Boats

[john]

All -

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jun/20 ... ld-by-boat


hoka hey



john

[Minimalist]

Nice find, John!

[kbs2244]

Yeah, she has it on the news page today.
Good story.
Summarizes everything well.

[Cognito]

Thanks, John. Marine cultures view water as a means of transportation and a source of food, not as an obstacle to be overcome. Only landlubbers do that.

Every anthropologist and archaeologist should be required to raft or boat a major ocean as a prelude to obtaining a PhD (i.e. the Salton Sea is out). I'll take personal responsibility for sending cards with condolences to those families who lose offspring at sea. I'm here to help.

[kbs2244]

You know, I wonder if anyone else has noticed that water seems to be viewed as an obstacle in the northern hemisphere, while it seems to be a connector in the southern hemisphere?
Or is a time line thing? Before and after Islam?
Until the Islam raise, the Mediterranean was a highway.
Same with the Indian Ocean.
We even have Roman shipwrecks in the rivers of Uruguay.
Did the spread of Islam shut down the trans-Pacific voyages?

[Rokcet Scientist]

[...] We even have Roman shipwrecks in the rivers of Uruguay. [...]

WHOAA! Whazzat, kb?
Got a link? Pictures?

[Beagle]

KB is possibly thinking of this :

http://www.shipwreckconference.org/conf ... ojects.htm

51. Underwater archaeological survey conducted in Baia de Guanabara (Rio de Janeiro), Brazil, under auspices of the Naval Museum, on what is believed to be a possible Roman amphora carrier from the 2nd century BC. Three other shipwrecks found and surveyed on this site (16th, 17th and 20th centuries). September 1982 - February 1983.

There is probably a lot on the 'net about this, but I just grabbed the first reference. I don't think this has ever been proven, but the story of a Roman shipwreck with many amphora on it has been out there for some time.

[Minimalist]

I recall a pretty good discussion about this. There were Roman ports in Mauretania on the west coast of North Africa. It isn't too hard to imagine a shp getting blown out to sea and ending up in South America due to the trade winds. Getting back would be something else again!

[dannan14]

Of course if the Piri Reyes (sp?) map is as old as some claim they could have made the voyage on purpose!

[Minimalist]

Anything is possible but I seriously doubt there was any actual trade. The notion of another land beyond the ocean would surely have been recorded by someone in the Empire.

Columbus' main achievement seems that he was able to figure out a way to get back and tell people about what he found.....even though he thought he was somewhere else.

[kbs2244]

Actually this is the post I have on record.
“Ship blown of course” of course.
Note the local political reasons for hushing it up.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1038045/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-blo ... 8340/posts

Some of the comments are reasonable too.

Then there is this Roman “Out of Place Artifact”

http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/artic ... anbust.htm

[Minimalist]

This is a discovery that has received little to no examination, much less validation, from the realm of mainstream archaeology, no doubt in part because Marx is not a Ph.D. archaeologist.

His Club dues are not paid up, kb. Whaddaya expect?

[Minimalist]

'Did Roman explorers discover America 1,300 years ahead of Christopher Columbus'

I don't think there is any doubt of this, although the use of the term "Roman" could be misleading. Sailing vessels were in use along the Atlantic Coast from North Africa to the Baltic by 200 AD and a ship caught in the trade winds would end up in the Americas. So far, though, we have no indication that they ever got back nor is there any indication that any vessel from the Americas made it across to the Roman Empire. There is no reason to think that the news of a land beyond the ocean would have been any less electrifying in Marcus Aurelius' time than it was in Columbus' time.

[Cognito]

So far, though, we have no indication that they ever got back nor is there any indication that any vessel from the Americas made it across to the Roman Empire.

Actually, I have seen a couple of references to what appears to be North American natives who wound up on Northern European coasts in Roman times, obviously blown out to sea. If you make me, I'll dig for the references.

There is no reason to think that the news of a land beyond the ocean would have been any less electrifying in Marcus Aurelius' time than it was in Columbus' time.

Romans were pragmatic about trade and control of trade routes. Even if someone discovered the Americas and returned, I doubt they would see much advantage in setting up a trade network. Besides, the Romans were never a decent sea power - that honor belonged to the Phoencians until Rome turned Carthage into salt.

[Minimalist]

Yeah....I'd like to see those!


The "Romans" did not have to be a great bunch of sailors themselves. They controlled the entire land mass surrounding the Med which gave them political control over lots of peoples with long seafaring traditions. If a Roman merchant needed a boat there were plenty of cargo vessels around for him to hire. Sea-borne transport was the cheapest and fastest means for moving cargo even with the Roman's rightly famed roads. Moreover, they would not have had the kind of modern economic control to set up much of anything. Were it known that there was a profitable trading partner somewhere any number of merchants would have moved in to make a denarii where they could. The government....local or imperial...would have been more than willing to make a buck by taxing the result but the Roman government would not have been setting up anything in the modern sense of negotiating a trade treaty.