Did Ptolemy pin the location of Macoraba as being where Mecca is today?

[PeteWaldo]

http://www.historyofmecca.com/historical_claims.htm#macoraba

Was Macoraba Mecca?

A purely speculative and as becomes increasingly obvious false, presumption, that is clung to in great desperation - as if it could take the place of 4500 year's worth of historical and archaeological evidence of a pre-4th century Mecca - is suggestion that Ptolemy's "Macoraba" was Mecca, even through alleged similarity between the two words (perhaps because they both begin with an "m"?). However it is important to note that available evidence suggests the Arabic language did not even exist until into the Christian era, so similarity between words used by a 2nd century writer - let alone similarity with ancient Hebrew words like "Baca" for that matter - is obviously coincidental.

Yet in spite of the fact that nobody can deny that such wishful hopes are not evidentiary, we find an endless procession of those that try to rename Mecca, as if it were synonymous or interchangeable with "Macoraba" and even "Baca". Once again, the antiquated 18th to early 20th century dictionaries and encyclopedias are parroted without end, even by modern day encyclopedias! When it comes to events that took place during the 18th to early 20th centuries, or even a century or two before the period the author was contemporary to, the information they pass along may well be reliable and historical. Indeed that is how historical record is developed. But when it comes to an 18th to early 20th century author passing along fables from unhistorical sources, regarding things that were supposed to have taken place thousands of years before them, they were obviously even more information-challenged than today's parrots that regurgitate the same.

For a 21st century information age presentation of Ptolemy's work, as opposed to parroted Islamic so-called "tradition" and dissimulation from obsolete sources, we urge you to visit this link to a paper titled Suggested Solutions for Issues Concerning The Location of Mecca in Ptolemy’s Geography by Dan Gibson (2013) at academia.edu, for a well reasoned, computer enhanced, locating of Ptolemy's coordinates as adjusted to a modern map (if short on time please scroll to the summary on pages 11 to 14 at that link). To quote a few snippets:

"Over time the names of cities and villages change and ruins crumble and disappear, but river courses, while they may change slightly, are long lasting. Even though water may not flow year round, or perhaps even at all, the existence of the ancient river courses help provide us with several solid coordinates that we can use to bridge between Ptolemy and the globe as we know it today."

"There are a number of city locations on Ptolemy’s map which are well known today. He correctly identifies the Yemeni ports of Muza, Aden (Emporiu Arabia), and Cane. This provides us with four rivers and three coastal cities that we can identify today."

"We then decided to place Ptolemy’s coordinates on a grid without any reference to any maps. Then we would try and match the rivers to see what Ptolemy had done."



"When we attempted to overlay these coordinates on a modern map many problems arose when trying to fit them correctly. (See below)"



     "The solution to this was to manipulate Ptolemy’s coordinates until the rivers lined up. In order to do this we left two places on Ptolemy’s map in the north. Egra (Hegra), known as Mada’in Saleh today, and Gea Town which aligned with ancient Tayma. We then grouped the Beitius River and the other locations near to it and move them all southward until the Betius River was over Wadi Mawr. (The other grouped locations also moved southward). When we did this, many of the interior locations suddenly became apparent. In short, we matched Ptolemy’s Rivers to the location of the rivers today to obtain a correct map of Arabia. In doing so it became apparent that Ptolemy was not aware of the vastness of the deserts in Arabia’s interior, and that he plotted the locations in Yemen too far north.
     Once we had shrunk Ptolemy’s map southward (with a small twist on the bottom to correct Ptolemy’s angle) many of the locations on Ptolemy’s map suddenly fit. Ptolomey’s Centros Village became modern day Jazan, Tebe Town became AlLuhayyah and Macorba becames Al-Mahabishah. Mara was then positioned as Ma’rib and Saudatha became modern day Sana’a. Sapphar then fit over Zafar, and Mochura in the north became Yenbu. On the Indian Ocean coast Petros became modern day Salalah and Mosoha is what we know today as ancient Sumhuram."



If these excerpts interested you, please click on this link for additional information on the historical context, methodology and formulas used, aerial photos of the riverbeds and much more.

[PeteWaldo]

From Mr. Gibson's study we confirm that Macoraba was not only an interior settlement of Arabia by any measure (as posited by so many others), but as per Dr. Rafat Amari it was a relatively new settlement at the time that Ptolemy wrote about it, so even if Macoraba had been where Mecca was initially established (in the 4th century AD by the earliest estimates), it would only further confirm that Mecca was relatively new to the scene.

From Dr. Rafat Amari:

"Studies by Classical Writers Show That Mecca Could Not Have Been Built Before the 4th Century A.D.

   From a practical standpoint, Ptolemy’s criteria proves valuable when looking for other cities in the Middle East mentioned by him, or even by those in his own country, Egypt. Based on these facts, his work helps us resolve the location problem for some cities, such as Macoraba, which appeared in his generation.

   In book six, chapter seven, of his work titled Geography, Ptolemy documents the latitude and longitude coordinates of several landmarks in Arabia.[lxxxix]  By studying these locations and coordinates, we notice once again that the city of Mecca is never mentioned. In fact, Ptolemy doesn't mention any cities in the strip of land where Mecca was eventually built.

Macoraba was a city in the Arabian interior which was mentioned by Ptolemy. Some people wanted to assume that Macoraba was actually Mecca. Macoraba had appeared recently, with respect to Ptolemy’s time. This assumption would result in the conclusion that Mecca was built around the middle of the 2nd century A.D. However, even if this were true, it wouldn't support the claim that Mecca was an old city existing from the time of Abraham. Upon further study of the facts concerning Macoraba, we can conclude with certainty that Macoraba cannot be Mecca, and we can refute the idea that Mecca was built in the 2nd century A.D. All the facts point to the historical argument that Mecca was constructed in the 4th century A.D. Since Macoraba is not pronounced like Mecca, the scholar Crone suggested that the location of Maqarib, near Yathrib, was actually Macoraba. Maqarib is mentioned by Yaqut al-Hamawi, an Arab geographer who lived from 1179-1229 A.D., in his geographical dictionary Mujam al-Buldan.[xc] This location is more acceptable than Mecca for the modern-day location of Macoraba, because Maqarib is closer in pronunciation to Macoraba than to Mecca. Another reason is that Maqarib, though it does not exactly fit the documented location of Macoraba, is closer to the location, according to the latitude and longitude of Ptolemy, than Mecca is to the documented location of Macoraba."

[PeteWaldo]

One thing that is absolutely not arguable, is that obsolete sources and wishful false presumption, will never be able to stand in for a completely absent 4500 year pre-4th century historical and archaeological record of Mecca. As even Saudi Arabia's museums confirm by an absence of the same.

Like the evidence in the Islamic Museum in Mecca.
https://ne3matullah.wordpress.com/2010/07/03/islamic-museum-in-makkah/

Or the National Museum of Saudi Arabia's page on the pre-Islamic era. We find discussion of older habitation in northern Arabia, in the Yemen area, and Riyadh - but still no Mecca:
http://nationalmuseum.org.sa/preislamicera.aspx