Mystery of ‘world’s oldest’ map finally solved as 3,000-year-old tablet reveals mystical world beyond Babylonian empire

THE mystery surrounding a 3,000-year-old tablet, believed to be the oldest map in the world has finally been solved.

The ancient tablet has been deciphered after centuries and offers a glimpse of what Babylonians believed about the known world at the time.

The British Museum

The British Museum

The map called Imago Mundi, showing an aerial view of Mesopotamia that dates back to the 6th century BC has been a mystery for researchers for centuries.

The cuneiform tablet was discovered in the Middle East and was acquired by the British Museum in 1882.

Experts were finally able to decode it after finding a missing part.

The tablet has a series of paragraphs where the author describes the creation of Earth and what it was believed at the time that existed beyond it.

The map depicts ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), surrounded by a double ring dubbed the “Bitter River,” which marked the borders of the known world at the time.

In a video released by the British Museum cuneiform expert Dr. Irving Finkel says: “You have encapsulated in this circular diagram, the whole of the known world in which people lived, flourished and died.

“However, there’s more to this map than that.”

“When it comes to operating beyond the limits of the known world into the world of imagination, [the tablet] is indispensable.”

Researchers confirm the circle around Mesopotamia suggests that Babylonians believed the area was the centre of the world.

There also shows the river Euphrates cutting through ancient Mesopotamia.

Finkel added: “This is a very important ring of water because it meant for the Babylonians, they had an idea of the limits of the world where they lived in about the sixth century.”

The tablet also confirms the Babylonian’s belief in the God of creation Marduk and other mythical monsters such as scorpion-man and a lion-headed bird called Anzu.

The ancient Babylonians had their own version of the Noah’s Arc named Utnapishtim.

“That’s quite a meaty thing, quite an interesting thing to think about because it shows that the story was the same, and of course, that one led to the other,” Finkel said.

Another Babylonian mystery was recently cracked by experts as a tablet containing a code was finally deciphered.

The research team successfully decoded the 4,000-year-old text bizarrely about lunar eclipses.

The newly discovered texts reveal that the Babylonians viewed lunar eclipses as terrifying ominous signs of death and destruction.

Who were the Babylonians?

THE ancient state of Babylonia was located in the central Mesopotapia (today's Iraq and parts of Syria and Iran).

Babylonia was often involved in rivalry with the state of Assyria in the north of Mesopotamia.

It became a major power during the reign of Hammurabi, its ruler during 1792–1750 BC.

But the Babylonian Empire quickly fell apart after the death of Hammurabi and was turned into a small kingdom around the city of Babylon.

It was also home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.