India Meridionalis on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
The Dragon's Tail is a name for the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia which appeared in medieval Arabian cartography, medieval Arabian and Renaissance cartographers, Renaissance European world maps. It formed the eastern shore of the Magnus Sinus, Great Gulf (Gulf of Thailand) east of the Golden Chersonese (Malay Peninsula), replacing the "terra incognita, unknown lands" which Claudius Ptolemy, Ptolemy and others had thought surrounded the "Indian Ocean, Indian Sea".
Bartholomew Dias passed the Cape of Good Hope during a major storm in 1488; within a year or two, Henricus Martellus Germanus, Martellus had published a world map showing the communication of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, creating an unconnected south point of Africa and transforming the eastern end of Ptolemy's shoreline into a great peninsula, similar to that described by Al-Khwārizmī. The area was detailed with locations from Marco Polo and other travelers, including positions formerly related to Ptolemy's Golden Chersonese. A similar peninsula then appeared on the Erdapfel globe drafted by Martin of Bohemia in 1492, just prior to Christopher Columbus, Columbus's return. In the mid-16th century, António Galvão mentioned a map that had been purchased in 1428 by Peter, Duke of Coimbra, Dom Pedro, eldest son of John I of Portugal, John I, which described the Cape of Good Hope and included "the Strait of Magellan" under the name "Dragon's Tail" (). Some South American scholars have taken this at face value as evidence of early and thorough exploration of the Americas, but their claims have not been substantiated.
Christopher Columbus—at least initially—believed in the existence of the peninsula, whose position and attendant islands considerably shortened the expected distance from the African coast to East Asia. He may have been guided directly by Martellus's maps. Columbus considered himself to have arrived at Champa, which figured prominently in three inscriptions on Martellus's 1491 map, and cartographers began to draw discoveries in Central America on the eastern shore of the phantom peninsula. Amerigo Vespucci also considered himself to have arrived at this peninsula rather than a New World, new world.
Another form of this peninsula appeared in the 1502 Cantino planisphere smuggled out of Kingdom of Portugal, Portugal for the Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, Duke of Ferrara. The map has lost the Magnus Sinus, Great Gulf and the peninsula continues to be too large, but it has merged with the Golden Chersonese as a single landform and bent more towards the east, apparently influenced by Arabic sources.
The Portuguese Empire, Portuguese were aware of the peninsula's likely nonexistence by shortly after the Capture of Malacca (1511), fall of Malacca, when Afonso de Albuquerque, Albuquerque acquired a large Javanese language, Javanese map of Southeast Asia. The original was lost aboard the ''Froll de la Mar'' shortly afterwards but a tracing by Francisco Rodrigues (cartographer), Francisco Rodrigues was sent in its place as part of a letter to the king. Nonetheless, published maps continued to include it in different forms for another century.
The c. 1489 Martellus world map
its negative
at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & MS Library Geography in the medieval Islamic world Cartographic errors
Name
The peninsula known to modern cartographers as the "Dragon's Tail" or "Tiger's Tail" appeared under various names on different maps.History
Early history
The peninsula does not appear in any surviving manuscript of Claudius Ptolemy, Ptolemy's ''Ptolemy's Geography, Geography'' or other Greek geographers. Instead, it is first attested in the Ptolemaic-influenced ''Book of the Description of the Earth'' compiled by al-Khwārizmī around 833 AD. Ptolemy's map ended at 180°E of the Fortunate Isles without being able to explain what might lie on the imagined eastern shore of the Indian Ocean or beyond the lands of the Sinae and of Serica in Asia. Chinese Muslims traditionally credit the Companions of the Prophet, Companion Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqas with having missionized the country as early as the 7th century; the trading community was large enough that a Yangzhou massacre (760), large-scale massacre is recorded at Yangzhou in 760. Merchants such as Soleiman the Merchant, Soleiman showed Al-Khwārizmī that the Indian Ocean was not closed as Hipparchus and Ptolemy had held but opened either Strait of Malacca, narrowly or Sunda Strait, broadly. Al-Khwārizmī left most of Ptolemy's eastern coast but the creation of the strait created a new peninsula, beyond which he placed the Sea of Darkness and the Island of the Jewel.Age of Discovery
Bartholomew Dias passed the Cape of Good Hope during a major storm in 1488; within a year or two, Henricus Martellus Germanus, Martellus had published a world map showing the communication of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, creating an unconnected south point of Africa and transforming the eastern end of Ptolemy's shoreline into a great peninsula, similar to that described by Al-Khwārizmī. The area was detailed with locations from Marco Polo and other travelers, including positions formerly related to Ptolemy's Golden Chersonese. A similar peninsula then appeared on the Erdapfel globe drafted by Martin of Bohemia in 1492, just prior to Christopher Columbus, Columbus's return. In the mid-16th century, António Galvão mentioned a map that had been purchased in 1428 by Peter, Duke of Coimbra, Dom Pedro, eldest son of John I of Portugal, John I, which described the Cape of Good Hope and included "the Strait of Magellan" under the name "Dragon's Tail" (). Some South American scholars have taken this at face value as evidence of early and thorough exploration of the Americas, but their claims have not been substantiated.
Christopher Columbus—at least initially—believed in the existence of the peninsula, whose position and attendant islands considerably shortened the expected distance from the African coast to East Asia. He may have been guided directly by Martellus's maps. Columbus considered himself to have arrived at Champa, which figured prominently in three inscriptions on Martellus's 1491 map, and cartographers began to draw discoveries in Central America on the eastern shore of the phantom peninsula. Amerigo Vespucci also considered himself to have arrived at this peninsula rather than a New World, new world.
Another form of this peninsula appeared in the 1502 Cantino planisphere smuggled out of Kingdom of Portugal, Portugal for the Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, Duke of Ferrara. The map has lost the Magnus Sinus, Great Gulf and the peninsula continues to be too large, but it has merged with the Golden Chersonese as a single landform and bent more towards the east, apparently influenced by Arabic sources.
The Portuguese Empire, Portuguese were aware of the peninsula's likely nonexistence by shortly after the Capture of Malacca (1511), fall of Malacca, when Afonso de Albuquerque, Albuquerque acquired a large Javanese language, Javanese map of Southeast Asia. The original was lost aboard the ''Froll de la Mar'' shortly afterwards but a tracing by Francisco Rodrigues (cartographer), Francisco Rodrigues was sent in its place as part of a letter to the king. Nonetheless, published maps continued to include it in different forms for another century.
Details
The southern end of the peninsula was generally known as the Cape of Cattigara. Henricus Martellus Germanus, Martellus's world maps include labels marking the areas of Upper India (''India Superior''), Champa (''Ciamba Provincia''), and Greater Champa (''Ciamba Magna Provincia'').See also
* Cà Mau Peninsula * Golden Chersonese, Golden Peninsula, another peninsula appeared in early and medieval world maps.Notes
Citations
References
* . * . * . * Robert J. King, "Finding Marco Polo’s Locach", ''Terrae Incognitae'', vol.50, no.1, April 2018, pp.1-18. * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * {{Citation , last=Suárez , first=Thomas , title=Early Mapping of Southeast Asia , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wQTQAgAAQBAJ , publisher=Periplus Editions , location=Singapore , date=1999, isbn=9781462906963 .External links
The c. 1489 Martellus world map
its negative
at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & MS Library Geography in the medieval Islamic world Cartographic errors