The Greek explorer and historian Megasthenes wrote that Taprobana was divided by a river and abundant in pearls and gold. Taprobana was located somewhere in the Indian Ocean and usually shown on historical maps as a large island south of India. There have been many theories about the identity of the island. Some thought Taprobana could have been a phantom island, Madagascar, or the lower peninsula of India; however, most geographers believed that the island was either Sumatra or Sri Lanka (Ceylon). In AD 150 Claudius Ptolemy wrote his treatise Geographia which greatly influenced later geographers. The map featured above is based on Ptolemy’s description of the world. Taprobana is shown as a very large island south of Asia.
The detailed map of Taprobana shown below was published in 1513. It was also based on Ptolemy’s Geographia.
