<P> Previously, it was erroneously suggested that the name had to be derived from the color of the water, or at least were to be related to climatic particulars . Black (or dark), in this context however, referred to a system in which colors represented the various "cardinal points" of the known world . Black, or dark represented the north, red the south, white for the west, and green or light blue for the east . This symbolism based on cardinal points was used in a plethora of different occasions, and is therefore widely attested . For example, the "Red Sea", a body of water reported since the time of Herodotus (c. 484--c. 425 BC) in fact designated the Indian Ocean, together with bodies of water known as the Persian Gulf and the "actual" Red Sea . According to the same explanation and reasoning, it is therefore considered to be impossible for the Scythians (who principally roamed in what is present - day Ukraine and Russia) to have given the designation as they lived to the north of the sea, and it would be therefore a southern antipodal body of water for them . As the name could have only been given by a people that were well aware of both the northern "black / dark" and southern "red" seas, it is therefore considered probable that it was given its name by the Achaemenids (550--330 BC). </P> <P> Strabo's Geographica (1.2. 10) reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often just called "the Sea" (ὁ πόντος ho pontos). He also thought that the Black Sea was called "inhospitable" before Greek colonization because it was difficult to navigate, and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes. (7.3. 6) The name was changed to "hospitable" after the Milesians had colonized the southern shoreline, the Pontus, making it part of Greek civilization . </P> <P> In Greater Bundahishn, a sacred Zoroastrian text written in Middle Persian the Black Sea is called Siyābun . </P> <P> A map of Asia dating to 1570, entitled "Asiae Nova Descriptio", from Abraham Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, labels the sea Mar Maggior ("Great Sea", cf . Latin mare major). </P>

An area where the river does not reach the sea