My OperaMacedonia-The Ptolemy world map
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 6:05:27 PM
Ptolemy was a Macedonian astronomer who lived in Alexandria in Egypt (85 A.D - 165 A.D).
In addition to astronomy Ptolemy also occupies a very important place in the history of geography and cartography. Ptolemy was the first to create a projection of the earth's sphere onto a plane and in about 150 A.D. he published his Geographia, an eight volume work which is thought to have contained a world map and twenty-six regional maps (none of his original maps survive - only those copies made by later map-makers which may have been based on the information provided in his text rather than the maps themselves).
Although his mapping provided a distorted image of the world due to calculations made by his predecessors upon which Ptolemy based his work the Geographia nevertheless remained the principal source of cartography until the 16th.century.
