The Imago Mundi, the oldest known world map, offers a rare glimpse into the way ancient Babylonians viewed their world.

The cuneiform tablet from the 6th century BC shows an aerial view map of Mesopotamia — roughly modern-day Iraq — and what the Babylonians believed lay beyond the known world at the time.

Researchers have uncovered a vast and well-preserved network of ancient irrigation canals in the Eridu region of southern ...