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The gazetteer section of Ptolemy's work provided latitude and longitude coordinates for all the places and geographical features in the work. Latitude was expressed in degrees of arc from the equator , the same system that is used now, though Ptolemy used fractions of a degree rather than minutes of arc. [ 24 ]
Ptolemy's map of the Mediterranean superimposed on a modern map, with Greenwich as the reference longitude. Ptolemy, in the 2nd century AD, based his mapping system on estimated distances and directions reported by travellers. Until then, all maps had used a rectangular grid with latitude and longitude as straight lines intersecting at right ...
The Ptolemy world map is a map of the world known to Greco-Roman societies in the 2nd century. It is based on the description contained in Ptolemy 's book Geography , written c. 150 . Based on an inscription in several of the earliest surviving manuscripts, it is traditionally credited to Agathodaemon of Alexandria .
Longitude is given as an angular measurement with 0° at the Prime Meridian, ranging from −180° westward to +180° eastward. The Greek letter λ (lambda) [38] [39] is used to denote the location of a place on Earth east or west of the Prime Meridian. Each degree of longitude is sub-divided into 60 minutes, each of which is divided into 60 ...
Ptolemy revolutionized the depiction of the spherical Earth on a map by using perspective projection, and suggested precise methods for fixing the position of geographic features on its surface using a coordinate system with parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude. [6] [36] Ptolemy's eight-volume atlas Geographia is a prototype of ...
The Saint-Bélec slab discovered in 1900 by Paul du Châtellier, in Finistère, France, is dated to between 1900 BCE and 1640 BCE.A recent analysis, published in the Bulletin of the French Prehistoric Society, has shown that the slab is a three-dimensional representation of the River Odet valley in Finistère, France.
Latitude was measured from the equator, as it is today, but Ptolemy preferred to express it as the length of the longest day rather than degrees of arc (the length of the midsummer day increases from 12h to 24h as you go from the equator to the polar circle). He put the meridian of 0 longitude at the most western land he knew, the Canary Islands.
The second century Alexandrian geographer Claudius Ptolemy had believed that the known world extended over 180 degrees of longitude from the prime meridian of the Fortunate Isles (possibly the Canary Islands) to the city of Cattigara in southeastern Asia. [52] (In fact, the difference in longitude between the Canaries, at 16°W, and Cattigara ...