Abstract: |
Attempts to reconstruct Pytheas' voyage to Britain and the far north in ?325 BC by examining the evidence of later writers (Ephorus, Diodorus, Strabo etc) who drew their information from Pytheas' book. Contemporary ideas about the geography of Europe and Ocean are described to set the scene for the questions Pytheas wanted to solve - astronomical, geographical, and trading (amber and tin). Ten maps illustrate the general and detailed route of the voyage to Brittany, Cornwall, the Orkneys, Iceland, the Baltic as far as the Oder mouth (which Pytheas thought was Tanais, the north end of the eastern amber route), and so back. |