FOREWORD
In the present book, resting on the New Chronology, we show that the famous geographic "Atlases" of Ptolemy, allegedly of the II century A.D. and Ortelius, allegedly of the XVI century A.D., bring us the geography of the Great = "Mongol" Empire of the XIV-XVII centuries. These are the ancient maps of the Russian Horde Empire.
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN RUSSIA all the maps of the famous "Geography" of Claudius Ptolemy in the edition of Sebastian Munster allegedly of 1540 are published fully with all the details, and also all the maps of "Appendix to Ptolemy" allegedly of 1597, created by Cornelius van Wytfliet.
In the second chapter FOR THE FIRST TIME IN RUSSIA the rarest geographical "Atlas" of Abraham Ortelius allegedly of 1590 is published.
We know only about one edition of the fragments of "Geography" of Ptolemy in Russian in the book: "Claudius Ptolemy. Manual on geography" in the series: "Antique geography"; composer prof. �.S.Bondarskiy, State publishing house of geographical literature, Moscow, 1953. Let's underline that we focused only on the maps of Ptolemy themselves. They compose the main contents of his work. We missed out theoretical sections, devoted to geography. They are sector-specific and are not related to chronology.
In them Ptolemy discussed different geometrical means of expression of the Earth surface on the plain maps. In its spirit and style – these are typical reasonings of the epoch of the XVI-XVII centuries, equal to those, with which Almagest is filled, which is prescribed to the same Ptolemy.
Let's remind that astronomical dating of Almagest, received by us by means of mathematical methods, places it not to the II century A.D., as it is considered today, but to the Middle Ages. Moreover, editing of Almagest continued till the beginning of the XVII century A.D. See the book: V.V.Kalashnikov, G.V.Nosovskiy, A.T.FOMENKO, �.N.Fomenko. "Stars. (Astronomical methods in chronology. Almagest of Ptolemy. Ptolemy. Tycho Brahe. Copernicus. Egyptian zodiacs)". - Moscow, publishing house RIMIS, 2006.
As appeared, "Geography" of Ptolemy was also edited, most likely, till the XVII century.
All the maps of Ptolemy are published in the view, really convenient for study of the contained in them valuable material. With this our edition profitably differs from the most of others. As a rule, in albums, calendars, illustrated books etc., - the maps are reproduced in a small view. Zoomed fragments, giving a possibility to read signatures, - that is the most valuable on the old maps, - are not given as a rule. The old maps are given only as pieces of art, which, allegedly, should be estimated "with the only look", as a picturesque picture. That's why many publishers prefer to publish COLORED maps, often supplied with additional "animative pictures". Black and white old maps are less popular.
But with such "art-picturesque" reproduction of maps in the books off usual format, it is not possible to see small names and geographical details. Even with the help of loupe many names still couldn't be read, or are hardly identified. But names on an ancient map – IT IS THE MAIN. Exactly they bring the main information about the historical epoch, about the world view and geographical notions of the creators of the map. It is even not excluded that some "literate" publishers specially diminish pictures of the ancient maps so that it was impossible to see some names that seemed them dangerous for the Scaligerian version of history.
That's why publishing the interesting maps of Ptolemy and Wytfliet, we went in a different way. Each map is first fully reproduced on a separate sheet, so that it could be watched in full. Next we separate a map on four nearly equal in area sections, - North-West, North-East, South-West and South-East, - and reproduce EACH OF THEM on a separate page. The zoom is quite enough to see even small signatures and geographical details, in which, as we show, important information is contained. In some cases in radically differs from the usual to us "Scaligerian" look at the geography of the Middle Ages. So, EACH MAP OF PTOLEMY AND WYTFLIET TAKES FIVE PAGES IN OUR EDITION.
All our comments to maps are collected in the fifth and seventh paragraphs. We indicate a number of a map of Ptolemy and Wytfliet and discuss the noted by us interesting geographical names. Each our comment is marked with special sign @. Totally on the maps of Ptolemy and Wytfliet there were found around 630 plots, which deserve attention from the point of new chronology. This is rather much. It appeared that the ancient maps kept many facts, which agree with our reconstruction.
Next, analyzing in the fifth and seventh paragraphs ones or other interesting fragments of the maps of Ptolemy and Wytfliet, we sometimes reproduce zoomed a corresponding part of the map. So a reader may immediately see – what the issue is about and not to spend time for search of the discussed, - important, but probably too small, - detail on the map of Ptolemy. Such way of publication of the ancient maps increases the volume of the book, but we think that this is absolutely reasoned in publication of valuable geographical maps. Only so it is possible, finally, to compose a full picture of what was known and what wasn't known to map makers of the Middle Ages, How exactly they called ones or other cities, rivers, countries. Otherwise the ancient maps will remain just "beautiful pictures" for the readers, on which it is nearly impossible to discern important details.
In the second chapter we analyzed an extremely interesting ancient geographical "Atlas" of Ortelius. We publish his maps so that one can read all names on them, even the smallest ones.
We hope that our publication of such amount of the rarest ancient maps would be useful for a wide range of readers, interested in the Russian and Universal history. We studied far not all of many thousands of names, marked on these maps. A great possibility to continue study of the maps opens to the readers. They will join an exciting journey by the ways, cities and lands of the Great = "Mongol" Empire of the XVI – beginning of the XVII century..
In the present book we often refer to our seven volumes "Chronology. First Canon", containing the fundament of the New Chronology and putting together all our studies on chronology, made before 2003. It was published in 2004-2007 by publishing house RIMIS, Moscow. The edition consists of the following books: "Foundations of history", "Methods", "Stars", "New chronology of Russia", "Empire", "Biblical Russia", "Reconstruction".
A.T.Fomenko, G.V.Nosovskiy
Moscow,
Lomonosov Moscow State University
