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Egyptian Circumnavigation of Africa ~600 BC
111–120 of 150 posts
Re: Egyptian Circumnavigation of Africa ~600 BC
#112> These men made a statement which I do not myself believe, though others may, to the effect that as they sailed on a westerly course round the southern end of Libya, they had the sun on their right - to northward of them. It's 600BC. The idea that the world is a sphere isn't accepted yet. Herodotus explicitly says he doesn't believe what these sailors said- that the sun was to the north. Yet we know that if a sailor…
The Greek intelligentia believed in a spherical earth at least starting in the 5th century BC, Herodotus died 430/420 BC according to Wikipedia.
"After the 5th century BC, no Greek writer of repute thought the world was anything but round." -Wikipedia [0]
Indeed the idea of a "flat earth" is a very recent idea [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth#Pythagoras
Re: Egyptian Circumnavigation of Africa ~600 BC
#113I'm skeptical. No matter how good the Phoenician sailors were, it seems unlikely to me that they could have blithely sailed past Cape Bojador[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Bojador Maybe if they had small enough boats to stick close to the shore and portage. Seafaring on the Mediterranean is simply a lot less complex than it is on the open ocean. The European sailors were not able to pass this point till the 1…
> not saying they were better sailors, but that 2000 years later maritime technology was a lot better.
Isn't that saying the same thing?
Re: Egyptian Circumnavigation of Africa ~600 BC
#114> These men made a statement which I do not myself believe, though others may, to the effect that as they sailed on a westerly course round the southern end of Libya, they had the sun on their right - to northward of them. It's 600BC. The idea that the world is a sphere isn't accepted yet. Herodotus explicitly says he doesn't believe what these sailors said- that the sun was to the north. Yet we know that if a sailor…
> Another voyage was necessary to vindicate the Phoenician claims. This trip was made in 1488, when Bartolomeus Diaz reached the Cape of Good Hope.
That’s a full 2,000 years between the Egyptian circumnavigation and the European one.
Re: Egyptian Circumnavigation of Africa ~600 BC
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and there is a large chasm between discovery and information that is widely known and accepted among the population. For instance, many Europeans went with Ptolemy's less accurate calculation (made hundreds of years after Eratosthenes's) until the 16th century.
> there is a large chasm between discovery and information that is widely known and accepted among the population There are even more extreme examples of this. The Moscow Papyrus is from 01850 BCE, and it explains how to calculate the area of a hemisphere from its diameter and how to calculate the volume of a truncated pyramid, so this information had already been discovered 3870 years ago—perhaps for many centuries.…
There is finite space in your brain. If you don't use it regularly it isn't odd to not retain it.
Re: Egyptian Circumnavigation of Africa ~600 BC
#116I'm skeptical. No matter how good the Phoenician sailors were, it seems unlikely to me that they could have blithely sailed past Cape Bojador[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Bojador Maybe if they had small enough boats to stick close to the shore and portage. Seafaring on the Mediterranean is simply a lot less complex than it is on the open ocean. The European sailors were not able to pass this point till the 1…
Given how some people managed to circumnavigate Africa with a Phoenecian replica ship 2010 I would not rule it out.
Re: Egyptian Circumnavigation of Africa ~600 BC
#117I sailed off the east coast of South Africa in a small racing yacht in the late 80s. I am very sceptical that a sail/oar powered boat could make it. There are long stretches of coast where it would be very dangerous to beach your craft. There are stretches where it is still quite dangerous with modern equipment. If the story is true, they must be the luckiest sailors in history.
Re: Egyptian Circumnavigation of Africa ~600 BC
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm currently reading Clive Pointing's 'World History - A new perspective'. >800 pages of well researched history with a large Eurasian focus (due to the availability of sources, not bias). He repeatedly makes the point that some technology that Europe 'discovered' in the 13-19hundreds was in fact known in china 1000+ years earlier. Most of recorded history Europe basically played no role whatsoever. A few examples t…
With all these advantages, why did the industrial revolution happen in Europe instead of Asia?
Because North Europe was more inhospitable place overall (for agriculture et all) and during Middle Ages Europeans started accepting and adopting technologies like their lives depend on it (and it often did).
That has slowly over ages created culture that put premium on technological progress.
Re: Egyptian Circumnavigation of Africa ~600 BC
#119> These men made a statement which I do not myself believe, though others may, to the effect that as they sailed on a westerly course round the southern end of Libya, they had the sun on their right - to northward of them. It's 600BC. The idea that the world is a sphere isn't accepted yet. Herodotus explicitly says he doesn't believe what these sailors said- that the sun was to the north. Yet we know that if a sailor…
The Greek intelligentia believed in a spherical earth at least starting in the 5th century BC, Herodotus died 430/420 BC according to Wikipedia. "After the 5th century BC, no Greek writer of repute thought the world was anything but round." -Wikipedia [0] Indeed the idea of a "flat earth" is a very recent idea [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth#Pythagoras [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_t…
The idea of a flat earth is not a recent idea; that's not what the "myth of the flat earth" is. The myth of the flat earth refers to the false idea that (educated) Europeans during the Middle Ages believed in a flat earth, or that the ancient Greeks did, etc.
But plenty of other people believed in a flat earth, both back then and in more recent times. Ancient Mesopotamian astronomy, for instance, used a flat earth model. More astonishingly, Chinese astronomers used a flat earth model until the 16th century.
Re: Egyptian Circumnavigation of Africa ~600 BC
#120I sailed off the east coast of South Africa in a small racing yacht in the late 80s. I am very sceptical that a sail/oar powered boat could make it. There are long stretches of coast where it would be very dangerous to beach your craft. There are stretches where it is still quite dangerous with modern equipment. If the story is true, they must be the luckiest sailors in history.
The Phoenicians were at the top of the game when it came to sailing and long journeys. If anyone could do it, it where them.