Chryse and Argyre

For the Chryse region of Mars, see Chryse Planitia.
For the Argyre region of Mars, see Argyre Planitia.

Chryse and Argyre (/ˈkraɪsiː/ and /ˈɑːrdʒəriː/) were a pair of legendary islands, located in the Indian Ocean and said to be made of gold and silver. They took their name from the Greek words for gold (chrysos) and silver (argyros).

Pomponius Mela in his work mentioned both islands.[1] Adding that: "according to the old writers, the first island has golden soil, while the other silver. Furthermore, as appears to be the case, either the name derives from the reality or the tale from the designation."[2]

In Book 6, chapter 23 of his Natural History, concerning the regions near the Indus River, Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE) wrote that "Beyond the mouth of the Indus are the islands of Chryse and Argyre, abounding in metals, I believe; but as to what some persons have stated, that their soil consists of gold and silver, I am not so willing to believe that."[3]

Gaius Julius Solinus mentioned the islands in his work Polyhistor. He also mentioned that many people recorded that the islands were so rich in metals that their soils were gold and silver.[4]

Some five or six centuries later, in section XIV.vi.11 of his encyclopedic Etymologies, Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) repeated much the same information: "Chryse and Argyre are islands situated in the Indian Ocean, so rich in metal that many people maintain these islands have a surface of gold and silver; whence their names are derived."[5] This was almost certainly taken—like much else in the Etymologies, as Isidore freely admitted—directly from the Natural History. Both of these Latin works, the Naturalis Historia and especially the Etymologiae, were widely read in Europe throughout the Middle Ages and this ensured the survival of the legend of the Gold and Silver Islands until the beginning of the Age of Discovery.

A modern facsimile of Martin Behaim's 1492 Erdapfel map. Chryse and Argyre are in the same map section as Cipangu (Japan) on the right, with Chryse just to the west of its southern tip, labelled Crisis and colored yellow-brown; Argyre is to the southwest of Chryse, labelled Argire and colored white. Note the absence of the Americas.

As European geographers gathered more reliable information about the Indian Ocean, the purported location of Chryse and Argyre shifted farther and farther east to the fringes of the known world. By the time Martin Behaim created his Erdapfel globe in 1492, the islands were thought to be near Japan, possibly because Marco Polo had claimed Japan itself (which he called Cipangu) to be rich in gold and silver; Behaim is known to have used both Pliny and Marco Polo as sources.[6] Another proposed location was the Kingdom of Salakanagara on Java, based on the fact that Salakanagara means "island of silver" in Sanskrit.[7]

The discovery of the Americas changed everything. European explorers in search of fabled lands of gold now sailed west for El Dorado instead of east to Cipangu. The works of Isidore of Seville fell out of fashion and the islands of Chryse and Argyre slowly faded from the popular imagination.

  1. ^ Pomponius Mela, Chorographia, 3.70
  2. ^ Pomponius Mela. Romer, Frank E. (ed.). "Pomponius Mela, Chorographia Bk II". topostext. University of Michigan Press.
  3. ^ Pliny the Elder. Bostock, John; Riley, H.T. (eds.). "The Natural History, Book 6". Perseus Digital Library. Tufts University.
  4. ^ Gaius Iulius Solinus, the Polyhistor, translated by Arwen Apps, 747#52.17
  5. ^ Isidore of Seville. Barney, Stephen A.; Lewis, W.J.; Beach, J.A.; Berghof, Oliver (eds.). "The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville" (PDF). sfponline.org. Cambridge University Press. p. 294.
  6. ^ "The Behaim Globe". cartographic-images.net. Archived from the original (html) on 3 January 2017. Retrieved 29 Nov 2016.
  7. ^ Edi S. Ekadjati (2005). Kebudayaan Sunda Zaman Pajajaran, Jilid 2. Pustaka Jaya.