Claudius Ptolemy was a Greek mathematician ... Much of medieval astronomy and geography were built on his ideas: his world map, published as part of his treatise Geography in the 2nd century ...

In Ptolemy’s time, it was accepted that the world was round, and he was the first to represent it on a flat surface. Maps in ...

Still, when all due allowance is made for these drawbacks, there is no denying that Ptolemy's map of North-Eastern Africa bears a wonderful resemblance to reality—just the resemblance that might ...