Historical Maps of Jerusalem and the Middle East

March 2, 2009 9:45 PM

Holy Land Maps and Ancient Maps of Jerusalem both showcase parts of Eran Laor Cartographic Collection. Both collectiona can be browsed by cartographer and date. Here are some of my favorite maps: 1497 perspective map of Jerusalem, Jacotin's 1818 map of Nazareth, Jordan and Acre, 1685 perspective map of Jerusalem, 1482 Ptolemy of the Middle East, 1751 map of Egypt, Arabia and the Middle East and 1928 perspective map of Jerusalem (complete with Hebrew guide). [Another part of The Eran Laor Cartographic Collection previously on MetaFilter]
posted by Kattullus (5 comments total)

Every once in a while the Holy Land website wigs out and you can't click the enlarge image links. It worked fine for me when I closed and reopened the browser but it's also possible to right-click over the thumbnail, "view image" and change the "t" before the ".jpg" to an "a" and you should get the large image.
posted by Kattullus at 9:47 PM on March 2, 2009

Very cool, old maps are just amazing to me. And the map scans themselves are pretty impressive, a lot of map collections don't have good high res images.
posted by Xoebe at 10:35 PM on March 2, 2009

See also
posted by DU at 4:54 AM on March 3, 2009

Is there such a thing as too many historical maps? The answer, my friends, is no.
posted by absalom at 5:09 AM on March 3, 2009

Wow, terrific stuff—thanks!

Extremely minor quibble: "1818 map of Nazareth, Jordan and Acre" should be "1818 map of Nazareth, the Jordan and Acre" (or, with more geographical logic and following the title of the map, "1818 map of Acre, Nazareth, and the Jordan"): it's the river, not the country (which didn't exist back then).
posted by languagehat at 5:37 AM on March 3, 2009