The Turin Papyrus: The Oldest Topographical and Geological Egyptian Map

The Turin Papyrus Map is an ancient Egyptian map that is generally considered to be the oldest surviving topographical and geological map of the ancient world – there are some older maps from outside Egypt, thought these have been described as rather crude, and more abstract in comparison with the Turin Papyrus Map.

Discovery of the Map

The Turin Papyrus Map (more precisely fragments of it) was discovered between 1814 and 1821 by the agents of Bernardino Drovetti, the French Consul General in Egypt, who was also an avid collector of Egyptian antiquities. The map is recorded to have been discovered in a private tomb in Deir el-Medina, near modern day Luxor.  It is now kept in the Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) in Turin, Italy.

Bernardino Drovetti French Diplomat and Egyptologist 1776-1852 (CC BY-SA 2.5)

Deir el-Medina was an ancient village from the New Kingdom that was inhabited by the men who worked on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Not long after the map was found, it was sold to King Charles Felix of Sardinia. In 1824, the king established the Museo Egizio in Turin, the capital of his kingdom, and the map has remained there ever since.