Aethiopian Sea

Coordinates: 15°0′S 5°0′W / 15.000°S 5.000°W / -15.000; -5.000
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Aethiopian Sea
Aethiopian Ocean
البحر الأثيوبي
Southern Atlantic Ocean
Coordinates15°0′S 5°0′W / 15.000°S 5.000°W / -15.000; -5.000
TypeOcean
Basin countriesSouthwestern coast of Africa, Brazil

Aethiopian, Æthiopian,

Arabic: البحر الأثيوبي) was the name given to the southern half of the Atlantic Ocean in classical geographical works. The name appeared in maps from ancient times up to the turn of the 19th century.[2]

Geography

See also: Aethiopia

The originally Greek term Okeanos Aithiopos is an old name for what is now called the South Atlantic Ocean. It is separated from the North Atlantic Ocean by a narrow region between

Nürnberg in 1702.[3]

The name Aethiopian was related to the fact that, historically, Africa west and south of Egypt was known as Aethiopia. Nowadays the classical use of the term has become obsolete. Also the nation of Ethiopia, then known as Abyssinia, is located nowhere near its namesake body of water but in the opposite eastern end of Africa which is much closer to the Indian Ocean and its subset the Red Sea.[4]

Oceanus Æthiopicus in the map Guinea Propria, Nec Non Nigritiae Vel Terrae Nigorum-Aethiopia Inferior, 1743
1747 map with all the oceans surrounding the African continent
Ocean Ethiopien in a 1710 Daniel de La Feuille map of Africa

History

"Southern Ocean" as an alternative name for the Aethiopian Ocean in a 1700 map of Africa

Henry T. Riley, these islands may correspond to Cape Verde.[5]

Portugal claimed the Aethiopian Sea as its mare clausum during the Age of Discovery.

On 16th century maps, the name of the Northern Atlantic Ocean was Sinus Occidentalis, while the central Atlantic, southwest of present-day Liberia, appeared as Sinus Atlanticus and the Southern Atlantic as Mare Aethiopicum.[6]

By the 17th century

John Thornton used the term in "A New Map of the World" from 1703.[9]

Decades after the terms Ethiopian Ocean or Ethiopian Sea had fallen into disuse to refer to the Southern Atlantic Ocean, botanist William Albert Setchell (1864–1943) used the term for the sea around certain islands close to Antarctica.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ Road to Ethiopia
  2. ^ 1799 James Rennell map with the Aethiopian Sea in the Gulf of Guinea area.
  3. ^ Accuratissima Totius Africae in Lucem Producta 1702 map
  4. ^ The Migration of Place Names: Africa, Libya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan
  5. ISBN 978-1-4209-3395-6
  6. ^ Georg Heinrich von Boguslawski, Handbuch der Ozeanographie, 1907.
  7. ^ Seller, John, fl. 1658-1698, Atlas maritimus, or A book of charts : Describeing the sea coasts capes headlands sands shoals rocks and dangers the bayes roads harbors rivers and ports, in most of the knowne parts of the world. With the true courses and distances, from one place to another : Gathered from the latest and best discoveryes, that have bin made by divers able and experienced navigators of our English nation : Accommodated with an hydrographicall description of the whole world.
  8. ^ A New Mapp of the World According to Mr. Edward Wright Commonly called Mercator's-Projection.
  9. ISBN 978-0-19-503968-9
  10. ^ Setchell, W. A. 1932. Macrocystis and its holdfasts. Univ. California Publ. Bot. 16: 445-492, in George F. Papenfuss, Studies of South African Phaeophyceae. I. Ecklonia maxima, Laminaria pallida, Macrocystis pyrifera, American Journal of Botany, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Jan., 1942), pp. 15-24

External links

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