Читать книгу Memory of the World: The treasures that record our history from 1700 BC to the present day - UNESCO - Страница 43
ОглавлениеInscribed 2007
What is it
The Tabula Peutingeriana is a unique preserved map of the road system for the cursus publicus, the Roman Empire’s public transportation system. It consists of eleven segments with the map, written on parchment.
Why was it inscribed
The Tabula Peutingeriana offers insights into the history of administration and economy in the Roman Empire and unique information on the topography and geography of all the provinces and territories under Roman rule.
Where is it
Austrian National Library, Vienna, Austria
The cursus publicus was the public transportation system that stretched across the Roman Empire. It carried government messages and certain goods and allowed travel by government officials. Stations along the way provided lodging, food, vehicles and animals.
The Tabula Peutingeriana maps the road system that the cursus publicus used. It covers the complete area of the provinces under Roman rule and the territories conquered by Alexander the Great in the East.
The information on the map is not an accurate geographical description of where the roads lie on the landscape. Instead, rather like modern urban underground maps, the Tabula was a stylized rendering of the structure and network of the cursus publicus. This explains why the sea is missing from the map and also its west-east orientation. Cities are denoted by symbols according to their importance.
As the only map of the cursus publicus, the Tabula Peutingeriana is of great importance for all studies concerning the administration and economy of the Roman Empire. It also serves as a guide for historians and archaeologists. Much information about the topography and historical geography relating to archaeological sites in Europe, Africa and Asia is only known through the Tabula Peutingeriana.
The original Tabula dates back to the first half of the 5th century and the manuscript inscribed on the Register is an authentic copy made at the end of the 12th century – in effect, a medieval facsimile in the form of a scroll.
The Tabula Peutingeriana is named after Konrad Peutinger, a German humanist and antiquarian who was responsible for publishing the map in 1591. It stayed in his family, but in 1737 it was bought for the Habsburg Imperial Library (now the Austrian National Library).
The Tabula Peutingeriana is one of only two preserved book scrolls made in the Middle Ages as an imitation of the form used in Antiquity for literary texts (that is, book scroll written on papyrus). The other manuscript, kept in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Vatican Library, is a copy of the text of the Old Testament made in 10th-century Constantinople.
