Ann: Genoese World Map, (1457)

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Taken from: Facsimile and Critical Text Incorporating in Free Translation the Studies of Professor Theobald Fischer, Rev.

with the Addition of Copious Notes

 

In the extreme south of the continent the Mountains of the Moon are represented as snow-covered, with the following explanatory legend: Isti sunt montes lune qui lingua egyptiaca dicuntur Gebelcan, a quibus Nilus fluvius oritur atque estatis tempore, dissolutis in (perpetuo) nivibus, maior effluit. These are the Mountains of the Moon, which, in the Egyptian language, are called Gebelcan (1), in which mountains the river Nile rises, and from which, in the summer-time, when the snows melt, a very large stream flows.

(1) Gebelcan: Jebel-qamar; Mountain of the Moon; the traditional source of the Nile.