Tazata

Tazata Island, in yellow, in Mercator Arctic map (1623)

Tazata (also attested as Tasata and Zazata) was a phantom island in the Caspian Sea or the Arctic Ocean, whose existence was posited by some ancient authors and which appeared on geographical maps until the 17th century.

In antiquity

Among the surviving ancient references to a large island in the Caspian Sea, the oldest is that of the geographer Pomponius Mela, who in AD 43, in his De chorographia, speaks of an island named Talge, which according to some authors corresponds to Tazata, while according to others it does not.

The island of Talge in the Caspian Sea is so fertile without cultivation that it abounds in every produce and fruit; but the neighboring peoples consider it a sin and sacrilege to touch what grows there, believing it prepared for the gods and to be preserved for them.

— Pomponius Mela, De chorographia

The island of Tazata, or Zazata, is mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia, dating to AD 77 or 78. In this text, which Pliny composed using information drawn from earlier authors, it is placed near a strait that, according to the geographical knowledge of the time, connected the Caspian Sea to the Scythian Ocean—the name then used for the Arctic Ocean.

There are many islands throughout this sea, the most famous being Zazata. From the Caspian Sea and the Scythian Ocean, our course turns toward the Eastern Ocean, following the coastline as it turns east.

— Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, Book VI, 19–20

In cartography

Tazata is shown on many geographical maps from various periods, which predominantly place it in the Arctic Ocean and specifically within a vast gulf (which Mercator calls Mare Tabin and Barents Mare Tartaricum), which may correspond to the Kara Sea, since it is bordered by the Novaya Zemlya archipelago and by the cape of the same name, identified by some scholars as Cape Chelyuskin, the northernmost tip of the Taymyr Peninsula. Among these maps are the Septentrionalium Terrarum descriptio by Gerardus Mercator (1595), which explicitly cites Pliny as the source for including the island, the Delineatio cartae by Willem Barentsz (1598), the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Blaeu (1645), and The English Atlas by Moses Pitt (1680).

In modern times

In modern times, the ancient attestations of Tazata were not considered reliable. In 1730, the Swedish geographer Philip Johan von Strahlenberg put forward the hypothesis that Tazata corresponded to the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, although on most maps depicting Tazata, Novaya Zemlya itself is also shown further west. Von Strahlenberg's assumption was later accepted by other authors, but it was criticized by Vasily Tatishchev in his Russian History (1768), who argued that locating the island in the Arctic Ocean was baseless. Tatishchev suggested that it might instead coincide with the region between the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea, or with Ogurchinsky Island in the Krasnovodsk Gulf. More recently, scholars have hypothesized that Tazata, as depicted on Mercator's map, corresponds to the Taymyr Peninsula combined with the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Willem Barentsz (1598). Delineatio cartae trium navigantium per Bataves, ad Septentrionalem plagam, Norvegiae, Moscoviae et novae Semblae (in Latin). Amsterdam.
  2. 1 2 3 Parroni, Piergiorgio, ed. (2005) [1984]. "Commento". Pomponii Melae De Chorographia. Libri tres. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. p. 413.
  3. ↑ Pomponius Mela. De Chorographia (in Latin). Vol. Book III. p. 48. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 von Strahlenberg, Philip Johan (1738). An Historico-geographical Description of the North and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia. London: W. Innys and R. Manby. p. 113.
  5. ↑ Murphy, T. (2004). Pliny the Elder's Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-19-926288-5.
  6. ↑ V. D. Gladkij, ed. (1998). "Kaspijskoe more". Drevnyj mir. Ėnciclopedičeskij slovar' v 2-ch tomach (in Russian). Moscow: Centrpoligraf.
  7. ↑ Pliny the Elder (1982). Naturalis Historia. Giulio Einaudi editore.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Mercator (1623) [1595]. Septentrionalium Terrarum descriptio (in Latin) (3rd ed.). Duisburg.
  9. 1 2 3 Willem Blaeu (1645). Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive Atlas Novus in quo Tabulæ et Descriptiones Omnium Regionum (in Latin).
  10. 1 2 3 Moses Pitt (1680). "A map of the North Pole showing adjacent areas". The English Atlas. Vol. 1. Oxford.
  11. ↑ JaapJan Zeeberg (2005). Into the Ice Sea: Barents' Wintering on Novaya Zemlya; a Renaissance Voyage of Discovery. Amsterdam: Rozenberg. p. 17.
  12. ↑ "Zavoevanie Arktiki" (PDF). Sovetskaja Sibir' (in Russian). No. 115. 21 May 1940. p. 2. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 February 2017. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
  13. 1 2 Lucyna Szaniawska (2006 (XV)). "Map-Documented History of Exploration of Sibir exemplified by Selected West-European 16th and 17th Century Maps". Analecta (1–2). Warsaw: Instytut Historii Nauki Polskiej Akademii Nauk: 207–241. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  14. ↑ Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten; et al. (1760). E. Dilly (ed.). A Supplement to the English Universal History. E. Dilly. p. 159.
  15. ↑ Filipp Avril' (2010). Putešestvie po različnym častjam Evropy i Azii (in Russian). Moscow: Direkt-Media. p. 80.
  16. ↑ Strahlenberg 1738, pp. 114–115.
  17. ↑ Thomas Pennant (1784). Arctic Zoology. Vol. I. London: Henry Hughs. p. 157.
  18. ↑ V. N. Tatishchev (1768). "Skazanie Plinija Sekunda Staršego. Iz"jasnenie 78". Istorija Rossijskaja s samych drevnejšich vremën (in Russian). Moscow: Imperatorskij Moscovskij universitet. part I, ch. XIV.