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Primary sourcePaintingc. 1375

Catalan Atlas

Cresques Abraham · c. 1375

A 1375 world map depicting Mansa Musa and the Saharan trade world that Ibn Battuta crossed on his journey to Mali.

Shows the Saharan trade world and Mali Empire that Ibn Battuta crossed and described firsthand on his journey to Mali.

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Eight vertical panels of the Catalan Atlas side by side, showing an illuminated medieval world map with colored seas, decorated landmasses, compass roses, flags, rulers on thrones, and figures and animals.
Cresques Abraham, Catalan Atlas, c. 1375. Bibliotheque nationale de France.

About this source

What it is

The Catalan Atlas is a medieval world map made around the late 1370s by Cresques Abraham, a Jewish cartographer working in Majorca. It is held at the Bibliotheque nationale de France and shows Europe, North and West Africa, and the East, with illustrations of rulers, cities and flags.

Why it matters

The atlas shows Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire, and the Saharan trade routes that Ibn Battuta travelled when he journeyed to Mali in 1352-53. Made by Europeans who never visited these lands themselves, it reveals how outsiders imagined the regions Ibn Battuta actually crossed and described firsthand, including exaggerated ideas about Mali's wealth.

Look closer

  • How does this European map's view of Mali compare to what a traveller like Ibn Battuta reported from direct experience?
  • Why might the mapmaker have emphasised gold and riches in the caption about Mansa Musa?
  • What does the map get wrong or leave out about the interior of Africa?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo and Sunni Ali on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Scanned manuscript page in Arabic calligraphy on aged cream paper. The top has a line of black script with a decorative heading, and a red-ink title block in larger calligraphy reading the opening of the work. Below are about two dozen lines of brown-ink handwritten text in dense Arabic script, with a marginal note at the bottom left.Book

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