 Strabo states that Thebes at the time of his visit is nothing more than a collection of smaller villages, though its once grandness could still be imagined.Thebes’ exact placement was unknown in medieval Europe, though both Herodotus and Strabo gave the exact location of Thebes and how long up the Nile one must travel to reach it.In addition, maps of Egypt, based on the 2nd century Claudius Ptolemaeus' mammoth work "Geographia", had been circulating in Europe since the late 14th century, all of them showing Thebes’ (Diospolis) location.