Traduzione dal tedesco di: Nuove ricerche sulla Tabula Peutingeriana, di M. Rathmann.

Traduzione dal tedesco. In recent studies on the Tabula Peutingeriana, several new questions have been investigated. It has become apparent, for example, that the southern mountain range of Africa is a cartographical metaphor for “much unknown land”. The draftsmen of the original Tabula Peutingeriana probably “inven- ted” this evocative designation for reasons of space, since on the rotulus there was no room for additional land masses. Furthermore, the discontinuous mountain range of the Alps, including the forested depictions of the vosges and the Black Forest, can be traced back to the map’s origin in the Hellenistic period. Changes in the internal cartographical design of the Tabula Peutin- geriana caused by copying techniques are sometimes particularly evident. For instance, the area north of the lower Danube, where the Roman province of Dacia is recorded, probably derives from the map’s Hellenistic archetype, since this area was originally filled with information on the southern Scythian area (well known since the period of Alexander the Great). In addition, some interesting mistakes in the Tabula Peutingeriana can be explained as the result of ancient copying procedures, such as the “shift” of the Roman road along the Raetian limes north of the Danube to the sou- thern bank of the river. In this case, one of the copyists apparently misinter- preted the abandonment of the Raetian limes after 260 AD.