What mean the name in the coast of portolan ?

[the_man]

Hello, i'm trying to draw a portolan map but i don't understand where from these names in the coast ? I read that it was the important city but how is it possible to have so many important Cities just in the coast of the holy land ?



I think they're for sure some cities but what are the others ?

[Bindusara]

The red one seems to be very important port : Tortosa / Barut=Beyrut / Sur=Tyre=Tripoli / Acre / Jaffa

It's a portolan, so for a sailor, every point on the coast is important : the black ones are other less important cities probably only villages for some of them, but visible from see. Sailors of theses times had information from their peer like "you'll know you'll be in front of the village X when you will see one tower on the hill and 3 trees behind the beach". Important for next heading to the big harbor ...

[Edward II of Kenland]

On this map the ones I can read are from top to bottom: Tortolsa (also spelled tortosa), Beirut, Acre, and Jaffa. I'm not aware of a tortolsa, perhaps its actually supposed to be Tripoli? I'm not seeing antioch anywhere on there, so I'm assuming this map was made after it lost its prominence when Baibars sacked and destroyed the city.

Edit: It looks like the one under Jaffa is supposed to be Ashkelon. The one between Beirut and Acre is likely Tyre.

[the_man]

The red one seems to be very important port : Tortosa / Barut=Beyrut / Sur=Tyre=Tripoli / Acre / Jaffa

It's a portolan, so for a sailor, every point on the coast is important : the black ones are other less important cities probably only villages for some of them, but visible from see. Sailors of theses times had information from their peer like "you'll know you'll be in front of the village X when you will see one tower on the hill and 3 trees behind the beach". Important for next heading to the big harbor ...

Ah i see, it's more clearer to me now, thank for the explanation.

On this map the ones I can read are from top to bottom: Tortolsa (also spelled tortosa), Beirut, Acre, and Jaffa. I'm not aware of a tortolsa, perhaps its actually supposed to be Tripoli? I'm not seeing antioch anywhere on there, so I'm assuming this map was made after it lost its prominence when Baibars sacked and destroyed the city.

Edit: It looks like the one under Jaffa is supposed to be Ashkelon. The one between Beirut and Acre is likely Tyre.

Thank you too ! You're right about Antioch, this map was drawed in 1375.
I'm sure that Tortolsa = Tartous ( Syria ) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Tortose

[Bretton]

On this map the ones I can read are from top to bottom: Tortolsa (also spelled tortosa), Beirut, Acre, and Jaffa. I'm not aware of a tortolsa, perhaps its actually supposed to be Tripoli?.

I'm not a speciallist, but we have our own Tortosa next to Barcelona, a city which is twinned with the Tortosa on the map. This is what I kow:

Tortosa, actually called Tartus, in the coast of Syria, some 50 km from the border with Libanon is the second most important harbour of the country. It was founded as a military siting entrusted to the templars in 1157; in fact Tortosa means "fort", rooting from pre-latin word "dertosa", meaning something like "city of stones". It is most known for being the only holding to resist the immediate muslim advance following the fall of Acre. In fact, Tortosa was evacuated in 1291, but still managed to resist until 1302 due to the fort of Ruad.

As a curiosity, it in fact was founded with the name Tripoli by Phoenicians.

Now that I think of this, I did some maps of our Tortosa in Spain some years ago, might post them some day.