engleski

Ancient Sailing Routes on Adriatic

The Adriatic sailing during the ancient world was conditioned by numerous factors. Those can be concentrated in several groups: a. the position of trade centres for the exchange of merchant goods land-sea, at which luxurious goods and salt was directed towards hinterland, while semiproducts of mining and metallurgy and the food of agricultural and cattle-breeding origin was directed from land to sea ; b. with previous, the narrowest connection is brought to traffic corridors through land conditioned by orography of coastal hinterland and rivers' formation of Adriatic basin. The following rivers are in front position: a. Po, that connects hinterland with the Venice lagoons ; b. Soča and Rižana in the region of Aquileia and Trieste, with the connection via Slovenian Karst to Sava, Drava and Danube ; c. Raša and Rječina for Kvarner, i.e. for Kupa in hinterland, with the addition to Panonia ; d. the pass of Senj via Velebit with the link to Lika, and branches in addition towards Kupa and Una ; e. Zrmanja for the hinterland of Lika with the link to the traffic corridor of Una, and via this corridor onward to Panonia ; f. the area between Krka and Cetina with the corridor of Krka and the pass of Klis and their link with the communication corridor of Una to Panonia ; g. Neretva as a link with the mining and cattle-breeding riches of the interior of today Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the agricultural profusion of Panonia ; h. the coastal belt of Skadar and Drin with the communication towards Morava, and via Morava towards Danube ; c. the orography of the coast. East Adriatic coast is accentuated by the profusion of islands of different sizes (1.233), that are infinitely valuable for terrestrial orientation in sailing. To this, coastal hinterland is added, which is characterized by different mountain ranges that essentially facilitate observation from the sea. The opposite conditions are on the west coast: practically there are no islands, the coast is relatively low and not easily surveyed, therefore unfavourable for terrestrial navigation that dominates on Adriatic almost till today ; d. oceanographic characteristics of Adriatic are not identical for both coasts. East coast has sea-currents of moderate speed (0, 5 kn), relatively great depths, seabed quality is desirable for anchoring (it dominates rocky-shell seabed), and, moreover, the number of shoals is negligible. The completely opposite situation is for the west coast of the same sea: strong sea-currents (1, 0 – 1, 5 kn), small depths, poor quality of the seabed for anchoring (it dominates ooze-sandy seabed) ; e. meteorological characteristics of west Adriatic are more favourable than the same for east Adriatic. Namely, bora is the most dangerous on east Adriatic, it blows off coast, and then 20-30 Nm from east Adriatic sea belt turns to north wind, that can be strong, but not nearly dangerous as bora. In addition there is also strong south wind (scirocco) on east Adriatic. Nevertheless, this east Adriatic has at least 1.233 shelters from these winds. Namely, the seaman can hide the ship on the other side of some of these 1.233 islands, not to mention island and coastal coves and bays. There are no those kind of shelters on the west coast. Therefore east coast has essentially dangerous Adriatic winds (bora and scirocco), but also has shelters, while on the west coast this situation is completely different ; f. maritime and constructive characteristics of the ancient world ships are such that they cannot stand too much wavy sea (extremely high waves on Adriatic can reach to, almost, 10 m). That is the reason why coastal navigation was used, no matter was it long or small coastal navigation ; g. the fond of knowledge of the seamen in Antiquity was essentially narrowed, precisely brought to elementary, no matter was is from astronomy, geography, theory and practice of terrestrial navigation, or the general knowledge of mathematics. Neither set of instruments for orientation on the sea was in any way better. On previously mentioned there is a certain number of data in the works of antique writers, and the recent archaeological researches on the coast, islands and under sea add to a series of insights. Notwithstanding, there is no comprehensive analysis of the function of Adriatic navigation in previously published reference literature, no matter was it in function as a sea-land link or as the observation of the Adriatic as a traffic corridor that connected European markets with the Asian and African. At any rate the most important reason is the relative lapidary of ancient data whereat there is the missing of the context by the formation of these data. However, as the basic factors of navigation would not change during Middle Ages and few centuries of early modernity, and there are extensive historical sources on Adriatic navigation of that period, it is useful to observe, using comparative analysis, ancient world navigation relations in the context of literary and archaeological data of Antiquity. It has been done in this report.

sailing routes; eastern Adriatic; Ancient history

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