Displaying the oldest western map is drawn on papyrus

Papyrus paper map of Mr. Artémidore

Artémidore's papyrus map, considered to be the oldest map of the ancient period, was first displayed at the Palazzo Bricherasio cultural center in the city of Turin (Northern Italy) on Monday. past private.

This map of Artémidore dEphèse, the famous geographer lived in the first century BC. He has traveled throughout the Mediterranean basin, especially in Spain, Egypt and Italy when he was ambassador to Rome. These expeditions helped him draw a set of 11 volumes of geography and were considered the oldest map of the western world.

A large part of this precious papyrus was used to wrap the 1800-year-old mummy that was discovered by archaeologists in 1990. Later, it was purchased by an Egyptian collector and handed over. many people were bought by San Paolo, a private company, for 2, 7 million euros.

With a length of 2.7 meters and despite a lot of damage, but these 50 yellowed pieces of paper are still visible on the front and back of the border borders of the countries. Moreover, the outline of real or imaginary animals is like an allegory of animals, along with images of human faces, hands, and feet that are still marked.

At the exhibition, two professors Claudio Gallazzi and Salvatore Settis said: ' This papyrus is very unique because it is the oldest geographic map of the west and helps us relate some. period of ancient art history. The images collected in this book are more important than what we had before . '

The exhibition is called ' Les trois vies du papyrus dArtémidore ' which will last until 7 May 2006; In addition, the exhibition also introduced 140 other specimens from 30 European and American museums to help visitors capture ancient customs and practices, such as manufacturing stages. paper from papyrus.

In the next 2 or 3 years, Mr. Artémidore's papyrus map will be on display in other museums around the world before returning to a permanent display of the Egyptian Museum in Turin.

KIM OANH