The Portolan Map
“It’s January and this year of 1480 looks set to be frigid. Nonetheless, my intrepid captain is planning a voyage out of Bristol.
It is said that he has acquired Rex Tholomeus portolan map that shows the location of Hy Brazil !
I am eager to explore with him. The island only appears out of the mist, once in seven sailing seasons, and it is said to be inhabited by wizards and strange creatures…. I am curious, as any sailor or traveller should be.
If he has that map then he owns a treasure. Perhaps discovered by crusader knights in the library of Constantinople and before that Alexandria ( themselves, distant and exotic places to me), it portrays, hutherto, unknown lands…. A great treasure it must be.
Our trip will take us to the West of Ireland….. there we will find it.
My friends think that it is associated with, or may even be the lost island of Atlantis. Our king will pour great wealth upon us if this turns out to be so.
We must prepare as we will leave at the beginning of February.
Wish us well !”
( this picture is of a map created by Abraham Ortelius 1572, a century later)
It is thought that some ancient and fairly accurate maps percolated back into Western merchants hands, after the sacking of Constantinople in 1204… maps that showed some important elements that were unknown or unexplored. It is a puzzle to cartographers and historians today, as to how some of these early charts portray the continent of Antarctica when it wasn’t discovered until the early 1800s….
Do these maps represent threads of geographical knowledge that predate modern understanding….
Hy Brazil…. Or at least the land mass… did exist…. Before the glacial melt at the end of the last age… 12000 years ago.
How did early map makers know this?
Does civilised human existence on our planet predate today’s acceptable norms.?
If it does, then there will have been travellers, merchants, and sailors amongst them too.
Ask questions when you travel