Von erstaunlichen und weniger erstaunlichen Lagen: die Küste Westanatoliens und ihre Häfen in Portulanen und Seekarten des 13. bis 15. Jahrhunderts (Abstract) (original) (raw)
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Space of Experience and Space of Contingency: West Africa in Alvise Cadmostos navigazioni atlantiche One of the most important protagonists of the exploration and construction of a new oicumene in the 15th century was Venetian patrician Alvise Cadamosto (1426/1432-1483). In the service of Portuguese infant Henry the Navigator he embarked on two expeditions to Africa in 1455 and 1456. Exploring the West-African he and his men reached the mouth of the Gambia River in 1455 and the Geba River and the Bissago Islands in 1456. Sometime after his return to Venice in 1463 he composed a detailed account of his voyages. This account, the so called navigazioni atlantiche, is the only contemporary travelogue of a protagonist of the Portuguese expansion into Africa in the period of Henry the Navigator and must be regarded as one of the milestones in the history of ethnography in the Middle Ages and beyond. Scrutinizing the navigazioni it becomes clear that even in those regions that had already been discovered by previous Portuguese expeditions Cadamosto only to a very limited extent could draw on the experiences made by these. The West African coast line down to Cape Roxo as already represented in the nautical chart of Venetian map maker Andrea Bianco of 1448 obviously was not mapped in the chart Cadamosto had with him which meant he had to discover it for himself. In the regions south of the Sine-Saloum delta Cadamosto entered a space of even higher contingency because her he encountered peoples who had not yet had any contact with European explorers and whose attitude towards the strangers from the north he had to asses all by himself accurately observing the customs of “a different world” as he labeled it in the prologue of his account. Cadamostos often noted highly nuanced hermeneutics of the “other” must thus be explained with him having to come to terms with a particular space of contingency constituted of geographical sites and people completely unknown.
Abstract: The portolans and portolan charts of the later middle ages and the early modern times are a group of sources that were developed by the western trading nations (esp. Venice, Genoa, and the Catalans) and – except for some later translations into or adaptations in vernacular Greek – are written in Latin or (mostly) in different western vernaculars. They served sailors of those periods to find suitable harbours and landing places for protection from bad weather, for refilling supplies of fresh water and food, and for trading activities. This paper aims at locating exactly or at least approximately these sailing stations on the basis of details preserved in the portolans and portolan charts such as distances, cardinal points, and geographic features on the one hand, and on the basis of comparison with other (Byzantine or western) sources, and knowledge of the terrain on the other hand. Though of western origin, portolans and portolan charts are also an important source for the historical geography of the Byzantine Empire.
Westanatolische Geographie und Geschichte
Diese ist eine erste Fassung eines Artikels, der sich mit der relativ schlecht bekannten Geographie Westanatoliens zu hethitischer Zeit auseinandersetzt. Der Artikel ist zwar längst überarbeitet und in mehreren Artikel aufgespalten, er bleibt dennoch von Interesse, wenn man von seinen anfänglichen "shortcommings" absieht bis zur Publikation der daraus entstanden überarbeiteten Artikel. Die Untersuchung mykenischen Griechenlands wird unter dem Titel "Die mykenische Staatenwelt: zwischen Mykene und Theben" in dem Band Kelder, J.M., and Waal, W.J.I. (Eds.), From LUGAL.GAL to wanax. Great Kings in the Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean. Leiden, (vermutlich 2018)
Early Middle Age Emporia in the Southwest Baltic and their Harbours During the previous course of the »Baltic Harbours« project it has been demonstrated that, with the array of methods employed which include, primarily, geophysical surveying, geological drilling and archaeological sondages, it is possible to obtain new information on the siting, structure and significance of the harbours attached to the early medieval coastal emporia. The results for the sites of Ralswiek, Usedom and Rostock-Dierkow, summarised in this article, have significantly altered previously held ideas about their genesis and structure: For Ralswiek it can now be assumed that the harbour was not located to the west of the trading site within the area of a lake but, instead, lay to the east on the Große Jasmunder Bodden. At Usedom there is an increasing number of indications suggesting that the harbour associated with the fortified trading site of Bauhof was not located immediately on the northern shores of Lake Usedom but rather in the area of the Jürgensee Lake to the north of Usedom, which occupied a particularly sheltered position within the shadow of Bauhof. In the case of Rostock-Dierkow it has now been established that the area of the settlement excavated at the shore of the River Warnow during the 1980ies was not the waterfront but instead part of the eastern periphery of the trading site. The 8th- and 9th-century harbour was located to the west of the Primelberg on peaty ground of which an area of at least 5000 m2 had been reclaimed with the help of wattle matts, sand fills and timber trackways. Around AD 800 the trading site covered an area of at least 3 ha and was thus many times larger than previously thought. It is intended to continue with the investigations in the coming years and to increase the number of surveys within the area of emporia like Bardy / Świelubie and Puck, which are located within the national territory of Poland. At the same time it is envisaged to intensify the investigation of individual harbours; one of the focusses will be the site of Rostock-Dierkow.