Global Positioning System Reference
In-Depth Information
MORE EARLY COASTAL EXPLORATIONS
The glorious exception to the general rule that early maritime explorers
kept to the coastal margins, owing to their limited knowledge of naviga-
tion, is provided by the South Pacific islanders. The Polynesians and Micro-
nesians made incredible journeys without complex navigational tools; this
was possible only because they lived in a swath of the world where winds
and currents were fairly predictable, as we will see. Their story merits a
separate section: here I am concentrating on European explorers and navi-
gators (and initially, also those from the Near East) because it is from this
tradition that we inherit our navigational skills and knowledge. To a cer-
tain degree, predictability of winds and currents applied in other parts of
the world—for example, in the Indian Ocean, where the annual monsoon
could be relied upon to provide southwesterly winds in summer and north-
easterly winds in winter. Thus, for example, merchants could, from an
early date, make annual voyages between India and East Africa or South-
east Asia. However, weather in the Mediterranean Sea and especially in the
North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean was largely unpredictable. To venture far
into these waters required navigational tools, which, in the early centuries
of recorded history, were few, and so European maritime explorers from
those times generally kept close to land.
CARTHAGINIANS, NORTH AND SOUTH
Carthage, near modern Tunis in North Africa, was founded by Phoenicians
from Tyre in 814 BCE but had gained independence from its founders by
650 BCE. Indeed, Carthage became the capital city of a large and vigorous
empire that lasted 500 years, until it was destroyed utterly by the Romans
during the Third Punic War.
6
Two Carthaginians contributed to the geographical knowledge of the
classical world, and both lived in the fifth century BCE. Hanno the Naviga-
tor was a Carthaginian king who sailed westward across the Mediterranean
Sea with 30,000 colonists and 60 ships, we are told, passing through the
Straits of Gibraltar and depositing his passengers at various Carthaginian
6. The word
Punic
comes from the Latin for ''Phoenician'' and reflects Carthaginian
roots. The Carthaginians inherited their ancestors' maritime expertise and their penchant
for trade and exploration. The amazing peregrinations of Carthage's most famous son,
however, were motivated by neither trade nor exploration: Hannibal led his elephants, and
army, across the Alps into Italy during the bloody Second Punic War.
