Tabula Peutingeriana
Documentary Heritage submitted by Austria and recommended for inclusion in the Memory of the World Register in 2007.
© Austrian National Library - Tabula Peutingeriana
The Tabula Peutingeriana is the unique preserved map of the road system for the cursus publicus, the public transport system in use in the Roman Empire. It covers the complete area of the provinces under Roman rule and the territories conquered by Alexander the Great in the East. It is preserved in 11 segments, written on parchment at the end of the 12th century. The Tabula can be seen as a mediaeval facsimile imitating the book scroll in use in Antiquity.
Completely preserved in the Department of Manuscripts, Autographs and Closed Collections of the National Library (Cod. 324), the Tabula Peutingeriana contains many insights for the history of administration and economy of the Roman Empire. It still serves as a guide, where Roman roads are preserved and archaeological sites go back to the period of the Roman Empire. The aim of the Tabula was not the depiction of the regions concerned as a geographical map, but to show the structure and network of the cursus publicus. This explains the missing depiction of the sea and the orientation of the map West – East and is a parallel to actual diagrams used in the trains of the underground in European cities.