Ancient Maps

The Spanish of the 16th and 17th centuries were driven by two things; gold and glory.

Spanish explorers, from Columbus to Juan Bautista de Anza, were sent by the king with orders to bring back anything valuable and document the location where it was found. Map makers were provided on all expeditions.

The kings quickly realized the maps and the symbols used on them had do be standardized. The king wanted his cut of the Spanish gold the explorers found and if some evil befell the expedition he could send out another to find his gold.

Besides the paper maps, the explorers built large monuments to serve as trail markers for guiding caravans of food and people in and Spanish gold out. The road monuments had the standardized symbols carved or painted on them to provide coded messages for reaching the gold mine or other place of value. The ancient maps were mainly used to find the markers. The “Old Spanish Trail” covered the southwestern United States, from Mexico to Idaho and California to Texas. The book, "Lost Treasures on the Old Spanish Trail," by George A. Thompson, is a good reference book of Spanish gold treasure maps.

The problem many treasure hunters had over the years is not realizing the symbols used on maps and monument markers form coded messages. The directions are not as clear as they seem because people were just as devious then as they are now.

Author Steve Shaffer provides excellent examples of ancient maps and trail markings in his three volume set of E-books available on the Internet.