T and O map in the context of "Table of Nations"

The "Old World" (Latin: Mundus vetus) is a term for Afro-Eurasia coined by Europeans after 1493, when they became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia in the Eastern Hemisphere, previously thought of by the Europeans as comprising the entire world, with the "New World", a term for the newly encountered lands of the Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas.

The Generations of Noah, also called the Table of Nations or Origines Gentium, is a genealogy of the sons of Noah, according to the Hebrew Bible (Genesis 10:9), and their dispersion into many lands after the Flood, focusing on the major known societies. The term 'nations' to describe the descendants is a standard English translation of the Hebrew word "goyim", following the c. 400 CE Latin Vulgate's "nationes", and does not have the same political connotations that the word entails today.

The list of 70 names introduces for the first time several well-known ethnonyms and toponyms important to biblical geography, such as Noah's three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, from which 18th-century German scholars at the Göttingen school of history derived the race terminology Semites, Hamites, and Japhetites. Certain of Noah's grandsons were also used for names of peoples: from Elam, Ashur, Aram, Cush, and Canaan were derived respectively the Elamites, Assyrians, Arameans, Cushites, and Canaanites. Likewise, from the sons of Canaan: Heth, Jebus, and Amorus were derived Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites. Further descendants of Noah include Eber (from Shem), the hunter-king Nimrod (from Cush).

The term Japhetites (sometimes spelled Japhethites; in adjective form Japhetic or Japhethitic) refers to the descendants of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis. The term was used in ethnological and linguistic writings from the 18th to the 20th centuries as a Biblically derived racial classification for the European peoples, but is now considered obsolete. Medieval ethnographers believed that the world had been divided into three large-scale groupings, corresponding to the three classical continents: the Semitic peoples of Asia, the Hamitic peoples of Africa, and the Japhetic peoples of Europe.

The term has been used in modern times as a designation in physical anthropology, ethnography, and comparative linguistics. In anthropology, it was used in a racial sense for White people (the Caucasian race). In linguistics, it referred to the Indo-European languages. Both of these uses are considered obsolete nowadays. Only the Semitic peoples form a well-defined language family. The Indo-European group is no longer known as "Japhetite", and the Hamitic group is now recognized as paraphyletic within the Afro-Asiatic family.

The Hereford Mappa Mundi (Latin: mappa mundi, map of the world) is the largest medieval map still known to exist, depicting the known world. It is a religious rather than literal depiction, featuring heaven, hell and the path to salvation. Dating from c. 1300 AD, the map is drawn in a form deriving from the T and O pattern. It is displayed at Hereford Cathedral in Hereford, England. The map was created as an intricate work of art rather than as a navigational tool. Sources for the information presented on the map include the Alexander tradition, medieval bestiaries and legends of monstrous races, as well as the Bible.

Although the evidence is circumstantial, recent work links the map with the promotion of the cult of Thomas de Cantilupe. Others link the map to a justification of the expulsion of Jewry from England. Potentially antisemitic images include a horned Moses and a depiction of Jews worshipping the Golden Calf in the form of a Saracen devil. The map may also reflect very patriarchal views of women as inherently sinful, including figures such as the wife of Lot being turned into a pillar of salt for gazing at the city of Sodom. Cantilupe was known for his dislike of Jews; in historian Debra Strickland's opinion he was regarded as misogynistic even by the standards of his own time.

The Commentary on the Apocalypse (Commentaria in Apocalypsin) is a Latin commentary on the biblical Book of Revelation written around 776 by the Spanish monk and theologian Beatus of Liébana (c. 730–after 785). The surviving texts differ somewhat, and the work is mainly famous for the spectacular illustrations in a group of illustrated manuscripts, mostly produced on the Iberian Peninsula over the following five centuries. There are 29 surviving illustrated manuscripts (many incomplete or fragments) dating from the 9th to the 13th centuries, as well as other unillustrated and later manuscripts. Significant copies include the Morgan, Saint-Sever, Gerona, Osma, Madrid (Vitr 14-1), and Tábara Beatus codices.

Most unusually for a theological work, the imagery seems to have been included from the start, and is considered to be the work of Beatus himself, although the earliest surviving manuscripts date from about a century after he wrote the book. After about another century, around 950, the size and number of illustrations was expanded. Manuscripts of the work are typically referred to just as a Beatus. They included a Beatus map, a version of the medieval type of world map called the T and O map with added details; this is supposed to have been created by Beatus. It has only survived in some copies.