The Conclusion brings us back full circle to the Introduction. A first section opens with a brief epilogue on Latin receptions and the reinventions of the Hyperborean nexus as a figure of liminality beyond the reach of Rome's power, shaped by the tense and shifting dialogue of geographical knowledge and Roman imperium. The brief epilogue continues with further thoughts on the Western medieval fortunes of Hyperborea, as it makes its way through negotiations with the baggage and authority of classical geography, and the difficult integration of a northern earthly paradise in the eschatological space of Christian cosmovision. This is the moment when Hyperborea, the focus of our etic study of cosmography, becomes a figure of emic cosmographia. The discussion in these two sections rapidly moves from Catullus to Claudian, and from Aethicus Ister to the Hereford Map and Roger Bacon, an occasion to end with a glance at the emergence of Hyperborea as an object of scientific and theological knowledge in the early European university. A final section ends with a quick retrospective and further considerations on cosmography and the philology of distant worlds.

The second chapter, closely aligned with the first chapter, continues the earlier discussion of cult and divine movement to further reflect on the visual depiction of divine arrival and absence in different media. A first section reviews key texts for reflecting on the visuality of Apollo's arrival from Hyperborea. The second section turns to relevant physical images of Apollo as the travelling god. The third section expands the discussion to assess what has often been read as stone epiphanies of Apollo's return on the metopes of late Archaic and Classical temples. The fourth section continues the reflection on stone epiphanies through focus on the single most prominent visual depiction of Apollo's return, and one of the most significant divine representations of the Greek world: the late-sixth century BCE East pediment of the Alcmaeonid temple at Delphi. The fifth section looks at Plutarch's reading of the pediments of the fourth-century BCE temple in De E apud Delphos (387f–389c), and his cosmographical reconfiguration of the theology of Delphic divine alternance between Apollo and Dionysus. The sixth section focuses on Pausanias' reading of the Galatian shields set up on the north and west metopes of the same fourth-century temple.

The first chapter is concerned with the roles of Hyperborea in hymns and sanctuaries. It brings together fragments of Archaic and Classical material related to the great sanctuaries of Apollo at Didyma, Delphi and Delos and explores the uses of the distant North in the positioning of all three sites. It looks at how the interaction of ritual and commemoration could instrumentalise boreal remoteness to frame divine presence in sanctuaries that claimed a certain centrality. The first, introductory section of that chapter revisits the themes of divine arrival and absence through the lenses of cosmography. The second section is focused on an inscribed bone tablet from the northern Black Sea, an object consecrated to Apollo of Didyma. The third section, focused on the traces of Alcaeus' hymn to Apollo, analyses the poem's story of Apollo's arrival to Delphi from Hyperborea as a cosmographic document. The fourth and final section of the first chapter looks at the Delian record through the traces of Olen's hymn to Eileithyia, and the important cultic presence of the Hyperborean Maidens on the island. With that hymnic material, this chapter aims to explore the challenges and illustrate the significance of studying cosmography through cult and place.

The fourth chapter is focused on reconfigurations of cosmography within the expanding, contested archive of the Classical period. It looks at successive rewritings of Hyperborea in the changing epistemological landscape of different Classical genres. The stakes at play in identifying Hyperborea as an object of knowledge are considered from the perspective of the great upheavals in the cultures of wisdom of the Classical city. This chapter is interested in situating Classical rewritings of Hyperborea within the ongoing effort of scholarship to move away from the old evolutionary ‘From Myth to Reason’ narrative. A first section looks at cosmographical usages of the distant North in Attic tragedy. The second section reconsiders the question of Xenophanes' reception of Aristeas of Proconnesus. The monumentalisation of Aristeas in the agora of early-fifth century BCE Metapontum is the focus of the third section, with a review of the evidence for Pythagorean appropriations of Hyperborea in southern Italy, and the early circulation of the Abaris legend. The fourth section deals with some usages of Hyperborea in early prose. This opens the way for the final section, which looks anew at the cosmography at stake in Herodotus' extensive deconstruction of Hyperborea in Book 4 of the Histories.