Babylonian Map of the World

Babylonian Map of the World
Obverse
Material	Clay
Size	Height: 12.2 cm (4.8 in) Width: 8.2 cm (3.2 in)
Writing	cuneiform
Created	after 9th century BC
Period/culture	Neo-Babylonian / early Achaemenid period
Place	Sippar
Present location	British Museum, (BM 92687)

The Babylonian Map of the World (also Imago Mundi or Mappa mundi) is a Babylonian clay tablet with a schematic world map and two inscriptions written in the Akkadian language. Dated to no earlier than the 9th century BC (with a late 8th or 7th century BC date being more likely), it includes a brief and partially lost textual description. The tablet describes the oldest known depiction of the known world. Ever since its discovery there has been controversy on its general interpretation and specific features.^[1] Another pictorial fragment, VAT 12772, presents a similar topography from roughly two millennia earlier.^[2]

The map is centered on the Euphrates, flowing from the north (top) to the south (bottom), with its mouth labelled "swamp" and "outflow". The city of Babylon is shown on the Euphrates, in the northern half of the map. Susa, the capital of Elam, is shown to the south, Urartu to the northeast, and Habban, the capital of the Kassites, is shown (incorrectly) to the northwest. Mesopotamia is surrounded by a circular "bitter river" or Ocean, and seven or eight foreign regions are depicted as triangular sections beyond the Ocean, perhaps imagined as mountains.^[3]

The tablet was excavated by Hormuzd Rassam at Sippar, Baghdad vilayet,^[4] some 60 km north of Babylon on the east bank of the Euphrates River. It was acquired by the British Museum in 1882 (BM 92687);^[4] the text was first translated in 1889.^[5] The tablet is usually thought to have originated in Borsippa.^[6] In 1995, a new section of the tablet was discovered, at the point of the upper-most triangle.^[7]

The map is used as the logo of the academic journal Imago Mundi.^[8]