Archaeologica.org

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11952322

"Pompeii: Life and Death in a Roman Town" will be broadcast on BBC Two at 2100 GMT on Tuesday 14 December, or afterwards on BBC iPlayer.

Well, that assumes, of course, that the Romans never got to the Americas and back.

Or, at the least, that they never met some of the ladies of Libya who had met some of their own sailors who had been there and back.

Good point!

Being Romans and Carthaginians, they could have bypassed the ladies entirely.

A globe suggests that if there was any trans-oceanic contact it was between the Sierra Leone area of Africa and the coast of Brazil. I seem to recall checking this once and finding that in addition to the short distance the winds and currents are cooperative.

Both Carthage and later Rome had trading posts down the West African coast of Morocco.

Minimalist wrote:A globe suggests that if there was any trans-oceanic contact it was between the Sierra Leone area of Africa and the coast of Brazil. I seem to recall checking this once and finding that in addition to the short distance the winds and currents are cooperative.

Both Carthage and later Rome had trading posts down the West African coast of Morocco.

And the Carthaginians left coins on a beach in Massachusetts, and operated trading posts in Peru (Viracocha) and Mexico. Some for centuries. Trading in 'spices', of which cocaine and tobacco were the most important, and most profitable, commodities.
(Pre-Arab and Indian traders got opium and cannabis to the Med from the Orient).

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php? ... 5.450;wap2

At present, no authentic Carthaginian coins have been found in North America. Jeremiah Epstein in his 1980 article in Current Anthropology actually mentions one of the "Farley coins" in his paper. He accepted it as a genuine ancient coin and did not identify it as a copy or fantasy piece.

Min,
You are right about the winds and current if you are south of the Equator.
There the winds and current are counter clockwise.
They would take you from anywhere in the Gulf of Guinea to the southeast coast of Brazil.
That was my point about the “Negroid” skull found in Brazil.

But north of the Equator the flow is clockwise.
It would take you from Gibraltar down the northwest coast of Africa, where we know Carthage had trading posts, to the Cape Verde Islands.
From there it is west to the northeast coast of SA and the West Indies.

In the north the eastward return went up the east coast of NA on the Gulf Stream as far as Nova Scotia then east to somewhere between Portugal and Britain.

In the south the eastward winds and current would bring you to the far southwest coast of Africa and then up the coast.

I believe that deep in the Gulf of Guinea, from Ivory Coast around to Gabon, the near shore is very calm.
The Portuguese learned this in their southward explorations.

When Portuguese finally figured out the winds and current to get around the Cape they would go so far west before turning south and then back east that the Captains would see Brazil.
But since their orders were for trade with the East, not exploration, those sightings were just noted in the log and they kept to their course.

There is a real area of current and wind confusion from the Equator up to about 10 degrees north.
That is the breeding ground of hurricanes and the place where that Rio to Paris flight went down.

Currents





Prevailing winds


Mediterranean ships were not built to remain at sea. They were coasters who put into a port or, if none available, a protected bay or cove at night. The Spartans defeated the Athenian navy at Aegospotami by catching them after they had beached their ships for the night and were off foraging for food.