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Hero image: marbled board covers from Chertezhi kb i u Trudov Mineral Obshchestva, lithographed geological, mineralogical, and geodetic maps from early systematic exploration, produced for private circulation by the Imperatorskoe Mineralogicheskoe Obshchestvo, 1842.

The name Periplus derives from the Greek verb περιπλέω—“to sail around.” Periploi (περίπλοι) were the voyages and the manuscripts that recorded them. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (Περίπλους τῆς Ἐρυθρᾶς Θαλάσσης), composed in the first century CE, documented trade routes, commercial relationships, and local power structures from the Red Sea through the Horn of Africa to the Indian subcontinent—recording at each port who held authority, what protocols governed access, and which languages mattered. The anonymous author—likely a merchant himself—assessed the character and commercial disposition of Zoscales, king at Adulis of the Aksumite kingdom, for traders who would never meet him. The Periplus of Hanno (Περίπλους Ἄννωνος) recorded Carthaginian navigation along the West African coast. Arrian’s Periplus of the Pontus Euxinus (Περίπλους τοῦ Εὐξείνου Πόντου) charted the Black Sea and the Caucasus.