Ptolemy’s ancient work was rediscovered, and new maps were drawn based on his thousand-year-old calculations. Indeed, Christopher Columbus’ voyage to America was partly due to Ptolemy—and ...

A map created by Greek astronomer and cartographer Claudius Ptolemy, from around 140 A.D., is considered to be the oldest surviving representation of Ireland. Included among his treatise ...

The Mercator Projection, Ptolemy’s ‘Geographia’, the Fra Mauro Map, and even Google Maps have all shaped how we experience the world around us.

The ancient Greek astronomer and geographer Ptolemy of Alexandria drew a map of the world in 140AD, which shows the stone fort, Grianan Aileach, as one of only five Irish sites to be noted in Ireland.

A 2nd century map of Germania by the scholar Ptolemy has always stumped scholars, who were unable to relate the places depicted to known settlements. Now a team of researchers have cracked the ...

Ptolemy’s Geography consists of eight books, in which he mentions the Stone Tower up to ten times, a frequency that reflects the importance of this site at the time. In Book I, he describes it as a ...

Explore the Sunderland Collection’s stunning maps and atlases, spanning European mapmakers from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. Historical maps, like this world map from the Portolan Atlas ...

Ptolemy, who was born in 100 CE, ... was known that Ptolemy had invented and written on such a scientific instrument because he mentioned it in his book on map making,” he added.

But despite its fame, the treatise was only known to exist through the writings of another well-known astronomer, Claudius Ptolemy, who compiled his own celestial inventory some 400 years later ...

From Ptolemy to GPS, the Brief History of Maps We now have the whole world in our hands, but how did we get here? Clive Thompson . July 2017. Get our newsletter! Get our newsletter!