Chryse and Argyre

Chryse and Argyre (/ˈkraɪsiː/ and /ˈɑːrdʒəriː/) were a pair of legendary islands, located in the Indian Ocean and said to be made of gold and silver.

European explorers in search of fabled lands of gold now sailed west for El Dorado instead of east to Cipangu.

The works of Isidore of Seville fell out of fashion and the islands of Chryse and Argyre slowly faded from the popular imagination.

[9][11] In 1877, Chryse and Argyre were recalled to life by the astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who used the planetary opposition of that year to begin mapping the planet Mars.

As an expert in ancient astronomy and geography, he was very familiar with classical legends and fabled lands and used them to name the features he could see through the telescope.

In particular, he noted several light patches that he took to be islands; he named the most striking circular one Hellas (for Greece) and two others Chryse and Argyre.

A modern facsimile of Martin Behaim's 1492 Erdapfel map. Chryse and Argyre are in the same map section as Cipangu (Japan) on the right, with Chryse just to the west of its southern tip, labelled Crisis and colored yellow-brown; Argyre is to the southwest of Chryse, labelled Argire and colored white. Note the absence of the Americas.
Schiaparelli's 1877 map matched with the actual surface of Mars as seen from orbit by Mariner 9. Chryse and Argyre are left of centre. [ 12 ]