Ictis, or Iktin, is or was an island described as a tin trading centre in the '' Bibliotheca historica'' of the Sicilian-Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, writing in the first century BC. While Ictis is widely accepted to have been an island somewhere off the southern coast of what is now England, scholars continue to debate its precise location. Candidates include St Michael's Mount and

Looe Island Looe Island ( kw, Enys Lann-Managh, meaning ''Island of the Monk's Enclosure''), also known as St George's Island, and historically St Michael's Island is a small island nature reserve a mile from the mainland town of Looe off Cornwall, England ...

off the coast of

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

, the

Mount Batten Mount Batten is a 24-metre (80-ft) tall outcrop of rock on a 600-metre (2000-ft) peninsula in Plymouth Sound, Devon, England, named after Sir William Batten (c.1600-1667), MP and Surveyor of the Navy; it was previously known as How Stert. A ...

peninsula in

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

, and the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...

further to the east.

Primary sources

Diodorus Siculus, who flourished between about 60 and about 30 BC, is supposed to have relied for his account of the geography of

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

on a lost work of Pytheas, a Greek geographer from Massalia who made a voyage around the coast of Britain near the end of the fourth century BC, searching for the source of

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In ...

. The record of the voyage of Pytheas was lost in antiquity but was known to some later writers, including

Timaeus Timaeus (or Timaios) is a Greek name. It may refer to: * ''Timaeus'' (dialogue), a Socratic dialogue by Plato *Timaeus of Locri, 5th-century BC Pythagorean philosopher, appearing in Plato's dialogue *Timaeus (historian) (c. 345 BC-c. 250 BC), Greek ...

Posidonius Posidonius (; grc-gre, Ποσειδώνιος , "of Poseidon") "of Apameia" (ὁ Ἀπαμεύς) or "of Rhodes" (ὁ Ῥόδιος) (), was a Greek politician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, historian, mathematician, and teacher nativ ...

, and

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

. Their work is contradictory, but from it deductions can be made about what was reported by Pytheas. This “represents all that was known about the tin trade in the ancient classical world”.ICTIS INSVLA
at roman-britain.co.uk Diodorus gives an account that is generally supposed to be a description of the working of Cornish tin at about the time of the voyage of Pytheas. He says: In the Greek text of Diodorus the name appears, in the accusative case, as "Iktin", so that translators have inferred that the nominative form of the name was "Iktis", rendering this into the medieval '' lingua franca'' of

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

(which only rarely used the letter 'k') as "Ictis". However, some commentators doubt that "Ictis" is correct and prefer "Iktin".

Gavin de Beer Sir Gavin Rylands de Beer (1 November 1899 – 21 June 1972) was a British evolutionary embryologist, known for his work on heterochrony as recorded in his 1930 book ''Embryos and Ancestors''. He was director of the Natural History Museum, Lond ...

, "Iktin", in ''The Geographical Journal'' vol. 126 (June 1960) pp. 160–167, at p. 162 In Book IV of his '' Natural History'', Pliny quotes Timaeus and refers to "''insulam Mictim''" (the island of Mictis, or perhaps of Mictim): It has been suggested that "''insulam Mictim''" was a copying error for ''insulam Ictim'', and Diodorus and Pliny probably both relied on the same primary source. However, while it is possible that "Mictim" and "Iktin" are one and the same, it is also possible that they are different places. The word "inwards" (''introrsus'') can be interpreted as meaning "towards our home", and six days' sail from Britain could take a boat to somewhere on the Atlantic coast of what is now France. Strabo, a contemporary of Diodorus, stated in his ''Geography'' that British tin was shipped from Massalia on the Mediterranean coast of

Gaul Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, ...

, in his ''

De Bello Gallico ''Commentarii de Bello Gallico'' (; en, Commentaries on the Gallic War, italic=yes), also ''Bellum Gallicum'' ( en, Gallic War, italic=yes), is Julius Caesar's firsthand account of the Gallic Wars, written as a third-person narrative. In it Ca ...

'', says of the Veneti: "This last-named people were by far the most powerful on the coast of

Armorica Armorica or Aremorica (Gaulish: ; br, Arvorig, ) is the name given in ancient times to the part of Gaul between the Seine and the Loire that includes the Brittany Peninsula, extending inland to an indeterminate point and down the Atlantic Coast ...

: they had a large fleet plying between their own ports and Britain; they knew more about the handling of ships and the science of navigation than anyone else thereabouts."

Debate

William Camden William Camden (2 May 1551 – 9 November 1623) was an English antiquarian, historian, topographer, and herald, best known as author of ''Britannia'', the first chorographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and the ''Ann ...

, the Elizabethan historian, took the view that the name "Ictis" was so similar to "Vectis", the

name for the Isle of Wight, that the two were probably the same island. The Cornish antiquary

William Borlase William Borlase (2 February 169631 August 1772), Cornish antiquary, geologist and naturalist. From 1722, he was Rector of Ludgvan, Cornwall, where he died. He is remembered for his works ''The Antiquities of Cornwall'' (1754; 2nd ed., 1769) ...

(1696–1772) suggested that Ictis must have been near the coast of Cornwall and could have been a general name for a peninsula there. In 1960,

concluded that the most likely location of Iktin (the form of the name he preferred) was St Michael's Mount, a

tidal island A tidal island is a piece of land that is connected to the mainland by a natural or man-made causeway that is exposed at low tide and submerged at high tide. Because of the mystique surrounding tidal islands, many of them have been sites of ...

near the town of

Marazion Marazion (; kw, Marhasyow) is a civil parish and town, on the shore of Mount's Bay in Cornwall, UK. It is east of Penzance and the tidal island of St Michael's Mount is half-a-mile offshore. At low water a causeway links it to the town and ...

in Cornwall. Apart from the effect of the tide being consistent with what is said by Diodorus, de Beer considered the other benefits of St Michael's Mount for the Britons. This identification is supported by the Roman Britain website. In 1972, I. S. Maxwell weighed up the competing claims of no fewer than twelve possible sites. In 1983, after excavations, the archaeologist Barry W. Cunliffe proposed the

peninsula near Plymouth as the site of Ictis.Barry W. Cunliffe, "Ictis: Is it here?" in ''Oxford Journal of Archaeology'', vol. 2, issue 1 (March 1983), pp. 123–126 (se
abstract
Near the mouth of the

River Erme The Erme is a river in south Devon, England. From its source on Dartmoor it flows in a generally southerly direction past some of the best-preserved archaeological remains on the moor. It leaves the moor at the town of Ivybridge and continues s ...

, not far away, a shipwreck site has produced ingots of ancient tin, which indicates a trade along the coast, although dating the site is difficult and it may not belong to the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

.''Erme Ingot Wreck Site Summary'' (

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

, 2000) The assessment of

Miranda Aldhouse-Green Miranda Jane Aldhouse-Green, (''née'' Aldhouse; born 24 July 1947) is a British archaeologist and academic, known for her research on the Iron Age and the Celts. She was Professor of Archaeology at Cardiff University from 2006 to 2013. Unti ...

in ''The Celtic World'' (1996) was that

Primary sources

Debate

See also

Notes

Further reading