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A newly released video from the British Museum brings attention to an ancient Babylonian artifact known as the Imago Mundi, the world’s oldest known map. This map, engraved on a clay tablet dating back to around the seventh century BC, sheds light on the beliefs and worldview of the Babylonians.
Discovered in the ancient city of Sippar, now modern-day Abu Habba in southern Iraq, the tablet has been part of the British Museum’s collection since 1882. After years of research, curators have finally deciphered additional sections of the tablet’s cuneiform text, revealing more details about Babylonian cosmology and geography.
The tablet, written in the sixth century BC using ancient cuneiform script, presents a map of Mesopotamia – the “land between the rivers,” or modern Iraq. The map includes places the Babylonians believed existed beyond their known territories. While the front of the tablet maps out familiar regions, the reverse side contains texts detailing ancient beliefs on the creation of the Earth and what was thought to exist beyond Mesopotamian borders.
A unique feature of the map is a circular diagram that places Mesopotamia at its center, illustrating the Babylonian view of their homeland as the heart of the world. The map highlights the Euphrates River flowing through the region and surrounding Mesopotamia with a double ring, which the Babylonians called the “bitter river.”
This “bitter river” symbolized the edge of the known world. Within its bounds are circles and rectangles representing various cities and tribes, including Babylon. A marked rectangle on the map depicts the Euphrates itself, indicating the river’s central role in Babylonian society.
Beyond mapping geographical areas, the Babylonian tablet contains references to ancient tales, including a version of the biblical story of Noah’s Ark. In the Babylonian account, a character named Utnapishtim builds an enormous ark, which eventually rests on a mountain beyond the bitter river.
This story aligns closely with the biblical version, which places Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat. Dr. Irving Finkel, a cuneiform expert at the British Museum, highlighted this connection, observing that the Babylonian story likely influenced similar narratives in other ancient cultures.
Alongside geographical features, the map also reveals the Babylonians’ belief in Marduk, their creator god, and an array of mythical creatures. Notable among these are the scorpion-man and the Anzu, a lion-headed bird. Both are symbols of the complex Babylonian view of the world that merged faith, myth, and reality.
By combining real and imagined locations and creatures, the map reflects a rich tapestry of Babylonian beliefs and their imaginative approach to explaining the world around them.
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