BARENTSZ, Willem

(c. 1550–1597)

   Cartographer and explorer. In collaboration with Petrus Plancius (1552–1622), Barentsz published a description and atlas of the Mediterranean Sea. During 1594–1597, he participated in three expeditions to find a passage to India through Arctic seas. Although the hypothesis put forward by Plancius about an open Arctic sea proved to be false, Barentsz and Jacob van Heemskerck discovered Novaya Zemlya, where they stayed during the winter of 1596–1597. Remnants of their stay in the Behouden Huis were excavated during English, Dutch, and Russian archaeological expeditions in the 1870s and the 1980s.