Why this Holy Land map puts east at the top

A monumental six-sheet wall map of 1652 is oriented for a traveller arriving by ship.

Jan Janssonius's monumental six-sheet wall map of the Holy Land breaks the modern habit of north-at-the-top. It is oriented to the east: the Mediterranean runs along the bottom edge, so the viewer faces inland exactly as a pilgrim arriving by sea would, looking up the coast toward the Jordan and the desert beyond.

The territories of the Twelve Tribes are laid out on both banks of the river, and two large insets carry the narrative — the pilgrimage of Abraham, and the camp-by-camp wanderings of the Israelites through Sinai. The map expands the sixteenth-century reconstruction of the theologian Christian van Adrichem.

First published in 1652 in Janssonius's Novus Atlas, it was joined the next year by a thirty-two-page historical commentary from the Leiden scholar Georg Hornius — which is why it is often catalogued as the 'Hornius–Janssonius' wall map. Assembled, it spans nearly 1.8 metres.

Sources: Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici, 8150:D/1-6