Sea or bay
Syrtes Maiores
Greater Syrtis; Dschun el Kebrit (Miller)
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Syrtes Maiores, the Greater Syrtis, is the broad gulf on the coast of Libya, in the region of Cyrenaica. Ancient sailors dreaded it for its unpredictable, almost tidal currents and its shifting sandbanks. The word Syrtis is probably Phoenician, not Greek. The Roman geographer Pomponius Mela called it nearly twice the size of its smaller twin, the Lesser Syrtis, with a coast that had no harbours. On the map the name has faded, and older copies read it in full. The copyist's map also wrongly attaches the Lake of the Tritons to this gulf, although that lake belongs to the Lesser Syrtis.