Posted on 10/24/2010 2:39:43 PM PDT by decimon
The replica of a Phoenician ship from 600BC has arrived home in western Syria after a two-year voyage circumnavigating the coast of Africa.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Closer to my home ping.
2 and a half years? A piece of driftwood could have beat that! ;-)
Probably explains why such journeys weren't, as far as we know, common.
The galley slaves, must have been slow rowers.
Aside from off of Somalia.
How Phoeni.
Dang, you are old.
Not much difference after 2,600 years
Better sails.
A 2 year trip all the way around Africa ~ envision the riches they could pick up for a song.
I suspect the problem wasn't the duration, but the "take" as compared to the "risk". More than likely Phoenician boats could be seized by raiding parties along the shore with ease. Although Africans in Subsaharan Africa were fairly barbaric they were numerous and well versed in agriculture by the time the Phoenicians visited.
They might have let 'em skip on by on their first trip, but not the second!
Later civilizations weren't all that keen on sailing around Africa either.
Of Note: there are various seaworms that bore into and eat wooden boats WITH EASE. Columbus and others knew that when they went to America and prepared for the worst by taking tooks with them to build new boats. The earliest sailers going South discovered that problem I am sure.
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more classical-era stuff about the Phoenician voyages:
Extract from the Natural History of Pliny the Elder
http://ing.iac.es/lapalma/pliny.html
Now we know the real reason they pretty much always sailed within sight of land: they were looking for a good place to plant their next meals!
Big mistake. Only the Buckland Hobbits who live east of the Brandywine River understand Boats. The Tooks live in West Farthing. on the opposite side of the Shire.
Assuming you meant tools instead of tooks, that is not very impressive. The tools required to build a seagoing ship in the late 15th century consisted of an axe, an adz, a saw and an auger. That's all. A ships’ carpenter that sailed without those deserved to be keelhauled. (And yes, that is an anachronistic punishment at that time.)
Wasn't the point that Columbus was terribly astute but that it was necessary to carry sufficient tools with you to BUILD ANOTHER BOAT.
No doubt there were numerous voyagers before him who forgot the tools ~ they didn't come back to tell the story to everybody else!
Remember the escape mechanism on the old spring driven or pendulum driven clocks ~ you just missed a tic.
Wasn’t the point that Columbus was terribly astute but that it was necessary to carry sufficient tools with you to BUILD ANOTHER BOAT.
No doubt there were numerous voyagers before him who forgot the tools ~ they didn’t come back to tell the story to everybody else!
O-kaa-ay. If you say so, sport. I missed a tic. I just don’t see what is . . . remarkable . . . about Columbus’s Chips carrying a standard set of tools that anyone but an incompetent would have carried. It’s not like building a new ship after the one an explorer has been lost is an unusual story even, or especially in the Age of Exploration.
No doubt some people today would find it necessary to be reminded to carry sufficient tools with you to BUILD ANOTHER BOAT, but few people did back then, and few people that I associate with today would find the reminder necessary. What other profound advice do you have? Check your tire pressure and make sure you have gas in the tank before starting a cross-country trip? Or maybe have a few spare batteries for your flashlight because the power fails occasionally?
Anyhow could you please expand upon why you find this to be somehow significant. I sure can’t figure it out.
They failed to bring tools with them to build another.
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