Cosmas Indicopleustes
Kosmas Indicopleustes ( Κόσμας Ἰνδικοπλεύστης the Indiaman ) was a late ancient writers and traveler from Alexandria and contemporary Emperor Justinian I. The correct name of the author is unknown, the name Kosmas Indicopleustes has been used since about the 9th century.
The author was a Nestorian Christian, and has traveled as a merchant, the Black Sea, Arabia and East Africa ( Aksum ); he also traveled to Ceylon and Southern India, is controversial in research. Around 550 he wrote in his old age Topographia Christiana, a Christian description of the world in twelve books, the purpose of which was the refutation of the Ptolemaic conception of the earth as a sphere. He was referring probably also against the Christian Aristotelians John Philoponus position. Kosmas developed his idea of the world from the Old Testament, especially from creation narrative and based on the tabernacle. Kosmas imagined the Earth as elongated rectangular area in front of, above which rose the universe as a two-story vaulted to the upper sky as a roof. In the center rises the mountain of the north, which is orbited by the sun and its shadow is causing the night. South of it is the known world, east, beyond the great ocean paradise. The angels move the stars and push them every day behind the mountain, where they are hidden from the eyes of the people.
The value of his work lies in its geographical, scientific and cultural-historical digressions, in which the traveler Cosmas his observations and experiences laying down of others. It influenced several other Byzantine works, and is also the attempt to interpret scientific events from a Christian point of view completely.
Was utilized literary his work in Arno Schmidt's short novel Kosmas or from the mountain of the north as well as in Umberto Eco's novel Baudolino.
Editions and translations
- Wanda Wolska - Conus: Cosmas Indicopleustes. Paris 1968.
- Horst Schneider ( eds.): Kosmas Indicopleustes. Christian topography. Critical text analysis. Translation. Comment ( = Indicopleustoi. Archaeologies of the Indian Ocean 7). Brepols, Turnhout 2010 ( German translation ).