North may be at the top of maps today, but that wasn’t always the case. During the middle ages, most Western maps put east at the top instead.
This 1300 Christian Mappa Mundi put East at the top, towards the Garden of Eden with Jerusalem in the centre.
In Latin, the word for east is ""oriens"", so to hold the map correctly, you had to “orient” it—that is, make sure East was on top. This is where we get the word “orientation” today.
0 comments:
Post a Comment