A new kind of cartography just for cultural purposes is born in ancient Greece where, together with the practical need of writing down Mediterranean borders in order to support the foundation of new colonies, an original impetus arises from the philosophical research looking for answers about the shape of Earth. Eratosthenes, in the second half of IV century b.C., is able to compile a world map based on astronomical principles and using a primitive and imperfect geographical grid, lately adopted and revised by the mathematician and astronomer Hipparchus of Nicaea. This knowledge is the starting point even for the greatest exponent of the ancient cartography Claudius Ptolemy, who supports...

The knowledge of the world and the possibility to be oriented have always been basics need for humanity, especially when at the beginning of civilization the man directly depended on nature. Ancient cartographic documents or better, the first geographical signs drawn by the primitive man portrait in a rough and elementary way the simple surrounding reality, the experienced land. They are in fact petroglyphs figures on stone, or carved in wood, or even painted on cowhide or leather; they have only practical purposes as witnessed for example by the Babylonian clay tablet ( 1300 b.C.) stored in the British Museum in London, where are reported the conquests of Sargon of Agade and where the...