today with cornet Iorist to an artist named Remezov, from whom he saw a map of the Tomsk district drawn in oil paints; he looked through it quickly, but did not find anything in it that was depicted correctly" (Novlyanskaya M. G. Philipp Johann Stralenberg. M.; Leningrad, 1966. P. 36.) .

Well, finally, on this map there are no cities and towns I have discovered. Hundreds of foreign maps have them, but Remezov does not. Peter the Great in 1708. They are mentioned in. But in fairness, I must say that it was on this map that I found the Molozhek River.

There is such a Drawing of the Siberian land, compiled in 1667 under the leadership of the Tobolsk governor, steward Peter Ivanovich Godunov. From the official drawing book of S. U. Remezov (Manuscript Department of the State Public Library named after M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, Hermitage Collection, No. 237, l 31 spread).

North is down here. About drawing book Remezov, of course they got excited. As I already wrote, there was no orientation to the cardinal directions at all.
And another version of the same card:

There are more on the net (I wanted to write perfect, but it’s not) detailed version this card. Also attributed to Remezov. If you look from the point of view of the absence of any scales and proportions, then yes, Remezov agrees. But the clear presence of cardinal directions suggests the opposite.

While looking for materials on the city of Perm the Great, I came across a small fragment of a map from the server of the Ural State University , which is designated as - Map of Perm the Great. XVI century Reproduction.

Again, the North is down here. And there is the city of Perm. There it is, under the word "Cheremisy". Unfortunately, it was not possible to get the entire map. And I still haven’t found out where they dug it up from there.
I saw a few more similar maps on the Internet, but they were too cloudy and terribly primitive. That's why I didn't even bother saving them.
Now comes the fun part.

Here it is in full size:

Do you feel the difference? Heaven and earth with drawings by Remezov. Even the parallels are correct. Unfortunately, the resolution of the map is not very high and many small inscriptions are not visible at all. But you can find out something.
Belgorod Horde on the territory of modern Odessa region of Ukraine:

Little Tartaria (that is, TaTtaria) in the Black Sea steppes.

And to the right of it, separated by a border, is an area called the Yurts of the Don Cossacks. Moreover, it stretches right up to the Volga, most likely.

By the way, I’ll give you part of one map of 1614 from my post: .

Those. a hundred years earlier these two areas were a single state. And precisely from him" Tatar yoke" .
By the way, the Tatars were previously called Cossacks. I have a question about this. There at the end it is directly written that the Little Russian Cossacks live on the lands where the Tatar Cossacks used to live. Or maybe they were their descendants. Who knows.

That's all.

And finally, the Book: Ancient Russian hydrography: Containing a description of the Moscow state of rivers, channels, lakes, deposits, and what cities and tracts there are along them and at what distance thereof. - St. Petersburg: Published by Nikolai Novikov: [Type. Academician Sciences], 1773 . Now it is better known as the “Book of the Big Drawing.” This is the same map of the 16th, early 17th centuries, only handwritten. In fact, it is possible that Remezov drew his drawings precisely from such texts.
By the way, there is an interesting passage in the preface:

This is exactly the same situation with our cards. They simply weren't there. More precisely, they probably still were. But either they were destroyed, or they lie deep in the archives. Simply because the history of Russia is completely different there. Where were the cities that I rediscovered? By the way, the last one, but this did not stop modern historians from stubbornly insisting that he did not exist.

Yesterday I was told that the archives of the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences contain as many as 10,000 ancient maps. I don’t yet know exactly what kind of maps these are, ours or foreign ones and from what centuries, but I really hope that there will also be Russian ancient maps from the 16th-17th and early 18th centuries. My friends are now trying to scan it all and post it online. God grant that they succeed. And then we will learn a little more truth about the history of that time.

Addition :

Today we will look at two Russian maps of the early 18th century from the archives of the Russian National Library. Although the word “we’ll see” here is very conditional. I have a very strong desire to put the entire leadership of this library against the wall and shoot them with a heavy machine gun. They are saboteurs, not scientists.

Let's see firstMap of the hemispheres in 1713, published in the Civil Printing House of V.O. Kipriyanova. The map is large, but the resolution of the image, on the contrary, is small. Therefore, it is fashionable to look only at very large recordings. Click to open in higher resolution. But you can get something out of it. Pay attention to Antarctica. She's gone. I once specifically looked at similar atlases of Western cartographers. There was no Antarctica there either until the beginning of the 19th century, when our sailors discovered it. Therefore, if you see an old map where Antarctica is present, you should know that it was made in the second half of the 19th century. Or later.
I would like to draw your attention to high degree the skills of the Russian cartographers of that time. . And I repeat my thought - these are not maps, but children's drawings at the elementary school level.

And another map by the same author: A geographical globe, or earth-descriptive one, shows the four parts of the earth, Africa, Asia, America, and Europe, which are inhabited, and which embrace us from everywhere. By command in the civil printing house of the Summer of the Lord: 1707. In the reigning City of Moscow, by the Care of Vasily Kiprianov. Under the supervision of His Excellency Mr. General Lieutenant Jacob Villimovich Bruce.
It's here at this link more or less possible to consider. But after that I want to strangle the programmers there with bare hands, long long time. It is impossible to drag the entire map from there, so I took several screenshots from there. And there are several interesting discoveries waiting for us. Namely the word “Sarmat” right under the letter M of the word Moscow. And visible aboveOcean Sarmatian.

Here is another excerpt: The Scythian Ocean was added to the Sarmatian Ocean. To the right of the name "M. Moskovskoe". I don’t understand what this means. The word TARTARIA is written in capital letters. Through the "r". Just above the beginning of this word the names Scythia are visible. But above the letter “I” in the word “Siberia” you can see the river “Tatar”. Above the word “MOSCOW” it also seems to be written - Sarmatia. Again, why is it not written Russia or Rus'? But what the word “Asinsky” means is not clear.

Oh, it was not in vain that Lomonosov wrote in his book: . Brief Russian chronicler with genealogy, St. Petersburg: Under Imp. Academician Sciences, 1760.

And finally, a Description of Europe. It really looks very bad. Instead of France it says Gaul. There is also some kind of Dacia. Poland is written without soft sign. At the very end it seems to be written to Hellas. For information . But Russia is here. And it, as I understand it, is in European Moscow and Tartaria, as well as Turkey. Or are these separate states on the territory of the continent?

There is a very interesting line in the description:
Drawings: coat of arms above the hemispheres Russian Empire against the background of an ermine mantle supported by archangels with swords in their hands; framed by the mantle are figures of Mars, Apollo, banners and other military paraphernalia;
And here they are. And this is far from an isolated case. By name . And all this fits very well into mine , which we simply called the Golden Woman.

If anyone can here's where to pull out the whole map in more or less good resolution, I will be very grateful.

Addition: The world is not without kind people and thanks to the respected prostoyoleg You and I can see the entire map. True, in the same not very high resolution.

Addition.

And these are separate files.

The midnight ocean is cool.

Strange, yes, the Adriatic Sea or the Western Ocean?

And here is the Devkali Ocean. In general, previously, it seems to me that slightly other types of water areas were called sea and ocean.

Addition .

Russian National Library, St. Petersburg, is slowly digitizing its holdings. And he even posts them for everyone to see.
Picart P. Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania drawing / By order of his most powerful royal majesty, Peter Picart was roaming in Moscow; [Cartouche engraved. A. Schonebeck]. - Moscow: Armory Chamber, . But the map itself was definitely drawn much earlier. Kiev on it is still part of Lithuania, while according to official history it became part of the Moscow state in 1667. Moreover, I have a strong feeling that it was only engraved in Moscow and created in that same Principality of Lithuania, in the mid-17th century.

Click to open in high resolution.

There are a lot of unknown toponyms. Crimea is written here as TaTtaria. Just like on the Russian map of the late 17th century from my main post. And only in the 18th century did Tartaria begin to be called Tataria. Pay attention to Crimea, except for Kafa and Perekop, not a single familiar name. Baltic The sea was formerly called the Eastern Lake.

Notice how Konigsberg is called on this map. I went to Wiki and found amazing text there:
Under the name Korolevets (Korolevets) or Korolevits, the castle and the area around it for a long time, starting from the 13th century, is mentioned in various Russian sources: chronicles, books, atlases. In Russia, this name was widely used before Peter I and, occasionally, in a later period, until the beginning of the 20th century, including fiction, for example, in the texts of M. Saltykov-Shchedrin. However, after Peter I and before the renaming in 1946, Russians more often used the German version.
Heh, it was not in vain that I asserted in my investigation that the Slavs lived there.

In general, if you start and compare the map with official history, then the list of inconsistencies will be more than a dozen pages long. Well, this is a banal matter for our history.

Addition :

It turns out there was such a city as Byzantium. Here's his plan

Plan of Constantinople or the Tsar City, which was formerly known as Byzantium in ancient times, but Vigos was conquered by Muhammad the second in the year of the Lord 1453 of the month of May on the 29th day] / [Drawn by Prince Dimitri Cantemir]; Grydor. Alexy Zubov in St. Petersburg. - St. Petersburg: [Petersburg Printing House], .

IN . The French were not lazy and sorted them all. There are even plans for Koenigsberg. And of Ukraine, of course. And there are several dozen maps of various areas of Russia, drawn, judging by the titles, in 1724-1729 by our cartographers. True, in English. Well, that’s okay. The main thing here is that until now some of the earliest maps of areas were considered maps of Kirilov, 1722-1731 . They are there, by the way, too, partly. There is. And here is completely new, never seen by anyone, cartographic material. And there I found the city of Staraya Rezan.

North is on the left here. By the way, this is one of the signs, as I understand it, of local maps of the 17th century. Already in the 18th century, it became a rule to orient maps of specific areas to the north. And before that, cartographers drew them according to their convenience. The most clear example These are Remizov's cards. There the north “walks” in a circle simply chaotically. It will break your mind until you understand what and how is drawn on a specific map. In general, Russian maps of the 17th century are, for the most part, oriented to the south. Like a map of Siberia and Far East from the same Remezov. At least this map is attributed to him.
As for Europe, I’ll give an example from my old posts - . The north there is also not static. years, everything settled down and accepted modern frameworks.
I have a very reasonable suspicion that all the maps that we now know were made no earlier than the end of the 17th century. True, according to the ancient originals, which by that time had simply dilapidated and become unusable. Well, some of them, of course, were simply forged in the 18th century. 19th centuries. This can be seen from the correct proportions and contours of the terrain. When you look at Russian maps, pay attention to two things. The Caspian Sea should be round and not elongated. And near Crimea, the Kerch region should be, as it were, cut off and not stretched to the left, as it is now.

This means we see the cities of Kolomna and Kashira. Further along the Oka River is the city of Pereslavl-RIzanskaya. And behind him is Old Rezan. Please note that the old name contains the letter "e". Somewhere before the beginning of the 18th century, we almost did not have the letter “I”. Therefore, there was, among other things, Yeroslavl.
The city of Staraya Rezan has a complicated history. First it was destroyed at the end of the 16th century by the Tatars, then it existed, along with the new Rezan, as a small village. But already at the beginning of the 18th century it grew into a city. Pay attention to the city icon and the footnote to the map. In this form it existed somewhere until the mid-18th century and then disappeared again. The authorities announced that it was destroyed by Batu in the 13th century. In this format of the fort, it still exists today as an archaeological monument. But there you can still see pieces of 18th century temples.
And in 1781, Catherine the Second renamed Pereslav-Ryazanskaya into simply Ryazan. Which still exists today. Thanks to her for that. Otherwise, the toponym could go down in history almost without a trace, like the city of Bulgar and Bulgaria. And then Batu, he’s like Shurik, you can blame everything on him.

Download over 200 vintage maps for free at high resolution. The section is constantly updated.

What if you print out the map and hang it on the wall?

As a child, many of us had huge wall maps hanging on our walls, carefully hung on pushpins. Many hours were spent painstakingly studying them. New countries and cities appeared before my eyes as if by magic. Some memorized the capitals of states, some calculated distances, and some simply looked for their hometown, trying to learn more about the world around them. Now they are no less popular, and buying wall maps is not difficult.

Whether you're going on vacation or want to find a place you saw on the news, you just have to walk up to the wall and find it. Returning from vacation, you can trace the entire path taken with undisguised pleasure by running your finger along the surface. And even carefully mark the winding route with a pencil, so that when you accidentally glance at the wall map, unforgettable moments of relaxation emerge in your memory. Yes and modern technologies allow you to make maps much more colorful and detailed.

Vintage cards

Today's wall maps are no match for their dull and often torn ancestors. Colorfulness, clarity of design, extraordinary detail will make them a real treasure of your collection. Guests who come will definitely stay with her, and then they will ask with envy where you bought such a lovely thing.

To be honest, even with aesthetic point In terms of vision, kats win competitions with many design solutions. No matter how passionately they prove to you that such a painting or vase will look good, I assure you that there is nothing more mysterious and interesting than a wall map.

Many things change in life. There are ups and downs, but that stability, symbolized by the wall map, always remains somewhere deep in the soul. All you have to do is hang a map on the wall once and a whole world will appear in your house, not just an imaginary one, but a real one. Our world, where today there is an incredibly vast Russia, Africa drowning in heat, Europe dripping with politics, romantic Caribbean Islands. But you never know there are many beautiful places on earth that can easily fit on your wall.

Many centuries have passed since people began to mark symbols on objects that could tell others about their location. The simplest landmarks are trees, paths, rivers; at that time everything was plotted on primitive maps. Today it is already a problem to find your city on a regular globe if its population is less than five hundred thousand people. Maps created by our ancestors are in museums and tell about the history of the development of cartography. But ancient drawings can tell a lot interesting facts and provide an opportunity to unravel the mysteries of the past.

I doubt that it is now possible to find in a modern traveler a sample of a handwritten map with markings applied that would identify the population of the country or the people living there. When creating maps today, preference is given to the accuracy and clarity of state boundaries, while losing aesthetics.

But along with the fact that ancient maps are fictitious and inconvenient to use, they are a work of art. Many artists around the world are amazed and inspired by ancient maps and study them with great pleasure and admiration. In our computerized and internet era, you can find a wide variety of maps. It's very convenient and fast. Having collected cartographic material for many years, today we can provide you with more than two hundred maps; they can be downloaded or printed directly from the site in excellent quality and high resolution. Anyone can do this, be it a local historian, a historian, a treasure hunter or just a curious person.

Most people use maps for targeted searches for antiques from our ancestors. Those who believe in the secrets of treasures and treasures can use ancient maps, and maybe luck will smile on them. But we must not forget that an antique map can be a wonderful decoration in your home. Your guests will certainly be surprised and captivated by such a wall design, thanks to which you can learn a lot about your region and the whole world.

You can also make a gift and associate it with an antique map. For example, a China lover can be given an ancient Chinese map that was copied from a stone column in 1137. The birthday boy will certainly be delighted and will remember the gift for a long time. On our website you will find all the maps you are interested in. Get a lot of pleasure from studying them and experience a lot of positive emotions.

Large updated selection of ancient maps in high resolution.