Re: Atlantis has been re-discovered by Th memeber
HOLA mi amigo Tinpan,
Not to take our friend's place and answer for him, but there are problems in attempting to answer your particular question.
I would say two difficult factors are in play viz the question of the keel - for one, we do not know the sailing routes used by anyone of 11,500 years ago, nor whether the oceanic and wind currents were identical to later and today; second, we do not know anything about the ships of Atlantis, they are simply not described in any of the ancient sources. The only hints we have in Plato are that the ships traveled from island to island like stepping stones, which would not necessitate the use of huge ocean-going vessels, relatively small ships could likely make this type of "short hops". With these limits of our information about their seafaring abilities, we can not say whether they had keels on their ships, nor whether they sailed into the wind or simply followed the 'trade winds' to make voyages as was done up until fairly recently (a few centuries ago recent).
Even in much later times, we find that some cultures used ships with keels; for instance Phoenician ships dating to at least the twelfth century BC had keels, *(Perrot et Chipiez, 'Hist. de l'Art', iii. 517, No. 352) yet Chinese ships of 2600 years later had none. Without a keel, a ship wallows when it tries to sail into the wind and even has problems sailing across the wind (side drift) but some ancient people had discovered it - so how can we say whether the Atlantians had developed the keel or not? If they were a seafaring race and were inventive/resourceful, it stands to reason that it might have been a natural discovery for them to make in the course of their sea trade. We don't know how long Atlantis existed as a culture, but it might be several centuries or even more - enough time to have developed many things.
A similar problem relating to the idea of Atlantis of being a vast empire with outposts or colonies on several continents has to do with
shipworms (wood borers, tiny molluscs that literally eat holes in the hulls of wooden ships) - shipworms are a very serious problem in tropical waters, even Columbus got stranded on an island due to their effects (and famous Captain Kidd lost his first ship to them) but we know that several ancient cultures found effective countermeasures, such as covering the hull with sheets of lead plate or copper plates. Considering the climate of that time it is conceivable that shipworms might not have been quite so widespread and numerous, but I would think they would be a serious problem even in that age, in tropical regions. (Wiki has a fair article on these sea nasties at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipworm )
Good question Tinpan, one that really would be interesting to KNOW the answer to. I wish I knew that answer.
(Greek trading ship of the type known as 'Corbita' which type went virtually unchanged for a number of centuries)
As you can see in this image, these ships were fitted with keels. Would an island-hopping culture have developed them?
Ancient Polynesian voyaging canoe circa 1000 BC, as shown in petroglyph and artists conception:
Perhaps Atlantian sailing ships were more like Polynesian canoes? These catamarans had no keels, yet are capable of sailing into the wind due to the twin-hull design that functions almost like a keel in holding a course. Perhaps we will never know the answers.
Good luck and good hunting Tinpan and everyone, I hope you find the treasures that you seek.
your friend,
Oroblanco
