Moderator: Aldus Marius
Aldus Marius wrote:Perhaps we can get Tiberius Draco to 'port the original Brazilian article over to this thread...? Then I could 'port mine, and so could anyone else who contributed and who doesn't mind.
Tiberius Draco wrote:Salvete,
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- Titillating Trivia -
"The First Europeans to Reach the New World"
By Gary Fretz
Q. With all of the new technology available today, we should be able to know precisely when the first European ships reached the New World. What is the latest news? It was a group of Vikings who made landfall around 900 A.D., right?
A. Wrong! It is now confirmed that a Roman ship reached Brazil around the year 19 B.C.! Here is the whole story ...
Two thousand years ago, the most valuable commodity "known to man" was salt. This is because most fresh meats and fish were preserved by packing in salt. The Romans had a large salt production facility on Ilha do Sal (Salt Island) in the Cape Verde Islands, which are 350 miles off the coast of West Africa. This location is directly in the path of the hot, dry winds of the Sahara Desert, which can easily blow 60 knots from the east. It is believed that this Roman merchant vessel was heading for Salt Island to pick up a load of salt and to provision the local army garrison when a fierce Sahara storm started. Roman ships were clumsy by modem standards and would have no choice but to lower their sails and to run with the winds to avoid capsizing. The Sahara winds can blow for many days and the Salt Ship was carried to Guanabara Bay (near Rio de Janeiro) in Brazil. In the middle of the Bay is a large submerged rock lying 3' below the surface called Xareu Rock. The ship appears to have been travelling at a high rate of speed when she struck the rock. She broke into two pieces and settled in 75' of water near the base of the rock.
In the late 1970's, a local fisherman using nets around Xareu Rock kept "catching" some large (3' tall), heavy earthen jars which tore his nets. He mistakenly thought these were "macumba" jars, which are used in local voodoo ceremonies and then thrown into the sea. So, as the jars were hauled up, he smashed them with a hammer and threw the small pieces back into the water in an attempt to prevent tearing his nets in the future. If he had only known what treasures he was destroying! In recent years, a scuba diver was spear fishing around Xareu Rock and found eight similar jars that he took home. He sold six jars to tourists before the Brazilian police arrested him with the two remaining jars for illegally selling ancient artifacts. Archaeologists immediately identified these as Roman amphorae of the 1st century B.C These containers were originally used to carry water, grain, salted fish, meat, olives, olive oil and other foods necessary to feed the ship's crew and to provision Roman outposts. One of the world's foremost authorities on Roman shipwrecks, Robert Marx, found more artifacts and confirmed this as an authentic Roman shipwreck. The world's foremost authority on Roman amphorae analyzed the clay in the jars and confirmed that these were manufactured at Kouass which was a Roman seaport, 2000 years ago, on the coast of modem-day Morocco. The Institute of Archaeology of the University of London performed thermo luminescence testing (which is a more accurate dating process than Carbon 14 dating) and the date of the manufacture was determined to be around 19 B.C. Many more amphorae and some marble objects were recovered, as well as a Roman bronze fibula (a clasp device used to fasten a coat or shirt).
So, why haven't we heard more about this fantastic find? One would think this news would make headlines around the world... The short answer is "politics". At the time the amphorae were confirmed to be "Roman", the large Italian faction in Brazil were extremely excited about this news. The Italian ambassador to Brazil notified the Brazilian government that, since the Romans were the first to "discover" Brazil, then all Italian immigrants should be granted immediate citizenship. There are a large number of Italian immigrants in Brazil and the government has created a tedious and costly citizenship application procedure for Italians that does not apply to Portuguese immigrants. The Brazilian government would not give in and the Italians in Brazil staged demonstrations. In response, the Brazilian government ordered all civilians off the recovery project and censored further news about the wreck hoping to diffuse the civil unrest. The Brazilian Navy continues to excavate the wreck in secret. We only know about it because of what Robert Marx learned before he was dismissed and what the University of London has leaked. This shipwreck may help explain some other intriguing Brazilian finds:
- Several hundred ancient Roman silver and bronze coins were unearthed near Recife, Brazil. Did these once belong to the castaways of the Salt Ship?
- A tribe of white, mostly blonde haired, blue-eyed "Indians" has been found in a remote region of the Amazon jungle. Could these be the descendants of the shipwrecked sailors of the Xareu wreck? DNA analysis of these "Indians" will surely bring some interesting facts to light!
Stay tuned for more "Titillating Trivia&".....
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Did anybody else know about this? It is quite shocking, no? Not that it changes much though, it's as the title says: a trivia.
Aldus Marius wrote:
Well, well, now I know. I'd been hearing bits and pieces of the Romans-in-Brazil story over the last decade, but never seen it all put together. I will reserve final judgement until I am more certain of where these salt-works were exactly--I don't think the ancient Romans ever reached south of the Sahara except by accident, and I have trouble picturing a wind north of that great desert that would blow anybody south and west. But then, I am no sailor. It's something to check out.
The greatest weak spot is in the description of the so-called "Indian" tribe. There are far more Asian Indians fitting that description than there are either South American Indians or Romans. Romans were only rarely "white, blonde and blue-eyed", if at all (no matter what Hollywood says). Blondeness in particular was considered so exotic that there got to be a brisk little industry in the City in the shorn locks of captured German women. To be blonde has been desireable for many millennia now; a thing that would not be true if it were very common. But the Roman phenotype in general trended towards olive skin, dark hair and eyes, strong features, and no great height. As always with a large population, there were certainly exceptions, and moreso as more northerly populations jumped into the gene pool. But we were Southern Europeans before anything else--not the classic Caucasian variety, and consequently, just as often looked down on as the Spaniards and Italians who most resemble us among our descendents.
I dare say a group of stranded Romans would blend right in, appearance-wise, with a band of Brazilian Indians. It is in custom and tech level that the greatest disparity would lie between them.
Gnæus Dionysius Draco wrote:The white-haired indians story has another origin. And the indians in question are not blue-eyed. In fact, "true" indians never have white hair. It's often believed this tribe of indians that has white hair as they grow old descends from shipwrecked Chinese mariners. Not Europeans. How on Earth would Europeans have ploughed their way through the Amazone forest, by the way, without being killed? Highly unlikely. Chinese people however, coming from the other side, would be more likely.
Publius Dionysius Mus wrote:There is indeed a problem with these winds: around the Equator there is a large windless zone between 5° north latitude and 5° southern latitude, and it was not until the sixteenth century that technology allowed to cross this zone. I can also not imagine a storm blowing so hard it could take a ship over the Atlantic Ocean. Besides, the Roman ships, being nothing more than little nutshells about 10-20 metres long and 5-10 metres large, does not seem capable to me of such journeys.
It is also very difficult to cross the Atlantic Ocean on the ocean currents. As you can see on this map, there are two circular currents in the Atlantic Ocean. One in the north clockwise, and one in the south counterclockwise. And their is also the Guinea current which is very strong and which pulls ships towards the African coast.
With these currents, and with the windstill zone around the equator, it seems very unlikely to me that a Roman ship crossed the Atlantic from Cape Verde and reached Rio de Janeiro. I would await scientific research and publication of this shipwreck.
However, I will try to get some information on this from some classical archaeology professors at the university here.
Publius Dionysius Mus wrote:A web search gave the following articles on the strange topic of Romans in Brazil:
http://www.mysteriousearth.com/archives/000131.html
A discussion around the previous article:
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1038045/posts
Another small article:
http://www.creationmoments.com/radio/tr ... ack_id=704
The man who claims to have discovered some fragments:
http://www.auas-nogi.org/marxsr.htm
I spoke to one of the classical archaeologists at the university today, and he also thinks it's highly unlikely that Romans should have crossed the Atlantic to Rio. He said the most frustrating with these articles is that none of the show pictures of the wreck, or the exact location where the ship lies.
It has been suggested that the amphorae found (which is the very basis of the whole theory) could be simply jars that *look* like Roman amphorae.
Everything is however speculation, and I will keep searching the web for good proof on this theory.
Gnæus Dionysius Draco wrote:My idea has always been that Roman vessels never had the same quality as those who eventually reached the 'New World', or those of the Vikings who went from Greenland to Newfoundland.
As everyone knows, Columbus had three ships on his first voyage, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. The flagship Santa Maria had the nickname La Gallega. It was a nao, which simply means "ship" in old Spanish; today, we might call such a ship a carrack. She was fat and slow, designed for hauling cargo, not for exploration. Some sources say that the Santa Maria was about 100 tons, meaning that it could carry 100 toneladas, which were large casks of wine. There has been much speculation about just how large such a ship would be; the best current thinking, by Carla Rahn Philips, puts the length of Santa Maria at 18 meters, keel length at 12 meters, beam 6 meters, and a depth of 3 meters from keel to deck.
The Santa Maria had three masts (fore, main, and mizzen), each of which carried one large sail. The foresail and mainsail were square; the sail on the mizzen, or rear, mast was a triangular sail known as a lateen. In addition, the ship carried a small square sail on the bowsprit, and small topsail on the mainmast above the mainsail.
The Pinta was captained by Martín Alonso Pinzón, a leading mariner from the town of Moguer in Andalucia. Pinta was a caravel, a smaller, lighter, and faster ship than the tubby Santa Maria. We don't know much about Pinta, but it probably was about 70 tons. Philips puts the length of Pinta at 17 meters, keel length 13 meters, beam 5 meters, and depth 2 meters. She probably had three masts, and most likely carried sails like those of Santa Maria, except for the topsail, and perhaps the spritsail.
Smallest of the fleet was the Niña, captained by Vicente Añes Pinzón, brother of Martín. The Niña was another caravel of probably 50 or 60 tons, and started from Spain with lateen sails on all masts; but she was refitted in the Canary Islands with square sails on the fore and main masts. Unlike most ships of the period, Niña may have carried four masts, including a small counter-mizzen at the stern with another lateen sail. This would have made Niña the best of the three ships at sailing upwind. Philips puts her length at 15 meters, keel length 12 meters, beam 5 meters, and depth 2 meters.
Does anyone here have any reliable information on their length, tonnage, sails construction, speed etc. ?
In order to satisfy the various requirements of commerce, ship tonnages were quite variable. According to written sources, ships with a capacity of 10,000 modii of grain (that is, about 70 metric tonnes) constituted the lower end of vessels whose tonnage was considered sufficient to be used for Rome’s food supply and thus to benefit from government concessions. These were the smallest among the medium-tonnage ships. They must have constituted the majority of vessels utilised in commerce, with a capacity which could easily exceed 100 tons, such as the 3,000-amphora (150-tonne) vessels mentioned in written sources, and as also confirmed by numerous underwater discoveries. However, there were also ships with higher tonnage capacity. The hull of the Madrague de Giens shipwreck in France (1st century B.C.) originally measured 40 metres in length and had a capacity of 400 tonnes. In this case we have confirmation of ancient written sources which considered the muriophorio -- the “10,000-amphora carriers” (500 tonnes) utilised at the end of the Republic or the beginning of the Roman empire -- to have been the largest ships of their time, and which set the threshold of these vessels at 50,000 modii (330 tonnes). We must wait until the sixteenth century before we see vessels of similar tonnages plying the waters of the Mediterranean again.
Aldus Marius wrote:As some of the scholars have noted, Roman coins and minor artworks show up on this side of the Water all the time. They are more likely to be of modern or pre-modern origin than otherwise. I myself lost a medallion of Hadrian in the sands of Maui five years back. I'm still waiting for someone to find it, and maybe I'll even get a good 'Romans In Hawai'i!' frenzy out of it. (Would that count as a 'West Coast find', amica?)
Gnæus Dionysius Draco wrote:I also share the scepticism wrt the 'Romans in America' topic. My idea has always been that Roman vessels never had the same quality as those who eventually reached the 'New World', or those of the Vikings who went from Greenland to Newfoundland. A trip like that would take quite some time, and why would the Romans even WANT to go further west than the pillars of Hercules? Everything they needed was in the Mediterranean
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