Cattigara is the name of a major port city located on the Magnus Sinus described by various ancient sources. Some modern scholars have linked Cattigara to the archaeological site of Óc Eo in present-day Vietnam.Barry W. Cunliffe, Driven by the Monsoons: through the Indian Ocean and the seas of China, London, Oxford University Press, 2025, p.152; "Oc-Eo dans le delta du Mékong serait donc une identification plus probable": Germaine Aujac, Claude Ptolémée, Astronome, Astrologue, Géographe: Connaissance et Représentation du Monde habité, Paris, Editions du CTHS, 1993, p.125, n.10. See also Adhir Chakravarti, "The Economic Foundations of Three Ancient Civilizations of South-east Asia: Borobudur, Dvararavati and Angkor: Preliminary Report of a Study Tour in some countries of South-east Asia in April–May 1985", in Haraprasad Ray (ed.), Studies on India, China, and South East Asia: Posthumous Papers of Prof. Adhir Chakravarti, Kolkata, R.N. Bhattacharya, 2007, p.89; and Adhir Chakravarti, "International Trade and Towns of Ancient Siam", Our Heritage: Bulletin of the Department of Post-graduate Training and Research, Sanskrit College, Calcutta, vol. XXIX, part I, January–June 1981, pp1-23, nb p.9. An alternative proposed by J. L. Moens was that the name derived from the Sanskrit, Koti-nagara "Cape City", referring to its location near Cape Ca Mau, the southern point of Indochina: J. L. Moens, "De Noord-Sumatraanse Rijken der Parfums en specerijen in Voor-Moslimse Tijd," Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, LXXXV, 3, 1955, pp.325-336, p.335; also J. L. Moens, "Kotinagara het antieke handescentrum op Yava's. Eindpunt," Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, LXXXV, 3, 1955, pp. 437-48, p.448; and also W.J. van der Meulen, "Ptolemy's Geography of Mainland Southeast Asia and Borneo," Indonesia, no.19, April 1975, pp.1-32, p.17. Kasper Hanus and Emilia Smagur, “Kattigara of Claudius Ptolemy and Óc Eo: the issue of trade between the Roman Empire and Funan in the Graeco-Roman written sources”, Helen Lewis (ed.), EurASEAA14, Vol.1, Ancient and Living Traditions, Papers from the Fourteenth International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists, Summertown (Oxford), Archaeopress, 2020, pp.140-145, p.144.
Ptolemy's and Marcian's description
Cattigara or Kattigara (τὰ Καττίγαρα) was the name given by the 2nd-century Alexandrian geographer Claudius Ptolemy as a port of the Sinae on the easternmost shore of the Indian Sea at (due to a scribal error) 8½° south of the Equator.Paul Schnabel, „Die Entstehungsgeschichte des kartographischen Erdbildes des Klaudios Ptolemaios", Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften: Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd.XIV, 1930, S.214-250, nb 239-243. Erich Polaschek, ‘Ptolemy's "Geography" in a New Light’, Imago Mundi, Vol. 14, (1959), pp. 17-37, nb pp.25 & 35. It is placed among the easternmost limits of the inhabited world, together with Sera and the regions of the Sinae.Ptolemaeus, Geography, 1.11.1-1.17.5 and 7.3.3-7.3.6
The ancient Greek geographer Marcian of Heraclea also refers to Cattigara, describing it as the principal port of the Sinae and the furthest point of the known inhabited world in the southern regions.Marcianus, Periplus of the Outer Sea, 1.15.46
The name "Cattigara" was probably derived from the Sanskrit Kirti-nagara कीर्ति- नगर "Renowned City" or Kotti-nagara कोटि-नगर "Strong City".Adhir K. Chakravarti, "Early Sino-Indian Maritime Trade and Fu-Nan", D.C. Sircar (ed.), Early Indian Trade and Industry, Calcutta, University of Calcutta Centre of Advanced Study in Ancient Indian History and Culture, Lectures and Seminars, no. VIII-A, part I, 1972, pp. 101-117; also in The South East Asian Review (Gaya, India), vol. 20, nos.1 & 2, 1995, pp.5-14, p.10; and in India and South-East Asia Socio-econo-cultural Contacts, edited by N.N. Bhattacharyya, Kolkata, Punthi Pustak, 1998, p.413.
On some medieval maps, for example on the Martellus map of 1489 or the Waldseemüller map from 1507, published in the Ptolemy's Geography, Cattigara was located 8 and a half degrees below the equator and 178 degrees west of the Canary Islands.
Columbus's search for Ciamba Guided by Ptolemy, the discoverers of the New World were initially trying to find their way to Cattigara. On the 1489 map of the world made by Henricus Martellus Germanus, revising Ptolemy's work, Asia terminated in its southeastern point in a cape, the Cape of Cattigara. Writing of his 1499 voyage, Amerigo Vespucci said he had hoped to reach Malacca (Melaka) by sailing westward from Spain across the Western Ocean (the Atlantic) around the Cape of Cattigara into the Sinus Magnus ("Great Gulf") that lay to the east of the Golden Chersonese (Malay Peninsula), of which the Cape of Cattigara formed the southeastern point. The Sinus Magnus was the actual Gulf of Thailand.Albert Herrmann, "Der Magnus Sinus und Cattigara nach Ptolemaeus", Comptes Rendus du 15me Congrès International de Géographie, Amsterdam, 1938, Leiden, Brill, 1938, tome II, sect. IV, Géographie Historique et Histoire de la Géographie, pp. 123-8
Christopher Columbus, on his fourth and last voyage of 1502–1503, planned to follow the coast of Ciamba southward around the Cape of Cattigara and sail through the strait separating Cattigara from the New World, into the Sinus Magnus to Malacca. This was the route he thought Marco Polo had gone from China to India in 1292.George E. Nunn, ‘The Three Maplets attributed to Bartholomew Columbus’, Imago Mundi, vol.9, 1952, 12-22, p.15; Helen Wallis, ‘What Columbus Knew’, History Today, vol.42, May 1992, pp.17-23; Edmundo O'Gorman, The Invention of America: An Inquiry into the Historical Nature of the New World and the Meaning of its History, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1961, pp.106-122. Columbus planned to meet up with the expedition sent at the same time from Portugal around the Cape of Good Hope under Vasco da Gama, and carried letters of credence from the Spanish monarchs to present to da Gama.The letter, dated 14 March 1502, is published in Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos, 2nd. edn., Madrid, Imprenta Nacional, 1858, p.430; the covering letter to Columbus is published in A. Millares Carlo (ed.), Historia de las Indias por Fray Bartólome de las Casas, México, Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1951, Lib.2, cap.iv, pp.219-20. On reaching Cariay on the coast of Costa Rica, Columbus thought he was close to the gold mines of Ciamba. On 7 July 1503, he wrote from Jamaica: "I reached the land of Cariay...Here I received news of the gold mines of Ciamba which I was seeking".Letter dated 7 July 1503; quoted in J.M. Cohen (ed.), The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1969, p.287.
It was eventually realized that Columbus had not reached Ciamba or any part of the Cape of Cattigara. The search for Cattigara continued during the early years of the sixteenth century. Johannes Schöner concluded after the circumnavigation of the world by the expedition led by Ferdinand Magellan that the Pacific Ocean was the Sinus Magnus and located Cattigara on the west coast of South America. In this he was followed by Oronce Fine and the makers of the Dieppe Maps but eventually geographers and cartographers had to admit that Cattigara could not be found. The mathematician and cosmographer Gemma Frisius said in 1531: "in the place where Ptolemy described Cattigara as projecting far beyond the Equator, and others by quite dubious reasoning as adjoining the kingdoms of Var, Moabar and other places now, following repeated voyages on both this side and the other of the Equator, no continental land was found but an almost infinite number of islands".nunc cum eo loco quo Ptolemaeus Cattigaram longe vltra Aequatorem prominentem descripsit, et deinde alii adnectentes regnum Var, Moabar et alia incerta fere ratione, nulla post frequentes ultra citraque aequatorem navigationes terra continens inventa fuerit, sed insularum infinitus paene numerus: Reinerus Gemma Frisius, De Principiis Astronomiae et Cosmographiae, Louvain, 1530, caput xxx.
Later studies John Caverhill deduced in 1767 that Cattigara was the Mekong Delta port Banteaymeas (between modern-day Banteay Meas District and Hà Tiên),Nicholas Sellers, The Princes of Hà-Tiên (1682-1867): the Last of the Philosopher-Princes and the Prelude to the French Conquest of Indochina: a Study of the Independent Rule of the Mac Dynasty in the Principality of Hà-Tiên, and the Establishment of the Empire of Vietnam, Brussels, Thanh-long, 1983, p.164. not far from Óc Eo.John Caverhill, "Some Attempts to ascertain the utmost Extent of the Knowledge of the Ancients in the East Indies", Philosophical Transactions, vol.57, 1767, pp. 155-174. The plea in 1979 by Jeremy H.C.S. Davidson for "a thorough study of Hà-tiên in its historical context and in relation to Óc-eo" as indispensable for an accurate understanding and interpretation of the site, still remains unanswered.Jeremy H.C.S. Davidson, "Archaeology in Southern Viet-Nam since 1954", in R. B. Smith and W. Watson (eds.), Early South East Asia: Essays in Archaeology, History, and Historical Geography, New York, Oxford University Press, 1979, pp.215-222, see p.216.
The 18th-century French geographer, Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, located Cattigara at the mouth of the Mekong (Cottiaris) River, where it is shown on his map, Orbis Veteribus Notus (The World Known to the Ancients).Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d' Anville, Eclaircissements géographiques sur la carte de l'Inde, Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1753, pp.160-161; Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d' Anville, A Geographical Illustration of the Map of India, Translated by William Herbert, London, 1759, p.78; Atlas de d'Anville, 1786. Orbis Veteribus Notus
20th century scholarship has determined that Ptolemy's Cattigara was at 8½° north of the Equator and was the forerunner of Saigon as the main port and entrepot at the mouth of the Mekong.Albert Herrmann, "Der Magnus Sinus und Cattigara nach Ptolemaeus", Comptes Rendus du 15me Congrès International de Géographie, Amsterdam, 1938, Leiden, Brill, 1938, tome II, sect. IV, Géographie Historique et Histoire de la Géographie, pp.123-8; Louis Malleret, L’Archéologie du delta du Mékong, Tome Troisiéme, La culture du Fu-nan, Paris, 1962, chap.XXV, "Oc-Èo et Kattigara", pp.421-54.
The Swedish yachtsman and writer Björn Landström also concluded, from the sailing directions given by the ancient merchant and seafarer Alexander, that Cattigara lay at the mouth of the Mekong.Bjorn Landström, The quest for India : a History of Discovery and Exploration from the Expedition to the Land of Punt in 1493 B.C. to the Discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 A.D., in words and pictures, London, Allen & Unwin, 1964, p.56.