Researchers found what they believe is a 2,000-year-old map of the stars The star catalog was made by ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus around 162 and 127 BCE, 1,400 years before the telescope.

The National Library of China has included the map of Fangmatan, an archaeological site in Gansu province that dates back to the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC – AD 24), on the list of ancient and ...

Labels written in cuneiform, an ancient text, note each location on the map, according to The British Museum. Interestingly, cartographers may have used some creative license.

One reason mapmakers may have done this is to hide their ignorance, says Van Duzer. When the Dutch mapmaker Pieter van den Keere made a world map in 1611 (see above), the interior of North America ...

Map historian Chet Van Duzer gave a talk about ancient maps and sea monsters at the Library of Congress Thursday (Sept. 5).Above: One of the classic images of a sea monster on a map: a giant sea ...