A map is a way of depicting a scaled-down model of the earth's surface on a plane. There are maps and diagrams. A map means an exact repetition of the relief and contour of the earth's surface and linear, point and area objects located on it. In fact, it is a conditional 3D model with a grid of coordinates.
In other words, the map schematically displays mountains and lowlands, rivers and fields, roads, poles and everything that is on the surface of the earth at the time of topographic survey.
Many people use navigators and have experienced firsthand what an old map is in his memory. Visually, there is a road, but it is not on the map. It is worse and more dangerous when there is a road on the map, but in reality a quarry is located in its place.
Mapping the area is a very time consuming process. It involves the use of high-precision instruments - level and theodolite. However, it is known that only in 1785 Jesse Ramsden made a high-precision goniometer for the British Geodetic Society, which became the prototype of the modern theodolite. And this is the 18th, not the 16th century.
Without instruments, you can make a plan of the area - it's much easier.
The first maps were drawn up a very long time ago and, in fact, they were a plan, such as this one:
World Map of Pomponius Mela:
Promotional video:
It is pointless to use such a map for navigation purposes. It only gives the author a general idea of the location of objects and has almost nothing to do with reality.
And here is another representation of the structure of the earth's surface:
This map was compiled by Heinrich Banteng in 1581. This drawing cannot be called a map, since it has nothing to do with the real relief of the earth, but simply symbolizes the Christian trinity of the world order with the center of the World in Jerusalem.
This can emphasize that existing ancient documents are not always in fact ancient maps, as historians imagine. These are artifacts taken out of the context of a huge layer of heritage of past civilizations. Among these artifacts there are other, much more serious documents.
I will not dwell on the Mercator and Piri Reis maps. I agree that this can be faked. But the Bashkir card of the Creator cannot be forged. So far, humanity has not reached such technologies.
This map is executed on a stone slab with a porcelain covering, the composition of which is not found. And not only does it not occur, but also cannot be repeated, because no one knows how this can be done. The map is made in 3D projection and displays a part of the Ural region.
The most interesting moment, the reason for which the thought arose, to share this information with readers, is as follows:
This is a fragment of a map of the ancient hydraulic structures of the Southern Urals. There are no roads on the map. Nevertheless, the map shows the terrain in great detail. It is only possible to draw up such a map with the help of a powerful computer capable of processing terabytes of information. Moreover, the information taken from the satellite orbit.
The age of the card has not yet been determined. There is an assumption that it is 50-120 million years old. In connection with this assumption, the question arises about the location of the continents on the planet.
This is what a planet might have looked like in the past. A change in the configuration of the continents would most likely change the direction of river channels and many folds of the relief. And the map reproduces well the current relief and river beds. It turns out that the age of this card is not that old.
This means that a highly developed civilization inhabited the planet not so long ago, by cosmic standards.
If there are no roads on the map, then we can assume that the planet at the time of drawing up the map was just preparing for settlement. We moved on all-terrain vehicles over rough terrain and left behind.
In the photo, fossilized traces from the all-terrain vehicles of a past civilization. There are a huge number of such traces and it is also impossible to fake them.
Or they used such methods of movement that did not need roads. This assumption also holds. Since ancient epics tell about flying carpets, and about teleportation (quiet step), and other devices that humanity is just beginning to master.
Thus, the existence of this map justifies all the other maps of famous ancient cartographers. It is not surprising that it was possible to take a map of Antarctica, maps of the location of the continents in the 15th, 16th and subsequent centuries, which show the consequences of the cataclysm on the planet.
And so far, until now, I have not met any intelligible, or indeed, any explanation of official historians about the nature of the appearance of these traces of the incomprehensible activity of some creatures who made high-precision maps in volumetric projection.
Maybe some snails on wheels crawled through the mud? And what, they had an internal combustion engine, skidded, inherited and disappeared without a trace.