The Oldest Map Of The World Shows Regions Beyond The Ocean — And Describes What Lives There

In the British Museum sits a small clay tablet, barely the size of your hand — the oldest map of the world ever found, carved in Babylon over 2,600 years ago. It shows the known world as a disc, ringed by a vast ocean the Babylonians called the Bitter River — the edge of everything. But here’s what makes it extraordinary: the map doesn’t stop at the ocean. Beyond the water, it marks mysterious outer regions — and the text on the back describes what lives there. Ruined cities where the sun is never seen. A great bird that cannot fly. Horned beasts, serpents, and a place where the remains of a ship rest after a great flood that drowned the world. This is the Babylonian Map of the World — and the strange journey it describes to the lands beyond the ocean’s edge.