History of cartography
. .. The god Apollo was angry at Achilles and sent the arrow of Paris to his heel, the one and only place that was dangerous for the great hero. After all, his mother redeemed him in the sacred waters of the Styx River, which made man invulnerable, but, dipping the baby into the water, she held it by the heel, so the water did not touch it. This legend, stated in the "Iliad"( the time of the appearance of the poem - about IX-VIII centuries BC), was remembered by people. The expression "Achilles' heel" still serves to denote a vulnerable, weak place of man. But back to the legend. After the death of Achilles, his gold armor remained, and among them a shield on which was depicted the map of the Earth. And in those days, the Greeks represented the Earth in the form of a flat round disc with raised edges, like a frying pan. Was washed this circle by the fast-flowing world river-ocean, behind which was the kingdom of shadows. In the center of the circle the Greeks, of course, placed Greece with the sacred mountain Olympus.
But not all in ancient times represented the Earth in this way. The famous historian Herodotus even derided these ideas: "It makes me laugh when I see that many who depict the Earth are round, surrounded by the ocean. The Earth is always like a circled circle, and Asia is represented in the same dimensions as Europe. "Herodotus did not agree with the notion of the Earth as a disk and spoke of its enormous size and the uncertainty of its boundaries.
Today, we could, of course, laugh at both Herodotus' many ideas about the Earth and the ancient maps. But we will not do this out of respect for those who studied and measured the earth's surface, traced the boundaries of the continents and seas, rose to the highest mountains and sank to the ocean floor. Millions of hard work of all mankind were required to create the current map of the world.
Now a card is used by any schoolboy. But try to correctly answer the question: "What is a map?" A map is a drawing of a terrain based on exact measurements, on which a reduced or simplified picture of the Earth's surface or its part is represented by means of symbols. But the map is different. Some depict the relief of this territory with different details - these are topographic maps. Others show the division of the country or some part of it into the regions, regions, districts - these are administrative maps. Maritime or navigational charts contain information about the coastlines and bottom paintings, obstacles in navigation - meadows, rocks, wrecks, etc.
Ancient map.
Maps appeared a very long time ago. Archaeologists have repeatedly found schematic images of the terrain, carved on the rocks by a primitive man. On them the paths, streams and even cultivated fields were designated. Inscriptions were missing, since people did not yet know the written language. Instead of inscriptions they put conventional signs or placed drawings of people, trees, animals, etc.
In the 19th century, Russian travelers tried to teach the inhabitants of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean a written language, but they could not do it. The islanders looked at the letters and did not understand how these strange icons denote the stars, the sky, the sea. But they have been making maps since time immemorial, and the maps are unusual. Of the dried fibers of the leaves weaved a lattice. Seashells were placed in certain places of the lattice. The nodal points of the grid - "crossroads" - carried information about the constant currents in the ocean and prevailing winds, and the shells denoted reefs and atolls. Each such card was kept secret. The islanders never took their cards in the sea, so as not to lose during the storm, but remembered and hid them on the shore!
Maps were almost all ancient peoples. During the excavations in the valleys of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, clay tablets were found - maps of that time. The oldest surviving map of Mesopotamia was discovered about 300 kilometers from Babylon. It depicts a river flowing between two mountainous countries. At the mouth, at the confluence of the sea, the river forms a delta. In Egypt, for writing and maps used mainly papyrus, so Egyptian maps to the present day has reached very little. The Eskimos of Greenland made relief maps of wood, negroes who lived in the basin of the Congo, carved them on the hard shells of tropical fruits, and the Indians, who lived on the Columbia River in North America, scratched the tree Rope. During the trip, they carried with them entire bundles of such cards. So there were atlases. On the territory of our country in one of the mounds, near Maikop, was found a silver vase with a picture-map made in the III millennium BC.The figure shows the mountains from which two rivers flow down. On the mountains there is a forest, and at the foot and around the lake there are various animals.
Like many branches of knowledge, the origins of modern cartography lie in the ancient world. The Greeks invented cartographic projections, introduced meridians and parallels. An ancient Roman empire was covered by a dense network of roads. To understand them it was possible only with the help of maps. I must say that the ancient Roman maps were specially adapted for travel. They had a length of several meters, and in width - about half a meter. The cards were folded into rolls-rolls, which made it easier to use them on the road. They were inflicted on cities, fortifications, Roman legions, roads, forests, rivers, mountains.
Absolutely unusual kind of Arab maps. The fact is that the Koran forbade the depiction of people and animals. This prohibition also affected the maps that were drawn with the help of a compass and ruler. The seas looked geometrically correct, rivers and roads, regardless of their actual form, were represented by straight lines. Countries and cities were designated by circles or polygons.
In the Middle Ages, people traveled a little. And the feudal lord could easily review his possessions by climbing the castle tower. So in the maps in those days, special needs were not experienced. But in the Renaissance the flowering of trade between East and West began. Long sea voyages are being made. At this time there are sea maps - portolans. They often painted on parchment( for durability).They very accurately and clearly depicted the coastline, and the "details" sushi compilers did not interest.
After the invention of printing, the practice included engraving and printing cards, which allowed to publish them in thousands of pieces( before this cards were copied by hand, which was very expensive and made errors).The cards came into vogue - they were started to be inserted into beautiful frames, to make on them elegant inscriptions, drawings of caravels, sea monsters. Artfully executed cards adorned the walls of palaces, the offices of nobles. But gradually, after all, they are increasingly becoming a "working tool" for travelers. All over the world, special expeditions were undertaken to compile new accurate maps. True, the work of cartographers was not always met with gratitude. When French scientists in the 17th century, using precise measurements, concluded that the size of the state was greatly exaggerated, this provoked Louis XIV's discontent."These scientists," he exclaimed in exasperation, "reduced the territory of France much more than my generals increased!"
In the Pushkin "Boris Godunov" to the king's question, what the son is doing, what he has in his hands, Fyodor answered: "Drawingthe land of Moscow. ""Drawing of the land of Moscow" is not a poetic image, but the name of one of the predecessors of the modern geographic map. Scientists suggest that "blueprints" existed in Russia already in the XIII century. The crown of Russian cartography of the 16th century was the "Big Drawing", compiled in the Discharge Order. It covered the territory from the Dnieper and the Western Dvina to the Ob River. Peter I. made a great contribution to drawing the maps. He enlisted the Academy of Sciences to produce them. And since then, regular compilation and updating of maps of our country is being conducted. Today the most recent achievements of science and technology come to the aid of cartographers. Photographs of the Earth's surface, made from aircraft, satellites, help to make more accurate and detailed maps.
A lot of different maps exist in the world. There are huge maps, one of them, compiled on a scale of 1: 2,500,000, has 234 pages with a total area of 120 square meters. There are cards small, especially special, for example, devoted to land reclamation in one or another area. The navigators of our ships bound for the Indian Ocean are stocked with "health cards".On them for each area of the open ocean and its seas there are specific climatic conditions that can adversely affect the body, as well as the chemical composition of water, poisonous or dangerous marine animals or fish. The maps were compiled by physicians according to the results of many years of observations.
There are even funny cards. In Milan, a symposium of astrophysicists was held. During leisure hours, scientists examined the city, and one astronomer during the tour was stolen camera. In the police station, where the victim went to complain about the incident, he joked: "It would be better if you released a map, indicating places that are dangerous for visitors to the city."These words got into the newspapers, and the Milanese already seriously demanded to create such a map. Soon it was published.