# Western route to Asia if no Americas **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 5, 2023, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156 "2023-10-05T18:43:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/81 "2023-10-11T14:39:37Z")
So who first started using the word “horizon” and why? SHould also point out the Mediterranean was ideal for learning seamanship, since sailors knew sooner or later they would hit land, they did not have to hug the coast to get from A to B. Consequently they would easily have left the sight of land, seeing it gradually disappear as much of the coastline was quite hilly and the Mediterranean did not as often have huge waves like the Atlantic or Pacific. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/82 "2023-10-11T18:15:39Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > So who first started using the word “horizon” and why? The word horizon is of Greek origin. In Greek it’s ὁρίζων originally from the phrase ὁρίζων κύκλος which basically means separating circle. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/83 "2023-10-11T20:05:48Z")
ISTM they’d only know they could sail in any direction and hit the opposite shore of the Med in a survivable amount of time _after_ they’d been out of sight of land a bunch. Enough to have found the far shore, lived to tell the tale there, then gotten back home to tell the tale again locally. Kind of a chicken and egg situation. Compasses were a bit of a problem. Sun and stars work for direction, but less well at equatorial latitudes. It’s a ~350 mile 550km sail from e.g. the south coast of present day Turkiye to the north coast of present-day Egypt. At the sorts of speeds primitive sailboats make that’s 100 hours or 4+ days & nights. Given much complexity in the winds, some less than clear weather and it’d be easy to wander around in the middle unaware that you’re mostly circling or zig-zagging until your supplies run out. Eventually folks would succeed, but even the restricted areas of the Med is a big place for the sailing tech of the early days. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2023, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/84 "2023-10-14T01:38:18Z")
It also wouldn’t have been entirely obvious to people in slow vessels without navigation aids that the Mediterranean was 99.9% surrounded by land. There are plenty of stretches of it in various places that are quite far from any land. Certainly over people people would have learned it, but it’s not clear to me how, for instance, the Old Kingdom of Egypt would have considered the extent of the sea the Nile flowed into. They may have invaded Canaan, but otherwise stuck to the Nile valley. If they were a great civilization at a time when few existed, the main conceptual reasons I can think of for them not exploring more of the Mediterranean would be that the Bronze Age world lacked any cohesive sense of what was capable of being reached via sea, and that their ships were extremely primitive compared to later times. Even in the Iron Age and up through classical antiquity ships weren’t particularly great and probably did mainly stick to coastal waters except when they knew for sure that land was close in a particular direction oversea. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2023, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/85 "2023-10-14T12:46:59Z")
Don’t underestimate the extent of travel by the early sailors. Goods and metals travel the width of the Mediterranean and even from northern Europe in the bronze age. People lived on islands and had extensive civilizations - on Crete, for example - the Thera eruption was about 1600BC and destroyed that kingdom. Those sailors would have been visiting and talking to the Egyptians. The Phoenicians travelled the full length of the Mediterranean before 1,000BC. I doubt anyone who knew how to sail would be going in circles except in violent weather. Keeping to a rough heading is fairly elementary. It seems when wind was scarce, most of these vessels could resort to oars. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2023, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/86 "2023-10-14T13:27:39Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Don’t underestimate the extent of travel by the early sailors. Goods and metals travel the width of the Mediterranean and even from northern Europe in the bronze age. Hmmm, yes. Reading/learning about the Bronze Age collapse is particularly fascinating, because implicit in it is the realization that the Bronze Age saw extensive trade and interconnectedness in the Mediterranean region and even beyond. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2023, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/87 "2023-10-14T13:55:26Z")
You can sail around the entire circumference of the Mediterranean without ever leaving site of land, and even if no single sailor ever did that, they’d hear from other sailors who did other parts of the circumference. And while longitude is difficult to determine, latitude is easy, even for stone-age tech, so they’d also quickly realize that the Mediterranean isn’t all that wide from north to south. Everyone who mattered would have known that if you’re anywhere in the Mediterranean and head anywhere reasonably close to due north or due south, you’ll reach land quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2023, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/88 "2023-10-16T18:55:53Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > It also wouldn’t have been entirely obvious to people in slow vessels without navigation aids that the Mediterranean was 99.9% surrounded by land. It would be to anyone who just kept sailing along the coast. [You can see Gibraltar from Africa, and vice versa](https://mylittleworldoftravelling.com/can-you-see-africa-from-spain/#1_Gibraltar), so _eventually_ you’d end up back home. I’m not sure if anyone ever did that all in one go, but it wouldn’t take much gossiping among sailors to figure out that it’s all one long coastline that wraps back on itself. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2023, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/89 "2023-10-16T19:02:06Z")
There’s so much land within a short distance of the shore that sailors would have figured out north-south distances and tried them. There was no need to travel east or west away from shore. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2023, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/90 "2023-10-17T17:57:52Z")
As a bit of a digression on the main topic, there was a short story (I believe in Analog) many years ago which postulated a NASA-style exploration of the Atlantic with primitive long range spark-gap radio or similar, where ships were sent out in incremental steps, each new voyage going a few days further, taking weather, water, etc. observations en route, before returning. The protagonist _knew_ that he could reach land by sailing just a few extra days, but Voyage Control back in Spain refused to let him change the approved mission profile. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/91 "2023-11-19T18:16:56Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > So there are no islands at all where the Americas are now? Thats a huge way to go without being able to stock up on fresh water and resupply. Sounds a bit like Majipoor in the fantasy books by Silverberg? A planet which is mostly ocean, several times the size of Earth. Not sure if this is physically plausible… presumably it must not have a heavy core if the surface gravity is close to 1 G? ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2023, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/92 "2023-11-19T23:57:32Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Cherry-picked, probably, and perhaps a little wishful thinking. But none of it was unreasonable given the knowledge of the time. Columbus used one of the lowest estimates for the circumference of the planet, yes, but it was within the range accepted by experts of the time, as I recall. The main issue was that Europeans didn’t know how big _Asia_ was. As I said earlier, Columbus allegedly used the Travels of Marco Polo to get an estimate of the size of Asia to the eastern ocean. (Presumably, this data was what inspired Toscanelli too). Of course, Columbus fudges to estimate to his benefit. Also this: > It was around 500 B.C. that Pythagoras first proposed a spherical Earth, mainly on aesthetic grounds rather than on any physical evidence. Like many Greeks, he believed the sphere was the most perfect shape. Possibly the first to propose a spherical Earth based on actual physical evidence was **Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), who listed several arguments for a spherical Earth: ships disappear hull first when they sail over the horizon, Earth casts a round shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse, and different constellations are visible at different latitudes.** (bolding mine) and this: > Several decades after Eratosthenes measurement, Posidonius used the star Canopus as his light source and the cities of Rhodes and Alexandria as his baseline. But because he had an incorrect value for the distance between Rhodes and Alexandria, he came up with a value for Earth’s circumference of about 18,000 miles, nearly 7,000 miles too small. Of course, Posidonus did not have a standard imperial yardstick so Columbus put is own interpretation on “stadia” (based on an Arabic interpretation) to provide a much smaller number - IIRC, 14,100 miles (4500 miles diameter) and claimed Asia was over 10,000 miles wide. Sailing around Asia was pretty common, from India to China to Arabia and the “spice islands” well before Columbus’ time. (Polo came home by boat to India) Europeans just had to figure how to get around the middle eastern gatekeepers who were seriously jacking up the cost of spices. (The current hostility by the uncontacted Andaman Islanders on one island was a result of slavers raiding them back in the 800’s) ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2023, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/93 "2023-11-20T01:11:34Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > If he hit any of the Okinawan islands they were not at that time under Japanese control, so no cigar at the end of the voyage either way. The nearest Portuguese landfall at that time was on the tip of South Africa and they’d not gone up its east coast yet. In a reality where Columbus being able to travel such a long distance was possible, and the Americas not existing to get in the way, I don’t see making landfall at Okinawa being a no cigar just because it wasn’t under Japanese ownership. [In Columbus’ day it was an independent, unified kingdom recognized by and having business dealings with mainland China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Ryukyu_Islands#1429%E2%80%931609). He’d have reached an island kingdom in Asia with active trade routes to the mainland. Japan was at the time in a period of anarchy, and Okinawa even had the added bonus of being closer to the Spice Islands than Japan. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2023, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/94 "2023-11-22T14:25:51Z")
Aristotle was sure they had proved the earth was spherical … They had writing and a framework for testing knowledge to be sure its good … its not just taken as fact because “its what the boss said”. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2023, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/95 "2023-11-22T14:35:17Z")
Well what if the crew managed to collect rain water and start fishing ? They had sailed down to the Equator, so there would be plenty of resources… raw fish should provide the vitamins… ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2023, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/96 "2023-11-22T15:01:04Z")
There aren’t that many fish easy to catch in the open sea. The sailors would have had plenty of fishing experience, but near to shore netting and foul snagging schools. They didn’t have the maneuverability to chase down large fish with harpoons. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2023, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/97 "2023-11-22T15:32:51Z")
IIRC scurvy was caused by a lack of vitamin C. I don’t think fish were C food. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2023, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/98 "2023-11-24T15:47:46Z")
There’s plenty of writings in medieval European literature talking about, and refuting, widely held superstitions - in fact, much of the activities of the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages was concerned with pushing back what it perceived as superstition. If the belief that the Earth is flat was really widespread among the population, while educated people knew about its spherical shape, then I’d assume that somewhere in medieval literature there’d be a document to the effect of mocking or criticising the common folk for their flatearthism. Perhaps there’d also be the opposite, like a folk song ridiculing arrogant city dwellers for their belief in a spherical Earth, or a fairytale pitching the two camps against each other. To my knowledge, no such document or folk song or fairytale exists. That alone, for me, makes it questionable whether the belief was really that widely held. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2023, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/99 "2023-11-24T16:02:50Z")
As a side remark, I find this discussion (whether the flat Earth belief was really widespread, or a myth) fascinating. There is a particular kind of mystery in something that was allegedly an everyday occurrence centuries ago but that we are anything but certain about today. Another example of the same kind (which I happened to read about today) is whether there was ever a _jus primae noctis_. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2023, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156/100 "2023-11-24T19:41:18Z")
I suppose it was not a widely discussed topic. Logic would tell the educated that if the earth were a sphere, it was so large as its spherocity(?) was irrelevant. And, logic would tell them that gravity pulled to the center of the earth, or else distant lands would be heavily sloped and people would fall off the sides. But then you’d have to explain about air and water, why it only rained on the surface, not in the heavens, what made the sun so hot, etc. etc. I suspect the short answer is that even educated people admitted to each other there were serious contradictions and a lot of things for which the answer was simply unknown. (Or, “God only knows and does not share with us…”) As a result, without having all the answers, there was not a great impetus to enlighten/correct the great unwashed who probably did not give a great deal of thought to cosmological questions. (I wonder how early it was that serious and accurate land surveying actually showed the decrease of the length of a degree of latitude as one travelled firther from the equator?) IIRC one of the points of belief was that there was one set of natual laws for the earth, which did not work for the heavens - they had their own separate laws. Using Kepler’s observations, Newton was the one who showed in the 1600’s that one could take the force of gravity, as experienced on earth, and extrapolate that the same force caused the motion of those bodies in the heavens. Recall that Shakespeare among others used the phrase “music of spheres”, I think - which was the belief the heavens were a set of concentric spheres upon which each of the planets (and finally, the stars) rested, rotating on their own schedules around the earth - presumably the innermost sphere. That may have been repeating a medieval concept without serious belief, but it is an indication… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/western-route-to-asia-if-no-americas/991156.md?page=6)