Lake
Lacus Meotidis
Asowsches Meer · Sea of Azov
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The Sea of Azov appears on the map as a closed inland lake: towns on both shores of the Strait of Kerch are drawn, but not the strait that links it to the Black Sea. The name written across its water is now barely legible, even with special cameras, because the blue-green paint has turned brownish black; older editions read Lacus Meotidis. So shallow that it freezes easily, the Maeotis was often called a marsh, and Herodotus thought it hardly smaller than the Black Sea. Medieval world maps made it part of the border between Europe and Asia.