What the Ancient Greeks Knew About Antarctica

Please study the Piri map of Antarctica. Piri drew his map from the maps he found in the garbage at the palace in Constantinople. These were Byzantine maps, and the Byzantines were Greek.

The Greeks knew that there was cold in Antartica. They had ships that traveled the world. They were the maritime superpower of that time.

Long before Claudius Ptolemy Minoans played a key role in a global commercial network including the Americas (mostly metals) Plutarch gives us a detail description of how to get to the continent and how long the journey lasted

I'm afraid that the honorable collocutors are missing a few points: 1) Ptolemy's geography has been kept in two practically full (intact) Greek manuscripts that stem from a reproduction ordered by a Christian Roman (Byzantine) erudite and scholarly monk of the 13th century, Maximus Planoudes, who was also a translator from Latin to Greek, having learnt Latin by the Genoese. 2) Maximus wrote a letter to the Patriarch of Alexandria (I'm not sure now, I believe it was some Meletios at the time) asking him if he (the Patriarch of Alexandria) could find a manuscript (a book, a biblos, a codex) containing Ptolemy's Geography. And the most impressive and unbelievable fact is that the Patriarch of Alexandria did in fact find within his jurisdiction a full copy of Ptolemy's Geography amidst the 13th century!!! 2a) [It is interesting to notice the subjective conviction of Maximus that it is reasonable to find such a copy in Alexandria, given Ptolemy lived and wrote there a thousand years ago, when we nowadays go by the narrative of total obliteration of Greek texts as a result of the incendie/fire that actually destroyed the Library of Alexandria. Well, in fact there was a copy in Alexandria!!!] All of the aforementioned is written in the Colophon of the Constantinopolitan produced copies, under Maximus Planudes' orders, by Maximus himself, as accounting the story of how he got this valuable manuscript sent to him by his Holiness, the Patriarch of Alexandria, followed by a few curses to anyone who would dare appropriate - steal such a valuable book. 2b) In the (original Greek) text of the book there is a mention about what lies below the very hot meridian regions, a vague description, but nonetheless it states that towards the opposite proximity (of arctica) there is the KATEPSUGMENON which literally translates into refrigerated. 3) Anti, a common Greek preposition used in numerous Greek words is an equivalent of latin contra. Counter as applied in contemporary English. It is widely applied in Geometrical terminology. Antipode. And in other areas: Punctus, contrapunctus (counterpoint) is stixis - antistixis in Greek. Thesis - Antithesis. It can also be applied in toponyms, areas, very small areas, valleys or islands, twin islands where the larger bears the proper name (Mēlos, Paros) and the smaller one aside is called anti-Mēlos, anti-Paros. Another case is regarding opposite shores. Antarktikē does not mean away from the bears. "We" (Greeks of 3rd century BC to 3rd AD) damn know, that there is a place which -for whichever reason- has been called Arktikē (yes, due to bears, or the direction of the Stella Polaris-polikos Astēr, in the Ursa Minor - Mikra Arktos) for ages. Well, simply, if now we deem that there is a place symmetrically juxtaposed (in relation to an axe, a pivot) at the other end, it is quite reasonable (it is the antipode - the counterfoot) that we may label it as Antarktikē. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Very well and informative for the uninitiated, when you actually study Greek literature, you will see that they knew about the americas, about Indonesia and Polynesia. Antarctis means literally: OPPOSITE TO THE BEARS , nothing more nothing less

U r a beautiful soul and thank you for sharing 🤗 I believe your like me, listening /learning 💞

Greek explorer Pytheas from Massalia (Marseille) in 4th century BC was the first to mention Arctic (so if there is Arctic there is also Ant-arctic). Note: Arctos in Ancient Greek means= the Bear

just read Plato : "...for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the Pillars of Heracles,' there lay an island which was Greater (in Greek means Higher!) than Libya and Asia together; and it was possible for the travelers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent over against them which encompasses that veritable ocean."In this text, Plato describes Atlantis as a stepping stone. Travelers could cross from Atlantis to "the other islands" and from there to the "whole of the opposite continent which surrounds what can truly be called the ocean."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YDN9AnvAh4&t=22s

Ptolemy used Mul.Apin. This is well known.