Am I just slow?

[ModernMarvel]

Some really good points have been made. I suppose only time, and extremely talented historians can sift it all out.

 

Marv

[Marcus Caelius]

I just feel that the two final maps on my link do show a similarity which deserves closer scrutiny. But then, as Kosmo has stated, it is a matter of opinion wether or not there is a similarity, or to what degree you accept discrepancies.

 

Quoting Carl Sagan, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." His own explanation of this mantra, and I'm paraphrasing, here, is that the more important a question is, or the more emotionally involved we are with it, then we must be correspondingly more strict with our demands on the evidence.

 

And, in keeping with my sig line, what is the least dramatic of all the possible explanations?

Edited April 20, 2007 by Marcus Caelius

[edgewaters]

Aside from the Vikings, I doubt that any of the claims of pre-Columbian contact are anything more than wishful fancy - with one exception.

 

The Vikings had unique naval technology which was not possessed by the Phoenicians/Carthaginians. The latter were great seafarers, but their technology was geared to coastal travel, not travel on the open ocean.

 

Even the Vikings had difficulty crossing great stretches of open ocean. They made their journey in short hops, via the Outer Hebrides to Faroe Islands to Iceland to Greenland to Labrador to Newfoundland. They couldn't do so reliably, which is why their colony in Newfoundland was very short-lived and never repeated; and also why the colonies in Greenland died out (they couldn't be supplied or refounded once they were lost).

 

Even the Polynesians never made a hop from one spot of land to another that was more than 500 miles, and there is a huge gap of about 2000 miles from Easter Island and Hawaii before one can reach any of the islands close to the Americas.

 

There is another group that made it over from Eurasia in relatively recent times (ie after 1 AD, before 1492), however. It is often mistakenly written that the Vikings encountered the Inuit in Greenland and Labrador. They did not. They encountered the Dorset. The Inuit didn't arrive in Alaska until about 500 AD, having crossed over from Siberia. They reached Hudson's Bay by about 1000 AD, and made it to Greenland by about 1300 AD. Along the way they displaced the Dorsets - and, apparently, the Viking settlements in Greenland too, since the Viking colonies disappeared around the same time as the Inuit began colonizing Greenland. Unfortunately, the colonization of the arctic hemisphere simply isn't as romantic or appealing as Carthaginian quinquiremes sighting the tops of temple-pyramids rising out of jungle mists ...

[Marcus Caelius]

Unfortunately, the colonization of the arctic hemisphere...

 

[pedant]

Ain't no such thing as an arctic or antarctic hemisphere.

 

At least, I hope not!

[/pedant]

[edgewaters]

Ain't no such thing as an arctic or antarctic hemisphere.

 

 

I meant they colonized the arctic portion of the hemisphere (rather than the entire circumpolar region)

[Tribunicus Potestus]

Ok, maybe I'm just slow, but I was looking around on the internet, and I saw an article about Carthage possibly discovering America. Is this a new revelation, or am I just slow to hear about it? Any details would be great.

 

Marvel

 

Don't be off put by Cato's gruff and brusque nature. He lives up to his namesake whose great grandson punished a married couple for kissing in public. Such a stiff collar or make that toga. And no one but no one named Cato would give the Carthaginians credit for anything good. He would close every meeting of the senate with the words "Carthago delenda est." or "Carthage must be destroyed". He never could get over Hannibal's merry jaunt through Italy.

[caldrail]

Is there anyone who didn't get to America before Columbus?

 

 

Actually I don't happen to believe Columbus was first across the Atlantic. As for the various cultures and factions who have a claim to that prize, I don't know, I haven't seen any overwhelming evidence, though I can accept the Vikings reached Newfoundland as at least potentially possible.

 

However, Columbus wasn't being honest. Clearly he knew, rather than believed,, that a land mass was just over the horizon. it may well be he thought that was the orient, since the idea of a spherical Earth was being discussed from that period. His behaviour as recorded in the story is fairly typical of a sea captain with a hidden rutter (a handbook of handwritten notes and maps pertaining to sea travel, very rare before nautical charts and much prized) to guide him.

 

So who got there before Columbus? No idea. If that happened the unknown captain kept quiet for fear the profit of his discovery would be lost, but that of course raises the question of how the rutter, if it existed, came into Columbus's possession.

[Tribunicus Potestus]

Is there anyone who didn't get to America before Columbus?

 

 

Actually I don't happen to believe Columbus was first across the Atlantic. As for the various cultures and factions who have a claim to that prize, I don't know, I haven't seen any overwhelming evidence, though I can accept the Vikings reached Newfoundland as at least potentially possible.

 

However, Columbus wasn't being honest. Clearly he knew, rather than believed,, that a land mass was just over the horizon. it may well be he thought that was the orient, since the idea of a spherical Earth was being discussed from that period. His behaviour as recorded in the story is fairly typical of a sea captain with a hidden rutter (a handbook of handwritten notes and maps pertaining to sea travel, very rare before nautical charts and much prized) to guide him.

 

So who got there before Columbus? No idea. If that happened the unknown captain kept quiet for fear the profit of his discovery would be lost, but that of course raises the question of how the rutter, if it existed, came into Columbus's possession.

 

Yes, Columbus does appear to have held secret knowledge, but did it come from a near contemporary as you seem to hold forth or was it ancient sources? I think the latter. Education was much valued in Moorish Spain. Much of the ancient works that have managed to reach us were preserved by the arabs in east and copies would have been highly prized in Spain. There might have been much more had the mongols not thrown all the texts they found in Bagdad into the Tigris. The story is that so many scrolls were thrown into the river by the mongols that it turned yellow. Let us not rule out private collections of ancient texts held by jews in Spain they had been present there since Punic times Maimonides being a prime example of their high education.

 

A widely held theory in Spain is that Columbus or Colon as it is spelt there is believed to have been a spanish jew and that the Italian story was simply a cover to allow him not to be expelled in 1492. There is evidence that this is true off the top of my head one is that letters to and from his brother in Italy are written in spanish and not italian.

 

I think the viking presence in North America is a certainty not a possibility. One indication that I've not heard but seems indicative to me is when one looks at the form of an Iroquois longhouse. It looks to me like what the vikings would have built for shelter. Take a long boat flip it over and you have an instant roof put it up on walls and voila you're good to go. The Iroquois would not have had the long boats but might have copied the look.

 

The round earth was not being spoken of from the 15th century AD but the 3rd century BC, Erastosthenes also calculated the circumference to within 7 percent of its actual dimension and this is what was being quoted in Spain by scholars.

 

If you have enough boats for long enough sooner or later people are going to cross oceans with them.

[Tribunicus Potestus]

I am simply asking the question: How did this map come to resemble so closely the areas under discussion, using that specific projection of the globe?

 

You missed the answer, in my Point 1: Pereidolia, the human tendency to recognise familiar objects in random shapes. IE clouds shaped like bunny rabbits, the Man in the Moon, Satan's visage in a column of smoke pouring from the North Tower.

 

This is the nature of human sight. To map an object on what we see. With more details our image either solidifies or changes to a better approximation of what it is. I'm sure we have all seen in a darkened room a coat hanging on a rack or thrown on a chair and thought it to be a person until we had enough detail to resolve it for what it is. But if you keep examining a rabbit and it remains a rabbit rather than resolving into something else then you are probably looking at a rabbit.

[Tribunicus Potestus]

Aside from the Vikings, I doubt that any of the claims of pre-Columbian contact are anything more than wishful fancy - with one exception.

 

The Vikings had unique naval technology which was not possessed by the Phoenicians/Carthaginians. The latter were great seafarers, but their technology was geared to coastal travel, not travel on the open ocean.

 

Even the Vikings had difficulty crossing great stretches of open ocean. They made their journey in short hops, via the Outer Hebrides to Faroe Islands to Iceland to Greenland to Labrador to Newfoundland. They couldn't do so reliably, which is why their colony in Newfoundland was very short-lived and never repeated; and also why the colonies in Greenland died out (they couldn't be supplied or refounded once they were lost).

 

Even the Polynesians never made a hop from one spot of land to another that was more than 500 miles, and there is a huge gap of about 2000 miles from Easter Island and Hawaii before one can reach any of the islands close to the Americas.

 

There is another group that made it over from Eurasia in relatively recent times (ie after 1 AD, before 1492), however. It is often mistakenly written that the Vikings encountered the Inuit in Greenland and Labrador. They did not. They encountered the Dorset. The Inuit didn't arrive in Alaska until about 500 AD, having crossed over from Siberia. They reached Hudson's Bay by about 1000 AD, and made it to Greenland by about 1300 AD. Along the way they displaced the Dorsets - and, apparently, the Viking settlements in Greenland too, since the Viking colonies disappeared around the same time as the Inuit began colonizing Greenland. Unfortunately, the colonization of the arctic hemisphere simply isn't as romantic or appealing as Carthaginian quinquiremes sighting the tops of temple-pyramids rising out of jungle mists ...

 

May I point out the "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." I think the statement that the "Polynesians never made a hop ... more than 500 miles", is better said that "Polynesians made at least a hop of 500 miles." I would even go so far as to say that a people with stone age technology made at least a hop of 500 miles in dugout canoes. What might an iron age people be capable of with actual ships?

[Kosmo]

It is certain that vikings reached Newfoundland and maybe other civilizations crossed the Atlantic but as long as they did not established trade routes, colonies, cultural and biological exchanges etc it is pretty much irrelevant.

Phoenicians/Carthaginians were reputed seafarers at some point but even in Antiquity technology and knowledge improved constantly and spread to new areas so we see in military/naval aspects Greeks and Romans catching up and surpasing them.

[Tribunicus Potestus]

Here is Herodotus describing the Carthaginian circumnavigation of Africa two hundred years before Erastothenes measured the earth My link

Edited September 30, 2011 by Tribunicus Potestus

[Tribunicus Potestus]

Last night I saw this view of the Toltec Figures for the first time. My link I had only ever seen the famous view. I was struck by what I saw in the foreground. Compare this column to a greek column shown here.

My link There is the use of male female coupling in both. That is curious enough but look at the design along the upper edge of the column. How can that be anything but a greek style interpretation of waves such as is found on greek ceramics?

 

There are a lot of questions but I guess I'll have to wait until carthaginian coins are found in the New World for proof. If only the library at Carthage would have been spared. With Alexander destroying Tyre and Scipio Carthage I can't find any good Punic architecture. If the carthaginians played a ball game like the Mesoamericans that would clinch it.

 

I'm giving up on the problem of Carthaginians coming to the New World it's giving me a headache there are too many weird theories out there and similarities between the Carthaginians and pre-columbia are too tempting but not conclusive.

[Kosmo]

I believe that rather then aesthetics a contact would have brought new technologies like iron or the wheel.

[Tribunicus Potestus]

I believe that rather then aesthetics a contact would have brought new technologies like iron or the wheel.

Art is an imitative practice just as science it is built on the shoulders of giants it doesn't spring from the ground or grow on trees.

 

The wheel problem troubles me as well. Although the wheel is found as a childs toy.

No iron but there is copper and gold work.

 

Human Sacrifice in particular child sacrifice.

Agriculture

Writing

The use of zero

Ceramics

Myths involving a white god and his return across the sea from the east

metal work

monumental architecture including pyramids

monumental art

Word similarities - Balam Baal

Quetz alcoatl Khilletz baal

ball game

black features on Olmec Heads

Location at west end of the Trade Winds.

 

These things suddenly arise and spread outwards maize which was developed in Mexico had spread to the area of Massachusetts by the time the Puritans arrived.

In Europe advances were gathered inward by the great civilizations rather than spread out from a single point.

Edited September 30, 2011 by Tribunicus Potestus