I've been looking for old town/city maps and can't find, well, anything, prior to the Liber insularum Archipelagi of 1420. The Wikipedia article for the author claims that his map of Constantinople is the oldest surviving map of the city. The fact that we have no maps of such a significant city before this point would suggest that city maps were, if not nonexistent, at least vanishingly rare, and the fact that I can't find any seems to bear this out. Is this true? And if so, why? I realise it might be hard to find positive reasons why people didn't do something, but it does seem like a strange omission. I know larger-scale maps existed well before this point. Would it not naturally occur to someone to apply the same principle to urban spaces? Was it just not worth the effort?
This (http://www.approachguides.com/wp-content/uploads/Madaba-Map-web-wikiJeanHousen.jpg) is a mosaic map of Jerusalem and its surrounding areas c. the sixth century. It's interesting, because while it's obviously a decorative map and not meant to be used for actual navigation (being mosaic set in a floor), the mosaic is actually in Madaba, Jordan, and was (and is still today) set in the floor of a church. In general, decorative mosaics were very common in religious structures (which back then would have been churches, synagogues and pagan temples). However, most of these were not maps, but rather, if they depicted cities, were of the cities from the front, not an aerial view. What makes this a fascinating map is that it is extraordinarily accurate in the parts which depict Jerusalem (if slightly skewed dimensionally). If you compare it to a current map of Jerusalem's Old City, you can pick out streets and landmarks which you can still travel today. It is oriented eastward rather than northward, in the direction in which churches are oriented. It seems to have been created using written descriptions from travelers to the area.
