Center of the Map, the Temple

So great has been the impact of the temple of Jerusalem on certain religious groups that some medieval cartographers who mapped the Holy Land or Jerusalem depicted the city of Jerusalem as having a geometric circular plan, or they mapped Jerusalem in the center of the world. Heinrich Bünting’s map of the world depicts three continental land masses roughly in the form of a three-leaf clover. Published in Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae in 1581, the continents are identified as Africa, Europe, and Asia. Set dead center where the three continents connect is the city of Jerusalem.45 Why the emphasis on Jerusalem? Because it is the holy city that housed the temple of Solomon. This temple continued to greatly impact individuals and communities for millennia after its destruction.

Bünting’s world map depicts three continental land masses, with Jerusalem featured at the center.

Additional cartographers of the same general period delineate the Holy City in circular form. In 1493, the historian H. Schedel depicted a drawing of Jerusalem in his Liber Chronicarum, published in Nürnberg. The picture portrays the city as architecturally possessing four concentric circles. Each concentric circle is delimited by a high wall. Standing in the center of the city, and possessing the loftiest site in the area, stands the temple of Solomon. The temple, following other circular patterns found throughout the map, has a spherical dome, circular stairs, and other circular features.46

Schedel’s drawing of Jerusalem, with four concentric circles.

Other medieval cartographers place Jerusalem in the map’s geometrical center,47 thus emphasizing the great significance of Jerusalem’s temple and its religious impact upon the world, even many centuries after its destruction.