Geography and Ethnography

Kurt A. Raaflaub is David Herlihy University Professor, and Professor of Classics and History, at Brown University. His numerous publications include The Discovery of Freedom (2004) and Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece (2007, co-authored with Josiah Ober and Robert Wallace). He is also the editor of Social Struggles in Archaic Rome (Blackwell, 2005), and War and Peace in the Ancient World (Blackwell, 2007), and co-editor of A Companion to Archaic Greece (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). Richard J.A. Talbert is William Rand Kenan, Jr, Professor of History and Classics at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the editor of the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (2000), and co-editor of Space in the Roman World: Its Perception and Presentation (2004), as well as of Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Fresh Perspectives, New Methods (2008). His major study Rome’s World: The Peutinger Map Reconsidered will appear in 2010.

• List of Figures viiNotes on Contributors xiSeries Editor's Preface xvii1 Introduction 1Richard J. A. Talbert and Kurt A. Raaflaub2 Where the Black Antelope Roam: Dharma and Human Geography in India 9Christopher Minkowski3 Humans, Demons, Gods and Their Worlds: The Sacred and Scientific Cosmologies of India 32Kim Plofker4 Structured Perceptions of Real and Imagined Landscapes in Early China 43Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu5 Nonary Cosmography in Ancient China 64John B. Henderson6 Knowledge of Other Cultures in China’s Early Empires 74Michael Loewe7 The Mississippian Peoples’ Worldview 89Kathleen DuVal8 Aztec Geography and Spatial Imagination 108Barbara E. Mundy9 Inca Worldview 128Catherine Julien10 Masters of the Four Corners of the Heavens: Views of the Universe in Early Mesopotamian Writings 147Piotr Michalowski11 The World and the Geography of Otherness in Pharaonic Egypt 169Gerald Moers12 On Earth as in Heaven: The Apocalyptic Vision of World Geography from Urzeit to Endzeit according to the Book of Jubilees 182James M. Scott13 'I Know the Number of the Sand and the Measure of the Sea': Geography and Difference in the Early Greek World 197Susan Guettel Cole14 Continents, Climates, and Cultures: Greek Theories of Global Structure 215James Romm15 The Geographical Narrative of Strabo of Amasia 236Daniela Dueck16 The Roman Worldview: Beyond Recovery? 252Richard J. A. Talbert17 The Medieval Islamic Worldview: Arabic Geography in Its Historical Context 273Adam J. Silverstein18 The Book of Curiosities: An Eleventh-Century Egyptian View of the Lands of the Infidels 291Emilie Savage-Smith19 Geography and Ethnography in Medieval Europe: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Concerns 311Natalia Lozovsky20 Europeans Plot the Wider World, 1500–1750 330David BuisseretIndex 344

“The basic premise, not to be dismissed, is that other 'ancient' or 'pre-modern' societies can inform us about the Classical and Near Eastern progenitors of our own, if we are prepared to look and learn."  (Ancient West and East, 2014)"In sum, the editors, and the publisher, are to be congratulated on producing, a stimulating volume which provides expert guidance to many aspects of the foreign country which is the past." (Aestimatio: Critical Reviews in the History of Science, 2011) "The 20 papers originated in a workshop held at Brown University in March 2006 and fully reflect the series' world focus and broad definition of ancient societies." (CHOICE, July 2010)