Apart from a few exceptions such as the Neo-Babylonian Map of the World exhibited in the British Museum, the first representations of the oecumene are traditionally attributed to Greek geographers. This study, however, tries to show that the earliest “realistic” cartographic vision of Asia goes back to the earlier administration of the Achaemenid Empire.

The documents taken into account are the Achaemenid lists of countries published in various forms since the time of Darius I. The circular geographical order detected in their organization has indeed given rise to several cartographic reconstructions. The most complex list, that of the DNa inscription (from the funerary monument of Darius I at Naqsh-e Rustam), seems to enumerate the countries according to radial roads from the center of the empire. This scheme is however incompatible with that of other lists, like the earlier DB inscription of Bisutun, where some country sequences are reversed compared to DNa.

Faced with these contradictions, I propose to reorganize the countries in a more “realistic” way within the limits of a discoid scheme divided into four quadrants (with a later annular peripheral belt), that may form a common cartographic system compatible with all the Achaemenid lists. This map was designed under Darius I, with a unique codified system of reading which allowed to transform it into lists of countries. This reading system can fit all the lists only if the map is oriented to the southwest (and not to the north as the Greek maps), thence the western-southwestern countries of the empire are positioned at the top of the map. In the earliest lists, according to this reading system, the enumeration started from the southwestern countries on the top of the map (types A and AB represented by DB and DPe), while later it started from the northeastern countries at the bottom of the map (type B lists mainly represented by DNa). The organization of the lists having a purely graphic origin, the variations between the maps reflect the expansion of the empire and do not seem to have been influenced by administrative or financial data.

At the same time, this cartographical approach makes it possible to understand the other lists of countries whose logic of development is difficult to identify, such as the list on the statue of Darius at Susa and related documents like the Suez inscriptions and the texts defining the four corners of the empire (DPh and DH). It allows also to interpret certain later iconographic programs, such as the bas-reliefs of Persepolis (Apadana ramp, 100 Columns Hall and Tripylon), where the organization of peoples stems from a spatial organization, free from any ideological, administrative or economic background. The same approach may finally allow to decode the list in the later Xerxes’ Daiva-inscription (XPh), whose disorderly character has nothing to do with a change in the administrative organization of the empire, but could simply be explained by the fact that the official codified reading rules of the original maps were forgotten after Darius’ reign.

This study will be developed in a second forthcoming paper that will explain how under Darius I Hecataeus was probably the only Greek geographer who had the opportunity to examine a copy of the circular Achaemenid map with the detail of the eastern regions. It will also show in what circumstances this early Greek map was lost even before Herodotus.

The Greeks were not able, until the expedition of Alexander, to reconstruct a relatively correct map of Central Asia. Even then, however, they failed to identify the Aral Sea – reached by Derdas, the ambassador Alexander sent to the Asian Scythians supposed to live “on the Bosphorus” – or to locate Chorasmia, topic of this colloquium in Bordeaux, a country that had been previously properly located in the pre-Achaemenid maps and then in the geography of Darius.

除了一些例外，例如大英博物馆展出的《新巴比伦世界地图》，传统意义上，最早的归因于古希腊的归功于希腊地理学家。然而，这项研究试图表明，亚洲最早的“现实”制图视野可以追溯到阿契美尼德帝国的早期政府。

考虑到的文件是自达里乌斯一世以来以各种形式出版的阿契美尼德国家名单。在他们的组织中发现的圆形地理顺序确实引起了几次制图重建。最复杂的清单，是DNa铭文的清单（来自纳克什-鲁斯塔姆（Naqsh-e Rustam）的达里乌斯一世的葬礼纪念碑），似乎是根据从帝国中心出发的径向道路枚举的。但是，此方案与其他列表的方案不兼容，例如早期的Bisutun DB题字，其中某些国家序列与DNa相比是相反的。

面对这些矛盾，我建议在一个圆盘状方案的范围内以一种更加“现实”的方式重组这些国家，该方案被划分为四个象限（带有一个环形的环形带），可以形成一个与所有阿契曼尼德族人相兼容的通用制图系统。列表。这张地图是根据大流士一世（Darius I）设计的，具有独特的编纂阅读系统，可以将其转换为国家列表。仅当地图朝向西南方向（而不是希腊地图向北）时，此阅读系统才能适合所有列表，因此该帝国的西南西南国家位于地图顶部。在最早的列表中，根据此阅读系统，枚举从地图顶部的西南国家（以A表示的类型，AB表示的类型）DB和DPe），后来又从地图底部的东北国家（B型列表主要由DNa表示）开始。列表的组织具有纯图形来源，地图之间的变化反映了帝国的扩张，似乎不受行政或财务数据的影响。

同时，通过这种制图方法，可以了解难以确定发展逻辑的其他国家/地区清单，例如苏萨（Susa）达里乌斯（Darius）雕像上的清单以及苏伊士铭文和相关定义的文字等相关文件。帝国的四个角落（DPh和DH）。它还允许解释某些后来的图像程序，例如波斯波利斯的浅浮雕（Apadana坡道，100 Columns Hall和Tripylon），其中人民的组织来自于不受任何意识形态，行政或经济背景的空间组织。最终，相同的方法可能会允许在以后的Xerxes的Daiva铭文（XPh），其无序特征与帝国行政机构的变更无关，而可以用以下事实来简单解释：原始地图的正式编纂阅读规则在大流士（Darius）统治后就被遗忘了。

这项研究将在即将发表的第二篇论文中进行，该论文将解释在达里乌斯一世·赫卡特内斯统治下，希腊唯一可能有机会研究圆形阿契美尼德地图和东部地区细节的地理学家。它还将显示即使在希罗多德斯之前，这幅早期的希腊地图在什么情况下丢失了。

希腊人直到亚历山大远征队才能够重建相对正确的中亚地图。然而，即使到那时，他们仍未能确定咸海-亚历山大·德达斯大使曾派遣亚历山德里亚派往应该在“博斯普鲁斯海峡”生活的亚洲斯基泰人的住所-或在该国波尔多这个学术讨论会的主题中找到了霍拉斯米亚（Chrasmia）。以前正确地位于阿契美尼德之前的地图中，然后又位于大流士的地理上。