Sea or bay
Mare Hyrcanium
Caspian Sea · Kaspisches Meer
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Mare Hyrcanium, the Hyrcanian Sea, is the Caspian, named after Hyrcania, the land along its southern shore. The map draws it as a mushroom-shaped bay of the world ocean, joined to the northern sea by a strait and set opposite the Persian Gulf, just as the Greek geographer Strabo placed both on one line. This picture comes from Hellenistic geography. The geographer Ptolemy knew the sea was landlocked, yet the open gulf survived until the traveller William of Rubruck saw the sea for himself in 1253. Its western lobe probably once carried the second name, Mare Caspium, of which only the last two letters remain.