- Title: Tabula Geographica Hydrophylacium Asiæ Majoris
- Author: Athanasius Kircher
- Date: 1665
- Medium: Copperplate engraving
- Condition: Very Good - age toning, foxing, wear along issued center fold, repaired tear in bottom margin
- Inches: 18 7/8 x 14 7/8 [Paper]
- Centimeters: 47.94 x 37.78 [Paper]
- Product ID: 101329
Tabula Geographica Hydrophylacium Asiæ Majoris exhibens, quo Omnia Flumina sive proximè sive remotè per occultos mæandros Originem suam sortiuntur.
"Map showing the cavern lake of Asia Major, out of which all rivers near and far originate through hidden meanders."
Map of South Asia and the Middle East including the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf, part of the Caspian Sea, and present-day Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, the Philippines, Singapore, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Map shows a large, cavernous lake to the north of India.
Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) was a celebrated Jesuit Scholar and one of the first compilers of semi-scientific knowledge about the physical features of the Earth. His interpretations were based on personal observations and beliefs about how the world's geological systems worked. He suggested the tides and currents of the ocean flowed through subterranean tunnels, and that mountains represented the exposed skeletal structure of the Earth.