Picturing Our Planet

The world’s first mapmakers left diagrams of bright stars and constellations on cave walls. That was about 15,000 years ago. The oldest known maps of places here on Earth are more than 4,000 years old. But they have some features that modern mapmakers recognize. A map of the Mesopotamian city of Nuzi illustrates a river with a curving triple line. It portrays mountains with repeating rounded shapes. It