Pytheas of Massalia

• Main Author: Kaplan, Philip G.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2019
• Subjects: Norway; Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah21281.pub2; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2F9781444338386.wbeah21281.pub2; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah21281.pub2; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah21281.pub2

Abstract Pytheas (ca. 350–320 bce ) was a geographer, astronomer, and explorer from the Greek city of Massalia. None of his works survive, but he is credited by later writers with making observations on latitudes and solstices, and speculating on the cause of tides. He also gave an account of a journey to the seas north of Europe, and was the first Greek to explore the British Isles. He claimed to have found an island called Thule, possibly Iceland or the coast of Norway. He may have also traveled eastward as far as the Baltic Sea. Some later geographers were skeptical of his discoveries, although modern scholarship has generally accepted them as genuine.