Port
Veneris
Port Vendres
Listen to the story
Veneris, meaning 'of Venus', is a name the map itself never gives: it shows only an unnamed island with a small house-like drawing, which scholars read as a temple. The drawing is linked with the sanctuary of Pyrenean Venus, known to the geographer Ptolemy and the Roman writer Pliny, on the headland where the Pyrenees meet the sea, once the border between Spain and Gaul. Today the place is identified with Port-Vendres in France. Venus was the goddess of the sea-born, a protector of sailors. Someone later added a faint name that slopes away beneath the symbol, perhaps after the copy was made, but it can no longer be read.