Marinos of Tyre

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Marinos of Tyre (Μαρίνος ο Τύριος, fl. ca. AD 60-130) was a Greek geographer and cartographer originally from Tyre who lived in Rhode. Practically nothing is known of him beyond that his work was used as a source by Ptolemy for his Geographia. Apart from Ptolemy, Marinos is also cited by Arab geographer Al-Masoudi.

He was the first to use a "Meridian of the Isles of the Blessed (Canary Islands)" as zero meridian, and the parallel of Rhodes for measurments of latitude. Works used by Ptolemy include Marinos' Geography, as well as his "Corrected Geographical Tables" of AD 114. Marinos estimated a length of 32,400 km for the parallel of Rhodes, yielding a circumference of the Earth of 39,500 km, within 2% of the actual value.

A few of Marinos opinions are reported by Ptolemy. Marinos 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 from Thule (possibly the Shetlands) to Agisymba (Ethiopia) and from the Isles of the Blessed (Canary Islands) to Shera (China).

Marinos also coined the term Antarctic, referring to the opposite of the Arctic Circle.

External links

http://www.tmth.edu.gr/en/aet/3/66.html

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