Interesting map.
What is interesting is that at that time they could build huge wonderful buildings, the aqueducts I imagine were about that time, etc.
I suppose whatever map projection he used is something that is unfamiliar to me - but the map sure seems far off from what I am used to looking at. But I imagine the map is just not very accurate. I suppose it is one thing to measure from a known reference for a building or an aquaduct, and another thing entirely to map on another continent.
I suppose they didn’t even have the means to measure distances - it was done by sketching a drawing??
At my engineering school we had the original survey notes from the 1800’s. One party surveyed from St. Louis, MO to Denver. IIRC they were only a few tenths of a foot off from what we can measure today.
Included stuff like using big boulders and large trees as monuments. Often a sentence or two about stopping the survey for days due to bad weather or Indians.
I'd imagine that it was based in secondhand info of sailing time and direction, and appears to have a Greek location (the author's home city?) as its locus.
Ah, sez he was born in Spain but used Greek sources.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pomponius-Mela