The world's oldest 5,000-year-old map

Danish archaeologists have discovered a stone with strange carvings believed to be the world's oldest map, dating back 5,000 years.

Two pieces of the stone are believed to be the remains of the world's oldest map. Photo: Skalk.

A research team at the National Museum of Denmark discovered many artifacts and a stone engraved with many symbols, believed to be the world's oldest map, on the Danish island of Bornholm in the middle of the Baltic Sea, Science Alert reported on November 10.

The stone, about 5cm wide, dates from 2900 to 2700 BC. It was broken into three smaller pieces when Stone Age farmers performed a sun worship ritual. Archaeologists have only found two pieces of the stone, the third is missing.

"These are not random scratches. Some of the lines could be drawings of cornfields, trees and roads. If the stone is indeed a map, it would be unique," said Flemming Kaul, a member of the research team.

According to Kaul, the stone is not a map in the modern sense we use it today, but a stylized map. He believes that the intricate drawings on the stone depict the detailed topography of the island of Bornholm nearly 5,000 years ago.

"I can see some similarities with rock carvings in the Alps in northern Italy from the same time period, where the rock drawings were interpreted as symbolic landscapes, like what we have just excavated," Kaul said.

Previously, people also found stones engraved with images of the Sun and the Sun's rays on the island of Bornholm. Archaeologists believe that they were used in rituals to pray for fertile land.

According to VNE