Posted on 10/24/2010 2:39:43 PM PDT by decimon
“once upon a time a gigantic ship came up the Potomac and turned around. Very amazing show.
They failed to bring tools with them to build another.”
But did they run with scissors?
;’)
Ancient ships didn’t hug the coastline, it’s asking for trouble to do that. But it’s easy to see that a first-time voyage to map and explore would have to take those risks, and of course, would make slow progress.
Probably (imho) most of the surviving ancient wrecks and wreck sites (sites where just the durable cargo remains, the wood etc being long gone) will be found in the abyssal plains of the seas and oceans. Hardly anyone has bothered to look because it’s expensive.
Late in the 1990s, Robert Ballard used the NR-1 (a US Navy sub that is rented out for research now) to look for an Israeli sub that went down in 1960. In the process of looking for it, he located three other wrecks, at least one of which was ancient (sez here 8th c BC) circa 400 meters depth. I think the NR-1’s dive limit is about twice that depth, but I’d have to look that up, and I’m lay zee.
Here’s the link (which I didn’t check to see if it’s still live) for the Ballard thing:
http://web.mit.edu/deeparch/www/publications/papers/BallardEtAl2002.pdf
And I know they sailed deep water, but just look at any (at least when I was in school) text book, and "early sailors wouldn't get out of sight of land, because of their superstitions...". Some even claimed that it was nearly universal to NOT sail at night, except under extraordinary conditions, as if they were ignorant of the sky.
If that had been the case, it would have been darned hard for Roman grain ships to cross the Med from North Africa in any kind of economically feasible time. Also, navies needed maneuvering room, and not just to keep from being pinned to a coastline or shoals by the enemy.
Their only problems were storms that made it impossible for them to determine their position or direction, such as the ship to Rome that Paul was wrecked on.
As for those farming Phoenician sailors, they did what they had to do, not having C-rations & salt water distillation plants on board.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.