Other artifacts on view illustrate ancient methods of surveying and measuring lands, and some of the earliest efforts to measure longitude and latitude and to divide the world into climate zones. From north to south, both the Greeks and the Romans identified the frigid Arctic Circle, the northern temperate hemisphere, the torrid Tropic of Cancer, the southern temperate zone and the South Pole. The two temperate zones were believed to be the only habitable regions, but contact between the two was thought unlikely.

Across the wall of the first gallery is projected a digital replica of the Peutinger Map, more than 22 feet long and 2 feet high, illustrating how Roman mapping was at once practical and magnificent. It charts the empire’s roads, cities, ports and forts from Britain to India. Sketches of trees mark forests in Germany. Topography is minimal, roads are off-scale wide, towns are indicated by symbolic walls or towers — more of a traveler’s guide but much too large to serve as a handy road map.

In a study of the map, Richard J. A. Talbert, a historian at the University of North Carolina who specializes in cartography of the Greeks and the Romans, noted that in one sense it was an example of common Roman “journey” charts, much like the Greek “periploi” — mostly written descriptions of landmarks and ports mariners were likely to encounter.

Geographers then were less committed to drawing maps than to narrative wayfinding. Distances had priority over orientations; getting from here to there was more important than the lay of the land.

An early copy of the map came to light in the 17th century and was owned for years by Konrad Peutinger, a Hapsburg diplomat and map collector. It is now is in the Austrian National Library in Vienna.