What did Native Americans know, or speculate, about the Old world?
Upvote:-2
They (i.e. those who understood Astronomy) certainly knew that something existed elsewhere, but it is doubtfull that they knew what.
The same is true for Europe. By the time of Columbus, they had a good idea how far away the Asian coastline was, but knew nothing about what was in between.
The combined effect of these mistakes was that Columbus estimated the distance to Japan to be only about 5,000 km (or only to the eastern edge of the Caribbean) while the true figure is about 20,000 km. The Spanish scholars may not have known the exact distance to the east coast of Asia, but they believed that it was significantly further than Columbus's projection; and this was the basis of the criticism in Spain and Portugal, whether academic or among mariners, of the proposed voyage.
...
The ships barely reached the eastern Caribbean islands. Already the crews were mutinous, not because of some fear of "sailing off the edge", but because they were running out of food and water with no chance of any new supplies within sailing distance.
Columbus problem was that he used an Italian/Roman Mile (1481.76 meters) instead of the Arabic mile (1,972 meters) for the 56⅔ miles per degree calculation.
Another estimate given by his [Caliph Al-Ma'mun] astronomers was 56⅔ Arabic miles (111.8 km per degree), which corresponds to a circumference of 40,248 km, very close to the current values of 111.3 km per degree and 40,068 km circumference, respectively.
Al-Farghani and the “Short Degree"
It is assumed that the legal cubit (49.8 centimeters) was used since it was most commonly used unit during al-Farghani's lifetime.
- Arab mile = 4000 cubits
- black cubit: 54.04 cm
- 2161.60 m
- 122.4906666667 Kilometer = 56⅔ = 1 Degree
- 44096.64 km = 360 Degrees
- 122.4906666667 Kilometer = 56⅔ = 1 Degree
- 2161.60 m
- surveying cubit: 48.25
- 1930.00 m
- 109.3666666667 Kilometer = 56⅔ = 1 Degree
- 39372 km = 360 Degrees
- 109.3666666667 Kilometer = 56⅔ = 1 Degree
- 1930.00 m
- legal cubit: 49.80
- 1992.00 m
- 112.88 Kilometer = 56⅔ = 1 Degree
- 40636.8 km = 360 Degrees
- 112.88 Kilometer = 56⅔ = 1 Degree
- 1992.00 m
- black cubit: 54.04 cm
- circumference: 40075.017 km
- 1 Degree: 111.3194916667
Al-Farghani and the “Short Degree”
But we know from other sources that the black cubit had not yet been introduced during the reign of al-Ma'mun, when the length of a degree was measured on the plain of Sinjar. So in spite of the terminology al-Farghani uses, his "black cubit" must in fact refer to either the "surveying cubit" of 48.25 centimeters, or to the legal cubit of 49.8 centimeters. The latter is the more likely, since we know that it was the most commonly used unit during al-Farghani's lifetime.
| type | meters | Arabic miles | Roman miles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arabic | 1992.00 | 4000 legal cubits (each 0.498 km) |
1.3443472627 |
| Roman | 1481.76 | 0.7438554217 | Nippur cupit=518.616 mm Foot=4/7 Nippur cupit (296.352 mm) Roman mile=5000 Feet Roman cubit=6/7 Nippur cupit (444.528 mm) |
Sources:
- Ancient Roman units of measurement - Wikipedia
- Die Römischen Maße und Gewichte
- Verbreitung des römischen/attischen Fußes, Seite von Rolf C. A. Rottländer
- Römische Längenmaße – PlusPedia
Seit einigen Jahren bevorzugen viele Spezialisten jetzt einen arbiträr festgelegten Definitionswert für das Nippur Ellenmaß: 518 616 µm [518.616 mm].
For some years now, many specialists have preferred an arbitrarily defined definition value for the Nippur yardstick [cubits]: 518,616 µm [518,616 mm].
- Italian units of measurement - Wikipedia
- Die Römischen Maße und Gewichte
- Mile - Wikipedia
Upvote:9
How would you know this? For most tribes, being illiterate and having no writings, the only way would be to ask them, and of course by that time they would know about you, so you have spoiled the experiment, so to speak.
That said, the Mayans did have codices that recorded their myths and fables, notably the Popul Vuh, sometimes called "The Dawn of Life", in which their civilization was created by gods that came from the east over the sea. So, the Mayans at least definitely believed in a world beyond the sea, but this was a mythological belief, not firm knowledge.
More post
- 📝 When did GB acknowledge the USA as sovereign state?
- 📝 What authority did the Catholic Church have over European monarchs from 900–1450?
- 📝 Who introduced coins in India?
- 📝 Was it ever possible to see students with burka/paranji having education at the schools and universities of the Uzbek Soviet Republic?
- 📝 How did people first discover that food is food?
- 📝 What is this 18th or 19th century muzzle gun recently used in a robbery?
- 📝 Why didn't Hitler invade Middle East for resources first before invading Soviet Union?
- 📝 Why was Kaliningrad placed under the Russian SFSR rather than the Lithuanian SSR?
- 📝 Why did the Native American city of Cahokia die out?
- 📝 Identification of location of ship yard or naval base
- 📝 What wiped the Buddhism traces from Kerala History?
- 📝 Why is the Ping Yuen river in Hong Kong called River Ganges?
- 📝 Who is this monument near Huesca for?
- 📝 Army formation: veterans at the first line
- 📝 Was the Reichspropaganda-Leitung (RPL) known to the Germany public?
- 📝 Was there ever an occurrence of diplomatic communication using food?
- 📝 Seeking identification of a military uniform in a watercolor painting
- 📝 What was the fate of the planters and their plantations following the American Civil War?
- 📝 Why did not Spain manage to keep any colonial possessions in the new world?
- 📝 What were the flaws in the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey?
- 📝 Is Josephus a legitimate historical text?
- 📝 Why does Northern Ireland not include the counties Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan?
- 📝 Where is an image of the oracle bone that describes the nova?
- 📝 Where can I find high-resolution images of these Sumerian tablets
- 📝 Did anyone ever escape Nazi Germany through KdF trips?
- 📝 What does the forward "Bullnose" of a Bailey Bridge that is under construction look like?
- 📝 How did Pontus de la Gardie drown?
- 📝 Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
- 📝 What was the League of Sublime and Perfect Masters?
- 📝 Has there ever been an election where the two biggest parties form a coalition to govern?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What did Native Americans know, or speculate, about the Old world?
- 📝 What did Germany do in World War II about the different rail gauge in the Soviet Union?
- 📝 What did the average German citizen know about the war?
- 📝 What did the Soviets know about the Hunger Plan during WWII?
- 📝 Did ancient Chinese and/or Japanese scholars speculate about what lay across the Pacific?
- 📝 When did Europeans realize Native Americans had weaker immunity to Old World diseases?
- 📝 What was the first instance of native Americans using gunpowder weapons in battle and did they ever make their own powder?
- 📝 What did the Jews during the First Jewish-Roman War know about other anti-Roman revolts?
- 📝 At what point did mapmaking begin to accurately reflect what we now know about the earth?
- 📝 How much did the western world know about the Soviet Union pre-WWII?
- 📝 What did the English people during the Peasants' Revolt know about the Ciompi Revolt?
- 📝 What did Kennedy know about Soviet missiles during the Cuban missile crisis?
- 📝 Why did Native Americans die from European diseases while Europeans didn't catch serious diseases from the New World?
- 📝 What are the factors that caused the new world civilizations to be less technologically advanced than the old world?
- 📝 What did people in 13th century England know about Greek mythology?
- 📝 Did Native Americans ever fight the indigenous people living in Mexico before Europeans arrived?
- 📝 Did Churchill and Roosevelt know about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, or the following secret pacts between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union?
- 📝 How did Native Americans refer to themselves in the 19th century?
- 📝 Did the Romans know about China?
- 📝 What advantages did Catholic missionaries to the Indians have over Protestant missionaries in old Oregon Country?
- 📝 What is the context for Napoleon's quote "[the Austrians] did not know the value of five minutes"?
- 📝 Did the aborigines of Australia and the Maoris in New Zealand know about each other's existence, before the Europeans came?
- 📝 Did pre-Columbian Americans know the spherical shape of the Earth?
- 📝 What did Tacitus write about Nero and the Great Fire of Rome 64AD?
- 📝 What did Hitler mean with the following statement about Franco?
- 📝 What historical evidence is there for the existence of Jesus Christ? What do we know about him?
- 📝 What did the top minds of the late 17th century have to say about Salem witch trials?
- 📝 Did the Inca Empire know about the Polynesians, or vice versa?
- 📝 What do I need to know about Syria's history to understand the 2011-2012 uprising?
- 📝 Did the Ptolemaic Egyptians know how old the Pyramids were?
