Lake Monoleus
Lake Monoleus was a coastal feature mentioned by Pliny[1] as being on the Red Sea Coast near Ptolemais Theron. The lake was probably a coastal lagoon.[2]
According to Pliny [3]the city of Ptolemais Theron was situated adjacent to Lake Monoleus[4] at a distance of 4820 stadia from Berenice[5] and located in Æthiopia, though modern Eritrea is more probable.
The lake must have been not connected to the Red Sea as the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea chapter 3 written (mid 1st century) notes that Ptolemais Theron had "no harbor, and can only be reached by small boats".[6]
The location of the lake (if that is what it was) remains unknown, though several locations have been conjectured.
- G.W.B. Huntingford notes that Ptolemais (hence Lake Monocleus) has been identified both with the locales of Arqiqo and also Suakin, and notes that Suakin lay at the end of an ancient caravan route that links it to Barbar on the Nile.[7] Ariqiqo, alternatively, derives its name from the local word for elephant[8] and is known for its mangrove shallows, one interpretation of the lake.
- Stanley M. Burstein argues for Trinkitat, where he states that "classical architectural fragments" have been found.[9]
Mention by Pliny
Pliny[10] mentions Troglodytice....Beyond this are forests, in which is Ptolemais8, built by Philadelphus for the chase of the elephant, and thence called Epitheras9, situate near Lake Monoleus. This is the same region that has been already mentioned by us in the Second Book,10 and in which, during forty-five days before the summer solstice and for as many after, there is no shadow at the sixth hour, and during the other hours of the day it falls to the south; while at other times it falls to the north; whereas at the Berenice of which we first11 made mention, on the day of the summer solstice the shadow totally disappears at the sixth hour, but no other unusual phænomenon is observed. That place is situate at a distance of six hundred and two miles from Ptolemais, which has thus become the subject of a remarkable theory, and has promoted the exercise of a spirit of the most profound investigation; for it was at this spot that the extent of the earth was first ascertained, it being the fact that Erastosthenes, beginning at this place by the accurate calculation of the length of the shadow, was enabled to determine with exactness the dimensions of the earth.
8 Called Theron, as well as Epitheras. It was an emporium on the coast of the Red Sea for the trade with India and Arabia. It was chiefly remarkable for its position in mathematical geography, as, the sun having been observed to be directly over it forty-five days before and after the summer solstice, the place was taken as one of the points for determining the length of a degree of a great circle on the earth's surface.
9 From the Greek ἐπὶ θήρας, "for hunting."
10 In B. ii. c. 75.
11 In the same Chapter.
References
- ↑ Pliny the Elder, Natural History 6,171.
- ↑ Dionysius A. Agius, Emad Khalil, Eleanor Scerri, Alun Williams, Human Interaction with the Environment in the Red Sea: Selected Papers of Red Sea Project VI (BRILL, 20 Apr. 2017) p18
- ↑ Pliny, Natural History 6: 34.
- ↑ Alexander Porteous, The Forest in Folklore and Mythology (Courier Corporation, 3 Apr. 2012) p12.
- ↑ Abraham Rees, The Cyclopædia: Or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature (Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1819)
- ↑ Huntingford, G. W. B. 1980. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea - by an unknown author; with some extracts from Agatharkhides "On the Erythraean Sea". Vol. 151, Works issued by the Hakluyt Society. Second series. London: Hakluyt Society.
- ↑ Huntingford, G. W. B. 1980. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea - by an unknown author; with some extracts from Agatharkhides "On the Erythraean Sea". Vol. 151, Works issued by the Hakluyt Society. Second series. London: Hakluyt Society.
- ↑ Richard Pankhurst, The Ethiopian Borderlands (Asmara: Red Sea Press, 1997), p. 104.
- ↑ Stanley M. Burstein, Agatharchides of Cnidus, On the Erythraean Sea (London: the Hakluyt Society, 1989) p.144 n.2.
- ↑ Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 34