Ptolemy’s Map of the World [Reprint]

“Geographical Ideas of Africa Seventeen Hundred Years Ago.” – Text, bottom.

This antique reproduction of a 1478 Ptolemaic World map was published in the November 17, 1877 issue of Harper’s Weekly. Reprinted from an example in the collections of the American Geographical Society, the image reflects the Renaissance-era re-interpretation of Classical cartography, which relied on the 2nd-century theories of Claudius Ptolemy.

The timing of this publication is particularly significant; it was issued just months after Henry Morton Stanley completed his perilous transcontinental crossing of Africa. By reaching the Atlantic and charting the Congo River, Stanley finally disproved the Ptolemaic notions that the Nile originated from the mythical ‘Mountains of the Moon’ (depicted near the lower center of the map).