Homer also mentioned the pigmies as living in Africa.

These were regarded as fabulous, till they were re-discovered by Dr.Schweinfurth and Mr.Stanley in our own time.
It is probably from the Babylonians that the Greeks obtained the idea of an all-encircling ocean.

Inhabitants of Mesopotamia would find themselves reaching the ocean in almost any direction in which they travelled, either the Caspian, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, or the Persian Gulf.

Accordingly, the oldest map of the world which has been found is one accompanying a cuneiform inscription, and representing the plain of Mesopotamia with the Euphrates flowing through it, and the whole surrounded by two concentric circles, which are named briny waters.

Outside these, however, are seven detached islets, possibly representing the seven zones or climates into which the world was divided according to the ideas of the Babylonians, though afterwards they resorted to the ordinary four cardinal points.