The principal concern of the history of cartography is the study of the map in human terms. As mediators between an inner mental world and an outer physical world, maps are fundamental tools helping the human mind make sense of its universe at various scales. More- over, they are undoubtedly one of the oldest forms of human communication. There has probably always been a mapping impulse in human consciousness, and the mapping experience-involving the cognitive mapping of space-undoubtedly existed long before the physical artifacts we now call maps. For many centuries maps have been employed as literary metaphors and as tools in analogical thinking. 1 There is thus also a wider history of how concepts and facts about space have been com- municated, and the history of the map itself-the phys- ical artifact-is but one small part of this general history of communication about space.2 Mapping-like paint- ing-precedes both written language and systems in- volving number, and though maps did not become everyday objects in many areas of the world until the European Renaissance, there have been relatively few mapless societies in the world at large. The map is thus both extremely ancient and extremely widespread; maps have impinged upon the life, thought, and imagination of most civilizations that are known through either archaeological or written records.Fil: Harley, Jonh Brian. University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee / Wisconsin, United States