Marinus of Tyre

Marinus of Tyre (c.70-130 CE) was a Greek Cartographer, Geographer and Mathematician who worked between 100-130 CE, based in Tyre, Syria.
The Roman Cartographer Ptolemy (90-168 CE) stated that he used Marinus’ Work to compile his own Ptolemy's Geographia.

Ptolemy dates Marinus’ chart to c. 114 CE. Marinus was the first Cartographer to describe the Longitude and Latitude of every Location on his Chart.
Marinus used the Canary Islands as the Zero Meridian, the known most western point of Europe and Africa, and also included China (Shera) for the first time.
The northernmost point was the Parallel of Thule and the southernmost point was the Parallel of Agisymba.
Agisymba was a territory controlled by the Garamantes which may possibly have been Lake Chad.

According to Ptolemy, Marinus invented the ‘Equirectangular Projection’.
- The curved lines of Longitude and Latitude of the Spherical Earth are straightened out on a flat Chart to form parallel vertical lines and parallel horizontal lines.
- This made it possible in theory to plot a course on a flat Chart between two points, then take a bearing from A to B say of 220 degrees. Using the bearing as his heading, the sailor could theoretically navigate on that heading from A to B.
- However, in practice, because the Projection is not Conformal, the distortions produced by flattening the globe, means it has large inaccuracies making it unusable for Navigation.

Over 1400 years later, Mercator used the Conformal Cylindrical Projection in a similar technique for his Mercator Projection in 1569 CE.
- Mercator projected the Earth onto a cylinder, and then flattened the cylinder, so that the lines of Longitude and Latitude are parallel.
- This is much more accurate and can be used for Navigation.

Tyre