Aethiopian Sea was the name given to the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 in classical geographical works from ancient times to the 19th century. This name has little to do with modern Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

 and is presently obsolete.

History

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

s Diodorus and Palaephatus

Palaephatus

Palaephatus was the original author of a rationalizing text on Greek mythology, the work of paradoxography On Incredible Tales , which survives in a Byzantine edition....

 mention that the Gorgons lived in the Gorgades

Gorgades

The Gorgades in Medieval bestiaries were a race of hairy humanoids. The bestiaries especially focused on the hairiness of the females....

, islands in the Aethiopian Sea. The main island was called Cerna and, according to Henry T. Riley, these islands may correspond to Cape Verde

Cape Verde

The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...

.

In the 16th century maps the name of the Northern Atlantic Ocean is Sinus Occidentalis, while the central Atlantic, southwest of present-day Liberia

Liberia

Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...

, appears as Sinus Atlanticus and the Southern Atlantic as Mare Aethiopicum. John Seller in his Atlas Maritimus divided the Atlantic Ocean in two parts by means of the equator

Equator

An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....

. He called the northern portion of the Atlantic "Mar del Nort" and the southern part "Oceanus Æthiopicus". Edward Wright

Edward Wright

Edward Wright may refer to:*Edward Wright , English mathematician and cartographer*Edward Wright , painter, typographer and graphic designer*Edward L...

 (1683) did not label the North Atlantic at all but called the portion south of the equator

Equator

An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....

 the "Aethiopian Sea". The same name is used in "A New Map of the World" (1703) by John Thornton

John Thornton

John Jason Thornton is a former American football defensive tackle of the National Football League. He was drafted by the Tennessee Titans in the second round of the 1999 NFL Draft. He played college football at West Virginia.In addition to four years in Tennsseee, Thornton also played six seasons...

.

Botanist William Albert Setchell (1864–1943) gives this name to the sea around certain islands close to Antarctica.

External links

• Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand 1868-1961
• Anais do Museu Paulista: História e Cultura Material - Do oceano dos clássicos aos mares dos impérios: transformações cartográficas do Atlântico sul
• "Tekeli-li" or Hollow Earth Lives: A Bibliography of Antarctic Fiction
• Pomponius Mela, de Chorographia Liber Primus