Жағалаулар мен порстар тізімі: Теңіз саяхаттарының ежелгі сипаттамасы

Manuscript listing ports and coastal landmarks
a type of historic document

A periplus ('/p//ɛr//ɪ//p//l//ʌ//s/), or periplous, is a manuscript document that lists the ports and coastal landmarks, in order and with approximate intervening distances, that the captain of a vessel could expect to find along a shore. In that sense, the periplus was a type of log and served the same purpose as the later Roman itinerarium of road stops. However, the Greek navigators added various notes, which, if they were professional geographers, as many were, became part of their own additions to Greek geography. The form of the periplus is at least as old as the earliest Greek historian, the Ionian Hecataeus of Miletus. The works of Herodotus and Thucydides contain passages that appear to have been based on peripli.

Periplus is the Latinization of the Greek word περίπλους (periplous, contracted from περίπλοος periploos), which is "a sailing around." Both segments, peri and plous, were independently productive: the ancient Greek speaker understood the word in its literal sense; however, it developed a few specialized meanings, one of which became a standard term in the ancient navigation of Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans.

The Periplus of Himilco the Navigator, parts which are preserved in Pliny the Elder and Avienius. The Periplus of Hanno the Navigator, Carthaginian colonist and explorer who explored the coast of Africa from present day Morocco southward at least as far as Senegal in the sixth or fifth century BCE.

Persian sailors had long had their own sailing guide books, called Rahnāmag in Middle Persian (Rahnāmeh رهنامه in Modern Persian). They listed the ports and coastal landmarks and distances along the shores. The lost but much cited sailing directions go back at least to the 12th century. Some described the Indian Ocean as "a hard sea to get out of" and warned of the "circumambient sea," with all return impossible.

A periplus was also an ancient naval maneuver in which attacking triremes would outflank or encircle the defenders to attack them in the rear.