Astrology based on date of birth online

Although the Balkhi School maps (#214.2) exerted the greatest influence on later mapmaking, we should pay attention to the several other types of world mapping that developed independently of Greek geographic traditions. The relative locations of places in Asia, including China, bear similarity to sites plotted in the Balkhi School maps, yet al-Birunia€™s sketch of the world bears considerable differences.
Al-Biruni was born in 973 in Khwarazm in Central Asia, which at the time sat at the eastern end of the Islamic world, although still far from the Islamic cultural center Baghdad.
However, many of al-Birunia€™s new ideas and information came to him through the journeys he personally made, especially to Asia. Al-Biruni was a first-rate scholar, interested in all branches of science, though it is as a mathematician and an astronomer that he is remembered.
In the geographical field it was mainly the mathematical and astronomical aspects that interested him. Among the projects al-Biruni mentioned in some detail was the measurement of the degree of latitude.
Few of these points were taken up by al-Birunia€™s successors, and his scientific work exerted very little influence on future Islamic cartographers.
The following maps are taken from: Persian Gulf in old maps published by the government of Iran. The following two a€?map reconstructionsa€? attributed to al-Biruni reflect an extension of Africa across the Indian Ocean which al-Biruni did not ascribed to.
Al-Biruni was a first-rate scholar, interested in all branches of science, though it is as a mathematician and an astronomer that he is remembered.A  He was an excellent critic who read widely. While Ptolemy is most frequently associated with geography and cartography, he also wrote important works in a number of other fields including astronomy, astrology, music and optics. Although no original manuscript of this text has survived the ravages of time, several manuscript copies, dating from the closing centuries of the Byzantine Empire (ca. For these and other reasons, Ptolemy knew mathematics to be an important part of cartography. The first Book of the Geographia is devoted primarily to theoretical principles, including a discussion of globe construction, the description of two map projections, and an extended, through amicable, criticism of his primary source, Marinus of Tyre, a€?the latest of the geographers of our timea€?. In another chapter in Book I, Ptolemy wrote that there are two ways of making a portrait of the world: one is to reproduce it on a sphere, and the other is to draw it on a plane surface. If the second method of drawing the earth is used, that is, if the spherical earth is projected onto a plane surface, certain adjustments are obviously necessary. Ptolemya€™s exhaustive criticism of the imperfect methods of drawing maps adopted by Marinus would lead to the expectation that he himself would have used some of his own recommended projections in constructing his maps. Book II of the Geographia opens with a prologue a€?of the particular descriptionsa€?, which is to say, the maps he was about to present, and a general statement of his mapmaking policy.
In the eighth and last Book of the Geographia, Ptolemy returned to the business of discussing the principles of cartography, mathematical, geographical and astronomical methods of observation, and, in some cases (manuscript or printed copies) there follow short legends for each of the special maps - ten for Europe, four for Africa and twelve for Asia - mentioning the countries laid down on each plate, describing the limits, and enumerating the tribes of each country and its most important towns. Those scholars who have argued that Ptolemya€™s original text contained no maps have neglected careful study of this Book. The obvious way to avoid crowding, Ptolemy said, is to make separate maps of the most populous regions or sectional maps combining densely populated areas with countries containing few inhabitants, if such a combination is feasible. The illustration above gives a diagram of the parts of the known world embraced by each special map found in Ptolemya€™s Geographia.
While there is little doubt still lingering that Ptolemya€™s text was originally illustrated by maps, it is not altogether certain that the maps found today in existing copies of the Geographia are indeed similar to those of the original series of maps, since the latter have not survived for comparison.
To further confound the issue, all of the other manuscript copies of the Geographia that are accompanied by maps differ one from another, presenting two basic versions. The other version, B, contains sixty-four maps distributed throughout the text, vice collected together in one place. Over and above these maps, those manuscripts with maps, both A- and B-versions, are additionally illustrated with a universal map of the entire known world at Ptolemya€™s time, either on one sheet or four sheets; only very rarely are both world maps found together.
As with modern maps, Ptolemaic maps are oriented so that North would be at the top and East at the right, because better known localities of the world were to be found in the northern latitudes, and on a flat map they would be easier to study if they were in the upper right-had corner. Displayed on the left-had margin of these world maps are seven Clima [Klima] and Parallel Zones. Overall Ptolemya€™s world-picture extended northward from the equator a distance of 31,500 stades [one mile = 9 to 10 stades; there has always been some controversy over the equivalent modern length of a stade] to 63A° N at Thule, and southward to a part of Ethiopia named Agysimba and Cape Prasum at 16A° S latitude, or the same distance south as Meroe was north. It has been repeatedly pointed out that the distances set down by Ptolemy in his tables for the Mediterranean countries, the virtual center of the habitable world, are erroneous beyond reason, considering the fact that Roman Itineraries were accessible. The geographical errors made by Ptolemy in his text and maps constitute the principle topic of many scholarly dissertations.
Paradoxically, Ptolemya€™s eastward extension of Asia, reducing the length of the unknown part of the world, coupled with his estimate of the circumference of the earth, was his greatest contribution to history if not cartography. Ptolemy provides a descriptive summary in his text in which he tells us that the habitable part of the earth is bounded on the south by the unknown land which encloses the Indian Sea and that it encompasses Ethiopia south of Libya, called Agisymba.
The southern limit of the habitable world had been fixed by Eratosthenes (#112) and Strabo (#115) at the parallel through the eastern extremity of Africa, Cape Guardafiri, the cinnamon-producing country and the country of the SembritA¦ [Senaai]. Ptolemy records, following Marinus, the penetration of Roman expeditions to the land of the Ethiopians and to Agisymba, a region of the Sudan beyond the Sahara desert, perhaps the basin of Lake Chad, and he supplied other new information regarding the interior of North Africa. The eastern coast of Africa was better known than the western, having been visited by Greek and Roman traders as far as Rhapta [Rhaptum Promontory opposite Zanzibar?] which Ptolemy placed at about 7A° S. According to Greek tradition, an extension of 20A° in the width of the habitable world called for a proportionate increase in its length. Ptolemya€™s knowledge of the vast region from Sarmatia to China was, however, better than that of previous map makers. Many faults appear in Ptolemya€™s picture of southern Asia, although for more than a century commercial relations between western India and Alexandria had been flourishing. Even the more familiar territory of the Mediterranean basin demonstrated that insufficient contemporary knowledge was available and Ptolemy erred in many important cartographical details. Map on grid system, in Ptolemy, La geographia, 1561-64, 26 x 14 cm, a€?Oxford University Byw. However, Ptolemy was apparently the first of the ancient geographers to have a fair conception of the relations between the Tanais, usually considered the northern boundary between Europe and Asia, and the Rha [Volga], which he said flowed into the Caspian Sea. In spite of the egregious errors on all of Ptolemya€™s maps, his atlas was indeed an unsurpassed masterpiece for almost 1,500 years. During the intellectual narrow-mindedness of the Middle Ages even Ptolemy and his methods of map construction were forgotten, at least in the west. The presently known version of Ptolemya€™s works began to surface when the Byzantine monk Maximos Planudes (1260 - 1310) succeeded in finding and purchasing a manuscript copy of the Geographia.
Another scholar of the Byzantine age is known to have been interested in Ptolemya€™s Geographia - the noted polyhistor Nikephoras Gregoras (1295 - c. In 1400 a Greek manuscript copy of the A-version (twenty-six maps) was obtained from Constantinople by the Florentine patron of letters, Palla Strozzi, who persuaded Emmanual Chrysoloras, a Byzantine scholar, to translate the text into Latin. Again, the original manuscript of Angelusa€™ translation and the first maps of Ptolemy in the Latin language have not survived, but a manuscript copy, dated 1427, prepared under the direction of Cardinal Fillastre, can be found in the library at Nancy, France (thus known as the Nancy Codex). In manuscript form, four other cartographers are significant in editing and influencing the evolution of Ptolemya€™s atlas.
After the discovery of copper-plate and wood-engraving, Ptolemya€™s atlas became one of the first great works for the reproduction of which these arts were employed. 1906: Availability of panchromatic black and white film and therefore high quality color separation color photography. PAINTING OF THE WEEK - Ruins of the Holyrood Chapel by Moonlight, oil on canvas, 1824, Louis Daguerre. G+ #Read of the Day: The Daguerreotype - The daguerreotype, an early form of photograph, was invented by Louis Daguerre in the early 19th c. The first photograph (1826) - Joseph Niepce, a French inventor and pioneer in photography, is generally credited with producing the first photograph.
The tradition is generally associated with 10th century scholars such as al-Balkhi, al-Istakhri, al-Muqaddasi, Ibn Hawqal, and the ninth century geographer Ibn Khurdadhbeh (d. These cosmological works seem to have been produced for the average lay reader as organized compendia of world knowledge, rather than critical scientific works, and relied heavily on earlier sources.
That island produces nardgil or coconuts, sugarcane, one makes there clothes of grass, as beautiful as from silk, one builds boats of 60 elbows long, that carry 200 men. Mecca, the focal point of all spatial references, is near the center of the Arabian Peninsula, which is embraced by the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea in the shape of a crescent moon to signify the unity of the celestial and terrestrial worlds, a unity of conjoined sacredness. While obviously these maps were produced after the European a€?early medievala€? period, they still reflect the medieval world view of the Arab cartographers. A sketch map drawn by al-Biruni (973-1048) exemplifies just such a map, and exerted considerable influence on some important geographers. An open oceanic expanse in the Southern Hemisphere that corresponds to the Indian Ocean replaces traditional terra incognita at the southern part of Africa in the Balkhi School maps. He was perhaps best known as a polymath; his skill in diverse fields like astronomy, mathematics, geography, and multiple languages (including Persian and Turkish) were well known. Although al-Biruni did not travel as far as China, he gleaned much new information about places like China when he worked in the court of Mahmud of Ghazna. Here he was specializing in those aspects that had been neglected by previous geographers, and thus one might expect to see an improvement in Islamic cartography. He carried this out in Khwarazm and in Ghazna, and he produced a new method of measurement by using a convenient mountain from which the horizon could be observed.
Under Masa€™ud I (reigned 1030-40), the son and successor of Mahmud, al-Biruni was able to go on with his writing and scientific work. He had good knowledge of Greek scientific sources and was extremely interested in Indian scientific theories, so that he could and did compare the different cultural streams that came the way of the Muslim intelligentsia of his day.
Perhaps the most accepted piece of information was the distribution of land and water, because the eastern extension of southern Africa toward China, which was a prominent feature of the Islamic world map up to al-Birunia€™s time, was now discontinued. He composed a Table of Reigns, a chronological list of Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman sovereigns dating from Nabonasar to Antoninus Pius, a biographical history of kingship. He was interested in the earth, all of it, not just the habitable part, and tried to fit it into a scheme of the universe where it belonged.
When traveling overland it is usually necessary to diverge from a straight line course in order to avoid inevitable land-barriers; and at sea, where winds are changeable, the speed of a vessel varies considerably, making it difficult to estimate over-water distances with any degree of accuracy. The Indian Ocean, which is assumed to be bordered on the south by an unknown continent, uniting southern Africa with eastern Asia, is stated to be the largest sea surrounded by land. It is these legends which, in some editions, have been placed on the reverse of the maps, and they appear to have been originally intended for that purpose. In Chapter Two Ptolemy said, a€?It remains for us to show how we set down all places, so that when we divide one map into several maps we may be able to accurately locate all of the well-known places through the employment of easily understood and exact measurements.a€? On the other hand, some scholars even go so far as to say that maps were already drawn before certain portions of the text was addressed, so that they could be used as models for the completion of other portions of the text.
For instance, in a single map embracing the entire earth, he said, there is a tendency to sacrifice proportion, that is, scale, in order to get everything on the map. If several regional maps are made to supplement the general world map, they need not a€?measure the same distance between the circlesa€?, that is, be drawn to the same scale, provided the correct relation between distance and direction is preserved.
It demonstrates how Ptolemya€™s world had been systematically divided into twenty-six regions, each of which is mapped on a separate sheet. The reason for this doubt lies in the question of authorship of the maps which accompany extant copies. According to map historian Leo Bagrow, one version, A, contains twenty-six large maps included in the eighth Book of the text, each folded in half and, on the back, having a statement of the region portrayed, its bounds and a list of principle towns.
In some manuscripts of the B-version, and in those without maps, the texts from the backs of the maps are combined together in a special edition, divided into chapters numbered 3-28.
The meridians are spaced from each other a€?the third part of an equinoctial hour, that is, through five of the divisions marked on the equatora€?. In Ptolemya€™s time, the latitude, or distance from the equator, was generally astronomically calculated from the length of the longest and the shortest day.
The a€?breadtha€? of the habitable world according to Ptolemy then equates to 39,500 stades [3,950 miles]. The earth was only 18,000 miles around at the equator; Poseidonius had stated it, Strabo substantiated it, and Ptolemy perpetuated it on his maps. Of these, the Indicum Mare [Indian Ocean] is the largest, Our Sea [the Mediterranean] is the next and the Hyrcanian [Caspian] is the smallest.
This parallel also passed through Taprobane usually considered the southernmost part of Asia. As to the source of the Nile, both Greeks and Romans had tried to locate it, but without success. Ptolemy extended the west coast of Africa with a free hand, and even though he reduced the bulge made by Marinus more than half, it was still way out of control. He shows, for the first time, a fairly clear idea of the great north-south dividing range of mountains of Central Asia, which he called Imaus, but he placed it nearly 40A° too far east and made it divide Scythia into two parts: Scythia Intra Imaum and Scythia Extra Imaum Montem [Within Imaus and Beyond Imaus]. His Mediterranean is about 20A° too long, and even after correcting his lineal value of a degree it was still about 500 geographical miles too long.

Ptolemy was also the first geographer, excepting Alexander the Great, to return to the correct view advanced by Herodotus and Aristotle, that the Caspian was an inland sea without communication with the ocean (the Christian medieval cartographers were a long time in returning to this representation of the Caspian). Its wealth of detail still constitutes one of the most important sources of information for the historian and student of ancient geography. Many of the legends and conventional signs that he used are still employed by cartographers with only slight modifications. Ptolemya€™s works were, however, thriving and contributing valuable insight to knowledgeable Arabs and those having access and understanding of the Arab or Greek language (it was only in the Islamic states and in these languages that the works of the Alexandrian scientist were preserved (see monographs #212, #213, #214-17, lbn Said, al-lstakhri, Ibn Hauqal, al-Kashgari, etc. Very few scholars, let alone other literate persons in Western Europe were familiar with the Greek language at this time, therefore this translation was a great stimulus to a€?popularizinga€? Ptolemy. Curiously enough it was first printed at Vincenza in 1475 (the date printed of 1462 is in error) without maps! Talbot was active from the mid-1830s, and sits alongside Louis Daguerre as one of the fathers of the medium.
His first chapter is almost entirely based on Yaquta€™s geography.A  As a result, those trying to date his work start from c. His map shows a different distribution of space that more closely matches modern-day representations.
The Indian Ocean is therefore connected to the Atlantic Ocean under the southern tip of Africa (which is depicted as a rectangular, not triangular, shape). With this unusual intellectual talent, al-Biruni amassed earlier geographic works in order to create a synthesis of all known theories of world geography from Greek, Persian, and Indian traditions, including ideas about longitudes and latitudes. He also attempted to measure the difference in longitude between two places using the distance between them in miles.
It was here about 1036 that he completed his great astronomical work Kitab al-qanun al-Masa€™udi fi al-haya€™ah wa-al-nujum [the Masa€?udic canon], which includes not only his astronomical tables but, in the tradition of al-Battani, a table of geographical coordinates of important places throughout the world.A  This table has over six hundred entries and hence is double the size of that of al-Battani or of Ibn Yunus.
Little is known personally of this pivotal man aside from the general period during which he was active ca. His Analemma was mathematical description of a sphere projected on a plane, subsequently known as an a€?orthographic projection,a€? which greatly simplified the study of gnomonics.
He was also interested in the relationships between the earth and the sun, the earth and the moon, in scientific cause and effect of climate; and above all, he was concerned with a scientifically accurate portrayal of the spherical earth in a convenient readable form. These Byzantine copies of the Geographia are comprised of eight a€?Booksa€? which Ptolemy introduces by supplying two very influential definitions - that of chorography and geography. Marinus had laid out a grid of strait lines equidistant from one another for both his parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude. Because while Ptolemy employs his conical projection in his first general world map, for the remaining twenty-six special regional maps he uses the rectangular projection of Marinus with due observance of the ratio between the longitude and latitude at the base of the map.
In addition, a description of a projection of the inhabited hemisphere on a plane, by which it could retain its circular outline, or globular aspect is also given. The better known regions have many place-names, while the lesser known have few, and, unless the map is carefully drawn, it will have some crowded, illegible areas, and some where distances are unduly extended. Ptolemy repeated that it would be not too far from the truth if instead of circles we draw straight lines for meridians and parallels. Generally these sheets are of about the same size, but the scales vary according to the space required for the legends.
Did Ptolemy actually design and construct the maps himself, were they made by a draftsman working under his supervision, or were they added, perhaps as late as 1450, by an energetic editor who thought the text needed some graphic emendation? The geographical coordinates of these towns are given, not in degrees, but in time; the longitude is expressed in hours and minutes corresponding to the distance from the meridian of Alexandria (one hour = 15 degrees, one minute = 15 minutes of a degree), and the latitude is expressed in terms of the length of the longest day, in hours and minutes (the greater the distance from the equator, the longer the day in summer). Some of the manuscripts without maps contain references to accompanying maps, since lost, and in others, spaces have been left for maps to be inserted. In other words, the total span of twelve hours, representing the length of the habitable world, was to be partitioned by a series of thirty-six meridians spaced five degrees apart at the equator and converging at the North Pole. The earth was accordingly divided into a number of zones, parallel to the equator and within which these days had a certain length, for instance of 12 -13, or 15 -16 hours. Ptolemy a€?correcteda€? this length to 180A° (9,000 miles), still 50A° (2,500 miles) too long, an error arising from using the Fortunate Islands as his prime meridian which he placed about seven degrees (350 miles) too far to the east. It is very unlikely, in view of the secrecy attached to all maps and surveys of the Roman Empire.
This a€?shorter distancea€? that a mariner would have to travel west from the shores of Spain in order to reach the rich trading centers of Asia may have contributed to Columbusa€™ belief, or that of his royal sponsors, that they could compete with their rival neighbors, Portugal, in the newly opened sea-trade with India by sailing west.
The Emperor Nero had sent an expedition into Upper Egypt, and it had penetrated as far as the White Nile, about 9A° N latitude.
On the same approximate parallel he located the region called Agisymba, inhabited by Ethiopians and abounding in rhinoceri, supposedly discovered by Julius Maternus, a Roman general. A more obvious area to stretch the length of the world was in eastern Asia where there was every likelihood of additional territory yet unexplored. Asia and Africa are extended considerably to the east and south, far more so than on any previous maps, but not without cause. His Mare Nostrum, from Marseilles to the opposite point on the coast of Africa, is 11A° of latitude instead of the actual 6.5A°. This is especially true in the study of the earliest tribes that encompassed the Roman Empire in the first century of the Christian era, who were at that time barbarians, but who later bore the burden of civilization in Europe. He originated the practice of orienting maps so that North is at the top and East to the right, a custom so universal today that many people are lost when they try to read a map oriented any other way. Planudes constructed a map based upon the instructions found in Ptolemya€™s eight books and subsequently, through Athanasios, Patriarch of Alexandria, had a copy of the Geographia, with maps made for Emperor Andronicus III. He is also credited with the four-page world map found in some manuscripts, chiefly the B-version.
He was familiar with Indian traditions of mathematic geographical measuring, such as the Indian coordinate table called the Zij book that determined geographical positioning independently of the Greeks. This sketch map was occasionally used directly by later authorsa€”for instance, al-Qazwini in his cosmographical work a€?Ajaa€™ib al-makhluqat (#222), but its influence was very clear in practically all future Islamic maps of the world. His work entitled PlanisphA¦rium [the Planisphere], described a sphere projected on the equator, the eye being at the pole, a projection later known as a€?stereographica€?.
More than any one of the ancients, Claudius Ptolemy succeeded in establishing the elements and form of scientific cartography. He defines chorography as being selective and regional in approach, a€?even dealing with the smallest conceivable localities, such as harbors, farms, villages, river courses, and the likea€?. Its position under the heavens is extremely important, for in order to describe any given part of the world one must know under what parallel of the celestial sphere it is located.
He seems to have studied and made astronomical observations in Tyre, the oldest and largest city of Phoenicia, which, even at that late date, maintained important commercial relations with remote parts of the world. This was contrary to both truth and appearance, and the resulting map was badly distorted with respect to distance and direction, for if the eye is fixed on the center of the quadrant of the sphere which we take to be our inhabited world, it is readily seen that the meridians curve toward the North Pole and that the parallels, though they are equally spaced on the sphere, give the impression of being closer together near the poles. Traditional information regarding distances should be subordinated, especially the primitive sort, for tradition varies from time to time, and if it must enter into the making of maps at all, it is expedient to compare the records of the ancient past with newer records, a€?deciding what is credible and what is incrediblea€?.
Ptolemy himself never actually employed this manner of projection, which has since, through more or less modified, been preferred by geographers for maps representing one of the hemispheres. Some map makers have a tendency to exaggerate the size of Europe because it is most populous, and to contract the length of Asia because little is known about the eastern part of it. As for his own policy, he said, a€?in the separate maps we shall show the meridians themselves not inclined and curved but at an equal distance one from another, and since the termini of the circles of latitude and of longitude of the habitable earth, when calculated over great distances do not make any remarkable excesses, so neither is there any great difference in any of our mapsa€?. As this diagram shows, each regional map would encompass, besides its own proper territory, some parts of the neighboring countries.
Ptolemy does not state specifically in his text whether he personally made any maps, and proponents of the theory that Ptolemy made no maps for this Geographia base their case on the notation in two of the existing manuscript copies, that a cartographer named AgathodA¦mon of Alexandria was the author of the accompanying map(s). It is no less difficult, also, to determine when the maps of the two versions (A and B) were made. The meridians in the southern hemisphere are extended from the equator at the same angle as those above it, but instead of converging at the South Pole they terminated at the parallel 8A° 25a€™ below the equator.
The concept of the division of the earth into zones began as early as the sixth century B.C.
While Ptolemya€™s map is based upon the theory that the earth is round, it bares repeating that it is to his credit that he depicts only that half of its surface which was then known, with very little attempt to speculate on or a€?fill-ina€? the unknown parts with his imagination. More specifically, Ptolemya€™s knowledge concerning the fringes of the habitable world and civilization was broader than earlier writers, such as Strabo (#115), but in some respects it was a little confused. With Thule as the northern limit of Ptolemya€™s habitable world, he thus extended the breadth of this world from less than 60A° (Eratosthenes and Strabo) to nearly 80A°.
The silk trade with China had produced rumors of vast regions east of the Pamir and Tian Shan, hitherto the Greek limits of Asia. These distortions represented an actual extension of geographical knowledge and are doubtless based on exaggerated reports of distances traveled. 80) containing sailing directions from the Red Sea to the Indus and Malabar, indicated that the coast from Barygaza [Baroch] had a general southerly trend down to and far beyond Cape Korami [Comorin], and suggested a peninsula in southern India.
To be sure, there are other geographical fragments, individual maps and charts, isolated examples of the best in Greek, Roman, and Arabic cartography, but Ptolemya€™s Geographia is the only extant geographical atlas which has come down to us from the ancients. His map projections, the conical and modified spherical, as well as the orthographic and stereographic systems developed in the Almagest, are still in use. This particular copy has not been recovered, however another copy attributed to Planudes is preserved, in part, in the monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos. It was also during this time, the 14th century, that the twenty-six maps of the A-version were divided up into sixty-four. This oldest Latin translation of Ptolemya€™s Geographia (confusingly and arbitrarily titled Cosmographia by Angelus) was at first disseminated in numerous, often splendidly decorated manuscript copies.
A re-issue of the preceding, but with a new title-page, an account of the New World by Marcus Beneventanus, and a new map of the world by Ruysch, Nova Tabula. The most important edition of Ptolemy, containing the 27 maps of the ancient world and 20 maps based on contemporary knowledge, under the superintendence of Martin WaldseemA?ller. Maps, with the exception of Asia V, printed from the same blocks as 1522 edition, and like them almost unaltered copies on a reduced scale of the maps of the 1513 edition.
The Nile, drawn in red, takes a right-angle turn, possibly reflecting the rivera€™s great bend. Together, the multiple perspectives of different schools and the knowledge he synthesized helped him to utilize new ideas about how to sketch the world map that presents new theories about the distribution of land and sea.
90 to 168 (during the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius) and that he lived in, or near, Alexandria Egypt. This he did through his second great treatise, Geographike Syntaxis, called by him, a€?the geographical guide to the making of mapsa€?, and, in later centuries, shortened to simply Geographia, or (incorrectly) Cosmographia. Geography, he said, differs from chorography in that it deals with a€?a representation in picture of the whole known world together with the phenomena that are contained thereina€?. Otherwise how can one determine the length of its days and nights, the stars which are fixed overhead, the stars which appear nightly over the horizon and the stars which never rise above the horizon at all.
This a€?tutora€™ of Ptolemy had read nearly all of the historians before him and had corrected many of their errors (presumable errors relating to the location of places as contained in travelersa€™ itineraries).
Ptolemy was well aware that it would be desirable to retain a semblance of spherical proportions on his flat map, but at the same time he decided to be practical about it. With one exception (an Italian translation by Berlinghieri), every editor of Ptolemya€™s Geographia has published, not the original maps, but a modification of them by Nicolaus Germanus (Donis), who, with praiseworthy exactness and without any further alterations, reproduced the originals, on a projection with rectilinear, equidistant parallels and meridians converging towards the poles. It is an exception when geographical or descriptive remarks are added to this bare enumeration of names. Therefore if a geographer were obliged to fall back on the reports of travelers, he should exercise some discrimination in his choice of authorities. What could be found to the north of Thule, or to the south of Agysimba and Cape Prasum: Where would you arrive if you sailed westward from the Fortunate Islands?
And some cartographers surround the earth on all sides with an ocean that, according to Ptolemy are a€?making a fallacious description, and an unfinished and foolish picturea€?. But, as is also usual in modern atlases, these neighboring areas of the map are only roughly sketched, while the principle area is shown in full detail. From these same manuscripts it is stated that a€?he drew them according to the instructions in the eight books of Claudius Ptolemya€?. Certain indications point to the Byzantine period, with the exception of AgathodA¦mona€™s single-sheet world map. And it is highly probable that Ptolemy the astronomer, who is usually discredited by later geographers because of his methods and the kinds of information he compiled, had no more standing among some of his influential contemporaries than he would today in the most approved geographical circles of the civilized world. The only good reason for discussing a few of the glaring faults of the Geographia is that it was the canonical work on the subject for more than 1400 years.
Ptolemy stated that the Nile arose from two streams, the outlets of two lakes a little south of the equator, which was closer to the truth than any previous conception until the discovery of the Victoria and Albert Nyanza in modern times. All such information was of doubtful origin, and in laying down the coastline of Eastern Asia, Ptolemy ran the line roughly north and south. Ptolemy, apparently following Marinus, ignored this document, or else never saw it because the shape of his India is unduly broadened and foreshortened.
Leaving the habitable world from the Strait at the Pillars of Hercules to the Gulf of Issus, it passed through Caralis in Sardinia and Lilybaeum in Sicily (30A° 12a€™ and 37A° 50a€™ N). Ptolemy stated that the Nile arose from two streams, the outlets of two lakes a little south of the equator, which was closer to the truth than any previous conception, or any later one until the discovery of the Victoria and Albert Nyanza in modern times.
Four new mapsa€”France, Italy, Spain and Palestinea€”being based on contemporary knowledge.
The map of the world is the first to show contemporary discoveries, and the first map to bear the name of its engraver, Johannes Schnitzer de Armssheim. The other 6 mapsa€”northern Europe, Spain, France, Poland, Italy and the Holy Landa€”are based on contemporary knowledge. Includes the Tabula Terra Nova, the first map specifically devoted to the delineation of the New World. The alchemist Fabricio, more or less at the same period of time, observed that silver chloride was darkened by the action of light. Chemistry student Robert Cornelius was so fascinated by the chemical process involved in Daguerrea€™s work that he sought to make some improvements himself.

Its sense of proportion is highly schematic, and the location of certain places is rather unusual, but al-Andalus [Spain], Qustantaniyyah [Constantinople] and the River Nile are all approximately where one might expect. India, Tibet and China are associated with the Black Stone in the eastern corner of the Ka`ba, with a qiblah pointing slightly northwest.
They have islands in the sea, from which they collect cowries to adorn their persons, and they use them in traffic one with another, at an established rate. During the second century, Alexandria was not only the richest city in the world, with regard to learned institutions and treasures of scholarship, but also the wealthiest commercial place on the earth. This work is actually the first general atlas of the world to have survived, rather than a a€?Geographya€? with a long textual introduction to the subject of cartography. As he proceeds to elaborate his definition of geography, it becomes apparent that Ptolemy conceived that the primary function of geography was a€?mapmakinga€?, and that, to him, geography was synonymous with cartography. He had, moreover, edited and revised his own geographic maps, of which at least two editions had been published before Ptolemy saw them. Finally, Ptolemy thought, about all one could do was to locate unfamiliar places as accurately as possible with reference to well-known places, in as much as it is advisable on a map of the entire world to assign a definite position to every known place, regardless of how little is known about it. The longitudes would be determined from the meridian of Alexandria, either at sunrise or sunset, calculating the difference in equinoctial hours between Alexandria and point two, whatever it might be. As mentioned earlier, the original text called for twenty-six regional or special maps, which in all extant manuscript copies bear a strong family resemblance and are laid down on the projection apparently used by Marinus in the form of isosceles trapezoids. However, this statement has never been dated and, confusingly, AgathodA¦mona€™s single-sheet world map employs a projection unlike any proposed by Ptolemya€™s text.
But, again, when they were constructed - totally and faithfully copied from the originals, or constructed from Ptolemya€™s instructions but without benefit of original models - is significant in trying to determine the degree of similarity to their a€?prototypea€™ and the possibility of additions or corrections based upon more contemporary knowledge. Different from what is now accepted as the meaning, this word in ancient maps had a purely geographical, not a meteorological significance, although they also perceived that the climate of a region was somewhat related to its distance from the equator. Similarly he showed the length of the Mediterranean as 62A°, whereas, in reality it is only 42A°. Geographers of the 15th and 16th centuries relied on it so heavily, while ignoring the new discoveries of maritime explorers, that it actually exerted a powerful retarding influence on the progress of cartography.
Instead of continuing it to the Land of the LinA¦ [seacoast of China] he curved it around to the east and south, forming a great bay, Sinus Magnus [roughly the Gulf of Siam]. Carthage is positioned 1A° 20a€™ south of the parallel of Rhodes; actually it is one degree north of it. Corrected and amended by a succession of editors, this version also formed the basis upon which all of the editions of the 15th century are built.
The text is a metrical paraphrase by Francesco Berlinghieri, and is the first edition in Italian. The greatly increased number of a€?modern mapsa€? makes this in effect the first modern atlas. It was only two hundred years later that the physicist Charles made the first photographic impression, by projecting the outlines of one of his pupils on a white paper sheet impregnated with silver chloride.
And in 1839 Cornelius shot a self-portrait daguerrotype that some historians believe was the first modern photograph of a man ever produced. The original work is said to have been completed around the year 1419 AD, as stated on the earliest known copy which is dated 1479 AD (cited in R. The world is shown surrounded by water, with an outer boundary of mountains, seen here as the polychrome outer border. A fourth region, the Yemen, the Hadramawt, Aden and Socotra are linked with the southern corner of the Ka`ba, with a qiblah pointing north. They have no ships, but traders come in vessels from Uman, to buy their children, whom they sell in different countries. It was a place where seafaring people and caravans from all parts of the known world would use to congregate, thereby providing the opportunity to collect knowledge of far away lands and seas. Here for the first time are documented the duties and responsibilities of the mapmaker, his limitations, and the nature of the materials he was to work with. The final drafts were nearly free from defects and his text, which we know of only through Ptolemy, was so reliable in Ptolemya€™s estimation that a€?it would seem to be enough for us to describe the earth on which we dwell from his commentaries alone, without other investigations.a€? According to Ptolemy, the most significant feature of the maps of Marinus was the growth of the habitable world and the changed attitude toward the uninhabited parts. When such a conical surface is extended on a plane, a network with circular parallels and rectilinear, converging meridians arise. Unlike Marinus who listed longitude on one page and latitude on another, Ptolemy began the tradition of listing the positional coordinates together and in a usable system that was practical to follow. Some of the other conspicuously modern conventions include the previously noted lack of ornamentation, his method of differentiating land and water, rivers and towns, by means of either hachures or different colors, and his use of a€?standardizeda€™ symbols all of which is accepted at first glance without a thought being given to the origin of the technique. This particular world map is usually found at the end of Book VII, preceded by three chapters containing some practical advice, a general description of all known areas of the world and the three principle seas (the Mediterranean, the Caspian and the Indian Ocean), with their bays and islands, and instructions for drawing a sphere and maps on a plane surface. It is noteworthy here to point out that, regardless of when these existing manuscript reproductions were made, they somehow escaped the pictorial fancies such as sketches of animals, monsters, savages, ships, kings, etc.
The eastward extension of Asia is also exaggerated, measuring about 110A° from the coast of Syria to the outermost limits of China, instead of the true distance of about 85A°.
Continuing it around to the south until it joined Terra Incognita at the southern limit of the habitable world, he made a lake of the Indicum Mare [Indian Ocean]. For the most part, the lands beyond the Ganges were not well known until a thousand years later when the brothers Polo first acquainted western Europe with the existence of a number of large islands in that part of the world. Byzantium is placed in the same latitude as Massilia, which made it more than two degrees north of its true position. It is also the only edition with maps printed on the original projection with equidistant parallels or meridians. The first part ends with genealogical trees of the Prophet Muhammad, the Four Orthodox Caliphs, and the sultans and high officials of Muslim dynasties such as the Umayyads, the a€?Abbasids, the early Islamic period, the Ghaznawids, the Ilkhanids, the Seljuqs and the Timurids.
In spite of such scant personal knowledge, Claudius Ptolemya€™s writings have had a greater influence on cartography, and on geography in general, than that of any other single figure in history. 141), a composition dealing with astronomy and mathematics, more commonly known by its hybrid Greco-Arabic title, the Almagest, in which he lays down the foundation of trigonometry and sets forth his view of the universe. This single treatise remained the standard work on geographical theory throughout the Middle Ages, was not superseded as such with the 16th century, and constitutes one of the fundamental tenants of modern geodesy.
Cartography is not an artistic endeavor according to the Greek scholar, but should be concerned with the relation of distance and direction, and with the important features of the eartha€™s surface that can be indicated by plain lines and simple notations (enough to indicate general features and fix positions). Marinus was a good man in Ptolemya€™s estimation but he lacked the critical eye and allowed himself to be led astray in his scientific investigations.
This particular projection shown of the general map of the habitable world, the one believed to be employed by Ptolemy in his original general map, is laid down in the lazy mana€™s projection he talked about, the modified conic instead of the spherical projection that he recommended for a faithful delineation of the eartha€™s surface. Many scholars ascribe these three chapters to AgathodA¦mon, as the descriptive text for his map. As can be seen from these world maps, Ptolemy divided the northern hemisphere into twenty-one parallels, noted, again, in the margin of this maps.
To judge, therefore, from the map, Ptolemy discarded both the older Greek belief that the earth was surrounded by water, and Herodotusa€™ description of the Phoeniciana€™s circumnavigation of Africa. And there were no good maps of the East Indian Archipelago until after the Portuguese voyages to the Indies.
This particular error threw the whole Euxine Pontus [Black Sea], whose general form and dimensions were fairly well known, too far north by the same amount, over 100 miles. The photos were turned into lantern slides and projected in registration with the same color filters. The second part opens with Sultan Osman, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty, and goes up to Sultan Murad III, with 12 portraits of Ottoman sultans. The inclusion of a small section explaining the game of chess, including a detailed drawing, has not been recorded in other copies of Ibn al-Wardia€™s cosmography.
The inhabitants are infidels, and the tartars among the blacks, consisting of savage tribes of freebooters, who continually take captive and plunder every thing that falls in their way. In recent works from about 2000 on the Ibn al-Wardi concerned is often called pseudo Ibn al Wardi. Here he explains his belief that the earth is a stationary sphere, at the center of the universe, which revolves about it daily. According to Ptolemy, even Marinus had made mistakes, either because he had consulted a€?too many conflicting volumes, all disagreeing,a€? or because he had never completed the final revision of his map. However, Ptolemy rigorously applies the conical projection only to the northern part of his map of the world.
Yet this Ptolemaic theory was later mysteriously a€?re-interpreteda€? by Martin WaldseemA?ller in 1507 (see monograph #310 in Book IV) and again by Gerard Mercator in 1569 as a belief by Ptolemy in an all encircling great ocean. Yet this Ptolemaic theory was later mysteriously a€?re-interpreteda€? by Martin WaldseemA?ller in 1507 (see monograph #310) and again by Gerard Mercator in 1569 as a belief by Ptolemy in an all encircling great ocean. In 1802, Wedgwood reproduced transparent drawings on a surface sensitized by silver nitrate and exposed to light. In their country the river divides; one branch going towards Egypt, and the other to the country of the Zinji. While his proofs of the sphericity of the earth are still accepted today as valid, Ptolemy rejected the theory of the rotation of the earth about its axis as being absurd. To represent the known parts of the southern hemisphere on the same sheet, he describes an arc of a circle parallel to the equator, and at the same distance to the south of it, as Meroe [MA¦roe] is to the north, and then divides this arc in parts of the same number and size, as on the Parallel of Meroe.
That paradox notwithstanding, though, Ptolemya€™s depiction of a southern Afro-Asian continent and a land-locked Indian Ocean provided little comfort during the intervening 1,300 years to those early explorers, and later the Portuguese, in their attempts to find an all water route to India.
Nicephore Niepce (1765-1833) had the idea of using as sensitive material the bitumen, which is altered and made insoluble by light, thus keeping the images obtained unaltered. Long before the first photographs were made, Chinese philosopher Mo Ti and Greek mathematicians Aristotle and Euclid described a pinhole camera in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. The paper of the present manuscript can be clearly located to Spain no later than the middle of the 15th century. However, Marinusa€™ treatise on geography, with its maps, should still be ranked among the most important of the lost documents of the ancients, if for no other reason than that it was the foundation upon which Claudius Ptolemy built. The network is then obtained by joining the intersections to corresponding points on the equator. The twenty-one parallels are spaced at equal lineal intervals and each one is designated by (1) the number of equinoctial hours and fractional hours of daylight on the longest day of the year and (2) the number of degrees and minutes of arc north of the equator.
For example, the first parallel of latitude north of the equator was distant from it a€?the fourth part of an houra€? and a€?distant from it geometrically about 4A°15a€™a€?. It was then fixed with a solution of potassium cyanide, which dissolves the unaltered iodine.The daguerreotype (1839) was the first practical solution for the problem of photography. One other parallel is added south of the equator, identified with the Rhaptum promontory and Cattigara and about 8A° 25a€™ distant from a€?The Linea€?. In 1841, Claudet discovered quickening substances, thanks to which exposing times were shortened. The most remarkable produce of this country is its quantity of native gold that is found, in pieces of two or three Meskalla weight; in spite of which, the natives generally adorn their persons with ornaments of brass. All of the parallels north of the equator are located theoretically with the exception of three: Meroe, Syene and Rhodes. More or less at the same time period, EnglishWilliam Henry Talbot substituted the steel daguerreotype with paper photographs (named calotype). Wilhelm Homberg described how light darkened some chemicals (photochemical effect) in 1694. The first one, Clima I per Meroe, (so called because it passes through Meroe, near modern Shendi, a city of Africa at 17A° N latitude) was established traditionally as 1,000 miles below Alexandria and 300 miles from the torrid zone; it was also known as the royal seat and principal metropolis of Ethiopia [Africa].

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