Early Map Making Techniques

Progress in early map making was often based on trial and error.

As spatial representations of surface forms and patterns, maps provide information regarding landforms, elevation, population and vegetation. Virtually any phenomenon involving location or movement can be mapped. Unlike contemporary computer-generated cartography or even the intricate drawn maps of the last couple of centuries, the earliest maps provided the most basic information to indigenous warriors and enterprising explorers. Crude from today's perspective, these maps nonetheless served as crucial steppingstones to the global economy of the 21st century.

Ancient

Aside from prehistoric wall drawings, geographers believe that the first comprehensible maps originate, like so many other marks of civilization, in ancient Mesopotamia. Within 200 miles of Babylon, archaeologists unearthed what is believed to be an Akkadian map from 2300 B.C. The Mesopotamian map is carved on a clay tablet and, although the actual tool for carving is not determined, it is likely of the same cuneiform technology used by this early civilization for writing. Maps from the successor Babylonian civilization are likewise drawn on clay tablets and represent the city and its features, such as waterways, streets, gates and temples. Without a compass or directional standard, these early maps conveyed relative location with reference to a central feature. However, Egyptian maps, drawn on papyrus and influenced by geometry, do incorporate measured distance.

Classical

Beginning in the sixth century B.C., the Greeks posited and largely established that the Earth was round, thereby revising the assumptions of early map makers. Pythagoras and Aristotle were the most famous spherical Earth advocates, but Eratosthenes actually estimated quite precisely the circumference of the Earth in 250 BC. He also utilized a grid, foreshadowing the system of latitude and longitude, to locate cities and towns. Though Eratosthenes' grid was not the first, it was the most accurate to date. But Ptolemy was the first cartographer, in about 140 A.D., to incorporate latitude and longitude as the best way to represent a spherical surface on a one-dimensional representation. This technique came to be known as projection. Ptolemy adopted the equator as his baseline for north-south calibrations, and the Canary Islands as his 0-degree longitude mark. His original maps are carved on wood blocks.

Medieval

Though the Romans and Chinese utilized cartographic techniques previously pioneered, new and more informative maps came out of the Islamic world, if only due to the fact that exploration was creating new contact with other parts of the Earth. During the ninth century, al-Khwarizmi produced a comprehensive map of the known world which augmented Ptolemy's findings with data regarding Africa and other Islamic empires. His contemporary, al-Birini, refined the calculations of latitude and longitude using a system of triangulation: spherical triangles formed by the intersection of three spherical arcs are used to plot locations of two places relative to a confirmed location of a third. This application of geometry lent greater precision to maps and globes.

Renaissance

Cartography experienced a revival in the West during the 15th century when Ptolemy's magnum opus, "Geography," was translated into Latin. Moreover, as the Portugese explorers were making prolific discoveries in the East, the need to record and reference the recent visitations compelled cartographers to work. With the invention of the printing press during this same era, maps were more easily accessible and more widely disseminated. In the 16th century, an inventor of mathematical and surveying instruments, Regiomontanus, worked to resolve the historic question of longitude calculation by proposing basing longitudinal gradients on lunar distances. His students experimented with instruments to adapt these measurements. After years of updates and perfection of survey and measurement tools, Gerardus Mercator realized that nautical compasses were not properly accounting for the arc of the Earth's surface. He therefore created the "Mercator Projection," which corrected on the map for the compass's defect at sea.

References

• St. Andrews University, United Kingdom; History of Cartography
• 1-World Globes; Early Innovations in Map Making
• Postaprint; A Brief History of Cartography and How early Maps Were Made and Printed
• American Library Association Map and Geography Roundtable; Recent Trends in the History of Cartography: A Selective, Annotated Bibliography to the English-Language Literature
• 100 Maps: The Science, Art and Politics of Cartography Throughout History; John O.E. Clark, Editor; 2005

Resources

• North American Cartographic Information Society
• Association of American Cartographers
• Library of Congress -- Geography and Map Reading Room