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Review of voyages to the Americas


Hanslune

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact_theories

This source gives a good review of all the known ones. Can anyone add anything to what has been placed there and are their any other theories or ideas?

From the wiki:

Quote

Claims of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact relate to visits to, the discovery of or interaction with the Americas and/or indigenous peoples of the Americas by people from Africa, Asia, Europe, or Oceania before Columbus's first voyage to the Caribbean in 1492.

Two classical cases of pre-Columbian contact have widespread support amongst the scientific and scholarly mainstream. There is considerable evidence in support of successful explorations which led to Norse settlement of Greenland and the L'Anse aux Meadows settlement in Newfoundlandsome 500 years before to Columbus.

The scientific and scholarly responses to other pre-Columbian contact claims have varied. Some such contact claims are examined in reputable peer-reviewed sources. Other contact claims, typically based on circumstantial and ambiguous interpretations of archaeological finds, cultural comparisons, comments in historical documents, and narrative accounts, have been dismissed as fringe science or pseudoarcheology.

My own view is that there may have been contacts but the they were probably fleeting and un-subtantial - much less than what the Greenlander/Norse did.

I do believe the Polynesians with a thousand plus years of deep sea experience went on to SA however the evidence of this is still sketchy but strong enough to say 'probably'.

I don't believe in any contact from Africa but find it possible that contact from Asia by drifting from North Asia to NA may have occurred. Perhaps a Roman or other craft may have come deliberately or by accident but made not great impression.

Comments?

Edited by Hanslune
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21 hours ago, Hanslune said:

I don't believe in any contact from Africa

Imo, this is the likeliest. Recent archeological excavations of a buried sea port and 6 large caves adjacent, at Wadi/Mersa Gawasis on the Egyptian Red Sea coast, revealed extensive evidence for sturdy seagoing vessels dating as early 1,950 BCE. Among the evidence discovered were a treasure trove of shipbuilding materials including sophisticated plank mortise-and-tenon joints, and a cave full of neatly coiled, stacked ropes made from papyrus that are as thick as a man’s arm (Ward, Zazzaro, 2010). 

For a ship that started a voyage outside the Straits of Gibraltar, the Atlantic Gulf Stream currents would naturally carry it across the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico, (the route, incidentally, that Columbus’s voyage took).

AMOC-map.thumb.jpg.c0fce78c2585016a5c917b778b05c5d9.jpg

Take a look at the following map, which has been turned upside-down so we can view it with fresh eyes, to understand the connecting waterways of the region for an Egyptian ship ... 

10270_10207257734954571_4257498176068219202_n.jpg.ea9738db44b6d35006293b582e3567ab.jpg

Figure 12: Upside-Down Map of Mariner Routes.

... and then consider that the distance between the western coast of Africa and the Bahamas is similar to that between Egypt and Northern Europe ... where quite a number of Egyptian artifacts have been discovered. It's known that Egyptian influences reached Northern Europe at least as early as 3,400 years ago, as evidenced by beads excavated in Denmark with chemical compositions that trace the beads to Amarna, Egypt. And linguists have shown that the Celtic language is heavily influenced by Old Egyptian. Because of the legacy of colonialism, we’re used to seeing the Mediterranean as a sharp divide between “backward” Africa and “civilized” Europe. In ancient times, however, waterways were places of connection. The real barriers to human movement were the Sahara and the Congo rainforest to the south and the Alps to the north.

If we accept the seemingly reasonable premise that the Egyptians were able to sail to Denmark 3,400 years ago ... and that they were building seaworthy ships 4,000 years ago ... it seems to me that it isn't unreasonable to think that they hitched a ride on the Gulf Stream to Central America ... which would account for the many similarities between Egyptian and Central American cultural artifacts. 

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Thanks for the reply NSG

That site at Jarf is on the Red Sea however such ships also existed in the Delta ports. The ancient Egyptian are not known to have gone anywhere in northern Europe, the Greeks and Phoenician did. AE  goods were traded to great distances by a chain of trade. Just like Lapis Lazuli was and other commodities. In the later silk trade Romans and Chinese didn't carry the trade goods they used intermediaries.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-egyptian-blue-glass-beads-reached-scandinavia

By African I meant non-Egyptian civilizations

Explorations by the AE or others? The simple lack of evidence is the main problem with it. They might have been able to go and they might have but the evidence isn't there.

Quote

Egyptian and Central American cultural artifacts.

There are thousands of years difference between the artifacts again you will always find similarities between cultures who use technology to solve a similar problem.

 

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20 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

Thanks for the reply NSG

That site at Jarf is on the Red Sea however such ships also existed in the Delta ports. The ancient Egyptian are not known to have gone anywhere in northern Europe, the Greeks and Phoenician did. AE  goods were traded to great distances by a chain of trade. Just like Lapis Lazuli was and other commodities. In the later silk trade Romans and Chinese didn't carry the trade goods they used intermediaries.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-egyptian-blue-glass-beads-reached-scandinavia

 

What? You mean they only went as far as was conveniently profitable, made their money and went back home to make another reasonable lengths trip?

Quote

By African I meant non-Egyptian civilizations

Explorations by the AE or others? The simple lack of evidence is the main problem with it. They might have been able to go and they might have but the evidence isn't there.

 Psffttt evidence this, evidence that, blah blah...

Quote

There are thousands of years difference between the artifacts again you will always find similarities between cultures who use technology to solve a similar problem.

 

What's a millennia or two in the grand scheme of things. Yet it is interesting that American cultures preferred rope suspension bridges where Europe and most of Asia usually went with solid spans. Andean societies also incorporated stairs for their mountain roads where inclined switchback roads seemed preferable in the old world.

:P

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Just now, Jarocal said:

What's a millennia or two in the grand scheme of things. Yet it is interesting that American cultures preferred rope suspension bridges where Europe and most of Asia usually went with solid spans. Andean societies also incorporated stairs for their mountain roads where inclined switchback roads seemed preferable in the old world.

Yeah I can imagine Atlantean ships waiting for thousands of years out in the Sargasso sea......steps..... and of course the Inca hadn't gotten around to wheeled transport yet.

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39 minutes ago, No Solid Ground said:

Imo, this is the likeliest. Recent archeological excavations of a buried sea port and 6 large caves adjacent, at Wadi/Mersa Gawasis on the Egyptian Red Sea coast, revealed extensive evidence for sturdy seagoing vessels dating as early 1,950 BCE. Among the evidence discovered were a treasure trove of shipbuilding materials including sophisticated plank mortise-and-tenon joints, and a cave full of neatly coiled, stacked ropes made from papyrus that are as thick as a man’s arm (Ward, Zazzaro, 2010). 

For a ship that started a voyage outside the Straits of Gibraltar, the Atlantic Gulf Stream currents would naturally carry it across the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico, (the route, incidentally, that Columbus’s voyage took).

AMOC-map.thumb.jpg.c0fce78c2585016a5c917b778b05c5d9.jpg

Take a look at the following map, which has been turned upside-down so we can view it with fresh eyes, to understand the connecting waterways of the region for an Egyptian ship ... 

10270_10207257734954571_4257498176068219202_n.jpg.ea9738db44b6d35006293b582e3567ab.jpg

Figure 12: Upside-Down Map of Mariner Routes.

... and then consider that the distance between the western coast of Africa and the Bahamas is similar to that between Egypt and Northern Europe ... where quite a number of Egyptian artifacts have been discovered. It's known that Egyptian influences reached Northern Europe at least as early as 3,400 years ago, as evidenced by beads excavated in Denmark with chemical compositions that trace the beads to Amarna, Egypt. And linguists have shown that the Celtic language is heavily influenced by Old Egyptian. Because of the legacy of colonialism, we’re used to seeing the Mediterranean as a sharp divide between “backward” Africa and “civilized” Europe. In ancient times, however, waterways were places of connection. The real barriers to human movement were the Sahara and the Congo rainforest to the south and the Alps to the north.

If we accept the seemingly reasonable premise that the Egyptians were able to sail to Denmark 3,400 years ago ... and that they were building seaworthy ships 4,000 years ago ... it seems to me that it isn't unreasonable to think that they hitched a ride on the Gulf Stream to Central America ... which would account for the many similarities between Egyptian and Central American cultural artifacts. 

 

The Celts are actually a fairly recent group who arise in central Europe around 800 BC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts); around the time that the Egyptians were getting overrun by the Persians and other forces.  No, they don't speak a variant of Egyptian.

There are no significant similarities between Egyptian and Central American cultural artifacts.  I've seen thousands of both (museum tours and classes) and each has its own style.

The beads in Europe went overland by known trade routes.  Some were taken back home by the Vikings and Celts, who were mercenaries and fought as far south as Egypt.

 

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18 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

Yeah I can imagine Atlantean ships waiting for thousands of years out in the Sargasso sea......steps..... and of course the Inca hadn't gotten around to wheeled transport yet.

Wheeled transport probably would not have proven overly advantageous for Andean or Amazonian cultures. Llamas have no issues climbing slopes and the lowlands were prone enough to flooding that transport by boat in rivers and canals would be easy enough.

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44 minutes ago, Kenemet said:

No, they don't speak a variant of Egyptian.

No, of course they don't ... but I didn't say "variant" ... I said "influenced by" ... which are very far apart in meaning.  

Or at the least, similar to:

---

https://www.academia.edu/283231/Remarks_on_the_Insular_Celtic_Hamito-Semitic_question

"The existence of striking structural similarities between the Insular Celtic and the Hamito-Semitic languages is beyond question."

https://www.academia.edu/21040607/The_Hamito-Semitic_connection_fact_or_fiction

... both authored by https://independent.academia.edu/SteveHewitt/CurriculumVitae

---

 

 

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1 hour ago, Hanslune said:

By African I meant non-Egyptian civilizations

ic. While Egypt is technically regarded as transcontinental, I wrote from the perspective of a common grouping of Egypt with Africa. 

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1 hour ago, No Solid Ground said:

No, of course they don't ... but I didn't say "variant" ... I said "influenced by" ... which are very far apart in meaning.  

Or at the least, similar to:

---

https://www.academia.edu/283231/Remarks_on_the_Insular_Celtic_Hamito-Semitic_question

"The existence of striking structural similarities between the Insular Celtic and the Hamito-Semitic languages is beyond question."

https://www.academia.edu/21040607/The_Hamito-Semitic_connection_fact_or_fiction

... both authored by https://independent.academia.edu/SteveHewitt/CurriculumVitae

---

 

 

That's awfully weak, actually.

He's  a retired teacher and a translator, and I can respect that.  He's far more fluent in these languages than I am.  But his sources are old (many outdated) and  he seems to be unaware of some historical movements of the people that he's discussing.  Hanging it all on the SVO (subject-verb order, for those of you not in linguistics) is a very very weak move since what they have in common is a feature shared by the majority of languages in the world- see Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject–verb–object

There was no such thing as a "universal" Celtic language.  Continental Celtic languages included Lepontic and Gallic and many others ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Celtic_languages) - insular languages were less related to those.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_Celtic_languages)

You might take a glance at Ethnologue https://www.ethnologue.com/browse/names or other linguistics sites.

 

 

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1 hour ago, No Solid Ground said:

ic. While Egypt is technically regarded as transcontinental, I wrote from the perspective of a common grouping of Egypt with Africa. 

My mistake I should have been clearer on my intent.

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36 minutes ago, Kenemet said:

That's awfully weak, actually.

He's  a retired teacher and a translator, and I can respect that.  He's far more fluent in these languages than I am.  But his sources are old (many outdated) and  he seems to be unaware of some historical movements of the people that he's discussing.  Hanging it all on the SVO (subject-verb order, for those of you not in linguistics) is a very very weak move since what they have in common is a feature shared by the majority of languages in the world- see Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject–verb–object

There was no such thing as a "universal" Celtic language.  Continental Celtic languages included Lepontic and Gallic and many others ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Celtic_languages) - insular languages were less related to those.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_Celtic_languages)

You might take a glance at Ethnologue https://www.ethnologue.com/browse/names or other linguistics sites.

 

 

I'm partial to omniglot.com personally. Any site that has a section devoted to fictional alphabets, then breaks that section into "Tolkien' s alphabets" and "other fictional alphabets gets a five star review.

:)

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1 hour ago, Jarocal said:

I'm partial to omniglot.com personally. Any site that has a section devoted to fictional alphabets, then breaks that section into "Tolkien' s alphabets" and "other fictional alphabets gets a five star review.

:)

That's a good website. I just enjoyed poking around it, but I didn't see the language for the aliens who invented geyser-power construction.

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27 minutes ago, kmt_sesh said:

That's a good website. I just enjoyed poking around it, but I didn't see the language for the aliens who invented geyser-power construction.

The Gnommish alphabet appears in the Artemis Fowl books by Eoin Colfer. It is supposedly the ancestor of Egyptian Hieroglyphs and is used to write Gnommish, the language of the fairies

http://www.omniglot.com/conscripts/gnommish.htm

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So it was fairies who carried out the contacts between the ancient Egyptians and the Americas.  That explains it!

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40 minutes ago, Frank Merton said:

So it was fairies who carried out the contacts between the ancient Egyptians and the Americas.  That explains it!

Yes that explains the tobacco/cocaine problem, dope dealing fairies did it.:tu::w00t:

jmccr8

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12 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

Yes that explains the tobacco/cocaine problem, dope dealing fairies did it.:tu::w00t:

jmccr8

That explains why fairies jitter around so much and can't fly smoothly. They're always high.

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1 minute ago, kmt_sesh said:

That explains why fairies jitter around so much and can't fly smoothly. They're always high.

Bzzz :w00t:

jmccr8

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I don't think you guys are giving this thread the gravity and importance it deserves. I shall therefore stomp off in a huff having verbally thrashed you all and making pointed and amusing comments about your miniature sized  'twig and berries'.

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I'm sorry but I'll have you know that I'm from further north and we have nuts not berries.:lol: and that's no twig either:w00t:

jmccr8

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2 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

I'm sorry but I'll have you know that I'm from further north and we have nuts not berries.:lol: and that's no twig either:w00t:

jmccr8

A likely story. I would normally ask for evidence but I don't think we really want to go there.

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7 minutes ago, Hanslune said:

I don't think you guys are giving this thread the gravity and importance it deserves. I shall therefore stomp off in a huff having verbally thrashed you all and making pointed and amusing comments about your miniature sized  'twig and berries'.

Please don't make fun of my twig. I'm sensitive about that.

I wish I could be more use in this thread. I've studied ancient American history only to an extent. I used to study the Plains Indians and especially the Lakota extensively, including the Lakota language, but am wondering how much I've forgotten and realize it wouldn't be of much use to your thread anyway. My forté remains the ancient Near East. They supplanted my zeal for the Plains Indians. And as I think we definitively demonstrated in the other thread, there simply is no definable evidence for ancient contact between the Middle East and the Americas.

That said, I shake my twig and berries at you.

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25 minutes ago, jmccr8 said:

Well then just go to Canadian stump

 

Wut?

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