Mediterranean Maritime History: How Phoenician and Greek Explorers Launched Global Seafaring

In the Mediterranean Sea region, humans first learned to sail on rivers, later transferring this skill to the Mediterranean Sea and the open ocean. Around 3500 BCE, Egyptians developed the sail, made of papyrus (an early form of heavy paper), which ushered in an era of exploration of the Nile River. Eventually, about 750 miles of the Nile could be navigated, from Aswan to the river’s mouth, due to prevailing northerly winds that helped sailors sail upstream. By approximately 1500 BCE, seafaring vessels were being used by the ancient Egyptians in the Red Sea, mainly as a means of establishing trade (primarily for incense) with East Africa.

Slightly later, other Eastern Mediterranean civilizations, such as those in Mesopotamia, were using oar or punt-powered rafts, known as keleks or quffas, which could carry up to five tons of goods, mainly grains. In the same region, Babylonians conducted trade across the East African coast and to India as early as the fourth millennium BCE. Between 2000 and 1500 BCE, the Minoans of the island of Crete had established a maritime presence, including naval and merchant forces, and were trading with Greece, Rhodes, Cyprus, Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), and the Levant (present-day Lebanon).

By the end of the second millennium BCE, Phoenician culture, centered in the eastern Mediterranean in present-day Lebanon, emerged as the major maritime power in the region. The Phoenicians were true explorers, seeking out new lands for colonization as well as trade. They established colonies throughout the Mediterranean Sea, including at Carthage in North Africa, on the islands of Ibiza and Sicily, and in southern Spain. These locations all had natural harbors and were isolated from inland locations, facilitating maritime trade. Phoenician explorers were motivated in part by the desire to find sources of minerals such as iron, tin, and silver, which they found in Sardinia and in Spain. Phoenician exploration and trade eventually extended along the west coast of Africa and to the Canary Islands by 1000 BCE. The Phoenicians used biremes, a type of ship with a central galley and two rows of rowers, one on each side of the ship.

The Greeks continued the explorations and trade of the Phoenicians and eventually replaced them. Accounts of Greek travels in the Mediterranean can be found in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. The inhabitants of the Greek island of Euboea were the primary explorers of this era, expanding the Greek sphere of influence to the western Mediterranean region, and Greek colonies were established in southern Italy and Sicily. The Greek explorer Pytheas (c. 350-c. 285 BCE) is thought to have reached Iceland, perhaps the farthest place reached by the ancient Greeks. The emergence of Roman sea power rested in the establishment of coloniae maritimae in the fourth century BCE, seaside colonies that provided defenses against provocations from the sea. Following the Punic Wars, Rome surfaced as the preeminent maritime power with the annihilation of its rival Carthage. Though the Roman Empire included the entire Mediterranean world, there was little left to explore that had not already been done by the Phoenicians and Greeks.

Though the Mediterranean Sea is almost entirely enclosed, it contains many islands—with no great distances between them, a mild climate, and mostly local winds, explorations of the Mediterranean Sea and the Canary Islands gave Europeans and other Mediterranean peoples experience in navigating and developing seafaring technologies that they would later use in voyages throughout the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean worlds.