Two Early Maps of Arabia Felix
1460 and 1414 AD

di Ricci MS. 97
Rare Books and Manuscripts Division
The New York Public Library
Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

Pirrus de Noha, 1414 Vatican Library (on the Web)

(See also Medieval Map Conventions)

The 1460 map of Arabia Felix has been around a long time. It is one which used very early cartography methods. Its coordinates are (67 to 104 Longitude; 10 to 31 latitude North).
(See Credits for this map above)
Image

The above configuration was also used on the following maps:

Claudius Ptolemy (150+/-AD,edited by Alfonso X in 1238 AD +/-.
Pirrus de Noha (1414 AD)
If the above edits are correct, then this map also gives the true location of the Red Sea, also known as the Mar Rosso, Mar Vermejo, etc.

Even though the following maps are post-Columbus, the location is still Arabia Felix, a country that has never been located.
Henricus Martellus Germanus (1489 AD)
Martin Behaim (1492 AD)
Martin Waldseemueller (1507 AD)
the Cantino Planisphere (1502 AD)
Bartolomeo Columbus (1502-1506 AD)
Nicolo Caveri (1504 AD)
Giovanni Matteo Contarini (1506 AD)
Francesco Rosselli (1508 AD)
Vesconte de Maggiolo (1511 AD)
Bastista Agnese (1542 AD)
Abraham Ortelius (1564 AD)

A reader in Aztlan informed me that in order to understand a map, one must look at the whole map and not just a segment of it. The 1460 map is a "whole" map from a series of maps about the Eurasian continent. One can see immediately that the "whole" map is badly drawn and when compared with the correct but modern version of this map, the differences are so drastic that there had to be a different reason than just being wrong, for creating the errors.

As it was, Arabia Felix, was not drawn correctly until the cartographer Sebastian Cabot (1544) re-drew it according to its true configuration. Others such as Pierre Desceliers (1550), Geradus Mercator (1569) and Jodocus Hondius (1589) followed and put the dimple in the Asian continent like it is supposed to be.

As for the maps of the Americas, of the cartographers, mentioned above, Juan de la Casa in 1500, could not even draw out Cuba properly much less the Florida peninsula on his map of The New World. Juan Vespucci finally did Florida with a nearly accurate configuration in 1526.

Is there story behind this Asian map called Arabia Felix that we don't know about yet? What do the Americas have to do with pre-medieval knowledge. Where did this information come from?