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 We've all seen maps that, with the benefit of satellite mapping and geological 
knowledge, clearly never represented anything near reality.  For example, maps 
of large islands between Brazil and Africa marked 'Atlantis', or maps of a 
large Caspian - Aral Sea, longer east-west than north-south.  These maps are 
apparently quite detailed, with rivers, hills, marked on.

How did such detail get started.  Did some ancient cartographer have some kind 
of vision and believe, as they did then, that this vision was a real 
revelation, draw what they had seen, and this 'map'then get copied by 
subsequent generations as real, subsequent people with limite dtravel and no 
aerial view could not know otherwise.  Or did these cartographers simply put in 
what looked good and plausible, making such 'maps 'more like paintings.  What 
was in the cartographer's mind as he drew such things, artistic licence, or 
copying what he thought was really there?

 

Hillary Shaw
Newport
Shropshire


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