Frisland *

Published September 5, 2012

Frisland is the name given to one of the legendary islands of the North Atlantic, ‘located’ just south of Iceland. The story goes that it was discovered around 1380 by the Venetian, Nicolo Zeno (1326-1402) and that a record of his adventures there, together with a now-famous map (see below), was published in 1558 by a descendant. A decade later the celebrated Flemish cartographer, Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594), published a comparable map, which also showed Frisland at much the same location and with a similar outline. Cornelius Wytfliet produced a map of the North Atlantic in 1597 depicting Frisland at the same location^(c). It did not take long for doubts to be expressed about both the map and its accompanying narrative. Donald S. Johnson in his excellent Phantom Islands of the Atlantic^[0652]concluded that Frisland was probably a case of ‘mistaken identity’, incorporating “the geography of the Faroe Islands and the contour of Iceland.”

The Malagabay website offers a comprehensive illustrated review of the cartographic evidence favouring the relatively recent existence of Frisland^(k).

A January 2018 National Geographic article^(e) also discusses the story of non-existent islands, including Frisland, which are the subject of a new book, The Un-Discovered Islands^[1545], by Malachy Tallack.

Stuart L. Harris has identified Frisland as the Hyperborea of Greek mythology and Atland in the controversial Oera Linda Book ⁽ⁱ⁾and in a second paper^(j), he describes its demise on October 24th, 2194 BC and the catastrophic consequences “when it partially slid down the Judd Anticline toward the Icelandic Basin, 2 km deep. A remnant remained, the Faroe Plateau, topped by the Faroe Islands. The resulting tsunami, about 185m high, terminated other groups of islands, plus the Bell Beaker people in Britain and Ireland, plus most farmers in Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Germany, Poland, Finland and Estonia.”

Riaan Booysen who controversially locates Atlantis on a large landmass of which Australia is a ‘remnant’^(a) has also written about Frisland^(b). He concluded that Frisland along with many other ‘mythical’ North Atlantic islands shown on Mercator’s map can be matched with present-day underwater features in the ‘relatively’ shallow waters suggesting that they were dry land during the last Ice Age when sea levels were considerably lower. He believes that their inclusion on extant maps is the result of copying much earlier charts that recorded those exposed landmasses.

D.S. Allan & J.B. Delair in their acclaimed book Cataclysm ^[0014]discuss the Zeno map at some length and conclude that its depiction of Greenland is based on earlier maps, “which apparently antedate Greenland’s present glacial regime” and “there are, apparently no genuine arguments for regarding the Zeno map – curious though it may seem to modern eyes – as portraying anything but that which actually once existed on Greenland in the not so very remote past.” ^[p.249]

Dr. Gunnar Thompson, the author of Early New World Maps^(m), has offered a staunch defence of the reliability of the Zeno Map, including the following interesting comment “I suspected that maps of Frisland were made in the 13th or 14th century using the magnetic compass – thus, all Frisland Maps were disoriented with respect to true geographical coordinates as seen on modern maps. I further suspected that the error of declination could be resolved by tipping the maps upside down to account for the fact that in the 14th century, the Magnetic North Pole was situated someplace between Labrador and Foxe Basin near Baffin Island. The magnetic error was about 180°.”^(l)

Jason Colavito has also highlighted the controversy surrounding the Zeno Map (see below)^(d).

At the end of September 2018, the UK’s Daily Star, a well-known comic for adults, tried to revive the idea of Atlantis in Frisland^(f). They based their brief article on the speculations of Matt Sibson, presented as an ‘expert’, who admits that “there are still some questions that need clearing up.” I would like to know why Frislanders in the middle of the last Ice Age would want to attack a non-existent Athens 4,000 km away? If Sibson is considered to be an expert historian, my cat is a brain surgeon. Colavito had a few words to add regarding Sibson’s pathetic claims^(g).

Incredibly, a week later the same ‘newspaper’ cited Sibson again, this time claiming that Rockall was the remains of Atlantis^(h), an equally silly idea that is not new.