A 4,000-year-old Bronze Age lithograph unearthed in western France may be the oldest 3D map in Europe, according to a study published in the Bulletin of the French Prehistoric Society. Researchers at the University of Bournemouth and others believe the engravings on the slab represent the Aude River and its nearby valley, with other lines depicting the area covered by the river. (Image taken from the University of Bournemouth webpage at bournemouth.ac.uk)
A 4,000-year-old Bronze Age lithograph unearthed in western France may be the oldest 3D map in Europe, according to research published this week in the Bulletin of the French Prehistory Society.
The study, written by archaeologist Yvan Pailler and others, was published in the Bulletin of the French Prehistoric Society. The slab, known as the Saint-Belec Slab, is 2.2 meters long, 1.5 meters wide and weighs one metric ton. It was first unearthed in 1900 by archaeologist Paul du Chatellier in a prehistoric cemetery in Brittany.
Payet said the slab depicts the topography of a part of the Black Mountains region in western France and dates back to the early Bronze Age between about 2,150 and 1,600 B.C.
The Guardian reports that the Châtelier collection was acquired by the Musee Archeologie Nationale in 1924 and remained in the museum’s Saint-Germain-en-Laye building until 2014. It was not until 2014 that the slab was found again in the museum’s vaults under the moat of the castle at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
Researchers from Bournemouth University and other institutions believe the carvings on the slab represent the Odet River and its nearby valley, with other lines depicting the area covered by the river.
Experts say that, compared to the actual location, the similarity is as high as 80% in an area of about 29 kilometers near the river.
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