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This scarce nautical chart published by Pierre Mortier features eleven inset plans of principal ports, harbors, and coastal settlements along the shores of the Red Sea, the Sinai Peninsula, and adjacent regions of Egypt, Arabia, and the Horn of Africa.
The chart is one of the earliest European printed maps to concentrate exclusively on the Red Sea and its littoral zones—a region of immense strategic and commercial importance during the early modern period.
Compiled primarily from Portuguese sources, the chart preserves toponyms and coastal forms identified during the height of Portuguese maritime exploration in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Many of the labeled locations reflect the cartographic knowledge gathered under the orders of the Kings of Portugal, including long-forgotten or now-unidentifiable ports, while others can be securely matched with modern sites. Notable among these are the Porto Quilifit (Quseir) and Porto Xerme Elcossema (Kosseir) along Egypt’s Red Sea coast; Port et Ville de Suaquem (Suakin) in modern Sudan; Ville de Malus Arquico (Massawa and Arqiqo) in Eritrea; and Isle de Vera Cruz in the Strait of Bab el-Mandab, now known as Perim Island. These anchorages were essential to transoceanic commerce, especially in the movement of spices, textiles, and pilgrims between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean world.
The composition includes a large vertical profile of the northwestern Red Sea coast, stretching from Egypt’s Ras Muhammad past Mount Sinai to the Arabian port of Toro, with mosques, fortifications, and topographic features rendered pictorially. Each of the eleven inset harbor charts employs rhumb lines and depth soundings, suggesting navigational utility as well as aesthetic refinement. These maps, focused on bathymetry and coastal access, reflect early 18th-century Dutch and French hydrographic styles.
This sheet was part of Mortier’s expanded Neptune François, specifically the third volume known as the Suite de Neptune, which appeared around 1700–1720. Unlike the initial volumes that emphasized French coasts and waters, Volume III broadened its geographic scope to include far-flung colonial and commercial regions, such as the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean. These editions relied on Dutch sources and featured contributions by Romeyn de Hooghe, whose pictorial embellishments are evident here. The atlas as a whole was created under royal patronage and was intended to serve both military and merchant navies, especially in territories of interest to the crowns of France and Britain.
Pierre, or Pieter, Mortier (1661-1711) was a Dutch engraver, son of a French refugee. He was born in Leiden. In 1690 he was granted a privilege to publish French maps in Dutch lands. In 1693 he released the first and accompanying volume of the Neptune Francois. The third followed in 1700. His son, Cornelis (1699-1783), would partner with Johannes Covens I, creating one of the most important map publishing companies of the eighteenth century.
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