Earlier, the Babylonians had attempted to map the world, but they presented it in the form of a flattened disc rather than a sphere, which was the form adopted by Ptolemy.

在这以前更早的时候，巴比伦人曾经企图绘制世界地图，但是巴比伦人绘制成一个扁平的圆盘形，而不是绘制像托勒密所绘制的球形。