Assyria Map

The maps discussed here—spanning from 1642 to 1869—not only reflect European cartographic traditions but also inadvertently reveal the enduring legacy of ancient Near Eastern empires, particularly the Assyrian Empire, in shaping perceptions of sacred and political geography. For instance, Nicolaes Visscher’s 1657 map (De gelegentheyt van ‘t Paradijs) includes regions like Aramesia—a term rooted in the Assyrian-controlled Aramean kingdoms (9th–7th centuries BCE)—demonstrating how biblical cartography preserved Assyrian-era territorial divisions. Similarly, the anonymous 18th-century Arabian map labels the “MER ERYTHREE” (Erythraean Sea), a term first used in Assyrian trade records to denote the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. 

The Chambers’ 1869 Holy Land map, while Victorian in execution, still demarcates Assyria’s historical sphere of influence, echoing imperial boundaries from the Neo-Assyrian period (911–609 BCE). Even Visscher’s 1642 Apostle Paul map indirectly engages with Assyrian history, as Paul’s travels through Syria and Anatolia traversed lands once ruled by Assyrian governors. These maps, though created millennia after Assyria’s fall, perpetuate its geographic frameworks, proving how deeply Assyrian administrative borders, trade routes, and terminology became embedded in later Greco-Roman, Islamic, and European cartography. Far from neutral, these works are palimpsests of imperial memory, where 17th-century Dutch engravers and 19th-century French scholars unknowingly replicated the spatial logic of an empire that dominated the Near East three thousand years prior.