- Tenth International Symposium "Monitoring of Mediterranean Coastal Areas: Problems and Measurement Techniques"
- A cura di Laura Bonora, Marcantonio Catelani, Matteo De Vincenzi, Giorgio Matteucci
Ancient Navigation and Mediterranean Coastal Meteorology
- Fabrizio Benincasa
- Matteo De Vincenzi
- Gianni Fasano
- © 2024 Author(s) |
- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- DOI: 10.36253/979-12-215-0556-6.48
For a long period, Greeks, Phoenicians, and Etruscans frequented, at the same time, the Mediterranean Sea. This forced their seafaring to behave, at the same time, as pirates at sea, to break down competition, and as traders in the emporia, to sell their goods. Navigation was based on the experience of sailors since there were no instruments and methods to estimate sailing parameters. The empirical knowledge of seafarers was based on the observation of environmental and astronomical daymarks, and on their ability to perceive signals from the atmosphere, and from sea animals. Navigation was mainly carried out at such a distance from the coast as not to lose sight of it; but in the Mediterranean Sea the coasts, often mountainous, allowed us to have in sight elevated points of reference, which also allowed offshore navigation. Merchant vessels were not as fast as combat, but they could carry large loads of goods to be sold in any emporia. The average speed of a ship was around 5-6 knots, therefore the longest voyages could require considering stops for rest and bad weather. In this case the journey required a winter stopover, and the navigation continued into the following season. Therefore, we understand the importance of “weather forecasting” which could be done with a careful analysis of the warning signs that came from the sky, from the flight of birds and the behavior of fish and other aquatic animals.
- Keywords:
- Navigation; Ancient Meteorology; Sailing techniques; Celestial Navigation,
CNR-IBE, Institute of BioEconomy, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-5183-9282
CNR-IBE, Institute of BioEconomy, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-5698-4286
CNR-IBE, Institute of BioEconomy, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0001-5790-6477
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Informazioni sul capitolo
Titolo del capitolo
Ancient Navigation and Mediterranean Coastal Meteorology
Autori
Fabrizio Benincasa, Matteo De Vincenzi, Gianni Fasano
Lingua
Italian
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0556-6.48
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2024
Copyright
© 2024 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Informazioni bibliografiche
Titolo del libro
Tenth International Symposium "Monitoring of Mediterranean Coastal Areas: Problems and Measurement Techniques"
Sottotitolo del libro
Livorno (Italy) 11th-13th June 2024
Curatori
Laura Bonora, Marcantonio Catelani, Matteo De Vincenzi, Giorgio Matteucci
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2024
Copyright
© 2024 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0556-6
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0556-6
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-0557-3
Collana
Monitoring of Mediterranean Coastal Areas: Problems and Measurement Techniques
e-ISSN della collana
2975-0288