Chryse and Argyre are reminiscent of some aspects of Buddhist cosmology where the waters that pour forth from Sumeru flow into four canals separated by four mountains, of which one is gold, another silver, and theother two, precious stones and crystal.100 The image of four canals separating four landmasses, can also be compared with a view of the Arctic region found in a medieval European text and used in later world maps by the Renaissance cartographers Ruysch (1507, fig. 56), Fine (1 531, fig.48) and Mercator (1569).
The search for gold also promoted intra-Asian maritime trade in the Indian Ocean during the first century A.D. As a result of the disruption by internal disorders of the traditional routes through the steppes of Central Asia to Siberian gold reserves, new sources for the metal, a medium of exchange between various Asian peoples, were sought. Rome decreased the gold content of its coins and introduced measures to halt their exportation. At the same time, new ocean-going vessels and navigational techniques made it more feasible for Indian merchants to pursue the 'Islands of Gold' to their east.
The association of Southeast Asia with gold was so strong that Josephus, in his Antiquities of the jews (second half of the first century), wrote that Ophir, the land from which King Solomon had fetched gold, is now known as Aurea Chersonesus (Golden Peninsula, i.e. Malaya). Josephus thus began the recurring idea that the Ophir of the Bible was in Southeast Asia, a belief that can be found in earnest through the latter nineteenth century. Various places were believed to have been the site of Ophir, from Malaya to Indochina, Sumatra, and the Pacific Ocean.
Marinus and Ptolemy
At about the same time as Josephus, a 'Golden Peninsula' in Southeast Asia was described by a geographer from Tyre by the name of Marin us. Tyre lies on the eastern Mediterranean coast, in what is now Lebanon. Today it is a peninsula, but in ancient times it was an island blessed with two bustling ports. Tyre had been the capital of Phoenicia from the eleventh to sixth centuries B.C., but was captured by Alexander in the fourth century B.C. It subsequently came under the control of Rome, remaining in Roman hands until the seventh century A.D. Tyre was ideally situated for gathering information about the East from traders and seafarers, and Marinus used his city's advantageous location to expand the world map from their reports.
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