How the ancients navigated

[quintessentone]

"Here there be monsters" or "hic sunt dracones". 

They did that in medieval times to signify uncharted or dangerous areas. 

I suppose it reflects how people fill in the blanks in their understanding with imagined dangers.

Rather than admit ignorance.

Poetic and telling i suppose.

And just goes to prove that when faced with uncertainty, we often project our deepest anxieties into the void. 

Or deepest lusts into the void, e.g. seeing topless mermaids.

[andy06shake]

Or deepest lusts into the void, e.g. seeing topless mermaids.

Exactly.

And just as our fears were projected into the unknown, so were our fantasies. 

Temptations, often laced with danger, holds our attention. 

And what we can't understand, we sometimes eroticize.

Such is the human condition.

[annonentity]

I came across this gem of an interview well worth keeping an eye on where the archeologist has done a DNA study of the nicotine found in the Egyptian mummies. and has researched the possibility that the botanic species could have come from nowhere else but the Americas. It gets more interesting as he built a predynastic boat and sailed it around the Med> and even from New York to the Azores or nearly  Azores as damage caused the boat to be weakened structurally to the point where the storms had finished it off.
 The interview suggests that the pyramids on the Azores and the canaries were markers which line up with other pyramids over the horizon so look like they were for navigation purposes. He quotes some interesting findings which seem to suggest that there was a trade route across the Atlantic which was well established. It's a good watch if you have the time. Ancient Technology Podcast - Sampling Khufu's Cartouche, Cocaine in Mummies | Dr. Dominique Görlitz

[Byrd]

I came across this gem of an interview well worth keeping an eye on where the archeologist has done a DNA study of the nicotine found in the Egyptian mummies. and has researched the possibility that the botanic species could have come from nowhere else but the Americas. It gets more interesting as he built a predynastic boat and sailed it around the Med> and even from New York to the Azores or nearly  Azores as damage caused the boat to be weakened structurally to the point where the storms had finished it off.
 The interview suggests that the pyramids on the Azores and the canaries were markers which line up with other pyramids over the horizon so look like they were for navigation purposes. He quotes some interesting findings which seem to suggest that there was a trade route across the Atlantic which was well established. It's a good watch if you have the time. Ancient Technology Podcast - Sampling Khufu's Cartouche, Cocaine in Mummies | Dr. Dominique Görlitz

Might work if you had Superman vision which could see through the Earth and to the bottom of the oceans.

[annonentity]

Think about it for a little bit. You want to sail to Mexico from the Azores, you know the sun sets at a different position each day. You know its position on the day of your departure, You know how many degrees north of that sunset is the course line to Mexico. Which you adjust as necessary as the sun will act as a precise marker as good as any clock. He is pretty sure Iron was available maybe not in great quantities but enough to make a compass, So you can hold a course through the day and night. Until you get close to the geographic mark which is a pyramid in Mexico which is your trading destination. That is why Humbolt thought the blonde, blue eyed natives of Cuba came from the Canary Islands as they were similar. It is a logical deduction and quite reasonable. It is also reasonable to assume that the Tomato seeds found in the Pyramids on the Canaries were imports from Mexico.
  It all stopped because of some climate catastrophe and never got going again until the conditions were right.

[andy06shake]

Think about it for a little bit. You want to sail to Mexico from the Azores, you know the sun sets at a different position each day. You know its position on the day of your departure, You know how many degrees north of that sunset is the course line to Mexico. Which you adjust as necessary as the sun will act as a precise marker as good as any clock. He is pretty sure Iron was available maybe not in great quantities but enough to make a compass, So you can hold a course through the day and night. Until you get close to the geographic mark which is a pyramid in Mexico which is your trading destination. That is why Humbolt thought the blonde, blue eyed natives of Cuba came from the Canary Islands as they were similar. It is a logical deduction and quite reasonable. It is also reasonable to assume that the Tomato seeds found in the Pyramids on the Canaries were imports from Mexico.
  It all stopped because of some climate catastrophe and never got going again until the conditions were right.

The problem is it doesn't really hold up.

Watching where the sun sets isn't enough to sail across the ocean, you'd get totally lost after any significant distance.

Again, real ocean travel needs star maps, timekeeping, and solid tools, not just guesses.

Yes, people had iron, but compasses weren't common or well understood back then.

And there's no solid proof that people in the Canary Islands were trading with Mexico before Columbus. 

As to the tomato seeds, could they have been brought over after Europeans made the trip? 

Humboldt was guessing based on looks, not facts. It's a fun story, but history needs more than good guesses to be true.

[annonentity]

The navigating bit by using the sun isn't up for question, it has been put through an AI to take it to bits.  The conclusion was that if it is done precisely you can get within five nautical miles of your position as long as you have triangulation points i suggest that these pyramids were the triangulation points.  
 The next problem will be that the people were  too crude, but here we have numerous OOparts which predate modern history with iron and titanium showing up with the electron microscope, on pieces that we can't reproduce today...not only can't we produce these vases the tools used to produce them are even more enigmatic as the bearings for the lathe used must have been perfect as the cutting tools would need an industry to produce them we haven't even touched the subject of the type of  power plant which would be required to run such an industry. Amazing Discoveries From Ancient Egyptian Granite Vases #podcast #science #history #ancient #egypt,

[quintessentone]

I came across this gem of an interview well worth keeping an eye on where the archeologist has done a DNA study of the nicotine found in the Egyptian mummies. and has researched the possibility that the botanic species could have come from nowhere else but the Americas. It gets more interesting as he built a predynastic boat and sailed it around the Med> and even from New York to the Azores or nearly  Azores as damage caused the boat to be weakened structurally to the point where the storms had finished it off.
 The interview suggests that the pyramids on the Azores and the canaries were markers which line up with other pyramids over the horizon so look like they were for navigation purposes. He quotes some interesting findings which seem to suggest that there was a trade route across the Atlantic which was well established. It's a good watch if you have the time. Ancient Technology Podcast - Sampling Khufu's Cartouche, Cocaine in Mummies | Dr. Dominique Görlitz

There are 21 species of plants with high levels of nicotine, so I asked my AI co-pilot this "can DNA nicotine analysis pinpoint the plant" and it replied that "...it can provide insights into the Nicotiana genus, which includes tobacco"..."However, it may not be able to pinpoint the specific plant species due to the presence of nicotine in various plants..."

21 Plants With High Nicotine Content (With Pictures) - AMERICAN GARDENER

"After these experiments, even assuming that cocaine was actually found on mummies, it is possible that this could be contamination which occurred after the discovery of the mummies.[sup][7][/sup] The same argument can be applied to nicotine but, in addition, various plants other than tobacco are a source of nicotine and two of these, Withania somnifera and Apium graveolens, were known and used by ancient Egyptians. David J Counsell notes that "Duke’s Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Database lists twenty-three nicotine-containing plants in addition to tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum). Of these, two – Withania somnifera and Apium graveolens – were known to the Egyptians (Manniche 1993), and the latter, celery, was the more likely to be used as a food."[sup][7][/sup] Sources of nicotine other than tobacco and sources of cocaine in the Old World are discussed by the British biologist Duncan Edlin."

Henut Taui - Wikipedia

[annonentity]

The test for the relevant substances was done by hair analysis, which does tend to suggest that the substance was consumed before death.
 I think the thrust of the discussions was that when the single continent started to break up the relevant plants still grew and evolved in the separated areas but in South America they ended up in an elevated position and got a lot more potent than the ones left in the lower elevations. Therefore, became more commercial.

[Byrd]

Think about it for a little bit. You want to sail to Mexico from the Azores, you know the sun sets at a different position each day. You know its position on the day of your departure, You know how many degrees north of that sunset is the course line to Mexico. Which you adjust as necessary as the sun will act as a precise marker as good as any clock. He is pretty sure Iron was available maybe not in great quantities but enough to make a compass, So you can hold a course through the day and night. Until you get close to the geographic mark which is a pyramid in Mexico which is your trading destination. That is why Humbolt thought the blonde, blue eyed natives of Cuba came from the Canary Islands as they were similar. It is a logical deduction and quite reasonable. It is also reasonable to assume that the Tomato seeds found in the Pyramids on the Canaries were imports from Mexico.
  It all stopped because of some climate catastrophe and never got going again until the conditions were right.

...and run straight into the Sargasso Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargasso_Sea

Game over.

Also, pyramids weren't built on beaches.  In the New World, they were the centers of important towns, many miles to the interior, and surrounded by jungle.  You could spend a lifetime sailing around the coast and never see one.