Geographia Sacra of new & compendious maps of the Holy Land & other country's mention'd in the sacred scriptures

Set of six maps of the Holy Land and the Middle East on two sheets joined illustrating Biblical epochs. Very rare.

It is very likely that this map was a broadsheet or separate issue; in other words, it was never a standard part of an atlas and was only ever bound in composite works. This accounts for its extreme rarity.

The six maps are broadly based on a selection of maps which first appeared in Dutch Bibles, in the mid 17th century. The present maps illustrate the Middle East at the time of the sons of Noah, Palestine during the time of the Twelve Tribes, the location of the Garden of Eden, an illustration of the route of St. Paul from the Holy Land to Rome as well as two general maps: one of Galilee and Samaria on an east west orientation and the other of Jerusalem. As with most of these Biblical maps, the geographical sources would have been gathered from the work of Biblical scholars and superimposed on existing geographical outlines with the exception of the map of Jerusalem which would have been done purely from Biblical descriptions.

The layout of the maps suggests that they would also have been available as individual smaller sheets. The quality of the text is a little crude leading to a surmise that this sheet was put together in somewhat of a hurry.

Lawrence Worms and Ashley Baynton-Williams mention this map in the Dictionary of British Map Engravers under the entry for Samuel Parker, who compiled it for the publishers Henry Overton and John Hoole in 1728. We have been able to find a record of one other example with a publishing imprint of Robert Sayer, which is tentatively dated to c.1762.

The publishers mentioned on this example are Overton and Hoole and it was included within a group of maps by Hermann Moll which have been dated to c.1733.

Original colour. [MEAST4546]