A 3,000-year-old Babylonian tablet known as the Imago Mundi, or the “Babylonian Map of the World,” recently led British Museum researchers to an astonishing find: a reference to a Great Flood story that parallels the Biblical account of Noah’s Ark. Originally unearthed in 1882 in Sippar, an ancient Babylonian city near present-day Baghdad, Iraq, this unique clay tablet has challenged archaeologists and scholars for over a century. However, a recent breakthrough in the deciphering of the cuneiform script on the tablet's back has uncovered new details that connect ancient Babylonian beliefs with flood narratives familiar to many around the world. History of Maps: From Ancient Artifacts to Modern Marvels Charles Hapgood and the Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings A Map of Babylonian Cosmology This remarkable tablet, barely larger than a hand, features the oldest known map of the world. “If you look carefully,” explains Dr. Irving Finkel, a curator at the British Museum in a British Museum video, “you will see that the flat surface of the clay has a double circle drawn...with cuneiform writing in it which says it's the 'Bitter River’.” Read moreSection: ArtifactsAncient WritingsNewsHistory & ArchaeologyMyths & LegendsAsiaRead Later