Ptolemy's map of the Arabian Peninsula, Persian Gulf and nearby regions. This map is from an edition of Ptolemy's 'Geographia'. The text labels are in Latin. This 1482 atlas by German cartographer Lienhart Holle was a translation of Ptolemy's original work from Greek to Latin. Claudius Ptolemaeus, also known as Ptolemy, was an astronomer and geographer who lived in the 2nd century in the Greek culture of Roman Egypt.