Beatus map

It was originally drawn by the Spanish monk Beatus of Liébana, based on the accounts given by Isidore of Seville, Ptolemy and the Hebrew Bible.

According to the descriptions from the Book of Genesis (which was one of the main sources for Beatus), the Earth was thought to be a flat plane,[citation needed] and sustained the vault of heaven, where the Sun, the Moon, and other minor luminaries like planets and stars, moved.

At the eastern end of Asia lies the Garden of Eden, the earthly paradise where it is never cold nor hot, and where trees and wood of all kinds grow.

In its center stands the Tree of Life, and next to it, a fountain from which the four rivers of Paradise: Tigris, Euphrates, Pishon and Gihon flow.

On the south coast of the Asian continent is India, an enormous territory traversed by three rivers, the Indus, Ganges and Hipane.

Assyria, named after Asshur, the son of Shem, was famous for its purple dyes and all types of perfumes and ointments, where Nineveh, the capital of the old empire of the Assyrians is located, and where Jonas the prophet went to preach futilely.

Finally there is Persia, birthplace of King Cyrus, the anointed one of God, and the region where magical science arose for the first time, introduced by Nebroth the giant, after the confusion of languages had emerged in Babel.

From Chaldea (South of Mesopotamia), the Asturian Chronicles supposed, came the hordes that invaded Spain and were defeated by Pelayo in Covadonga.

Further south was Palestine, which was subdivided into four different provinces: Galilee, where they crucified Jesus of Nazareth, the Sea of Tiberiades, where many of the apostles worked as fishermen, and Monte Tabor, the place where the Transfiguration occurred.

The image shows a copy of the Beatus map from the Saint-Sever Beatus , produced in Saint-Sever Abbey , France. The map is faced eastwards, and not northwards, as usual in modern cartography. For this reason it is said that the map is oriented . [ 1 ]
This image of The Garden of Earthly Delights illustrates the Hebrew Weltanschauung , which is reflected in the book of Genesis . The Earth is a disc surrounded by two water masses: the upper waters , which occasionally fall to Earth in form of rain when YHVH opens the floodgates of Heaven, and the lower waters , formed by the seas, the lakes and the Ocean. In the depths of the Cosmic Sphere lay the sheol , dwelling of the dead until the Judgement Day .
This illustration, from the calendar page of the book The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry , shows Adam and Eve being expelled from the earthly Paradise. During the Middle Ages, it was believed that the Garden of Eden was located at the eastern end of the world, and it was possible, in theory, to reach it. Columbus attempted it.
Abrahamic tradition makes Ur of Caldea the mother country of the patriarch Abraham . The early Spanish Albeldense and Rotense Chronicles , when they recount the Islamic invasion of Spain, make a subtle ethnic distinction between the invaders: Berbers (such as Tarik) are given the name of Moors , while the Arabs (the ethnic group of Musa ibn Nusayr) are called Chaldeans . And in those times it was considered that Chaldea and not Arabia was the original country of the Saracens.