ACmH

Looking at the map, I remembered a piece of information I got from another cartography/history forum (http://www.alternatehistory.com) and would like to add another possible inner "sea" to the list: sometimes in the last ice age lake Chad was bigger than it is today, in fact it was five times bigger than the Caspian, and northern Africa had an extra river basin, like a second Nile, I think somewere around current Maghreb, and due to the ice caps, the Atlas mountains had an Europe-like climate. I tried to integrate a larger chad and a second Nile with some of Howard's writings, (mostly to Justify WHY East Africa in the Hyborian age is under water) but the possibility that East Africa was just somewhere else (the Pictish Wilderness) and the offhand comment about Hyborian nations looking colonial, makes me think that, maybe, though Howard ment to show ancient Europe(ans), he took at least some inspiration from his days' colonial Africa (that he had already used in the Solomon Kane yarns) somehow mixed with South America (judging by the almost Aztec names in Red Nails).
Tentatively, I'd suggest to depart momentarily from Howard, put some of these features on a map, and then compare it with what Howard wrote (of course, where contraddiction arise, Howard wins).

Okay, scratch that.

Did Howard have any knowledge of the Piri Reis map? It was "discovered" more or less in the same period as he wrote (1929, while QotBC was published about 1934). An ice-free Antartic Peninsula might have looked as the "Ultimate South" to Belit, and it would have been a good starting point to circumnavigate the continent by coast-hopping all the way to Ross Island, even if I prefer the Aurora Australis explanation.

Uh, thank you.

Not directly, and not as deeply as I wish, I have to admit my own ignorance here. I think most of my knowledge comes from Peter Barresford Ellis, T. W. Rolleston, partly from Nora Chadwick abìnd Stephen Oppenheimer (both of which didn't completely convince me) and Riccardo Teraglio. I only superficially know of the Hindu pantheon.
So I understand my vision may be severely limited limited.