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| The Earliest Signs of Maps Astoundingly, The first known maps are maps of the heavens and not the earth. Dots dating to 16,500 BC found on the walls of the lascaux caves describe part of the sky and three stars: Vega, Deneb and Altair(Also known as the Summer Triangle) as well as the Pleiades perlen star cluster. But the first known “land mapping” was seen in the Cave painting and rock carvings that used simple drawings that showed hills and dwellings. The oldest of these pictures that resembles a map was created in the late 7th Millenium Bc in Anatolia otherwise known as modern Turkey. This wall painting represents a plan of an early urban area that prospered from trading obsidian. Whoever visualized this map made it from the top down. He or She may have been encouraged by the fact that houses in Turkey were entered through the flat roofs during that time, thus allowing the inhabitants to view things in a bird’s eye view coming from the heavens. Later civilizations followed the same technique and fast forward today, most maps are drawn as if we are looking down from the sky instead of from a horizontal or oblique perspective. There are some rare historical exceptions: one of the ‘quasi-maps’ of the Minoan Civilization and the house of the admiral wall painting dating from 1600 BC Showed a seaside community in an oblique perspective. Map Development Map development has gone a long way since the first map long ago. Maps before 1550 were usually written on carved wood blocks and 1550-1850 cvhanged to copper plates, these maps were later printed on paper made from rags. With the invention of lithography by Alois Senefelder in 1798 the need for hand coloring was replaced by color printing. Old paper is very stable and though it may turn brown or become infected with fungus it doesn’t age as much as the mass produced ones that started after 1850. These were made by wood pulp pater, which sooner became brittle and cracked. Early maps were often colored. Finer maps were beautifully colored by artisans or given to ladies of the court to try their hand at coloring. Some dealers today employ modern colorists to restore old maps. Both freshly colored and contemporary colored maps are extremely valuable. Uncolored maps are also valuable and have their advocates. Mapmaking in the seventeenth and eighteenth century was also said to be of high accuracy. In many countries, detailed geographic measurements were undertaken. Inaccuracies were restricted to remote areas that were not yet fully explored In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, Dutch, German and French mapmakers dominated the mapmaking scene. Designs on maps also reflect a point in time. Sea monsters and large lettering were common on the 16th century maps. Exploring or battling ships adorned 17th century sea maps. Famous cartographers made many old maps. |
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