Search results
The theory of Phoenician discovery of the Americas suggests that the earliest Old World contact with the Americas was not with Columbus or Norse settlers, but with the Phoenicians (or, alternatively, other Semitic peoples) in the first millennium BC.
- Leaving The Homeland
- Phoenician Ships
- Navigation
- Sea Routes
- Famous Voyages
The Phoenicians became sailors in the first place because of the topography of their homeland, the narrow mountainous strip of land on the coast of the Levant. Travelling between settlements, usually located on rocky peninsulas, was much easier by sea, especially when carrying such cumbersome cargo as cedar wood logs for which the Phoenicians were ...
The Phoenicians were famed in antiquity for their ship-building skills, and they were credited with inventing the keel, the battering ram on the bow, and caulking between planks. From Assyrian relief carvings at Nineveh and Khorsabad, and descriptions in texts such as the book of Ezekial in the Bible we know that the Phoenicians had three types of ...
The Phoenicians did not have the compass or any other navigational instrument, and so they relied on natural features on coastlines, the stars, and dead-reckoning to guide their way and reach their destination. The most important star to them was the Pole Star of the Ursa Minor constellation and, by way of a compliment to their sea-faring skills, t...
Both Herodotus and Thucydides agree that the average speed of an ancient vessel was around 6 miles per hour, and therefore, taking into account stops for bad weather, rest etc., it would have taken, for example, 15 days to sail (and sometimes row) from Greece to Sicily. Colaios sailed from Samosto Gadir (in southern Spain), a distance of 2,000 mile...
According to Herodotus, the Phoenicians managed to circumnavigate Africa in a voyage in c. 600 BCE sponsored by the Egyptian pharaoh Necho. Starting from the Red Sea, they sailed westwards in a journey that took three years. The sailors of Phoenicia's most successful colony Carthage were said to have sailed to ancient Britain in an expedition led b...
- Mark Cartwright
3 days ago · Sailing the Phoenician Coast of Spain. The Phoenician ship dates to around 600 BCE, when much of southern Iberia was settled by Phoenician merchants and traders. Likely struck by a sudden storm, the ship sank only a few yards from the coastline and was quickly covered over by sand. Today, the ship is one of the most complete ancient sea vessels ...
Nov 10, 2014 · Sailing westward from their homeland on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, the Phoenicians traded with indigenous peoples and established colonies as far west as the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Morocco, past the Straits of Gibraltar.
Sep 3, 2024 · The ancient skill of building Phoenician ships is not a lost art . . . in fact it is still in use today. Historian Sanford Holst documented this remarkable experience in Lebanon:
Jan 4, 2021 · Their man-powered sailing vessels are mentioned in very early records confirming their arrival in Egypt from Byblos loaded with cedarwood in ca. 3000 BC. They were also used during the time of Carthage 's defeat by the Roman forces in 146 BC.
People also ask
Are Phoenician ships still used today?
Where did Phoenician ships go?
How did Phoenician ships reach Iberia?
What is a Phoenician shipwreck?
When did Phoenicians come to America?
Where did the Phoenicians live?
Jun 23, 2020 · Phoenician ships reached Iberia and then looped around to return east with the winds and currents along the coast of the Maghreb. They visited new lands rich in metals, made new friends, and by about 900 BCE they had battled their way through the ‘Pillars of Hercules’—the Rock of Gibraltar and Jebel Musa—and out into the Atlantic Ocean.
