Any particular reason the Byzantines thought Ma Africa connected to Asia in the south?
Bigger version here
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/12/12-maps-that-changed-the-world/282666/
>>1167332
Ptolemy & Strabo.
All medievalshits operated on Roman Maps for the longest time.
>>1167332
Terra Australis got propagated by Ptolemy's maps, which emphasized an Indian Ocean enclosed by land. The idea was that the Southern Hemisphere must have a large region of land to "balance out" the land in the Northern Hemisphere.
And since the Byzantines were not explorers in their own right, most Medieval maps were still reliant on Ptolemy's cartography.
>>1167344
Didn't Romans think the world is encircled by a large river?
>>1167344
Strabo didnt draw any map.
>>1167332
The existence of a big southern continent was common belief since Ptolemy.
When did western Europeans learn that Africa could be circumnavigated?
>>1168164
When the portuguese circumnavigated it a bit before 1500 (don't remember the exact year).
They were doing the same than Columbus did later, trying to reach the indies without entering Ottoman land, but they took the long way.
>>1168174
That might be when they knew it for certain, but the Fra Mauro map already showed the Indian and Atlantic Oceans connecting in 1450. How did they know about that, and since when?
>>1168025
Shut up, he drew maps all the time.
>>1168208
Thought only a Arabs did spurn on top
nice thread guys
>>1169156
what the hell am i looking at? what continent is that even supposed to be?
>>1169482
>Al-Sharif al-Idrisi, a Muslim from Al-Andalus, traveled to Sicily to work for the Norman King Roger II, producing an Arabic-language geography guide that drew on Jewish, Greek, Christian, and Islamic traditions and contained two world maps: the small, circular one above, and 70 regional maps that could be stitched together. Unlike east-oriented Christian world maps at the time, al-Idrisi's map puts south at top in the tradition of Muslim mapmakers, who considered Mecca due south (Africa is the crescent-shaped landmass at top, and the Arabian Peninsula is in the center). Unlike Ptolemy, al-Idrisi depicted a circumnavigable Africa—blue sea surrounds the globe. Ultimately, the map is concerned with representing physical geography and blending traditions—not mathematics or religion. "There are no monsters on his maps," Brotton says.
