Zoroastrian Heritage

Ptolemy

Ptolemy

c. 90-168 CE

Claudius Ptolemaeus was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer and astrologer. He lived in Egypt under the Roman Empire, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the Thebaid. He died in Alexandria around 168 CE.

One of Ptolemy's three treatises is his Geographia. This too is a compilation of what was known about the world's geography in the Roman Empire during his time. He relied somewhat on the work of an earlier geographer, Marinos of Tyre, and on gazetteers of the Roman and ancient Persian Empire.

Geographia Book 6

by Claudius Ptolemy (90-168 CE)

Translated and Edited by Edward Luther Stevenson (New York, 1932, repr. 1991)

Original at archive.org

The pages below are graphics files embedded in HTML pages. Use the CONTINUE link at the bottom left of each page to advance.
Ptolemy's own maps have not survived. There are, nonetheless, a variety of medieval and modern reconstructions. Wikipedia has a number of these which are zoomable, but not particularly clear. [See, for example Arabia Felix; Mesopotamia; East Caspian Area; Central Asia; Scythia. Wikipedia's main page for its collection of maps for Ptolemy's Geographia is here.] Clearer are Heinrich Kiepert's World as Known to the Ancients and Ptolemy's World, and Empire of Iran. Additional reconstructions by Heinrich Kiepert and other cartographers are available on our Maps Page.

For maps page at Zoroastrian Heritage also see:
» Ptolemy - the World
» Ptolemy - Asia
» Ptolemy - Aria

Chapters (image files):

Assyria
Media
Susiana
Persia
Parthia
Carmania Desert
Arabia Felix
Carmania
Hyrcania
Margiana
Bactriana
Sogdiana
Sacae/Sacara
Scythia this side of the Imaus mountains
Scythia beyond the Imaus maountain
Serica
Aria
Paropanisades
Drangiana
Arachosia
Gedrosia

External links:
» Greek Sources Page
» Classical Sources Menu
» History Workshop Menu

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