This is Abraham Ortelius’s image of classical Asia, centered on the Indian Ocean and depicting East Africa, Arabia, India, and Southeast Asia. It was published in the Parergon, a series of wonderful maps designed to supplement the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. It illustrates the text of a classical work, Periplus Maris Erythraei, the author of which is uncertain.
The map features three interesting insets. At center is an inset map of Greece and southern Italy that portrays the voyage of Odysseus, with important locations from Homer’s Odyssey, including: Ithaca, Ogygia, Scylla and Charybdis, and the island of the Cyclopes. At upper right is an inset of the Arctic titled Hyperborei. This inset serves the purpose, as Ortelius puts it “for better beautifying or proportioning of this map,” and to remind the reader that in spite of all their exertions, a passage to the Far East via the North Pole has not yet been found by the English or the Dutch.
Cartographica Neerlandica describes the inset map in the top left corner, which represents the Northwest coast of Africa:
The map’s presentation of Southeast Asia shows clear ties to the Ptolemaic view of the region, with Sumatra connected to the Golden Chersonese (Malay) by a narrow neck. Why Ortelius has given this region a “classical treatment,” so-to-speak, while Africa, Arabia, and India are all drawn with updated geography is uncertain.
The lines of text placed in Asia read:
Classical antiquity as visualized by a Renaissance mapmaker – a really interesting map.