The Place Names of the Middle East Before and After Ptolemaic Cartography: An Emblematic Selection from Ancient Maps

The cultural gap between Europe and Asia (at first political and then religious) saw an increase with the spread of Islam, which, to the European imagination, was synonymous with ‘foreign’. This separation grew after the discovery of America (1492) with the loss of the central commercial position of the Mediterranean reducing the level of contact between the countries of its basin. Traces of these changes can be recognized on historic Western maps in the transformation of their toponyms (place names). Through a comparative cartographic analysis, this paper examines some of the key changes and phases that occurred during the era.