A Land with No Borders: A New Interpretation of the Babylonian “Map of the World”

Abstract

Abstract The Babylonian Map of the World, which is arguably one of the most famous and frequently referenced artifacts from Ancient Mesopotamia, has almost without exception been assumed to present an idealized and highly ideological picture of the cosmos with the city of Babylon occupying its privileged center. While there can be little question that dichotomies such as myth and reality, core and periphery, and past and the present, merge together seamlessly in the Map (and its accompanying texts) to present an idealized image of Babylonia, it will be argued in this paper that focusing on these dichotomies has caused critical aspects of the Map to be overlooked. By examining the Map as a dynamic, as opposed to static image, a new interpretation of the Map will be presented to show how this remarkable artifact connects the Mesopotamian past and present with its real and mythological landscapes in a way that has been previously unexplored.