Empire Border Question

[Thor Macklin]

Whilst looking through maps of ancient empires, I stumbled upon
a map of the Achaemenid Empire that shows it owning the land of
Nubia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Iran-achaemenids_(darius_the_great).jpg
But I have found little to no record in my multiple historical accounts
of the Achaemenid empire ever owning nubia, that is unless I go
to Cyrus the great's son, who's historical accounts mention his
conquest of nubia, though I have yet to see it reflected in any
major maps of the empire. Perhaps the artist of the map has included
vassals of the empire? Or maybe land loosely controlled by the persians?

I found something similar for the ottomans:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OttomanEmpireIn1683.png
Except I have found ZERO record to support the idea that
the ottomans ever owned land near the horn of africa.

I appreciate any help here.

 

[Dachs]

This is a symptom of something called "nationalism", and it is rampant on Wikipedia. People will make maps based on the most generous approximation of the extent of these states' borders in history, even far exceeding them, for the purposes of penis size.

 

[Thor Macklin]

Whether your being sarcastic or not matters little to me.
I still find it hard to believe that even nationalists would
deny the basic historical borders of their country.

 

[Dachs]

I'm totally not being sarcastic. This is what people do.

 

[Thor Macklin]

I'm aware of that, now my other question is, is the map accurate?
And if said lands were not part of either empires then what possible
reason would a nationalist include it?

 

[Dachs]

To make the country look great, obviously. For instance, the Achaemenid control of "Scythia" is quite dubious; nobody's entirely sure where Darius went, whether he politically controlled any territory, and how long he stayed. Yet in that map, not only is much of the land south of the Danube portrayed as under Achaemenid control, but a vague swath of land to the north of it as well. The first bit is semi-dubious, but commonly used for maps; the second, not so much. I don't know anything specific about the Nubian case, but it seems likely to me that that sort of thing obtains over there, too.

 

[Thor Macklin]

Well I thank you for your help on this question.

 

[Cynovolans]

The autobiography of Wedjahor-resne(Egyptian admiral and advisor to Cambyses) doesn't mention the Persian king attempting to conquer Nubia. I think there are Greek accounts saying he sent an army and failed, but I'm not sure if they are reliable.

 

[Tee Kay]

Whether your being sarcastic or not matters little to me.
I still find it hard to believe that even nationalists would
deny the basic historical borders of their country.

At least the Persian and Ottoman maps, misleading as they are, are rather well-made. Some people don't even try. Case in point:

 

[Masada]

Man, I love that map. The Srivijayan counter-map that pops up every now and then on Wiki is also hilariously awesome. The Majapahit one also includes territories not even mentioned in the freaking Nagarakertagama. Amusingly, Wikipedia even repeats this:

Majapahit was a vast archipelagic empire based on the island of Java from 1293 to around 1500. Majapahit reached its peak of glory during the era of Hayam Wuruk, whose reign from 1350 to 1389 marked by conquest which extended through Southeast Asia, including the present day Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, southern Thailand, the Philippines, and East Timor.

 

[bombshoo]

I found something similar for the ottomans:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OttomanEmpireIn1683.png
Except I have found ZERO record to support the idea that
the ottomans ever owned land near the horn of africa.

I appreciate any help here.

From some brief reading, Zeila and the area on the horn was a vassal of San'a, which was itself a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. So yes, the Ottomans sort of had sovereignty over the area on paper, but in practice not really at all.

 

[Karalysia]

The Ottomans were known to have trading ports and such in East Africa. There is a Portuguese account of a battle fought between Ottoman and Portuguese forces near in Mombasa or some such place. Lead by some fellow called Ali Bey, anyway they were fighting and the Ottomans were suddenly overrun by a massive ravenous cannibalistic horde of Africans called the Zimba and only Ali Bey survived and fled to the Portuguese while all of his men were devoured by the Zimba. He then converted to Christianity and became a monk or some such thing.

I kid you not. It's a real account. Look it up. I came across it while writing a paper about Ottoman naval adventures in the Indian Ocean region.

 

[bombshoo]

The Ottomans were known to have trading ports and such in East Africa. There is a Portuguese account of a battle fought between Ottoman and Portuguese forces near in Mombasa or some such place. Lead by some fellow called Ali Bey, anyway they were fighting and the Ottomans were suddenly overrun by a massive ravenous cannibalistic horde of Africans called the Zimba and only Ali Bey survived and fled to the Portuguese while all of his men were devoured by the Zimba. He then converted to Christianity and became a monk or some such thing.

I kid you not. It's a real account. Look it up. I came across it while writing a paper about Ottoman naval adventures in the Indian Ocean region.

Yep. Found it. http://www.ajabuafrica.com/History -May08-Ali Bey in Mombasa.html

 

[Karalysia]

Well I used the JSTOR online database, but yeah thats the one. There's really no evidence of such a tribe,so it's possible the whole affair was concocted by the Portuguese, because it's not really corroborated by Ottoman sources but the weird thing about it is that why would the Portuguese give credit to some random African tribe for defeating the Ottomans? That's not how the Portuguese operated, they always took credit for that sort of thing.

Overall a very weird affair.