INDEX

• Introduction
• Maps
• Significant Places in Australia's Maritime History
• Naming Australia
• Naming Australia's Coastal Features

WHO DID DISCOVER AUSTRALIA?

• The Phoenecians & Egyptians
• The Greeks & Romans
• The Chinese
• The Muslims
• The Portuguese
• The Dutch
• The British
• The French

COLONIAL EXPLORATION

• Index
• The French
• The British
• Other
• Inland explorers

The Discovery of Australia: Ancient and historic maps relating to Australia

Pre-16th Century

HOMER
The great epic poet of Greece. Many of the works once attributed to him are lost; those which remain are the two great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, thirty-three hymns, a mock epic (the Battle of the Frogs and Mice), and some pieces of a few lines each (the so-called Epigrams).

• Reconstruction of Homer's view of the earth, 900 BC
• Babylonian Map of the World, 600 BC
  Early world maps reflect the religious beliefs of the form of the world. For example maps have been discovered on Babylonian clay tablets dating from around 600 BC. One such map shows Babylon and the surrounding area in a stylised form with Babylon represented by a rectangle and the Euphrates river by vertical lines. The area shown is depicted as circular surrounded by water which fits the religious image of the world in which the Babylonians believed.
• Greek View of the World, Reinaud, 500 BC

HERODOTUS (C.484-425 B.C.)
Despite major shortcomings in the area of accuracy, Herodotus of Halicarnassus is called "the father of history." Even by his contemporaries, though, he was sometimes referred to as "the father of lies." We know few facts about the life of the Greek historian Herodotus. He was born in the essentially Dorian colony of Halicarnassus on the southwest coast of Asia Minor shortly before the expedition against Greece led by the Persian king Xerxes. Following victories over the Persians by the mainland Greeks during the Persian War, Halicarnassus rebelled against foreign rulers. In consequence of his rebellious actions, Herodotus was sent into exile to the Ionian island of Samos, but then returned to Halicarnassus around 454 to take part in the overthrow of the son of Artemisia, Lygdamis.
Between the time of the overthrow of Lygdamis and his settling in Thurii, Herodotus travelled around most of the known world. On one trip Herodotus probably went to Egypt, Phoenicia, and Mesopotamia; on another he went to Scythia. Herodotus also lived in Athens where he spent time in the company of his friend Sophocles. The writing of Herodotus was so well received by the Athenians that in 445 B.C. he received a reward of ten talents.

• Reconstruction of the World, Herodotus, C.450 BC

ERATOSTHENES 276-174 BC
Eratosthenes was born in Cyrene which is now in Libya in North Africa. His teachers included the scholar Lysanias of Cyrene and the philosopher Ariston of Chios who had studied under Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy. Eratosthenes also studied under the poet and scholar Callimachus who had also been born in Cyrene. Eratosthenes then spent some years studying in Athens.
He made major contributions to cartography, measuring the circumference of the Earth with great accuracy. He sketched, quite precisely, the route of the Nile to Khartoum, showing the two Ethiopian tributaries. He made another important contribution in using a grid to locate positions of places on the Earth. He was not the first to use such a grid for Dicaearchus, a follower of Aristotle, had devised one about 50 years earlier. Today we use latitude and longitude to determine such coordinates and Eratosthenes' grid was of a similar nature. Note, of course, that the use of such positional grids are an early form of Cartesian geometry. Following Dicaearchus, Eratosthenes chose a line through Rhodes and the Pillars of Hercules (present day Gibraltar) to form one of the principal lines of his grid. This line is, to a quite high degree of accuracy, 36 north and Eratosthenes chose it since it divided the world as he knew it into two fairly equal parts and defined the longest east-west extent known. He chose a defining line for the north-south lines of his grid through Rhodes and drew seven parallel lines to each of his defining lines to form a rectangular grid.

• Eratosthenes map of the World, 250 BC
• Reconstruction of the World map, Eratosthenes of Cyrene. 194 BC
  A modern vision of what Eratosthenes would have thought the world was like. Details include the Scythians, Celts, Ethiopians, India, Ariana, Britain and Thule.

CRATES
A Greek grammarian and Stoic philosopher of the 2nd century B.C., Crates, of Mallus in Cilicia, a was leader of the literary school and head of the library of Pergamum. He was the chief representative of the allegorical theory of exegesis, and maintained that Homer intended to express scientific or philosophical truths in the form of poetry. About 170 B.C. he visited Rome as ambassador of Attalus II, king of Pergamum; and having broken his leg and been compelled to stay there for some time, he delivered lectures which gave the first impulse to the study of grammar and criticism among the Romans (Suetonius, De grammaticis, 2). His chief work was a critical and exegetical commentary on Homer. The first terrestrial globe is made by Crates of Mallus, C.140.

• Reconstruction of Crate's Globe. C.150 BC
  Reconstruction of a globe built in 150 BC at Pergamum. The oikumene is the inhabited part of the world. Because the known inhabited area seemed too small in proportion to the globe according to Eratosthenes' measurements, Crates added three additional continents.
• Reconstruction of the Orbis Terrarum, 20 AD
  Circular map reconstruction showing Europa, Africa, and Asia.

CLAUDIUS PTOLEMY 85-165 AD
One of the most influential Greek astronomers and geographers of his time, Ptolemy propounded the geocentric theory in a form that prevailed for 1400 years. However, of all the ancient Greek mathematicians, it is fair to say that his work has generated more discussion and argument than any other. We shall discuss the arguments below for, depending on which are correct, they portray Ptolemy in very different lights. The arguments of some historians show that Ptolemy was a mathematician of the very top rank, arguments of others show that he was no more than a superb expositor, but far worse, some even claim that he committed a crime against his fellow scientists by betraying the ethics and integrity of his profession.
We know very little of Ptolemy's life. He made astronomical observations from Alexandria in Egypt during the years AD 127-41. In fact the first observation which we can date exactly was made by Ptolemy on 26 March 127 while the last was made on 2 February 141. It was claimed by Theodore Meliteniotes in around 1360 that Ptolemy was born in Hermiou (which is in Upper Egypt rather than Lower Egypt where Alexandria is situated) but since this claim first appears more than one thousand years after Ptolemy lived, it must be treated as relatively unlikely to be true. In fact there is no evidence that Ptolemy was ever anywhere other than Alexandria.

• Ptolemy's Map of the World, 150 AD

14th Century

PIETRO VISCONTE
Among the first maps in Christian Europe to reveal a new character are those by Pietro Vesconte. Some consider him as the first professional cartographer to sign and date his works regularly. He produced chiefly sea-charts, and his world maps betray his experience in that field. Vesconte came from Genoa but did some, perhaps all, of his work at Venice. His work falls within the period 1310-30; the name 'Perrino Vesconte', which appears on one atlas and one chart, may be his own, using a diminutive form, or that of another member of his family. Vesconte was one of the few people in Europe before 1400 to see the potential of cartography and to apply its techniques with imagination. As can be seen in the world maps he drew around 1320 he introduced a heretofore unseen accuracy in the outline of the lands surrounding the Mediterranean and Black Sea, probably because they were taken from the portolan [nautical] charts. We may suspect that his influence lay behind the maps of Italy in the Great Chronology by Paolino Veneto that was copied at Naples not long after, for other maps in the same manuscript are related to maps from Vesconte's workshop that illustrate Marino Sanudo's book calling for a new crusade. These maps of Italy use the coastal outline from portolan charts as the basis for a general map of the area, showing mountains, rivers and inland towns. It was a precursor of the use of portolan charts in regional mapping.

• World Map, 1321, from Marino Samuolo's Liber secretorum fidelium crusis. (oriented with East at top and Mediterranean at bottom). More information.
• Map of Asia. The Catalan Atlas, Spain, Majorca 14th century