Mappa mundi 11th century from a copy of the Etimologiae of St. Isidoro

Mappa mundi 11th century from a copy of the Etimologiae of St. Isidoro_Monastero El Escorial. Commissioned for the Queen Sancha I of Leon. The map is an eschatological geometric scheme with Jerusalem at the center and the Earth surrounded by the Oceanus; East is at the top with the source of the 4 rivers of Paradise. The Nile River has a double source; one is from the Paradise.

Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 4 April 636) was a Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian, and archbishop of Seville. His fame was based on his Etymologiae, an encyclopedia that assembled extracts of many books from classical antiquity. The mappamundis included in copies of the Etymologiae after the 11th century are a variation of the more diagrammatic T-O maps, some modern scholars refer to them as Y-O maps. Within each continent, regions are often symbolical indicated divided by geometric lines and structures similar to the Islamic maps of the Bhalki school of Baghdad from the 10th century.