UNESCO status bid for ancient map
8th-century Mappa Mundi Albigensian nominated to be listed on Memory of the World Register
ONE of the oldest maps of the world - the Mappa Mundi Albigensian - could soon be included on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.
The 8th-century map - part of a collection of texts on parchment describing the geography and history of the known world at the time - features 25 countries on three continents. It represents the countries in a horseshoe-shape surrounded by an ocean.
In comparison, Hereford’s Mappa Mundi, the largest medieval map known to still exist, dates back to 1285.
Only two more ancient world maps are known to exist - one from Mesopotamia which is more than 4,000 years old and the other from Babylon, dating to 600BC. Another 8th-century world map is kept in the Vatican archives.
The map is stored in the bibliothèque Amalric in the historic city of Albi, which is itself a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Historians say it is an important document from the Middle Ages.
A decision will be made about which items will be included in the Register later this year. Other items nominated include the hand-written First World War diary of Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, the Aleppo Codex - an almost complete and the oldest-known Hebrew version of the Old Testament, Isaac Newton’s theological papers, and the archives of Japan’s Toji temple.
If it is included in the Register, the Mappa Mundi Albigensian will be listed alongside historically important artefacts such as the Bayeux Tapestry, the Book of Kells, the 1703 census of Iceland, the Archangel Gospel of 1092, and Paraguay’s Archives of Terror.
To see the complete list of items on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register click here.
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