Spain / Catalonia: 'The Great Lord Prince of Gog and Magog. He will appear with many people in the times of the Antichrist' as represented in the Catalan Atlas, by the Jewish illustrator Cresques Abraham, 1375

The Catalan Atlas (1375) is the most important Catalan map of the medieval period. It was produced by the Majorcan cartographic school and is attributed to Cresques Abraham, a Jewish book illuminator who was self-described as being a master of the maps of the world as well as compasses. It has been in the royal library of France (now the Bibliotheque nationale de France) since the late 14th century.

The 1st century Jewish historian Josephus identified the Gog and Magog people as Scythians, horse-riding barbarians from around the Don and the Sea of Azov. Josephus recounts the tradition that Gog and Magog were locked up by Alexander the Great behind iron gates in the 'Caspian Mountains', generally identified with the Caucasus Mountains. In the Catalan Atlas, Cresques Abraham locates Gog and Magog in the far northeast of Asia, somewhere in eastern Siberia.

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Supplier: CPA Media Co. Ltd.

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Pictures From History