> References in Greek texts from the 4th century BC are IMO suggestive of early voyages to the coast of West Africa, the nearest navigable mangrove forests (unless shipworm managed to somehow get carried across the Sinai isthmus)
Simon Winchester discusses how Cape Bojador [1] was impassible until 1443 (in his book Atlantic [2]) so it is unlikely that early voyages reached any further south along the coast of West Africa. During Roman times there were indeed canals to the Red Sea [3] and a robust international trade system as outlined in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea [4].
What about Cape Bojador made it impassible for so long? I know essentially nothing about navigation or ships in general besides that they don't travel over land particularly well[0], so if you know of an easy to digest resource I'd really appreciate it.
The Wikipedia article says it’s a combination of dangerous shallows and unfavorable winds all year near the shore. The way to avoid those was to sail around it, beyond the sight of land. This was something ancient ships couldn’t do because they relied on seeing the land for navigation.
The problem was that ships were swept out to sea and couldn't sail in any direction other than certain death (or the Americas). The Volta do Mar gave the Portuguese a safety net to experiment with navigating Cape Bojador without the certain death aspect. Careful data collection (speed/direction of the ship/wind/water-current) and vector math provided a set of sailing instructions that was akin to a set of dance steps. The Portuguese sailed around the Cape of Good Hope but they navigated Cape Bojador with an algorithm.
What I find fascinating is that such a monumental moment in history is not well known.
Ah, you're right. I did actually click that link but something about the way that article is written made scanning for the specific thing I was after while tired very difficult.
I'll re-evaluate this perception after I've slept, but it feels like key facts are buried in storytelling in a way I don't see often on Wikipedia. Could just be me, I'm not sure.
Edit: I think what I'm describing is a textbook example of a buried lede.
I agree with you, it's overwritten. Would be interesting for a Wikipedia editor to explain how this tourist-history style differs from the accepted Wikipedia style.
The book Atlantic is where I came across it. Sand shoals force ships into the currents of the North Atlantic Gyre which the Portuguese mastered before tackling the Cape Bojador problem; see Volta do Mar [1] which has a great diagram.
> As it can be appreciated, that voyage followed the opposite direction to those that the Portuguese would do centuries later: instead of sail south the Atlantic Ocean and round the Cape of Good Hope to the east, they had to sail from Egypt in summer, cross the Red Sea (the Arabian Gulf which Herodotus says) taking advantage of the north wind and leaving behind the Horn of Africa.
So it is possible/likely that the Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa in a clockwise direction while the Portuguese solved the harder problem of circumnavigating Africa counter-clockwise.
Back to the original question: how did shipworms get to ancient Greece? Both narratives support the idea that shipworms were most likely carried from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. The question is how early the Canal of the Pharaohs was operational. The shipworms may actual help set this date.
I wonder if a Phoenician equivalent of the Roman/Byzantine Periplus of the Erythraean Sea existed in Carthage and was lost after the Third Punic War.
It quotes Herodotus, this is first link from google, wiki has some pages as well. I am not an historian, but it seems credible. Some details are matching.
> At some point between 610 and before 594 BC, Necho reputedly commissioned an expedition of Phoenicians, who it is said in three years sailed from the Red Sea around Africa back to the mouth of the Nile; and would thereby be the first completion of the Cape Route. Herodotus' account was handed down to him by oral tradition, but is seen as potentially credible because he stated with disbelief that the Phoenicians "as they sailed on a westerly course round the southern end of Libya (Africa), they had the sun on their right"—to northward of them (The Histories 4.42).
While Herodotus may serve as a motivation for someone to make such a claim, the OP did not link to either Herodotus or to a reputable scholarly commentary on Herodotus. He linked to a pop-sci website with an obsession with fringe history – just look at some of the other wacky things on La Brujula Verde.
I read the article and it is sound. I know nothing about the nature of the other articles this website publishes. This is nothing like Graham Hancock pseudo-science.
Graham Hancock has never pretended to be a scientist, so what he writes is, by definition, not pseudoscience. "I don't like it" also does not define pseudoscience, as much as some wish otherwise.
Much of it is pure speculation, and rot, but his direct observations -- he actually does go places, and takes copious, excellent photographs (his wife is a pro) -- have proven reliable; much more so than his armchair critics. He is scrupulously careful to distinguish observation from speculation, something many of his critics could learn from.
Ignore both the speculation and the armchair critics, and you may learn, too.
The search for artificial quinine to treat malaria led to the development of artificial dyes, with the first colour being mauve (a 'pale purple'). A fuller treatment of the subject of artificial dyes, and the rise of the chemical industry, can be found in Simon Garfield's book Mauve (ISBN 978-0393323139).
Such stories are entertaining, but there is usually no analysis of whether the outcome would have been materially different had the specific chain of circumstances not played out in the particular way they did... Hence the occurrence of weasel words like 'helped' in most such narratives (and my use of 'usually', 'materially' and 'most' here!)
> Such stories are entertaining, but there is usually no analysis of whether the outcome would have been materially different had the specific chain of circumstances not played out in the particular way they did
Well, most of these things are 'infotainment' for the lay public. I'm sure if you go into the academic literature then there may be a more robust examination:
Both Newton and Leibniz came up with calculus for example. Bell generally gets the credit for the telephone, but (a) he built past developments, and (b) there's Grey:
I don't think that is the point though. Perhaps trying to show historic causality is a lost cause anyway, so instead showing cross-discipline progress at least portrays the co-dependent nature of history, progress, etc.
A comment James Burke makes is that the non-interdisciplinary approach has been the norm for too long (and I think its shortcomings and flaws are worse).
Burkes thesis isn't the causality so much as relations, almost always crossing what we now see as typical boundaries; scientific or engineering disciplines, professions, regions, cultures. One thing influences numerous others.
He's critiquing and offering an alternative to strict linear domain-respecting narratives. And "looking back to peer forward": by offerring an interdisciplinary narrative of the past, he proposes and suggests the same approach for describing, or more importantly, creating, the future.
Pretty much the entire origin of organic chemistyr- now a trillion dollar industyr- was artificial dyes. It's kind of amazing to realize now I can buy a dye, and put something in it and it will have a brilliant, long-lasting color- 200 years ago, that would have been magic.
The wine press using a screw instead of a heavy weight. The press was used to for printing press with movable type. Image how tedious it would be if printing presses needed heavy stones instead of a screw.
Books pretty much just the bible at this point were cheaper due to mass production. People wanted them in their own language. Reading more meant as people got older they couldn't see the small words. Glasses were invented then later the lenses used for making telescopes and then microscopes.
I don’t see how the printing press could have triggered the invention of eye glasses, eye glasses being over a century older (ignoring any Chinese printing press, as I don’t see how Chinese books triggered Italians to invent reading glasses)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasses#Invention: “The first eyeglasses were made in Northern Italy, most likely in Pisa, by about 1290 […] By 1301, there were guild regulations in Venice governing the sale of eyeglasses”
> Reading more meant as people got older they couldn't see the small words. Glasses were invented then later the lenses used for making telescopes and then microscopes.
This is covered in a chapter on glass in Steven Johnson's book How we got to now: six innovations that made the modern world.
Either Connections or Cosmos even specifically explored Newcomen's engine and the pumping out of mines. (I don't recall if the need for copper-clad ships preceded it though.)
How well is it accepted in the historical community (or whatever you call the community of history scholars)?
I'm afraid it's pretty easy to come up with lots of interesting narratives, and then search for evidence to support them, and as somebody not in the field, I'd easily fall for each of them.
I didn't realize Boulton & Watt, a steam engine manufacturing firm founded in 1775, was a beneficiary of a war between Great Britain and Thirteen Colonies that also broke in 1775. Military-industrial complex indeed!
The Modern MIC might be a new concept for Americans, but some of the largest and most successful European companies have a history of starting off for conducting trade but rapidly engaging in warfare and everything that comes with that (eg the East India Company, which literally collected Tax from lands larger than England at certain times in its life). Modern engineering practice could not have existed without the funding from Warring nations, and so on. The Industrial Revolutions and many of the institutions and professions that we take for granted today could not have been possible if Nations didn’t spend so much resources making war on each other. It’s sobering but a fascinating perspective of human progress.
> The Industrial Revolutions and many of the institutions and professions that we take for granted today could not have been possible if Nations didn’t spend so much resources making war on each other
Yes. For example, how the improvements in metal working and metallurgy required to make effective artillery pieces made 'precision-engineered' steam engines possible. Making a gun barrel that snugly matches the calibre of its shells gave people the ability to make pistons that fit snugly in their cylinders, without leaking steam everywhere.
The mine owners were not at all pleased with this arrangement, as they were well aware that they ended up paying much more than the cost of building the engine. I believe this business model only lasted as long as Boulton and Watt could enforce their monopoly on engine construction through patents (principally on the separate condenser.)
As for the 21st century, you may have noticed an enthusiasm for burdening simple products with subscriptions.
As mentioned, copper sheathing also provides a speed advantage by keeping the Hull smooth and free of seaweeds, etc. This thus was doubly beneficial and the Royal Navy was a pioneer.
Copper cladding also dramatically reduces the external fouling on the hull that's mentioned in the article. I had a copper-based anti-fouling paint on the fiberglass hull of my (small) yacht simply for that property.
The spinning wheel is at least several centuries old, so it seems unfair to ask how much of an impact it had on the industrial revolution. How much of an impact did agriculture have?
From my understanding as described in Das Kapital, things took off once it was realised a single person could do the job of multiple people using machines rather than tools
Neat story, but god do I often hate the modern internet.
Who the hell thinks that Twitter is the right sort of medium for this type of information sharing? (Give me simple white pages of black barely formatted text and animated gifs any day of the week over this twitter abortion of story telling.)
I agree with you except about the animated gifs. Who wouldn't, at least on this extremely text-oriented site? But one goes to war with the internet one has.
Twitter is unique in its intense back-and-forthness and the opportunity to broadcast to a large audience, especially for anyone of prominence or standing. That plus network effects has made it the default for people who have an interesting line of thought to share.
That it's not the 'right' medium for this is related to why people do it anyway: the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The spontaneity of the platform makes it easy to reel off what one is thinking or has just figured out. To make a blog post would be more work and wouldn't reach nearly the audience.
Weaknesses and strengths are often conjoined like this. When something gets used in a way that it isn't particularly suited for, there's a lot of vitality in that—otherwise the activation energy wouldn't be enough to overcome the downside. It's interesting that this unsuitable medium gets by far the most usage for thinking out loud by influential people. The alternative is not a more suitable medium—it's not hearing about e.g. the historical influence of obscure clams in the first place.
I do think there's something to mourn, though. In the first years of Twitter the founders were incredible at following and adopting the inventions that the community itself came up with (e.g. hashtags) for developing the medium. That genius approach eventually died and got replaced with top-down design, which led to a mess. I assume this was crucifixion on the cross of growth-at-all-costs, but who can say. I hope I live to see the civilizational shift in which we start optimizing for quality rather than quantity. That will be interesting.
I like that Twitter gives me a nice digestible chunk at a time, and forces each chunk to have its own main point. I have an opportunity to stop reading at the end of each tweet, so he has to keep each one interesting. When I shared this article, I linked to the tweet and not to the threadreaderapp rollup.
Interestingly, I think you just managed to help me figure out why I dislike Twitter so much for these sorts of things. I'd never thought about it so much, but everything just snapped into focus with your comment.
Too simplified, no nuance, and a looming suspicion that each individual portion has been slightly 'improved' to fit the criteria you mentioned. While perhaps fairly acceptable individually, I can't shake the feeling that the sheer scale of their sum might surprise even the author sometimes.
As a result it makes me increasingly uncomfortable as I read more.
Toss in the UI, and yeah. I think this is precisely why I dislike Twitter so much for these things.
Same. I like reading both long form and short form content. Twitter threads like this one remind me of a slideshow, with each tweet trying to make a single point.
Honestly I don’t get the hate. If you don’t like a certain format, don’t read it. Or use other tools that condense the format (like the threadroller app).
Especially when experts from other domains use this format to explain the nuances of eg a new paper, discovery, policy or political position, this kind of format has a extremely low barrier of entry, is standardized and available on a platform that loads rapidly and without (too) invasive ads. It also allows for asking questions or making comments really easily.
It is not information sharing, it is story telling. It is engaging as it gets posted piece by piece, like a modern day version of serializing Dickens. Creativity comes from working within limitations too.
Simon Winchester discusses how Cape Bojador [1] was impassible until 1443 (in his book Atlantic [2]) so it is unlikely that early voyages reached any further south along the coast of West Africa. During Roman times there were indeed canals to the Red Sea [3] and a robust international trade system as outlined in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea [4].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Bojador
[2] http://www.simonwinchester.com/atlantic
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_of_the_Pharaohs
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periplus_of_the_Erythraean_Sea