In my last posting in the Asteris topic I promised to eat my hat if I could not present an old map of Schizocephalonia within a week. Because this issue became slightly off-topic I took the liberty to open a new topic.

The first post opens with a portolan chart of Piri Reis, first published in 1521 in the Kitab-i Bahriye (Book of Navigation). The Piri Reis charts are well known and some generic information is available on the Wikipedia. The upper map shows a lot of detail of Cephalonia and Ithaca, including a small river at the location where the author suggests the South entrance to Strabo’s channel. The lower map shows Cephalonia being split by an isthmus at two places. In between the island widens to sufficient size to allow the presence of a village.

To produce his maps Piri Reis combined his own observations with maps from the Islamic world and from the ancient period, or as he put it ”Ískenderi Zülkarneyn zamanında” (in the time of Alexander). This makes that the level of knowledge of plane geometry and trigonometry in these charts is much higher than in the early 16th century European charts. Also an understanding of accuracy and uncertainty can be recognised in the fractal character of the coastlines and in the predetermined number of details per square mile.

Have a nice day!

My first Schizocephalonia: "Carte de l' Archipel", J.N. Bellin, showing Cephalonia split in two parts. The Easterly split is shown also in several other charts, such as the "Cephalonia Graecia nova et Mare Aegeum" of Lotter and the location corresponds with the Easterly isthmus of Piri Reis (shown above). The map also shows the stone walls of the salt evaporation ponds in Argostoli Bay:

The map "Cefalonia insula posta sul mare Mediterraneo", Camocio, shows Paliki as a peninsula. A similar map, named "Zafalonia", Rocassio, is presented below. The presented map has a slightly higher level of detail.

It has the same aspect and it shows the same salt evaporation ponds, where "saline", salt, was extracted from the sea. Should one be able to locate these ponds and if they are above sea level... then there would be an excellent indicator for the local rising of the land mass. I attached a photograph from another location (Malta), just as an example of how it may have looked like; flat as a sports ground. An excellent reusage of a dried up, too shallow harbour.

Both maps show Paligi as a town on the Southern root of an isthmus. The coastline shows a large indent, which corresponds with the Westerly isthmus of Piri Reis, but not with the presumed location of the Northern entrance to the Channel.

The compass rose has a cross on the East pointing arrow; this indicates the direction of Jerusalem and shows that the chart is of Christian origin:

Several old charts show an island West of Cephalonia and an island West of Zante. Tavola nova del Arcipelago, F.M. Levanto. This map also shows a "river" type of line at the location of the Easterly isthmus of Piri Reis:

One more map, Sanson, N. & fam. "La Moree et les iles de Zante, Cephalonie, St. Maura, Cerigo", shows linear "harbour construction works" in the Northeastern part of the Bay, which coincide with the stone walls of the salt evaporation ponds described above. The emphasis that is given to the construction works is remarkable, the salines on Zakynthos are not shown at all. Is this the oldest existing cartographic representation of harbour construction works?

A fragment of a beautiful but confusing map of the Samourkas Collection. It shows that renaissance cartographic knowledge (as from around 1480 AD) was not close to accurate. Particularly the longitudes could not be calculated until spherical trigonometry was re-developed in the 17th and 18th centuries.

However, we must acknowledge that one time this was state of the art knowledge - the beginning of a new era - and beautifully presented. It shows the then perception of Acheron, Ogygia, Scheria, Samos, Asteris, Ithaca, Mount Neriton, Dulichium, the nonexistent island of Lotoa que et Letoen (Letoia) and many more mythical places. Odysseus most probably did not have a map at all and used experience, the sun, the stars and the sight of the coastline for navigation. Both Odysseus and Jason carried on board some doves, which could be released - like Noah did - if one had lost sight of the coast. (Odysseus (Od 12,59), Jason (ll. 316-340, by Apollonius of Rhodes), Noah (Genesis 8,8), Noah (Quran, 71)


Post script message; Samuel Butler in 1907 understood Letoia to be the island of Vardiana.

This 15th century remake of a Ptolemaeus chart shows a large island Southwest of Cephalonia. Is this a misinterpretation of a Schizocephalonia? More likely Ptolemeus (c. AD 90 – c. AD 168) here follows the Asteria/Letoia interpretation of Pliny the Elder (23 AD – 79 AD): the physical disappearance of Schizocephalonia causes the geographers to create a new island, Letoia, as described in the topic "The myth of Letoia" elsewhere on this forum.

Courtesy Samourka Map Collection

Here ends my first review of the ancient maps. What has it learned us?

It suggests that Ptolemy (c. AD 90 – c. AD 168), was aware that you could sail "through" Cephalonia. His charts are lost and some of the 16th century remakes present a nonexistent island southwest of Cephalonia. The mysterious Piri Reis drew, in 1512, an accurate map with a scientific basis that presents an isthmus near Paliki and a second isthmus further East. In the middle of the isthmus is a significant land mass.

Renaissance cartographers clearly did not know how to handle the situation. Consequently they went through a process of presenting “best” solutions:
1. Follow Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy; map islands West or Southwest of Cephalonia.
2. Interpret Piri Reis; map a Channel straight through the mainland of Cephalonia. Too far East and geotechnical very improbable.
3. Implement more detailed renaissance geographical knowledge, but exaggerate the coastal indentations as to suggest the presence of a lost Channel.
4. Finally, everybody agrees to ignore the myth of Schizocephalonia, because the Channel is just not there... anymore.

Furthermore we learned details. The ideas of the Author on the island Asteris proved realistic. This area has seen a lot of change over the ages and the present capes are the islands from the past.

The stone walls in the lower parts of Northeast Argostoli Bay are remainders of salt evaporation ponds, built for extracting salt from the sea. It seems an excellent reuse of a harbour that has become too shallow. It will be interesting to check them for the presence of old anchor stones.

Further information will have to come from older, pre-renaissance, sources or from modern research. My interest has been raised and I look forward to visiting the area with my sailing boat later this summer. I hope you found my contribution of interest and await your comments.

Best regards,

Marinus

Maps presented with kind permission of the Samourkas Collection. The text of this post has been edited various times after the date of posting and after the reply of Demodocos.

Marinus has once again delivered us all a considerable service through this diligent cartographic research. All these maps are interesting, especially the Ptolemaeus image above. However, before we jump to the conclusion that Ptolemy was illustrating an actual "Strabo's Channel", we need to learn more about the provenance of this map. In particular, we read at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographia_(Ptolemy) that "The original work included maps, but due to the difficulties involved in copying them by hand, the original maps have fallen out of the manuscript transmission. Maps redrawn from the coordinates in the text have been re-added to medieval copies of the work." So we cannot assume that the apparent depiction of Paliki as a separate island dated to Ptolemy's time (c. AD 150); it may simply represent the fertile imagination of a medieval cartographer. Can Marinus perhaps help us with further insights into the origin of this fascinating map?

On a separate point, the stonework patterns visible on Google Earth in the marshland at the northern end of the Argostoli gulf are regarded by the local population as having been constructed by the inmates of the adjacent prison in the 19th century (AD).

The earliest copies of the Ptolemaeus map date, indeed, from 1486 and a fragment of one of these is shown below. But what is real and what is fiction? Poseidon, this relentless shaker of the earth, keeps his secrets well hidden. What is the meaning of the island that is presented Southwest of Cephalonia? This nonexistent island West of Zante now has a name, Letoia, but what does that mean?
Junius, Hadrianus: Nomenclator octilinguis. - Paris 1606 claims the identity of Lotoa and Guardiana:

The map of Zakynthos, the shire of Zante;

Danckers atlas 1703, Moreae. Asteria is shown as a settlement onshore, between Fiscardo and the present town of Samos. Note the village of Dulichio in the lower left corner:

From The Atlas of Ancient and Classical Geography by Samuel Butler, published in 1907:


Hofmann, Johann Jacob: Lexicon Universale [...]. - Leiden, 1698, supports the identity of Guardiano and Lotoa, Letoia, Trapano, but this is not in line with the coordinates of Letoia as given in the Index of Ptolemy's Geographia:

The Cosmographia (also known as Geographia or Geographike Hyphegesis) is Ptolemy's main work besides the Almagest. It is a treatise on cartography and a compilation of what was known about the world's geography in the Roman Empire of the 2nd century. Ptolemy relied mainly on the work of an earlier geographer, Marinos of Tyre, and on gazetteers of the Roman and ancient Persian empire.

Map of Greece from Cosmographia (Sebastian Münster), published Basel, 1545 AD: