Cartography is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.
Nippur was an ancient Sumerian city. It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the "Lord Wind", ruler of the cosmos, subject to An alone. Nippur was located in modern Nuffar 5 miles north of modern Afak, Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq. It is roughly 200 kilometers south of modern Baghdad and about 96.56 km southeast of the ancient city of Babylon. Occupation at the site extended back to the Ubaid period, the Uruk period, and the Jemdet Nasr period. The origin of the ancient name is unknown but different proposals have been made.
The Kassites were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC.
Ninurta (Sumerian: 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒅁: DNIN.URTA, possible meaning "Lord [of] Barley"), also known as Ninĝirsu (Sumerian: 𒀭𒎏𒄈𒋢: DNIN.ĜIR2.SU, meaning "Lord [of] Girsu"), is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with farming, healing, hunting, law, scribes, and war who was first worshipped in early Sumer. In the earliest records, he is a god of agriculture and healing, who cures humans of sicknesses and releases them from the power of demons. In later times, as Mesopotamia grew more militarized, he became a warrior deity, though he retained many of his earlier agricultural attributes. He was regarded as the son of the chief god Enlil and his main cult center in Sumer was the Eshumesha temple in Nippur. Ninĝirsu was honored by King Gudea of Lagash (ruled 2144–2124 BC), who rebuilt Ninĝirsu's temple in Lagash. Later, Ninurta became beloved by the Assyrians as a formidable warrior. The Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (ruled 883–859 BC) built a massive temple for him at Kalhu, which became his most important cult center from then on.
The Lament for Ur, or Lamentation over the city of Ur is a Sumerian lament composed around the time of the fall of Ur to the Elamites and the end of the city's third dynasty.
Cristoforo Buondelmonti was an Italian Franciscan priest, traveler, and was a pioneer in promoting first-hand knowledge of Greece and its antiquities throughout the Western world.
Portolan charts are nautical charts, first made in the 13th century in the Mediterranean basin and later expanded to include other regions. The word portolan comes from the Italian portolano, meaning "related to ports or harbors", and which since at least the 17th century designates "a collection of sailing directions".
Giacomo Gastaldi was an Italian cartographer, astronomer and engineer of the 16th century. Gastaldi began his career as an engineer, serving the Venetian Republic in that capacity until the fourth decade of the sixteenth century. From about 1544 he turned his attention entirely to mapmaking, and his work represents several important turning points in cartographic development.
Pictorial maps depict a given territory with a more artistic rather than technical style. It is a type of map in contrast to road map, atlas, or topographic map. The cartography can be a sophisticated 3-D perspective landscape or a simple map graphic enlivened with illustrations of buildings, people and animals. They can feature all sorts of varied topics like historical events, legendary figures or local agricultural products and cover anything from an entire continent to a college campus. Drawn by specialized artists and illustrators, pictorial maps are a rich, centuries-old tradition and a diverse art form that ranges from cartoon maps on restaurant placemats to treasured art prints in museums.
Rimush c. 2279–2270 BC was the second king of the Akkadian Empire. He was the son of Sargon of Akkad and Queen Tashlultum. He was succeeded by his brother Manishtushu, and was an uncle of Naram-Sin of Akkad. Naram-Sin posthumously deified Sargon and Manishtushi but not his uncle. His sister was Enheduana, considered the earliest known named author in world history. Little is known about his brother Shu-Enlil. There was a city, Dur-Rimuš, located near Tell Ishchali and Khafajah. It was known to be a cult center of the storm god Adad.
Jacopo de' Barbari, sometimes known or referred to as de'Barbari, de Barberi, de Barbari, Barbaro, Barberino, Barbarigo or Barberigo, was an Italian painter, printmaker and miniaturist with a highly individual style. He moved from Venice to Germany in 1500, thus becoming the first Italian Renaissance artist of stature to work in Northern Europe. His few surviving paintings include the first known example of trompe-l'œil since antiquity. His twenty-nine engravings and three very large woodcuts were also highly influential.
Erhard Reuwich was a Dutch artist, as a designer of woodcuts, and a printer, who came from Utrecht but then worked in Mainz. His dates and places of birth and death are unknown, but he was active in the 1480s.
The Triumphal Arch is a 16th-century monumental woodcut print commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. The composite image was printed on 36 large sheets of paper from 195 separate wood blocks. At 295 × 357 centimetres (116 × 141 in), it is one of the largest prints ever produced and was intended to be pasted to walls in city halls or the palaces of princes. It is a part of a series of three huge prints created for Maximilian, the others being a Triumphal Procession which is led by a Large Triumphal Carriage ; only the Arch was completed in Maximilian's lifetime and distributed as propaganda, as he intended. Together, this series has been described by art historian Hyatt Mayor as "Maximilian's program of paper grandeur". They stand alongside two published biographical allegories in verse, the Theuerdank and Weisskunig, heavily illustrated with woodcuts.
Kurigalzu I, usually inscribed ku-ri-gal-zu but also sometimes with the m or d determinative, the 17th king of the Kassite or 3rd dynasty that ruled over Babylon, was responsible for one of the most extensive and widespread building programs for which evidence has survived in Babylonia. The autobiography of Kurigalzu is one of the inscriptions which record that he was the son of Kadašman-Ḫarbe. Galzu, whose possible native pronunciation was gal-du or gal-šu, was the name by which the Kassites called themselves and Kurigalzu may mean Shepherd of the Kassites.
Catalan charts or Catalan portolans are portolan charts in the Catalan language. Portolan charts are a type of medieval and early modern map that focuses on maritime geography and includes a network of rhumb lines. Most medieval portolan charts were made in Italian-speaking cities, with a substantial minority made in Catalan-speaking Majorca. In the 19th century, historians of cartography emphasized the differences of style and content between Italian and Catalan charts, but other authors have nuanced this distinction since then.
The First Sealand dynasty (URU.KÙKI), or the 2nd Dynasty of Babylon, very speculatively c. 1732–1460 BC, is an enigmatic series of kings attested to primarily in laconic references in the king lists A and B, and as contemporaries recorded on the Assyrian Synchronistic king list A.117. Initially it was named the "Dynasty of the Country of the Sea" with Sealand later becoming customary.
The concept of a garden of the gods or a divine paradise may have originated in Sumer. The concept of this home of the immortals was later handed down to the Babylonians, who conquered Sumer.
The Portrait of Luca Pacioli is a painting attributed to the Italian Renaissance artist Jacopo de' Barbari, dating to around 1500 and housed in the Capodimonte Museum, Naples, southern Italy. The painting portrays the Renaissance mathematician Luca Pacioli and may have been painted by his collaborator Leonardo da Vinci. The person on the right has not been identified conclusively, but could be the German painter Albrecht Dürer, whom Barbari met between 1495 and 1500.
Kadašman-Turgu, inscribed Ka-da-aš-ma-an Túr-gu and meaning he believes in Turgu, a Kassite deity, was the 24th king of the Kassite or 3rd dynasty of Babylon. He succeeded his father, Nazi-Maruttaš, continuing the tradition of proclaiming himself “king of the world” and went on to reign for eighteen years. He was a contemporary of the Hittite king Ḫattušili III, with whom he concluded a formal treaty of friendship and mutual assistance, and also Ramesses II with whom he consequently severed diplomatic relations.
View of Venice, also known as the de' Barbari Map, is a monumental woodcut print showing a bird's-eye view of the city of Venice from the southwest. It bears the title and date "VENETIE MD". It was printed from six wooden blocks designed from 1498 to 1500 by Jacopo de' Barbari, and then published in late 1500 by the Nuremberg publisher Anton Kolb on six large sheets of paper, each measuring about 66 cm × 99 cm, to create a composite image measuring approximately 135 cm × 280 cm. The individual sheets of paper were the largest produced in Europe up to that time.
