Everything about Marinus Of Tyre totally explained
Marinus of Tyre, (ca.
70 -
130 A.D., Greek: Μαρίνος ο Τύριος, also rendered as
Marinos of Tyre) was a
Phoenician
geographer,
cartographer and
mathematician, who founded mathematical geography.
Biography and historical context
Originally from
Syria,, Marinus is thought to have lived both in the city of
Tyre and in
Rhodes. He and his work were a precursor to that of the great Greek/Egyptian geographer
Claudius Ptolemy (90 - 168 A.D.), who used Marinus' work as a source for his
Geographia, and acknowledges his great obligations to him. Apart from Ptolemy, Marinos is also cited by the
Arab geographer
al-Masudi. Beyond this little is known of his life.
Contribution to geography
He introduced improvements to the construction of maps and developed a system of nautical charts. His chief legacy is that he first assigned to each place a proper
latitude and
longtitude; he used a "Meridian of the
Isles of the Blessed (
Canary Islands or
Cape Verde Islands)" as
zero meridian, and the parallel of
Rhodes for measurements of latitude. Works used by Ptolemy include Marinus'
Geography, as well as his "Corrected Geographical Tables", which are often dated to AD 114, though he may have been a near-contemporary of Ptolemy. Marinus estimated a length of 90,000 stadia for the parallel of Rhodes, corresponding to a circumference of the Earth of 33,300 km, about 17% less than the actual value. (Both numbers depend upon the length assigned to the
Greek stade).
He also carefully studied the works of his predecessors and the diaries of travellers. His maps were the first in the
Roman Empire to show
China. Around 120 A.D., Marinus wrote that the habitable world was bounded on the west by the
Fortunate Islands. The text of his geographical treatise however is lost. He also invented the
equirectangular projection, which is still used in map creation today. A few of Marinus' opinions are reported by Ptolemy. Marinus was of the opinion that the
Okeanos was separated into an eastern and a western part by the continents (
Europe,
Asia and
Africa). He thought that the inhabited world stretched in latitude from
Thule (
Shetland) to
Agisymba (
Tropic of Capricorn) and in longitude from the
Isles of the Blessed to
Shera (China). Marinus also coined the term
Antarctic, referring to the opposite of the
Arctic Circle.
Further Information
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