I will be your guide on your journey through the history of navigation. This will be a learning experience for me as well as, I hope, for you. I have been a sailor in the Mediterranean. I began my career on a Greek trireme as a rower. It was after the death of my wife that I made a deal with Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea and became a member of the deck crew and started to learn about navigation. In return for this promotion and a life at sea away from the sources of my heartache that I was forced to sail the seas forever in Poseidon’s name, and received the gift, or curse, of eternal life. As a member of the deck crew I was taught to navigate the boat, something that I had never even thought about as a rower. On the trireme we stayed in sight of land most of the time. Once out of sight of land there are now landmarks and navigation become more and more difficult. It is possible to rely on cloud movement and some of the more capable members of the deck crew could even navigate using the stars. This was a dangerous prospect because if we lost sight of the stars we could quickly become lost at sea. It became possible as we learned more about the stars to travel from island to island using this advanced knowledge. As long ago as what you refer to as 600 BC we were able to navigate using the constellation the Little Bear (Tyson). Once I became an experienced part of the deck crew I was able to join the crew of a more respected boat and drew better assignments. Using some of the techniques that were available including navigation using the stars and keeping sight of land I visited what became my favorite port of call, Alexandria. Alexandria was a great Egyptian city and one which my crew frequently visited. When we drew close to land the first thing that we would see from the deck of our boat was the highest mountains or tallest buildings. This was a welcome sight since it meant we were no longer at the mercy of the stars and we lessened our chance of becoming lost at sea. Alexandria was a great harbor but it resided on the flat coast of Egypt. It was hard to navigate to with no major landmarks or mountains and this made finding Alexandria dangerous and difficult. Because of this danger Sostratus of Cnidus, an architect, designed a tower that would help to guide us to Alexandria and show us the way through the dangerous reefs (Thayer). This tower was placed on the Island of Pharos and named after its home. It was called the Tower of Pharos in our time, but it may be referred to by you as the Lighthouse of Alexandria and perhaps this is more fitting.  The Pharos of Alexandria, an ancient lighthouse, is depicted in this hand-coloured engraving by Martin Heemskerck. at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_of_Alexandria The Lighthouse was beautiful and made of white marble. Sailors from all over the world came to admire the tower for its beauty as well as its function. The Lighthouse enabled us to see Alexandria from far out to sea and brought comfort to us on our long journeys to the Great Harbour. The tower was over 100 meters high and if laid on its side it would not fit on a field where you now play football. The construction began around 285 BC so its height was remarkable for its time. To this day I’m not sure how they kept the fire at the top of the tower burning all of the time, which enabled us to see the tower from sea even at night. Some of the sailors on the ship speculated that it was a wood fire but there were not many trees around so I don’t know how they could keep it burning constantly (Clement). Another remarkable thing about the tower was the statues at the top of it. I was never fortunate enough to make it to the top of the tower and it was very tall so I couldn’t see who they were. Since all of the people that knew who they represented are gone I don’t think we will ever know who they were but there are some good guesses. The first guess is often Poseidon the god of the sea. I don’t think that this is the case and every time I hear from Poseidon he complains that it should have been him on the tower, but never tells me who it was. I don’t think even Poseidon knows. Others often think that it was Zeus. I think that, since Sostratus of Cnidus dedicated the tower to the Divine Saviours that the statues may have been of Castor and Pollux, the sons of Zeus. Whoever the statues were we owe a lot to them as they stood over the tower that allowed us safe entry into the Great Harbour of Alexandria (Clemet). The Lighthouse in Alexandria
made it easier to travel on the open oceans by providing us with a reference
point when we returned closer to land.
The Lighthouse probably inspired others to build other lighthouses and
helped to create a network of landmarks that made travel easier. Throughout time the network would evolve and
inspire sailors to travel farther and farther from land. This increasing travel inspired us as sailors
to search fro better ways to travel and helped us to develop new techniques and
technologies for navigation. Notes Bibliography Clement, Colin. "The Pharos of Alexandria." Hellenic Electronic Center. 1998. 20 Oct 2008 <http://www.greece.org/Alexandria/Pharos/>.
Thayer, Bill. "Strabo Geography." LacusCurtius. 28 May 2008. University Of Chicago. 22 Sep 2008 <http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/17A1*.html>.
Tyson, Peter. "Secrets of Ancient Navigation." Nov Online. Nov 2000. PBS. 20 Oct 2008 <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/longitude/secrets.html>.
Primary Source Note
I used Bill Thayer’s direct Translation of Strabo’s Geography as a Primary source for this episode. I didn’t quote it directly but paraphrased or summarized it. I conveyed my perspective by using the writing style, dialogue from a fictional sailor. I choose this primary source because it allowed me to understand the tower and the city form the perspective of someone of the time. Section 9 of Book 18 contains commentary of Alexandria and was written around the birth of Christ. It was very useful to read about the Tower written from someone of that time.
Secondary Source Notes.
I used two secondary sources in this episode. The first is Colin Clements’s The Pharos of Alexandria. It is a signed work published on a reputable website. The website appears to have a mechanism for peer review and had a long list of members of the center. I’m not sure if Clement has direct first hand knowledge of my primary source but he corroborated many things in the source so I can only assume that he did. It is for these reasons that I think that this is a reliable secondary source.
The second secondary source I
used was found on a reputable website PBS.
This website is reviewed by peers and NOVA has a solid reputation. The work is signed by the author, Peter
Tyson, who had extensive knowledge of the subject matter. I believe that based on the stated facts that
this is a reliable secondary source. Image Information The Pharos of Alexandria, an ancient lighthouse, is depicted in this hand-coloured engraving by Martin Heemskerck. at Wikipedia |