“From video gamers to treasure hunters, from small children to bespectacled scholars, a lot of humans are fascinated by maps. From earliest times, humans have attempted to locate themselves spatially in their world and record their observations of lumpy hills, winding rivers, and seemingly impassable mountains and oceans in some visually organized format.
The earliest maps were circular, with the focal point being what was familiar and the outer edges of the circle straying into the realm of imagination. The Imago Mundi , a Babylonian map from the 6th century BCE, puts Babylon in the centre of the map, while a Greek map from roughly the same era shows the world radiating out from the Aegean. In the 2nd century BCE, maps started stretching out from east to west as more information was gathered by early cartographers. The modern convention of placing north at the top of a map had not yet been established, and many early maps have the Orient, or east, at the top of the map.
The habit of placing the most important (to the mapmaker) location at the centre of the map persisted into the Christian era. Thus, many medieval European maps place Jerusalem at the centre of the map, often with the Garden of Eden somewhere in the vicinity, while antique Japanese maps were centred around the imperial palace. Early navigational charts for mariners would be centred on the coastal area in question, with the sea often drawn in either at the top or the bottom of the map regardless of the actual orientation.
As European seagoing vessels improved and humans ventured further from shore, European maps improved. Ancient Chinese and Korean maps were light years ahead of European maps, and European mapmakers did not catch up with the Orient until the 14th century. Antique Chinese world maps of course portrayed China as the centre of the world, with Europe scrunched along the edge.
Most antique maps were colourfully drawn, with illustrations of animals, fantastic monsters, and representations of wind and weather filling in any otherwise blank spaces on the map. Perhaps that is one reason why so many people enjoy collecting antique maps or decorating their walls with inexpensive reproductions of antique maps. Who has not thrilled to the warning “”Here There Be Dragons”" found on some antique maps? Antique maps thrill the child in all of us.”