GEOGRAPHER

Life
Cosmas, called Indicopleustes (the Indian Navigator), was born in Alexandria. Merchant, traveller, theologian and geographer, he seems to have been a Nestorian Christian inspired by Patrick. He sailed around the shores of the Indian Ocean, and for some time was engaged in trade (mainly in pepper) in Ethiopia and Asia. He travelled to Adulis in Ethiopia (522-525 AD), and from there to the Upper Nile and the source of the Blue Nile. At "gold-bearing Sasso" he found the famous "Azomite Inscriptions" describing the Asian campaign of Ptolemy Euergetes in 247 BC. Cosmas explored the three seas": the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. In 520 AD he travelled via Arabia and East Africa to India, Ceylon and China. Upon his return he became a monk in St Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai.


Work
His own writings are the sole source of information about his life and work. These are:

"Topographia Christiana": 534 - 547 AD. Treatise on "Christian Topography" in 12 books. His purpose in writing it was to introduce a new system of physical geography based on Christian teaching, and to refute Ptolemy's theory that the earth was round on the basis of Old Testament texts. His work is written in simple language and records, with accurate detail, information about Egypt, the Indies and China, as well as on the relations of these countries with Byzantium. It shows drawings of animals and plants of the Indies (coconut, spices). Book XI is entitled "Record of the animals of the Indies and the trees of India and the island of Taprobane [Ceylon]". The ancient Greeks, it should be noted, had travelled as far as Ceylon long before the time of Cosmas. This work is the only one that has survived.

"Cosmography": Lost.

"Astronomical Tables": Lost.

"Geography of the Red Sea": Described the countries around the Red Sea. Lost.

"Movements of the Stars": Lost.

"Map of the Eastern Mediterranean": Based on a map by Ephorus, whose work he had studied.