The earliest account of Cornish tin mining was written by Pytheas of Massilia late in the 4th century BC after his circumnavigation of the British Isles.

The first historical mention of the region is from the Massaliote Periplus, a sailing manual for merchants thought to date to the 6th century BCE, and Pytheas of Massilia wrote of his exploratory voyage to the island around 325 BC.

Pytheas of Massalia, or Latin Massilia ( Ancient Greek Πυθέας ὁ Μασσαλιώτης, 4th century BC ), was a Greek geographer and explorer from the Greek colony, Massalia ( modern day Marseilles ).

* Pytheas, Greek merchant, geographer and explorer from the Greek colony Massilia ( today Marseille ) ( b. c. 380 BC )

During his exploration of northwest Europe ( c. 320 BC ), Pytheas of Massilia called the island Iérnē ( written ).

Now Pytheas of Massilia tells us that Thule, the most northerly of the Britannic Islands, is farthest north, and that there the circle of the summer tropic is the same as the Arctic Circle.

Archaeologists believe that Saint-Nazaire is built upon the remnants of Corbilo, an Armorican Gaulish city populated by the Namnetes tribe, which ( according to the Greek navigator Pytheas ) was the second-largest Gaulish city, after Massilia ( now Marseilles ).

The location of " Thule ", first mentioned by Pytheas of Massilia when he visited Britain sometime between 322 and 285 BC is not known for certain.

Pytheas of Massilia described a similar expedition in more detail a few centuries later, around 325 BC.

Pliny refers to the voyager Pytheas, who visited Northern Europe in the 4th century BC.

The Carthaginian sailor Himilco is said to have visited the island in the 5th century BC and the Greek explorer Pytheas in the 4th.

During the last half of the 4th century BC, the time of Pytheas ' voyage, Massaliotes were presumably free to operate as they pleased ; there is, at least, no evidence of conflict with Carthage in any of the sources that touch on the voyage.

It has been suggested that the land called Thule by the Greek merchant Pytheas ( 4th century BC ) was actually Iceland, although it seems highly unlikely considering Pytheas ' description of it as an agricultural country with plenty of milk, honey, and fruit ( possibly the Faroe or Shetland islands ).

The first writer to use a form of the name was the Greek explorer and geographer Pytheas in the 4th century BC.

The inhabitants or people of Thule are described in most detail by Strabo in his Geographica, having preserved fragments of the account of Pytheas who was an alleged eye-witness in the 4th century BC:

O ' Rahilly ( 1946 ) has concluded from this that his description is probably based on data collected in the 4th century BC by the early explorer Pytheas.

In the 4th century BC the Greek explorer Pytheas traveled through northwest Europe, and circled the British Isles.

According to Pytheas in the 4th century BC as reported by Strabo in the 1st century AD they occupied the area that was Tartessos which was the Baetis River valley ( Guadalquivir River Andalusia Spain ).

Nearly a half century later, in 77, Pliny the Elder published his Natural History in which he also cites Pytheas ' claim ( in Book II, Chapter 75 ) that Thule is a six-day sail north of Britain.

Both men had access to the now lost texts of the ancient Greek geographer Pytheas, who visited the island in the fourth century BC.

The ancient Greeks had good measurements of the obliquity since about 350 BCE, when Pytheas of Marseilles measured the shadow of a gnomon at the summer solstice.

30 BCE ), supposedly quoting or paraphrasing the 4th-century BCE geographer Pytheas, who had sailed to Britain:

* 325 BCE Pytheas, a Greek astronomer and geographer, sailed north out of the Mediterranean, reaching England and possibly even Iceland and Norway.

Another early reference to Amber was Pytheas ( 330 BC ) whose work " On the Ocean " is lost, but was referenced by Pliny.

It is possible that Pliny refers to an island named Basilia (" kingdom " or " royal ") in On the Ocean by Pytheas.

Most of the ancients, including the first two just mentioned, refer to his work by his name: " Pytheas says ..." Two late writers give titles: the astronomical author Geminus of Rhodes mentions ( ta peri tou Okeanou ), literally " things about the Ocean ", sometimes translated as " Description of the Ocean ", " On the Ocean " or " Ocean ;" Marcianus, the scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes, mentions a ( periodos gēs ), a " trip around the earth " or ( periplous ), " sail around.

On the surface it would appear that Pytheas was the first to use the name, Britannia.

* Pytheas of Massalia's τὰ περὶ τοῦ Ὠκεανοῦ ( ta peri tou Okeanou ) " On the Ocean ".

The Greek explorer Pytheas is the first to have written of Thule, doing so in his now lost work, On the Ocean, after his travels between 330 BC and 320 BC.

Pytheas says that the Gutones, a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an estuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance of six thousand stadia ; that, at one day's sail from this territory, is the Isle of Abalus, upon the shores of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring, it being an excretion of the sea in a concrete form ; as, also, that the inhabitants use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their neighbors, the Teutones.

Pytheas says that the Gutones, a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an estuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance of six thousand stadia ; that, at one day's sail from this territory, is the Isle of Abalus, upon the shores of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring, it being an excretion of the sea in a concrete form ; as, also, that the inhabitants use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their neighbours, the Teutones.

A statement of Eratosthenes attributed by Strabo to Pytheas, that the north of the Iberian Peninsula was an easier passage to Celtica than across the Ocean, is somewhat ambiguous: apparently he knew or knew of both routes, but he does not say which he took.

Apparently, Pytheas said that tides ended at the " sacred promontory " ( Ieron akrōtērion, or Sagres Point ), and from there to Gades is said to be 5 days ' sail.

Hipparchus, relying on the authority of Pytheas ( says Strabo ), states that the ratio is the same as for Byzantium and that the two therefore are on the same parallel.

Pytheas, however, places it further south, around the mouth of the Loire ( see above ), from which it might justifiably be several days ' sail.

* The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek: The Man Who Discovered Britain ( 2001 ), Walker & Co ; ISBN 0-8027-1393-9 ( 2002 Penguin ed.

Polybius in his Histories ( c. 140 BC ), Book XXXIV, cites Pytheas as one " who has led many people into error by saying that he traversed the whole of Britain on foot, giving the island a circumference of forty thousand stades, and telling us also about Thule, those regions in which there was no longer any proper land nor sea nor air, but a sort of mixture of all three of the consistency of a jellyfish in which one can neither walk nor sail, holding everything together, so to speak.

Strabo in his Geography ( c. 30 ), Book I, Chapter 4, mentions Thule in describing Eratosthenes ' calculation of " the breadth of the inhabited world " and notes that Pytheas says it " is a six days ' sail north of Britain, and is near the frozen sea.

" In his history of the SA ( Mit ruhig festem Schritt, 1998 ), Wilfred von Oven, Joseph Goebbels ' press adjutant from 1943 to 1945, confirmed that Pytheas ' Thule was the historical Thule for the Thule Gesellschaft.

Today the HNHS operates three naval hydrographic vessels: HS OS Nautilos ( A-478 ), HS OS Pytheas ( A-474 ) and HS Stravon ( A-476 ).

Le Vayer's comment was expanded upon by Pierre Estève in his Histoire generale et particuliere de l ' astronomie (" General and Particular History of Astronomy ," 1755 ), where he interprets Le Vayer's statement ( without attribution ) as a claim that Pytheas " had arrived at a corner of the sky, and was obliged to stoop down in order not to touch it.