Historic Map : Henry Salt Map of Annesley Bay (Gulf of Zula, Bay of Arafali), Eritrea, 1810, Vintage Wall Art

A scarce and important 1810 Henry Salt nautical chart or maritime map of Annesley Bay (Gulf of Zula, Bay of Arafali), Eritrea, Africa. The bay is located about 30 miles south of the modern day Eritrean city of Massawa. The map covers the bay in some detail as well as the surrounding shores, villages, and topography. Salt visited Annesley Bay while on a diplomatic mission to Ethiopia to pursue his personal quest for the lost city of Adulis, something of an obsession he shared with his patron Arthur Annesley, the Viscount Valentia, for whom he renamed the bay. Adulis was the primary port for the Ain xumite Kingdom (c. 100–940 AD), a once powerful empire centered around the modern day Ethiopian city of Ain xum. Annesley and Salt would have been aware of Adulis from their classical studies as it features prominently in many ancient Red Sea periploi. The exact location of the city was lost in the Middle Ages. Salt was exceptionally astute in recognizing that the term 'Azoole,' used by Red Sea islanders to refer to the Annesley Bay region, was most likely a derivation of 'Adulis.' Today Salt is credited with discovering Adulis; nevertheless, although he correctly identified the general region where it must have been situated, the lost city itself consistently eluded him. In the end, Salt abandoned his search believing that the ancient city must lie inaccessible beneath the bay. It was not until some thirty years later that a French mission under Vignaud and Petit actually discovered the ruined city on the western shore of the bay, a curiously blank region Salt has here labeled 'Cote basse et Plate.' This map was drawn by Henry Salt and Captain Thomas Weatherhead. The present example was prepared to illustrate the 1816 French edition of Salt's Voyage to Abyssinia.