Mountain
Montes Cyrenei
Jebel Akhdar (Libya)
Listen to the story
Beneath the mountain symbol of Montes Cyrenei, the Jebel Akhdar in Libya, the map adds a line of Latin in black: these mountains skirt a marsh, like the Maeotis, through which the Nile flows. The Maeotis is the Sea of Azov, and the note may in fact belong to the range around a nearby lake. The same chain appears on a world map of the eleventh century that illustrates a commentary by Beatus. Perhaps the dunes of Heracles, which Ptolemy places in Cyrenaica, are meant.