| The Hebrides have always drawn visitors and the seaway is an important route and as such the area was mapped from very early times. Cartography in those days left much to be desired as you can see from this image of a 16th Century map of Scotland showing the islands - click on the image to veiw an enlargement and see if you can guess which one is The Isle of Scalpay.
Methods in map making making must have improved incredibly just after the above map or possibly more effort was put into depicting the area in detail. As you can see from the next map the detail is far greater and yet this map was produced in 1650.
Looking more closely (click image), we can just see The Isle of Scalpay and I assume that the large islands to the right of Scalpay are the Shiants which seem disproportionate by comparison (correct me please if I am wrong!) .
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