When Earth’s first people looked out around them, they couldn’t imagine how far the scope of the world extended beyond what stretched out before their own eyes. Their world was the land that surrounded and fed them, and as far as they knew, it extended no further.

The earliest human civilizations tried to measure the extent of the world and made maps that showed what, to them, was the whole world.

The first of these ancient world maps was reportedly made in Babylon more than 2,500 years ago. It shows a world that extends little past their own empire, surrounded by bitter waters and pointed islands on which they believed no man could survive.

[Read the full article at All That Is Interesting.]