SC - Chinese Explorers

[Brenna]

snowfire at mail.snet.net wrote:

>
> >Secondly, navigation at the time just does not
> >support this type of voyage.  Reliable determination of both latitude
> >and longitude is a relatively modern invention.  Latitude, the east-west
> >lines ringing the planet that include the equator, is easily determined
> >by looking at your position relative to the stars, but longitude, the
> >north-south lines, requires a reliable and extremely accurate timepiece
> >to determine.  We in the modern era are so used to being able to jump in
> >a mode of transport and go from point a to point b that I think some of
> >us forget that such mobility is very very modern.
>
> Given your position on the ancients' inability to navigate north to south
> without modern equipment then, M'lord, I would be quite interested in what a
> seafaring person as yourself would think of the "Piri Reis" map.  (Which
> apparently is authentic).
>
> Elysant

This reminds me of another story.  In this one, a group of Greeks set out on a
voyage.  They were lost in a storm (apparently a long storm since the time became
unknown enough that they could not place themselves by stars when it ended).
Anyway, the jist of the story was that they sailed around for awhile and finally
ended up at the British Isles.  Lost and tired, they disembarked and made a new
home.  The idea is that they eventually intermarried and lost their Greek
identity.  The support for this?  The Greeks and Irish IMS were the only two
cultures with a floor to ceiling loom (identical designs) at the time this theory
was proposed.  In addition, carvings in Ireland closely resembled the depictions
of the maze of the minotaur in Greek legend.  There were a few other things, but
memory fails.  Anyway, no matter how improbable something seems, it may be....or
it may be that the design was basic and two cultures came up with it at about the
same way and time.  Great minds do sometimes think alike.

Brenna

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