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Atlas brings record sum

London: The first atlas ever printed has been sold for a record price. The 1477 edition of Claudius Ptolemy's landmark atlas sold at Sotheby's for £2.14 million, a record for any atlas ever sold at auction.

The atlas was part of a collection sold by the family of Lord Wardington, a British map and atlas collector who died last year. It is one of only two copies still in private hands. The price paid by a private collector, who was not present at the auction, eclipsed the previous record of £1.46 million paid for the "Doria Atlas" sold at Sotheby's in October 2005.

Ptolemy was a Greek-speaking geographer, astronomer and astrologer who lived in Roman Egypt. He authored several scientific treatises that were influential on both Islamic and European science, and devised maps and atlases of the Roman Empire.

The atlas could have been lost when in April 2004 a fire raged through the Wardington family estate. — AP

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