1522 - 1535 Tabula I Aphricae

This magnificent trapezoidal Ptolemaic woodcut map by Laurent Fries features the northwest corner of Africa, which is often referred to as the Maghreb (meaning western in Arabic), and includes Morocco, Mauritania, the Western Sahara, Algeria and the western edge of Libya. The famed Pillars of Hercules of antiquity are depicted on either side of the Straits of Gibraltar. Aside from a portion of southwestern Spain, the northern portion of the map is occupied primarily by the Mediterranean Sea. Inland in Africa, Fries depicts and names towns and cities and geological features of which there was knowledge in his day, and the detail is impressive. The great Atlas Mountains of northern Africa, which extend some 1,500 miles across NW Africa, span Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, are shown creating a natural border which separates the Mediterranean coastline from the Sahara Desert. The Atlas Mountains are actually a series of ranges with a wide variety of terrain, climate and wildlife. The mounta