an example of the contemporary sentiments about the ten tribes. While these
sentiments represent the non-Catholic side, they arguably also reflect Catholic
sentiments concerning the ten tribes as well.
The circumstances of the next appearance of Arzareth on a map reveal the
idea of restitution forcefully.
Theater of the World
While Mu ̈nster’sCosmographia Universaliscertainly represents “classical error
[and] medieval prejudice,” it still “was creating the basis for a more accurate
universal geography.”^61 In the case of Arzareth, Mu ̈nster’s contribution was
putting this place on a map and designating northeast Asia as its location. He
turned an old myth into a new fact. Until Mu ̈nster’s map, Arzareth was just a
place name appearing in texts such as 2 Esdras and medieval travelogues. Now,
it became a fact on a map, a further step in the inclusion of the ten tribes in
early modern world cosmo-geographies.
The modern geographical facticity of Arzareth became more evident
still in an atlas of the world published two decades later by the great
Flemish geographer and cartographer Abraham Ortelius ( 1527 – 1598 ). His
map of Asia indicated the location of Arzareth in the same place as on
Mu ̈nster’s map. Ortelius’s map of Tartaria, or the kingdom of the Great
Khan, was later included in his famousTheatrum Orbis Terrarum(Theater
of the World), “the first true modern Atlas.”^62 Thereafter, Arzareth ap-
peared on all of Ortelius’s maps of Asia and Tartary. One of the most
authoritative atlases, and certainly the most popular, theTheatrumwas an
ambitious and comprehensive collection committed to the idea of “global
territoriality.”^63
After its inclusion in theTheatrum,Arzareth became known to a wide
readership of world geography. TheTheatrumwas widely popular in Europe,
quickly translated into six languages. As on Mu ̈nster’s map, Arzareth appears
in what would be the Arctic Circle, to the east and therefore farther north of
“Tartaria” (see figure 5. 2 for details). It marks the northeasternmost point of
Asia, north of China and Japan, very close to today’s Alaska. In short, it is very
close to the North Pole. The viewer can learn from the map that Arzareth is the
peninsula that sticks into the Scythian Ocean, or Oceanus Scythicus, which
“according to Pliny” “has sweet water.” So far, Ortelius had followed Mu ̈nster’s
formulation in terms of the nordification of the ten tribes. But he added more.
Mu ̈nster’s location of Arzareth in North Asia returns us to the question of
the relationship between the ten tribes and the Tartars, the region’s traditional