Luso-Sundanese padrão
The Luso-Sundanese padrão is a stone pillar commemorating a treaty between the kingdoms of Portugal and Sunda, better known as the Luso-Sundanese Treaty of Sunda Kalapa. Because of the growing Islamic force in Demak and Cirebon, the Hindu king of Sunda, Sri Baduga, sought assistance from the Portuguese at Malacca, he sent his son, Crown Prince Prabu Surawisesa, to Malacca in 1512 and again in 1521, in order to invite the Portuguese to sign a peace treaty, to trade in pepper, to build a fort at his main port of Sunda Kalapa. By 1522 the Portuguese were ready to form a coalition with the Sundanese king in order to gain access to the profitable pepper trade; the commander of the fortress of Malacca at that time was Jorge de Albuquerque. In 1522, he sent a ship, the São Sebastião under Captain Henrique Leme, to Sunda Kalapa with valuable gifts for the king of Sunda. Two written sources detail the concluding of the treaty: the original Portuguese document of 1522, with the text of the treaty and the signatures of the witnesses.
According to these sources, the Portuguese were welcomed warmly by the former crown prince, now King Prabu Surawisesa Jayapercosa. The Portuguese were allowed to build a fortress at the mouth of the Ciliwung River where they could load black pepper to their ships; the King pledged to give one thousand sacks each year to the Portuguese. The treaty was executed in one for the king of Sunda, one for the king of Portugal; the Sundanese king's deputies were the chief mandarin Padam Tumangu, the mandarins Sangydepaty and Benegar, the shahbandar of the land, named Fabian."On the said day", these mandarins and other honorable men, together with Henrique Leme and his entourage, went to the mouth of the river where the fortress would be constructed, on the "land called Sunda Kalapa". There they erected a memorial stone, called a padrão, in what is now the Tugu sub-district of North Jakarta, it was a Portuguese custom to set up a padrão. The padrão, now called the Luso-Sundanese padrão, is kept in the National Museum.
Because of troubles in Goa, Portuguese India, the Portuguese failed to keep their promise to come back the following year to construct the fortress. They did not return to the Java Sea until November, 1526, when they arrived in six ships from Bintan under the command of Francisco de Sá; the padrão was rediscovered at the junction between Jalan Cengkeh and Jalan Kali Besar Timur in 1918 when the Dutch East Indies government made a reclamation in this area. The Luso-Sundanese padrão is a 165 cm high stone pillar; the upper part of the padrão shows an armillary sphere, a symbol of discovery used by King Manuel of Portugal. On top of the sphere is a trefoil. A cross of the Order of Christ has been carved above the first line of the inscription; the inscription itself, OSPOR. ESFERЯa/Mo is an abbreviation of O Senhor de Portugal. Esfera/Espera do Mundo. Sphere/Hope of the World. List of personal standards of the Kings of Portugal
South Africa
South Africa the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by 2,798 kilometres of coastline of Southern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans. South Africa is the largest country in Southern Africa and the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and, with over 57 million people, is the world's 24th-most populous nation, it is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different African languages, nine of which have official status; the remaining population consists of Africa's largest communities of European and multiracial ancestry. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a wide variety of cultures and religions, its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the constitution's recognition of 11 official languages, the fourth highest number in the world. Two of these languages are of European origin: Afrikaans developed from Dutch and serves as the first language of most coloured and white South Africans.
The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup d'état, regular elections have been held for a century. However, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a large role in the country's recent history and politics; the National Party imposed apartheid in 1948. After a long and sometimes violent struggle by the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid activists both inside and outside the country, the repeal of discriminatory laws began in 1990. Since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the country's liberal democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is referred to as the "rainbow nation" to describe the country's multicultural diversity in the wake of apartheid; the World Bank classifies South Africa as an upper-middle-income economy, a newly industrialised country.
Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, the 34th-largest in the world. In terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa; however and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed and living on less than US$1.25 a day. South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, maintains significant regional influence; the name "South Africa" is derived from the country's geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation, the country was named the Union of South Africa in English, reflecting its origin from the unification of four separate British colonies. Since 1961, the long form name in English has been the "Republic of South Africa". In Dutch, the country was named Republiek van Zuid-Afrika, replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans Republiek van Suid-Afrika. Since 1994, the Republic has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning "south", is a colloquial name for South Africa, while some Pan-Africanist political parties prefer the term "Azania".
South Africa contains human-fossil sites in the world. Archaeologists have recovered extensive fossil remains from a series of caves in Gauteng Province; the area, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has been branded "the Cradle of Humankind". The sites include one of the richest sites for hominin fossils in the world. Other sites include Gondolin Cave Kromdraai, Coopers Cave and Malapa. Raymond Dart identified the first hominin fossil discovered in Africa, the Taung Child in 1924. Further hominin remains have come from the sites of Makapansgat in Limpopo Province and Florisbad in the Free State Province, Border Cave in KwaZulu-Natal Province, Klasies River Mouth in Eastern Cape Province and Pinnacle Point and Die Kelders Cave in Western Cape Province; these finds suggest that various hominid species existed in South Africa from about three million years ago, starting with Australopithecus africanus. There followed species including Australopithecus sediba, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo rhodesiensis, Homo helmei, Homo naledi and modern humans.
Modern humans have inhabited Southern Africa for at least 170,000 years. Various researchers have located pebble tools within the Vaal River valley. Settlements of Bantu-speaking peoples, who were iron-using agriculturists and herdsmen, were present south of the Limpopo River by the 4th or 5th century CE, they displaced and absorbed the original Khoisan speakers, the Khoikhoi and San peoples. The Bantu moved south; the earliest ironworks in modern-day KwaZulu-Natal Province are believed to date from around 1050. The southernmost group was the Xhosa people, whose language incorporates certain linguistic traits from the earlier Khoisan people; the Xhosa reached the Great Fish River, in today's Eastern Cape Province. As they migrated, these larger Iron Age populations
Bartolomeu Dias
Bartolomeu Dias, a nobleman of the Portuguese royal household, was a Portuguese explorer. He sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488, the first to do so, setting up the route from Europe to Asia on. Dias is the first European during the Age of Discovery to anchor at what is present-day South Africa. Bartolomeu Dias was a squire of the royal court, superintendent of the royal warehouses, sailing-master of the man-of-war São Cristóvão. Little is known of his early life. King John II of Portugal appointed him, on 10 October 1486, to head an expedition to sail around the southern tip of Africa in the hope of finding a trade route to India. Dias was charged with searching for the lands ruled by Prester John, a fabled Christian priest and ruler of territory somewhere beyond Europe, he left 10 months in August 1487. In the previous decades Portuguese mariners, most famously Prince Henry the Navigator, had explored the areas of the Atlantic Ocean off Southern Europe and Western Africa as far as the Cape Verde Islands and modern-day Sierra Leone, had gained sufficient knowledge of oceanic shipping and wind patterns to enable subsequent voyages of greater distance.
In the early 1480s Diogo Cão in two voyages had explored the mouth of the Congo River and sailed south of the Equator to present-day Angola and Namibia. São Cristóvão was piloted by Pêro de Alenquer. A second caravel, the São Pantaleão, was piloted by Álvaro Martins. Dias' brother Pêro Dias was the captain of the square-rigged support ship with João de Santiago as pilot; the expedition sailed around the west coast of Africa. And more provisions were picked up on the way at the Portuguese fortress of São Jorge de Mina on the Gold Coast. After having sailed south of modern day Angola, Dias reached the Golfo da Conceicão by December. Continuing south, he discovered first Angra dos Ilheus, being hit by a violent storm. Thirteen days from the open ocean, he searched the coast again to the east and using the westerlies winds - the ocean gyre, but finding just ocean. Having rounded the Cape of Good Hope at a considerable distance to the west and southwest, he turned towards the east, taking advantage of the winds of Antarctica that blow in the South Atlantic, he sailed northeast.
After 30 days without seeing land, he entered what he named Aguada de São Brás —later renamed Mossel Bay—on 4 February 1488. Dias's expedition reached its furthest point on 12 March 1488 when they anchored at Kwaaihoek, near the mouth of the Boesmans River, where a padrão—the Padrão de São Gregório—was erected before turning back. Dias wanted to continue sailing to India, but he was forced to turn back when his crew refused to go further and the rest of the officers unanimously favoured returning to Portugal, it was only on the return voyage that he discovered the Cape of Good Hope, in May 1488. Dias returned to Lisbon in December of that year, after an absence of sixteen months and seventeen days; the discovery of the passage around southern Africa was significant because, for the first time, Europeans could trade directly with India and the Far East, bypassing the overland Euro-Asian route with its expensive European, Middle Eastern and Central Asian middlemen. The official report of the expedition has been lost.
Bartolomeu Dias named the Cape of Good Hope the Cape of Storms. It was renamed the Cape of Good Hope because it represented the opening of a route to the east. After these early attempts, the Portuguese took a decade-long break from Indian Ocean exploration. During that hiatus, it is that they received valuable information from a secret agent, Pêro da Covilhã, sent overland to India and returned with reports useful to their navigators. Using his experience with explorative travel, Dias helped in the construction of the São Gabriel and its sister ship the São Rafael that were used in 1498 by Vasco da Gama to sail past the Cape of Good Hope and continue to India. Dias only participated until the Cape Verde Islands. Two years he was one of the captains of the second Indian expedition, headed by Pedro Álvares Cabral; this flotilla first reached the coast of Brazil, landing there in 1500, continued eastwards to India. Dias perished near the Cape of Good Hope. Four ships encountered a huge storm off the cape and were lost, including Dias', on 29 May 1500.
A shipwreck found in 2008 by the Namdeb Diamond Corporation off Namibia was at first thought to be Dias' ship. Bartolomeu Dias was married and had two children: Simão Dias de Novais, who died unmarried and without issue. António Dias de Novais, a Knight of the Order of Christ, married to Joana Fernandes, daughter of Fernão Pires and wife Guiomar Montês. Dias' grandson Paulo Dias de Novais was a Portuguese colonizer of Africa in the 16th century. Dias' granddaughter, Guiomar de Novais married twice, as his second wife to Dom Rodrigo de Castro, son of Dom Nuno de Castro and wife Joana da Silveira, by whom she had Dona Paula de Novais and Dona Violante de Castro, both died unmarried and without issue, to Pedro Correia da Si
Sunda Kingdom
The Sunda Kingdom was a Sundanese Hindu kingdom located in the western portion of the island of Java from 669 to around 1579, covering the area of present-day Banten, West Java, the western part of Central Java. The capital of Sunda Kingdom has moved for several times during its history. According to primary historical records, the Bujangga Manik manuscript, the eastern border of the kingdom was the Pamali River and the Serayu River in Central Java. Most accounts of the Sunda Kingdom come from primary historical records from the 16th century, its inhabitants were the eponymous ethnic Sundanese, while the majority religion was Hinduism. The name Sunda derives from the Sanskrit prefix su- which means "goodness" or "possessing good quality"; the example is suvarna used to describe gold. Sunda is another name for Hindu God Vishnu. In Sanskrit, the term Sundara or Sundari means "beautiful" or "excellence"; the term Sunda means bright, purity and white. The name Sunda is known in Hindu mythology of Sunda and Upasunda, as one of the powerful Asura brothers that received the boon of invulnerability from Brahma.
The powerful Asura brothers set out to conquering the world, menacing the Gods. In the end they fought each other over a beautiful Apsara; the story of Sunda and Upasunda is found in Book I: Adi Parva. It is not clear however, it seems that by the 10th century, the name Sunda was used by foreigners by early Indian explorers, Malay Srivijayan traders and colonizer Javanese neighbours, as a toponym to identify the Western parts of Java. The Juru Pangambat inscription dated from 854 Saka confirmed this; the name is used by the Javanese to identify their western neighbour rival and enemy, as mentioned in Horren inscription from Kediri. An early 13th century Chinese account reported the pepper port of Sin-t'o, which refer to the port of Banten or Sunda Kalapa. By the 15th to 16th century, after the consolidation of the kingdom by Sri Baduga Maharaja, the name Sunda has shifted from a eponymous toponymy, into a name that identify a kingdom and its people, thus subsequently gave birth and identity to the ethnogenesis of the Sundanese people.
Knowledge of the kingdom among Sundanese people has been kept alive through Sundanese Pantun oral tradition, the chant of poetic verses about the golden age of Sunda Pajajaran, the legend of Prabu Siliwangi, the most popular king of Sunda. Several stone inscriptions mention the kingdom, such as Juru Pangambat, Jayabupati and Batutulis. Most account and records of the Sunda Kingdom came from manuscripts dated from a period circa 15th to 16th century, such as Bujangga Manik, Sanghyang Siksakanda ng Karesian, Carita Parahyangan and Kidung Sunda; the history of Sunda kingdom is recorded quite detailed in Pustaka Rajyarajya i Bhumi Nusantara, a book within Wangsakerta manuscripts collection. However the Wangsakerta manuscripts are discounted as a valid historical source among historians, since this controversial manuscript is suspected as a fraud containing pseudohistory; the earliest reference to the name "Sunda" being used to identify a kingdom is the Kebon Kopi II inscription dated 854 Saka. The inscription was in old Javanese script.
It translates as follows: This memorial stone is to remark the saying of Rakryan Juru Pangambat, in 854 Saka, that the order of government is returned to the power of king of Sunda. The inscription chandrasengkala written 458 Saka, however some historians suggested that the year of the inscription must be read backward as 854 Saka because the Sunda kingdom could not have existed in 536 AD, in the era of the Kingdom of Tarumanagara. Another reference to the kingdom is the Jayabupati inscription which consists of 40 lines written on four pieces of stone found on the Cicatih river bank in Cibadak, Sukabumi; the inscription is written in old Javanese script. The four inscriptions are now stored at the National Museum in Jakarta, under the codes D 73, D 96, D 97 and D 98; the contents of the inscriptions: Peace and well-being. In the year of Saka 952, Kartika month on the 12th day on the light part, Hariang day, first day, Wuku Tambir. Today is the day that king of Sunda Maharaja Sri Jayabupati Jayamanahen Wisnumurti Samarawijaya Sakalabuwanamandaleswaranindita Haro Gowardhana Wikramottunggadewa, makes his marks on eastern part of this Sanghiyang Tapak.
Made by Sri Jayabupati King of Sunda. And may there be nobody allowed to break this law. In this part of river catching fish is forbidden, in the sacred area of Sanghyang Tapak near the source of the river. Up until the border of sacred Sanghyang Tapak marked by two big tree. So this inscriptions is enforced with an oath. Whoever breaks the law will be punished by these supranatural beings, die in horrible way like their brain being sucked, blood being drunk, intestines being destroyed, chest is split in two. O being known by thee.. all the spirits. The date of the Jayabupati inscription may be 11 October 1030. According to Pustaka Nusantara, Parwa III sarga 1, Sri Jayabupati reigned for 12 years, from 952 to 964 saka; the inscription has an East Javanese style in lettering and style, mentions the current king by name. Copperplate letters dating to the 15th century, including royal instr
Johannesburg
Johannesburg is the largest city in South Africa and one of the 50 largest urban areas in the world. It is the provincial capital and largest city of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa. While Johannesburg is not one of South Africa's three capital cities, it is the seat of the Constitutional Court; the city is located in the mineral-rich Witwatersrand range of hills and is the centre of large-scale gold and diamond trade. The metropolis is an alpha global city as listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. In 2011, the population of the city of Johannesburg was 4,434,827, making it the most populous city in South Africa. In the same year, the population of Johannesburg's urban agglomeration was put at 7,860,781; the land area of the municipal city is large in comparison with those of other major cities, resulting in a moderate population density of 2,364/km2. The city was established in 1886 following the discovery of gold on; the city is interpreted as the modern day El Dorado due to the large gold deposit found along the Witwatersrand.
In ten years, the population grew to 100,000 inhabitants. A separate city from the late 1970s until 1994, Soweto is now part of Johannesburg. An acronym for "South-Western Townships", Soweto originated as a collection of settlements on the outskirts of Johannesburg, populated by native African workers from the gold mining industry. Soweto, although incorporated into Johannesburg, had been separated as a residential area for Blacks, who were not permitted to live in Johannesburg proper. Lenasia is predominantly populated by English-speaking South Africans of Indian descent; these areas were designated as non-white areas in accordance with the segregationist policies of the South African government known as Apartheid. Controversy surrounds the origin of the name. There was quite a number of people with the name "Johannes" who were involved in the early history of the city. Among them are the principal clerk attached to the office of the surveyor-general Hendrik Dercksen, Christiaan Johannes Joubert, a member of the Volksraad and was Republic's chief of mining.
Another was Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, president of the South African Republic from 1883 - 1900. Johannes Meyer, the first government official in the area is another possibility. Precise records for the choice of name were lost. Johannes Rissik and Johannes Joubert were members of a delegation sent to England to attain mining rights for the area. Joubert had a park in the city named after him and Rissik has his name for one of the main streets in the city where the important albeit dilapidated Rissik Street Post Office is located; the City Hall is located on Rissik Street. The region surrounding Johannesburg was inhabited by San people. By the 13th century, groups of Bantu-speaking people started moving southwards from central Africa and encroached on the indigenous San population. By the mid-18th century, the broader region was settled by various Sotho–Tswana communities, whose villages, towns and kingdoms stretched from what is now Botswana in the west, to present day Lesotho in the south, to the present day Pedi areas of the Northern Province.
More the stone-walled ruins of Sotho–Tswana towns and villages are scattered around the parts of the former Transvaal province in which Johannesburg is situated. The Sotho–Tswana practised farming and extensively mined and smelted metals that were available in the area. Moreover, from the early 1960s until his retirement, Professor Revil Mason of the University of the Witwatersrand and documented many Late Iron Age archaeological sites throughout the Johannesburg area; these sites dated from between the 12th century and 18th century, many contained the ruins of Sotho–Tswana mines and iron smelting furnaces, suggesting that the area was being exploited for its mineral wealth before the arrival of Europeans or the discovery of gold. The most prominent site within Johannesburg is Melville Koppies, which contains an iron smelting furnace. Many Sotho–Tswana towns and villages in the areas around Johannesburg were destroyed and their people driven away during the wars emanating from Zululand during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as a result, an offshoot of the Zulu kingdom, the Ndebele, set up a kingdom to the northwest of Johannesburg around modern-day Rustenburg.
The main Witwatersrand gold reef was discovered in June 1884 on the farm Vogelstruisfontein by Jan Gerritse Bantjes that triggered the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the founding of Johannesburg in 1886. The discovery of gold attracted people to the area, making necessary a name and governmental organisation for the area. Jan and Johannes were common male names among the Dutch of that time. Johannes Meyer, the first government official in the area is another possibility. Precise records for the choice of name were lost. Within ten years, the city of Johannesburg included 100,000 people. In September 1884, the Struben brothers discovered the Confidence Reef on the farm Wilgespruit near present-day Roodepoort, which further boosted excitement over gold prospects; the first gold to be crushed on the Witwatersrand was the gold-bearing rock from the Bantjes mine crushed using the Struben brothers stamp machine. News of t
Pêro da Covilhã
Pedro, or Pêro da Covilhã or, sometimes written: Pero de Covilhăo, was a Portuguese diplomat and explorer. He was a native of Covilhã in Beira. In his early life he had gone to Castile and entered the service of Don Juan de Guzmán, brother of Enrique de Guzmán, 2nd Duke of Medina Sidonia; when war broke out between Castile and Portugal, he returned to his own country, attached himself, first as a groom as a squire, to Afonso V of Portugal and his successor John II of Portugal. In 1487, his overland expedition made its way to India, exploring trade opportunities with the Indians and Arabs, winding up in Ethiopia, his detailed report was eagerly read in Lisbon, as Portugal became the world's best informed center for global geography and trade routes. King John II put him in charge of diverse private missions, to use his knowledge of different languages, ordered him and Afonso de Paiva to undertake a mission of exploration in the Near East and the adjoining regions of Asia and Africa, with the special assignment to learn where cinnamon and other spices could be found, as well as of discovering the land of legendary Prester John, by overland routes.
Bartolomeu Dias, at the same time, went out to by sea find the Prester's country, as well as the termination of the African continent and the ocean route to India. The expedition started at Santarém, on 7 May 1487. Covilhã and Paiva were provided with a letter of credence for all the countries of the world and with a map for navigating, taken from the map of the world and compiled by Bishop Diogo, doctors Rodrigo and Moisés; the first two of these were prominent members of the commission which advised the Portuguese government to reject the proposals of Christopher Columbus. The explorers started from Santarém and travelled by Barcelona to Naples, where their bills of exchange were paid by the sons of Cosimo de' Medici. In company with Arabs from Fez and Tlemcen, they now went by way of El-Tor to Suakin and Aden, where, as it was now the monsoon, they parted. Covilhã proceeded to Paiva to Ethiopia, they agreed to meet again in Cairo. Covilhã thus arrived at Cannanore and Calicut, from where he retraced his steps to Goa and Hormuz, the Red Sea and Cairo, making an excursion on his way down the East African coast to Sofala.
At Cairo he heard of Paiva's death, met with two Portuguese Jews: Rabbi Abraham of Beja, José Sapateiro, a shoe-maker of Lamego, sent by King John with letters for Covilhã and Paiva. By Joseph of Lamego, Covilhã replied with an account of his Indian and African journeys, of his observations on the cinnamon and clove trade at Calicut, together with advice as to the ocean way to India, he recommended that the Portuguese should sail south along the coast of Africa and the seas of Guinea. The first objective in the eastern ocean, was Madagascar. With this information Joseph returned to Portugal, while Covilhã, with Abraham of Beja, again visited Aden and Hormuz. At the latter he left the rabbi. By Mount Sinai, El-Tor and the Red Sea, he reached Zeila, whence he struck inland to the court of Prester John. Here he was honorably received by the Emperor Eskender. According to James Bruce, Covilhã maintained a correspondence with the king in Portugal, describing Ethiopia as "very populous, full of cities both powerful and rich".
In 1507, he was joined by João Gomes, a priest sent by Tristão da Cunha, who had reached Ethiopia by way of Socotra. When the Portuguese embassy under Rodrigo de Lima, which included Ethiopian ambassador Mateus and missionary Francisco Álvares, entered Ethiopia in 1520, Covilhã wept with joy at the sight of his fellow-countrymen, it was forty years since he had left Portugal, over thirty since he had been a prisoner of state in Ethiopia. Álvares, who professed to know him well, to have heard the story of his life, both in confession and out of it, praises his power of vivid description as if things were present before him, his extraordinary knowledge of all the spoken languages of Christians and Gentiles. His services as an interpreter were valuable to Rodrigo de Lima's embassy. Covilhã was not allowed to leave the country until his death; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Covilham, Pero". Encyclopædia Britannica. 7. Cambridge University Press.
Pp. 344–345. A biography in the Vidas Lusofonas series, in English Francisco Alvarez, "Chapter CIV: How Pero de Covilham, a Portuguese, is in the country of the Prester, how came here, why he was sent", The Prester John of the Indies, pp. 369–376
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is; this misconception was based on the misbelief that the Cape was the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Contemporary geographic knowledge instead states the southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas about 150 kilometres to the east-southeast; the currents of the two oceans meet at the point where the warm-water Agulhas current meets the cold-water Benguela current and turns back on itself. That oceanic meeting point fluctuates between Cape Point; when following the western side of the African coastline from the equator, the Cape of Good Hope marks the point where a ship begins to travel more eastward than southward. Thus, the first modern rounding of the cape in 1488 by Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was a milestone in the attempts by the Portuguese to establish direct trade relations with the Far East. Dias called the cape Cabo das Tormentas, the original name of the "Cape of Good Hope".
As one of the great capes of the South Atlantic Ocean, the Cape of Good Hope has long been of special significance to sailors, many of whom refer to it as "the Cape". It is a waypoint on the Cape Route and the clipper route followed by clipper ships to the Far East and Australia, still followed by several offshore yacht races; the term Cape of Good Hope is used in three other ways: It is a section of the Table Mountain National Park, within which the cape of the same name, as well as Cape Point, falls. Prior to its incorporation into the national park, this section constituted the Cape Point Nature Reserve, it was the name of the early Cape Colony established by the Dutch on the Cape Peninsula. Just before the Union of South Africa was formed, the term referred to the entire region that in 1910 was to become the Cape of Good Hope Province. Eudoxus of Cyzicus was a Greek navigator for Ptolemy VIII, king of the Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, who found the wreck of a ship in the Indian Ocean that appeared to have come from Gades, rounding the Cape.
When Eudoxus was returning from his second voyage to India, the wind forced him south of the Gulf of Aden and down the coast of Africa for some distance. Somewhere along the coast of East Africa, he found the remains of the ship. Due to its appearance and the story told by the natives, Eudoxus concluded that the ship was from Gades and had sailed anti-clockwise around Africa, passing the Cape and entering the Indian Ocean; this inspired him to attempt a circumnavigation of the continent. Organising the expedition on his own account he set sail from Gades and began to work down the African coast; the difficulties were too great, he was obliged to return to Europe. After this failure he again set out to circumnavigate Africa, his eventual fate is unknown. Although some, such as Pliny, claimed that Eudoxus did achieve his goal, the most probable conclusion is that he perished on the journey. In the 1450 Fra Mauro map, the Indian Ocean is depicted as connected to the Atlantic. Fra Mauro puts the following inscription by the southern tip of Africa, which he names the "Cape of Diab", describing the exploration by a ship from the East around 1420: "Around 1420 a ship, or junk, from India crossed the Sea of India towards the Island of Men and the Island of Women, off Cape Diab, between the Green Islands and the shadows.
It sailed for 40 days in a south-westerly direction without finding anything other than wind and water. According to these people themselves, the ship went some 2,000 miles ahead until - once favourable conditions came to an end - it turned round and sailed back to Cape Diab in 70 days". "The ships called junks that navigate these seas carry four masts or more, some of which can be raised or lowered, have 40 to 60 cabins for the merchants and only one tiller. They can navigate without a compass, because they have an astrologer, who stands on the side and, with an astrolabe in hand, gives orders to the navigator". Fra Mauro explained that he obtained the information from "a trustworthy source", who traveled with the expedition the Venetian explorer Niccolò da Conti who happened to be in Calicut, India at the time the expedition left: "What is more, I have spoken with a person worthy of trust, who says that he sailed in an Indian ship caught in the fury of a tempest for 40 days out in the Sea of India, beyond the Cape of Soffala and the Green Islands towards west-southwest.
Thus one can believe and confirm what is said by both these and those, that they had therefore sailed 4,000 miles". Fra Mauro comments that the account of the expedition, together with the relation by Strabo of the travels of Eudoxus of Cyzicus from Arabia to Gibraltar through the southern Ocean in Antiquity, led him to believe that the Indian Ocean was not a closed sea and that Africa could be circumnavigated by her southern end; this knowledge, together with the map depiction of the African continent encouraged the Portuguese to intensify their effort to round the tip of Africa. I
