Ancient maritime routes usually began in the
Far East or down river from
Madhya Pradesh with
transshipment via historic
Bharuch (Bharakuccha), traversed past the inhospitable coast of today's
Iran then split around
Hadhramaut into two streams north into the
Gulf of Aden and thence into the
Levant, or south into
Alexandria via
Red Sea ports such as
Axum. Each major route involved transhipping to pack animal caravan, travel through desert country and risk of bandits and extortionate tolls by local potentiates. '' at the turn of the first millennium. s'
Indian Ocean trade would have depended on coastal cargo-ships such as this
dhow. Maritime trade began with safer coastal trade and evolved with the utilization of the monsoon winds, soon resulting in trade crossing boundaries such as the
Arabian Sea and the
Bay of Bengal.
South Asia had multiple maritime trade routes which connected it to
Southeast Asia, thereby making the control of one route resulting in maritime monopoly difficult.
Sumer Egypt -mounted steering rudder (c. 1420 BC) The
Ancient Egyptians had knowledge of
sail construction. The first warships of
Ancient Egypt were constructed during the early
Middle Kingdom, and perhaps – at the end of the
Old Kingdom, but the first mention and a detailed description of a large enough and heavily armed ship dates from 16th century BC. "And I ordered to build twelve warships with rams, dedicated to
Amun or
Sobek, or
Maat and
Sekhmet, whose image was crowned best bronze noses. Carport and equipped outside rook over the waters, for many paddlers, having covered rowers deck not only from the side, but and top. and they were on board eighteen oars in two rows on the top and sat on two rowers, and the lower – one, a hundred and eight rowers were. And twelve rowers aft worked on three steering oars. And blocked Our Majesty ship inside three partitions (
bulkheads) so as not to drown it by ramming the wicked, and the sailors had time to repair the hole. And Our Majesty arranged four towers for archers – two behind, and two on the nose and one above the other small – on the mast with narrow loopholes. they are covered with
bronze in the fifth finger (3.2mm), as well as a canopy roof and its rowers. and they have (carried) on the nose three assault heavy crossbow arrows so they lit resin or oil with a salt of Seth (probably nitrate) tore a special blend and punched (?) lead ball with a lot of holes (?), and one of the same at the stern. and long ship seventy five cubits (41m), and the breadth sixteen, and in battle can go three-quarters of iteru per hour (about 6.5 knots)..." The text of the tomb of
Amenhotep I (
KV39). When
Thutmose III achieved warships
displacement up to 360 tons and carried up to ten new heavy and light to seventeen catapults based bronze springs, called "siege crossbow" – more precisely, siege bows. Still appeared giant catamarans that are heavy warships and times of
Ramesses III used even when the Ptolemaic dynasty. , 440 BC According to the
Greek historian
Herodotus,
Necho II sent out an expedition of
Phoenicians, which reputedly, at some point between 610 and before 594 BC, sailed in three years from the
Red Sea around
Africa to the mouth of the
Nile. Some Egyptologists dispute that an Egyptian Pharaoh would authorize such an expedition, except for the reason of trade in the ancient maritime routes. The belief in Herodotus' account, handed down to him by
oral tradition, is primarily 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) – in
Herodotus' time it was not generally known that Africa was surrounded by an ocean (with the southern part of Africa being thought connected to Asia). So fantastic an assertion is this of a typical example of some seafarers' story and Herodotus therefore may never have mentioned it, at all, had it not been based on facts and made with the according insistence. This early description of Necho's expedition as a whole is contentious, though; it is recommended that one keep an open mind on the subject; but
Strabo,
Polybius, and
Ptolemy doubted the description. Egyptologist
A. B. Lloyd suggests that the Greeks at this time understood that anyone going south far enough and then turning west would have the Sun on their right but found it unbelievable that Africa reached so far south. He suggests that "It is extremely unlikely that an Egyptian king would, or could, have acted as Necho is depicted as doing" and that the story might have been triggered by the failure of
Sataspes' attempt to circumnavigate Africa under
Xerxes the Great. Regardless, it was believed by Herodotus and
Pliny. Much earlier, the
Sea Peoples was a
confederacy of seafaring raiders who sailed into the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean, caused political unrest, and attempted to enter or control
Egyptian territory during the late
19th dynasty, and especially during Year 8 of
Ramesses III of the
20th Dynasty. The Egyptian Pharaoh
Merneptah explicitly refers to them by the term "the foreign-countries (or 'peoples') of the sea" in his
Great Karnak Inscription. Although some scholars believe that they "invaded"
Cyprus and the
Levant, this hypothesis is disputed.
Kingdom of Punt in the
Red Sea, the
Persian Gulf, the
Indian Ocean, and the
straits of Malacca. In ancient times the
Kingdom of Punt, which is believed by several Egyptologists to have been situated in the area of modern-day
Somalia, had a steady trade link with the Ancient Egyptians and exported the precious natural resources such as
myrrh,
frankincense and
gum. This trade network continued all the way into the
classical era. The city states of
Mossylon,
Opone,
Malao,
Mundus and
Tabae in Somalia engaged in a lucrative trade network connecting
Somali merchants with
Phoenicia,
Ptolemic Egypt,
Greece,
Parthian Persia,
Saba,
Nabataea and the
Roman Empire. Somali sailors used the ancient Somali maritime vessel known as the
beden to transport their cargo.
The Mediterranean Minoan traders from
Crete were active in the eastern Mediterranean by the 2nd millennium BC. The
Phoenicians were an ancient
civilization centered in the north of ancient
Canaan, with its heartland along the coast of modern-day
Lebanon, Western
Syria and northern
Israel. Phoenician civilization was an enterprising
maritime trading culture that spread across the
Mediterranean during the first millennium BC, between the period of 1200 BC to 900 BC. The recent discovery of three shipwrecks off the coast of
Israel provides new insights into the history of maritime trade during the
Iron Age. Though ancient boundaries of such city-centered cultures fluctuated, the city of
Tyre seems to have been the southernmost.
Sarepta between
Sidon and Tyre, is the most thoroughly excavated city of the Phoenician homeland. The Phoenicians often traded by means of a
galley, a man-powered sailing vessel. They were the first civilization to create the
bireme. There is still debate on the subject of whether the Canaanites and Phoenicians were different peoples or not. The
Mediterranean was the source of the vessel,
galley, developed before 1000 BC, and development of nautical technology supported the expansion of Mediterranean culture. The
Greek trireme was the most common ship of the ancient Mediterranean world, employing the propulsion power of
oarsmen. Mediterranean peoples developed
lighthouse technology and built large fire-based lighthouses, most notably the
Lighthouse of Alexandria, built in the 3rd century BC (between 285 and 247 BC) on the island of Pharos in Alexandria, Egypt. Many in ancient western societies, such as
Ancient Greece, were in awe of the seas and deified them, believing that man no longer belonged to himself when once he embarked on a sea voyage. They believed that he was liable to be sacrificed at any time to the anger of the great
Sea God. Before the Greeks, the
Carians were an early Mediterranean seagoing people that travelled far. Early writers do not give a good idea about the progress of navigation nor that of the man's seamanship. One of the early stories of seafaring was that of
Odysseus. In
Greek mythology, the
Argonauts were a band of heroes who, in the years before the
Trojan War, accompanied
Jason to
Colchis in his quest to find the
Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, the
Argo which in turn was named after its builder
Argus. Thus, "Argonauts" literally means "Argo sailors". The voyage of the Greek navigator
Pytheas of Massalia is an example of a very early voyage. A competent astronomer and geographer, Pytheas ventured from Greece to Western Europe and the British Isles. The
periplus, literally "a sailing-around', in the ancient navigation of
Phoenicians,
Greeks, and
Romans was a manuscript document that listed in order the ports and coastal landmarks, with approximate distances between, that the captain of a vessel could expect to find along a shore. Several examples of
periploi have survived.
Piracy, which is a
robbery committed at sea or sometimes on the shore, dates back to
Classical Antiquity and, in all likelihood, much further. The
Tyrrhenians,
Illyrians and
Thracians were known as
pirates in ancient times. The island of
Lemnos long resisted
Greek influence and remained a haven for Thracian pirates. By the 1st century BC, there were pirate states along the
Anatolian coast, threatening the
commerce of the
Roman Empire. The earliest seagoing culture in the Mediterranean is associated with
Cardium pottery. Their earliest impressed ware sites, dating to 6400–6200 BC, are in
Epirus and
Corfu. Settlements then appear in
Albania and
Dalmatia on the eastern Adriatic coast dating to between 6100 and 5900 BC. The earliest date in Italy comes from
Coppa Nevigata on the Adriatic coast of southern Italy, perhaps as early as 6000 cal B.C. Also during Su Carroppu culture in Sardinia, already in its early stages (low strata into Su Coloru cave, c. 6000 BC) early examples of cardium pottery appear. Northward and westward all secure radiocarbon dates are identical to those for Iberia c. 5500 cal BC, which indicates a rapid spread of cardium and related cultures: 2,000 km from the gulf of Genoa to the estuary of the Mondego in probably no more than 100–200 years. This suggests a seafaring expansion by planting colonies along the coast.
The Persian Wars In
Ionia (the modern Aegean coast of
Turkey) the Greek cities, which included great centres such as
Miletus and
Halicarnassus, were unable to maintain their independence and came under the rule of the
Persian Empire in the mid-6th century BC. In 499 BC the
Greeks rose in the
Ionian Revolt, and
Athens and some other Greek cities went to their aid. In 490 BC, the Persian Great King,
Darius I, having suppressed the Ionian cities, sent a fleet to punish the Greeks. The Persians landed in
Attica, but were defeated at the
Battle of Marathon by a Greek army led by the Athenian general
Miltiades. The burial mound of the Athenian dead can still be seen at Marathon. Ten years later Darius' successor,
Xerxes I, sent a much more powerful force by land. After being delayed by the Spartan King
Leonidas I at
Thermopylae, Xerxes advanced into Attica, where he captured and burned Athens. But the Athenians had evacuated the city by sea, and under
Themistocles they defeated the Persian fleet at the
Battle of Salamis. A year later, the Greeks, under the Spartan
Pausanias, defeated the Persian army at
Plataea. The Athenian fleet then turned to chasing the Persians out of the Aegean Sea, and in 478 BC they captured
Byzantium. In the course of doing so Athens enrolled all the island states and some mainland allies into an alliance, called the
Delian League because its treasury was kept on the sacred island of
Delos. The
Spartans, although they had taken part in the war, withdrew into isolation after it, allowing Athens to establish unchallenged naval and
commercial power. (
Trireme), c. 400 BC
Punic Wars The
Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between
Rome and
Carthage. The main cause of the Punic Wars was the clash of interests between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman sphere of influence. The Romans were initially interested in expansion via
Sicily, part of which lay under Carthaginian control. At the start of the
first Punic War, Carthage was the dominant power of the
Mediterranean, with an extensive maritime empire, while Rome was the rapidly ascending power in
Italy. By the end of the third war, after the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides, Rome had conquered Carthage's empire and razed the city, becoming in the process the most powerful state of the Western Mediterranean. With the end of the
Macedonian wars – which ran concurrently with the Punic Wars – and the defeat of the
Seleucid Emperor Antiochus III the Great in the
Roman-Syrian War (
Treaty of Apamea, 188 BC) in the eastern sea, Rome emerged as the dominant Mediterranean power and the most powerful city in the classical world. This was a turning point that meant that the civilization of the ancient
Mediterranean would pass to the modern world via Europe instead of Africa.
Pre-Roman Britain The
Coracle, a small single-passenger-sized float, has been used in Britain since before the first Roman invasion as noted by the invaders. Coracles are round or oval in shape, made of a wooden frame with a hide stretched over it then
tarred to provide waterproofing. Being so light, an operator can carry the light craft over the shoulder. They are capable of operating in mere inches of water due to the keel-less hull. The early people of Wales used these boats for fishing and light travel and updated models are still in use to this day on the rivers of
Scotland and
Wales. Early
Britons also used the
dugout canoe. Examples of these canoes have been found buried in marshes and mud banks of rivers at lengths of upward eight feet. In 1992 a notable archaeological find, named the "
Dover Bronze Age Boat", was unearthed from beneath what is modern day
Dover, England. The
Bronze Age boat which is about 9.5 meters long × 2.3 meters wide is believed to have been a seagoing vessel.
Carbon dating reveals that the craft dating from approximately 1600 BC might be the oldest known sea-going boat. The hull was of half
oak logs and side panels also of oak were stitched on with
yew lashings. Both the straight-grained oak and yew bindings are now extinct as a shipbuilding method in
England. A reconstruction in 1996 proved that a crew between four and sixteen paddlers could have easily propelled the boat during Force 4 winds upwards of four knots but with a maximum of . The boat could have easily carried a significant amount of cargo and with a strong crew may have been able to traverse near thirty nautical miles in a day.
Northern Europe The
Norsemen, or 'people from the North', were people from southern and central
Scandinavia which established states and settlements Northern Europe from the late 8th century to the 11th century.
Vikings has been a common term for Norsemen in the early
medieval period, especially in connection with raids and
monastic plundering made by Norsemen in Great Britain and Ireland.
Leif Ericson was an
Icelandic
explorer known to be the first
European to have landed in
North America (presumably in
Newfoundland,
Canada). During a stay in
Norway, Leif Ericsson converted to
Christianity, like many Norse of that time. He also went to Norway to serve the
King of Norway,
Olaf Tryggvason. When he returned to
Greenland, he bought the boat of
Bjarni Herjólfsson and set out to explore the land that Bjarni had found (located
west of Greenland), which was, in fact, Newfoundland, in Canada. The
Saga of the Greenlanders tells that Leif set out around the year 1000 to follow Bjarni's route with 15 crew members, but going north.
Maritime Southeast Asia Austronesians in
Maritime Southeast Asia developed very early
maritime trade networks in the
Neolithic. The first of which is the
Maritime Jade Road. It lasted for around 3,000 years, from 2000 BCE to 1000 CE. It was initially established by the indigenous peoples of
Taiwan and the
Philippines. Raw jade was sourced from deposits in Taiwan and worked into ornaments in the Philippines (the most notable and most numerous of which are double-headed pendants known as
lingling-o). This network later included parts of
Vietnam,
Malaysia,
Indonesia,
Thailand, and other areas in Southeast Asia where these jade ornaments, along with other trade goods, were exchanged (also known as the
Sa Huynh-
Kalanay Interaction Sphere). The wide distribution throughout
Island Southeast Asia of the ceremonial
bronze drums () sourced from the
Dong Son culture of northern Vietnam is also evidence of the antiquity and density of this prehistoric Southeast Asian maritime network. These early contacts resulted in the introduction of Austronesian crops and material culture to South Asia, including
betel nut chewing,
coconuts,
sandalwood, domesticated
bananas,
sugarcane,
cloves, and
nutmeg. It also introduced Austronesian sailing technologies like
outrigger boats which are still utilized in Sri Lanka and southern India. There is also indirect evidence of very early Austronesian contacts with
Africa, based on the presence and spread of Austronesian domesticates like bananas,
taro,
chickens, and
purple yam in Africa in the first millennium BCE. s from the 8th century, they were depictions of large
Javanese outrigger vessels. Shown with the characteristic
tanja sail of Southeast Asian
Austronesians Austronesian
thalassocracies controlled the flow of trade in the eastern regions of the Maritime Silk Road, especially the
polities around the
straits of
Malacca and
Bangka, the
Malay Peninsula, and the
Mekong Delta; through which passed the main routes of the Austronesian trade ships to
Giao Chỉ (in the
Tonkin Gulf) and
Guangzhou (southern
China), the endpoints. as well as through the
Java Sea,
Celebes Sea,
Banda Sea, and the
Sulu Sea, reconnecting with the main route through the northern Philippines and Taiwan. The secondary routes also continue onward to the
East China Sea and the
Yellow Sea for a limited extent. The main route of the western regions of the Maritime Silk Road directly crosses the
Indian Ocean from the northern tip of
Sumatra (or through the
Sunda Strait) to
Sri Lanka, southern
India and
Bangladesh, and the
Maldives. It branches from here into routes through the
Arabian Sea entering the
Gulf of Oman (into the
Persian Gulf), and the
Gulf of Aden (into the
Red Sea). Secondary routes also pass through the coastlines of the
Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, and southwards along the coast of
East Africa to
Zanzibar, the
Comoros,
Madagascar, and the
Seychelles. The Maldives was of particular importance as a major hub for Austronesian sailors venturing through the western routes.
Han and
Tang dynasty Chinese records also indicate that the early Chinese Buddhist
pilgrims to South Asia booked passage with the Austronesian ships (which they called the ''
k'un-lun po'') that traded in the Chinese port city of
Guangzhou. Books written by Chinese monks like Wan Chen and Hui-Lin contain detailed accounts of the large trading vessels from Southeast Asia dating back to at least the 3rd century CE.
Srivijaya, a
Hindu-
Buddhist Austronesian polity founded at
Palembang in 682 CE, rose to dominate the trade in the region around the straits of
Malacca and
Sunda and the South China Sea
emporium by controlling the trade in luxury aromatics and Buddhist artifacts from West Asia to a thriving Tang market. The
Butuan boat burials of the
Philippines, which feature eleven
lashed-lug boat remains of the
Austronesian boatbuilding traditions (individually dated from 689 CE to 988 CE), were found in association with large amounts of trade goods from
China,
Cambodia,
Thailand (
Haripunjaya and
Satingpra),
Vietnam, and as far as
Persia, indicating they traded as far as the
Middle East. These maritime routes persisted (with increasing participation of other maritime cultures) into the
medieval era, before declining and being replaced with European trade routes during the
colonial era in the 15th century.
Indian subcontinent In the
Indian maritime history, the world's first
tidal dock was built in phase II of
Lothal during the
Harappan civilisation near the present day
Mangrol harbour on the
Gujarat coast. Other ports were probably at
Balakot and
Dwarka. However, it is probable that many small-scale ports, and not massive ports, were used for the Harappan maritime trade. Ships from the harbour at these ancient port cities established
trade with
Mesopotamia, where the Indus Valley may have been known as
Meluhha. Emperor
Chandragupta Maurya's
Prime Minister Kautilya's
Arthashastra devotes a full chapter on the state department of waterways under
nāvādhyakṣa (
Sanskrit for
Superintendent of ships) . The terms,
nāvā dvīpāntaragamanam (
Sanskrit for sailing to other lands by ships) and
samudrasaṁyānam (maritime travel) appear in the work. The
Maritime history of
Kalinga (now
Odisha) is an important highlight of the traditions of Indian maritime history as it was influential in establishing trading links with Southeast Asia along the
Maritime Silk Road. The people of this region of eastern
India along the coast of the
Bay of Bengal sailed up and down the
Indian coast, and travelled to
Indo China and throughout
Maritime Southeast Asia,
introducing elements of
their culture to the
people with whom they traded. The 6th century
Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa mentions the
Bay of Bengal as 'Kaliṅgodra' and historically the Bay of Bengal has been called 'Kaliṅga Sāgara' (both Kaliṅgodra and Kalinga Sagara mean Kalinga Sea), indicating the importance of Kalinga in the
maritime trade.
Japan '' model of a ship, from
Japan's
Kofun period (250–538); during the
Three Kingdoms of Korea, the Japanese sided with
Baekje against a naval alliance between the Chinese
Tang dynasty and Korean
Silla.
Japan had a navy by at least the 6th century, with their invasions and involvement in political alliances during the
Three Kingdoms of Korea. A joint alliance between the Korean
Silla Kingdom and the Chinese
Tang dynasty (618–907 AD) heavily defeated the Japanese and their Korean allies of
Baekje in the
Battle of Baekgang on August 27 to August 28 of the year 663 AD. This decisive victory expelled the Japanese force from Korea and allowed the Tang and Silla to conquer
Goguryeo.
Ancient Rome Ancient Rome had a variety of ships that played crucial roles in its
military,
trade, and transportation activities. Rome was preceded in the use of the sea by other ancient, seafaring
civilizations of the Mediterranean. The
galley was a long, narrow, highly maneuverable ship powered by oarsmen, sometimes stacked in multiple levels such as
biremes or
triremes, and many of which also had sails. Initial efforts of the Romans to construct a war fleet were based on copies of Carthaginian warships. In the
Punic Wars in the mid-third century BCE, the Romans were at first outclassed by Carthage at sea, but by 256 BCE had drawn even and fought the wars to a stalemate. In 55 BCE
Julius Caesar used warships and transport ships to
invade Britain. Numerous types of transport ships were used to carry foodstuffs or other trade goods around the Mediterranean, many of which did double duty and were pressed into service as warships or troop transports in time of war. Roman ships are named in different ways, often in compound expressions with the word . These are found in many ancient Roman texts, and named in different ways, such as by the appearance of the ship: for example, (covered ship); or by its function, for example: (commerce ship), or (plunder ship). Others, like (grain), (stones), and (live fish), are about the cargo. The
Althiburos mosaic in Tunisia lists many types of ships. The expression (lit. "long ships") is the plural of the noun phrase ("long ship"), following the rules for pluralization of feminine,
third declension nouns in Latin, and inflectional agreement of the adjective
longus to match. ==See also==