Islands that never existed: the most famous “discoveries” of fictional lands

The mistakes of the travelers led to the appearance of the so-called “ghost islands”. These are islands recorded on maps and considered real, but later proved nonexistent. According to Ancient Origins, such events over the centuries gave rise to many myths and legends.

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Thule: land in the north of Great Britain

Thule was first “discovered” around 325 BC. Greek sailor Pitaeus. He was sent to survey northern Europe to determine the origin of all his trade. Pitaeus sailed from his home port of Passalia (modern Marseille), sailed across the Atlantic and headed north.

He found Britain, which he wrote as Britain or Prytanya. He found an island in the north of Britain, which he named Thule.

The original writings have been lost, so unfortunately the only thing we can count on are the comments of geographers like Strabo. Some geographers believed Pytheas, others were skeptical: Strabo considered Thule a fabrication after reading Pytheas’ explanation that the northern seas were covered with ice.

Ptolemy, on the other hand, believed the traveler and included Thule in his world atlas Geography, published around 100 AD. This work was translated by Florentine scholars in the 1410s, and thus Thule continued to appear on maps of this period as a large island north of Britain until the 17th century.

Of course, over time it turned out that England is not a large island in the north. It is believed that Petey most likely invented it or crashed into one of Shetland, Faroe Islands and even sailed to Iceland or Norway. Another theory is that Ireland could be an island. After all, there is no such thing as Thule.

Cassiterida: Tin Islands

The first written mention of the Cassiterids (i.e. the Tin Isles) was made by Herodotus around 430 BC. He only heard rumors about these lands but accepted their truth. He recorded them as the place where the ancient Greeks mined tin.

Later, geographers such as Posidinius and Strabo tried to find the islands. They believed these were small islands located off the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula. While Posidinius and Strabo thought that these were the places where the tin and lead mines were located, Diodorus Siculus believed that these places got their name from their proximity to the tin regions of Northern Iberia. In short, no ancient writer was sure where they were.

This confusion stemmed from the fact that most Greeks did not know where tin was actually mined: this trade was a closely guarded secret of the sailors of Gades (Cádiz in modern Spain) who controlled the tin trade. The Greeks only knew that it came from the west, which means that somewhere in the west there must be tin-rich islands that they had not yet discovered.

Eventually, the Greeks discovered that most of the tin came from northwestern Iberia and Britain. None of these places matched the preliminary descriptions of the Cassiterid Islands. But the Greeks and Romans did not give up. Rather than accept the existence of cassiterids as a misunderstanding, they decided to believe there were three sources of tin. Iberia, England are still the mysterious islands of Cassiterid. They never found the latter.

Penglai Mountain: Mystical Mountain of Asia

Not only did the ancient Europeans disappear and make erroneous discoveries. Their relatives in Asia did the same. Penglai Mountain is a mythical land that originated in Chinese mythology and Japanese mythology (under the name Horai).

Mount Penglai was recorded for the first time in the Classical Mountains and Seas. The book is a classical Chinese text covering the geographical and cultural aspects of pre-Qing China, and also covers all of Chinese mythology. It includes detailed descriptions of various mythological sites, as well as descriptions of drugs, animals, and geological features.

Some of these explanations are true and accurate, while others are fanciful and bizarre. Because these myths were portrayed in the book as facts, early Chinese scholars called it an animal book and believed it to be true. This led to Penglai Mountain being named Ghost Island.

The book describes how Mount Penglai is at the eastern end of the Bohai Sea off the east coast of China. According to ancient Chinese myths, this sea was home to three divine mountains. Penglai was one of them. It was believed that the gods lived in these mountains.

Historically, Mount Penglai has been searched. Qin Shi Huangdi, the founder of the Qin Dynasty, ordered his people to search the island as they searched for the elixir of life. It is believed that Chinese scientists may have confused Mount Penglai with other mountains in Asia, particularly those in Japan and the South Korean Peninsula.

St Brendan Island

Confusion about ghost islands continued long after antiquity. With the development of technology, more and more ghost islands were discovered, as people became more daring and more capable of making long-distance journeys.

st. The history of Brendan Island goes back to the early Middle Ages. It is named after Saint Brendan, an early Irish monk who claimed to have landed there with 14 of his monks in AD 512.

Brendan and his priests reported that they only held mass there for 15 days. Awaiting their return, the ships complained that they had been waiting for the saint and his people for a whole year. While they waited, they complained that the island was hidden by heavy fog all year.

The island is said to be in the North Atlantic Ocean west of North Africa. The rest of the monks tried to find the island, but to no avail. This mystical island, supposedly covered with fog and impossible to reach, soon became a legend.

Much later, the Portuguese began to take an interest in the island. In the 15th century, the famous Portuguese explorer Henry the Navigator was sure that the island existed. He ordered the sea captain to visit the island, but he never returned. There were repeated attempts to explore the island throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. Various sailors claimed that they approached the island but never landed.

Until the 19th century, these mysterious lands were predominantly sighted by religious explorers such as the Scottish priest Sigbert de Hamble in 1719 and the Franciscan priest in 1759. These finds led to even more expeditions to the region.

Eventually, the island’s incidence dwindled until it came to a complete halt. It no longer appears on maps and is classified as a Ghost Island.

Friesland: A cartographer can’t always be trusted

Some ghost islands arise due to innocent misunderstandings and confusion between myth and reality. In other cases, they are the result of simple human fraud, as “exploration” of the island is a great way to make a name for yourself.

In 1558 Nicolo Zeno of Venice published a map and a letter. The letters were thought to come from two of his ancestors, Antonio and another Nicolò, who were reported to have sailed the North Atlantic at some point around 1400.

It is assumed that these letters were written by Nicolo Antonio the first from Friesland. The accompanying map showed Friesland roughly between Norway and the north-northeast point of Scotland. In the letters, Nicolò claimed that he was doing well and encouraged his relative, Antonio, to come and join him.

The authenticity of these letters was questioned when they were first published, but this did not prevent many cartographers from adding Friesland to their maps. Some cartographers have gone even further, adding bays, mountain ranges, and even cities to their maps of Friesland. The level of detail they were able to achieve was incredible, especially considering the fact that Friesland never existed.

California Island: Surveyors Can Be Stubborn

Sometimes ghost islands stay for a while even after evidence emerges that they never really existed. That’s what happened to the island of California.

The island of California is first mentioned in Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo’s 1510 romantic novel Sergi Esplandian. The writer commemorates the candidate: “Know that on the right side of India, very close to heaven on earth, there is an island called California, where black women live, not a single man among them because they live like Amazons.”

Rodriguez’s description of the place is believed to have confused researchers when an expedition first discovered the southern portion of the Baja California Peninsula in 1533. The explorers were attacked by the natives and fled. They returned in 1535 and tried to establish a colony, but this did not last long. Limited knowledge of the area they discovered led to it being called the island of California.

Of course, Baja California is actually part of the North American mainland, separate from the Gulf of California continent. It didn’t take long for other researchers to find out. In later years, explorers landed in the area and realized that California Island was probably a ghost island.

Despite growing evidence that the island of California did not exist, this fact took a long time to reach cartographers. The island first appeared on maps in 1622, before evidence had accumulated against it and remained on maps until the 18th century.

Gi-Brazil: another European ghost island

Brazil, or Gi-Brazil, was a ghostly island that people believed to be in the Atlantic Ocean, west of Ireland. Like Brendan Island, it is often said to be shrouded in fog and rendered inaccessible.

Guy-Brazil first appeared on nautical charts in 1325. Over the next few hundred years, various attempts were made to visit this mysterious island. It was believed that the island could only be seen one day in seven years. Expeditions left Bristol in 1480 and 1481. Famous Italian traveler and explorer John Cabot claimed to have visited the island.

In 1674, another sailor, Captain John Nisbet, claimed to have seen the island on a voyage from France to Ireland. He claimed to have seen large black rabbits controlled by a magician who lived in a stone castle on the island. The only problem was that it was a literary fiction written by Irish writer Richard Head.

Previously Focus He wrote that the first travelers were not human. Scientists have found evidence that hominids also sailed the seas.