United States History Student Edition

Understanding the Time and Place: The World Before 1492

The desire to explore the world is as old as recorded history. No matter the reason— to trade, to conquer, or simply to satisfy curiosity—people have long looked out toward the horizon.

An Early Map As the first civilizations developed and expanded around the world, their knowledge of the world outside their borders grew. One of the oldest maps presenting a civilization’s worldview was created in Mesopotamia, the ancient civilization that developed in the Fertile Crescent, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet. Carved into a clay tablet, it is called the Imago Mundi, also known as the Babylonian Map of the World. Babylon was one of the major cities of ancient Mesopotamia. The Imago Mundi dates from sometime in the 700s to the 500s B.C.E. It shows the city of Babylon at its center, with other ancient cities nearby. A ring representing a salt sea surrounds these cities, and other regions, possibly mythological, lie outside the ring. Mediterranean Civilizations Explore A larger and more accurate worldview began to develop during the time of ancient Greece. Herodotus, an important Greek writer, noted in his book History that areas around the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, and North Africa had already been explored. In fact, Herodotus reported that explorers from a civilization centered in the North African city of Carthage had completely sailed around the continent of Africa around 600 B.C.E. The Carthaginians Hanno and Himilco are thought to have explored the Atlantic coast around this time. Hanno went south along West Africa, and Himilco

journeyed north to Spain and probably to southern France. Greek explorers also made notable contributions. In the 300s B.C.E., a Greek sailor named Pytheas sailed from the Mediterranean Sea into the Atlantic Ocean. Like Himilco, he journeyed to Spain and southern France. Pytheas, however, kept exploring northward, eventually reaching Britain and areas of the Arctic Circle, which historians believe might have been Norway. Rome, China, and Trade Trade was a driving force behind many early explorations. Ancient civilizations in Asia, Europe, and Africa engaged in trade, allowing their peoples to visit and learn about faraway, unknown lands. At the height of Rome’s empire, in the 200s C.E., its merchants reached locations in Asia as diverse as southern India, Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia. They even might have reached China; ancient Chinese writings reveal contact with a Roman official in 161 C.E. Later, China carried out great voyages of exploration. In the early 1400s, a Chinese ambassador, Zheng He, led a massive fleet of ships on several voyages, exploring as far as eastern Africa. China’s accomplishments in exploration might have been even greater, but later Chinese leaders ended the voyages. Early Muslim Explorers The religion of Islam developed in the 600s C.E. in southwestern Asia. It is based on the teachings of the prophet Muhammad. Followers of Islam, called Muslims, are required once in their lives to carry out hajj , a pilgrimage or holy journey to the city of Mecca, in present-day Saudi Arabia. Through these pilgrimages, Muslims explored new places and made contact with other peoples and cultures. In the early years of Islam, Arab sailors ventured to places as far away as Ceylon (today, Sri Lanka), Zanzibar off the coast of Africa, and the islands of present-day Indonesia. Islamic literature recounted

» The Imago Mundi

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