Sea or bay
Sinus Nicomedicus
Golf von Ismid (Miller)
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Beneath one of the small islands drawn in the sea, the Tabula once named the Sinus Nicomedicus, the Gulf of İzmit in Turkey. The lettering has almost vanished: only an initial S is certain today, with three scattered traces that might be an I, a C and a V, or merely pieces of other letters. Older copies read the full name, which honours the city of Nicomedia, yet no ancient text uses it. The Greek geographer Strabo and the Roman writer Pliny called the water the Astacene gulf instead, after the town of Astacus, also known as Olbia.