The "Eritrean Sea Journey" contains a wealth of data on the geography and political and economic history of a number of regions stretching from Egypt to modern Tanzania, and from northwest Arabia to the Far East. Much of the information still seems rather poorly understood.
The "Periplus of the Eritrean Sea", like part of the corpus of the "Little Greek Geographers", is preserved in two manuscripts: one in the library of the University of Heidelberg; the other in the British Museum. There has long been an opinion that the London text (codex B) is a bad copy of codex A. However, the critical editions used in current scholarship do not represent the original text, and the prevailing idea of the origin of the manuscripts leads scholars in the wrong direction.
Palaeographic distortions and spelling errors are an important source of information on the origin of the "Peripatetic" manuscript tradition. Almost all the distortions can be explained by the hypothesis that the present manuscripts originate from an uncial protographer. We can also assume that, in the case of Codex A, there was another lower-case step between the protograph and the present manuscript.
When working with the "Périple de la mer Érythrée", always check the readings of the critical editions with the manuscripts. The number of corrections in the text is so great that working with the text is no longer possible with a critical edition without consulting the manuscripts.
Périple de la mer Érythrée" was most probably a commentary on a map. It is possible that this commentary was recorded in the margins of this map.
