The Enigma of the Antipodes

 About three weeks ago, I uploaded a new version of my article "The Enigma of the Antipodes" for Discussions on academia.edu. This is the concluding chapter of Unit II of my manuscript, "The Enchanting Encounter with the East". You may view this extract 

https://www.academia.edu/40346434/The_Enigma_of_the_Antipodes

as well as enjoy reading the rest of my 20 something papers that represent the three projects. 

The paper explores a strand of medieval geography concerning the Antipodes, the legendary fourth continent of the European Middle Ages. It plunges the readers into a scholastic debate, presenting opposite sides. The arguments become intense and controversial on the eve of the Age of Exploration. This is a famous mappamundi featuring the Sciapod, a fantastic one-legged creature living and breathing in the Antipodes. 

 

Burgo de Osma Mappamundi

Courtesy: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mappa_mundi_of_Burgo_de_Osma_Beatus#/media/File:Beato_de_Liebana_Burgo_de_Osma_1086.jpg 

The discussion is going to end very soon and I am up to upload the next extract of my second project, which is the starting chapter of Unit III: Unveiling the Alien. I will add some details about this paper after I complete the revision. 

I got in touch with a group of scientists who encourage people to deliver lectures on zoom. They are going to start a history club and I will give a lecture on Sumerian civilization next Monday at 18:30 Jerusalem time to a Russian-speaking audience. 

I continue to read papers on ancient Canaan in an attempt to identify the origin of the early Hebrews. One of them is Tommy Beyl's dissertation, "Phoenicia: Identity and Geopolitics in the Iron I-II A period: An examination of the textual, archaeological, and Biblical Evidence". 

 

Textual, Archaeological, and Biblical Evidence

Enchanting Encounter with the East

I have crossed a Rubicon meaning that my second book is complete. 

It includes 29 chapters, to say nothing about summing-ups at the end of each of its 6 units. 

The manuscript comprises over 90 K words,  hundreds of notes, and more than 30 images.

'The Enchanting Encounter with the East" tells a story of inter-cultural relations between Latin West and the Far East related from the European point of view. The scenario occurred in the Late Middle Ages when the actual dialog between the two opposite ends of the 'human planet' had become possible due to the opportunities of the Pax Mongolica. However, many European literati were still holding outdated views on the world beyond Islam and were fed by false rumors about the latest developments on the eastern rim of the known world. These legends are passed through generations until they eventually recede, giving up to the outlook based on personal experience of travelers and distinction between the sacred and the profane. 

Unit I focuses on different images that relate to the shape of the Earth, its circumference, and the length of the known world.

Unit II presents the three continents, defines the center, elaborates on the skin color and its implications, as well as recounts the story of the Antipodes.

Unit III narrates the Mongol invasion in eastern Europe and the attempts of the Apostolic See and Crusaders to break the ice with the new powerhouse.

Unit IV gives an account of the legend of the Iron Gates, combining Alexander the Great, Ezekiel, Apocalypses, nomadic tribes, the Ten Lost Tribes, and Gog and Magog. 
Unit V describes the legend of the Prester John in several versions relating to recent developments in Central Asia and Mongolia.
Unit VI records the collective experience of European travelers who came into contact with the Mongol Empire, India, and China. The new experience threw a great shade on the development of Western knowledge of the world. 

I wish you could read the book and discuss its ideas. Meanwhile, I need some rest before starting my third book. 

The Enigma of the Antipodes

The concept of the spherical earth adopted by the classical geography included the division of our planet into five climatic segments that were assessed in relation to their habitation. The academics ruled out three latitudinal belts on behalf of their brutal weather conditions. However, they reckoned that the two remaining zones in the northern and southern hemispheres enjoyed the temperate climate and were fit for accommodation, even though their inhabitants would shun one another, sending no vital signs. No ship could stand a chance of crossing the uncharted ocean throughout the whole span of history. Likewise, no person could survive passing through the magic “firewall”, which was hovering over the equator and burning everybody who would dare to approach its fiery confines. Each part of the humankind would linger in the blissful ignorance of its counterpart.

In his poem “Hermes”, Eratosthenes carols this image, placing both human populations face to face and foot to foot: “standing opposite one another, between the heat and the showers of ice; both were temperate regions, growing with the grain... in them dwelt men antipodal to each other.” (3)

The idea of the phantom landmass below the tropics occurred to Crates of Mallus, a distinguished Greek scholar who flourished in the mid-second century BCE, while he was contemplating on the following verse from the “Odyssey”:

“A race divided, whom with sloping rays

The rising and descending sun surveys.”

(-Homer, Odyssey) (4)

Crates, who might have constructed the earliest known globe, realized that Homer spoke about two continents “sundered in twain” by the Torrid Zone. This climatic belt would sit astride the equator, estranging multiple inhabited worlds by the unbroken watery space. The reputation of the Greek national poet stood so high that our literary critic didn’t dare to question the source of the poet’s information. 

Strabo clarifies this hypothesis, which entails the existence of detached landmasses scattered over the face of the earth: “Crates… says that the Torrid Zone is “occupied” by Oceanus and that on both sides of this zone are the temperate zones.” (5)

The theory of plural worlds was one of the insights of classical wisdom. The Greek scientific genius could not be content with the solitary “circle of lands” in the northern hemisphere since such concept insulted the natural sense of harmony. Hellenistic scholars fancied three supplementary landmasses, forming, together with our ecumene, the four symmetrical "corners" of the round earth.

Ambrosius Macrobius, a Roman statesman and philosopher, who flourished in the early fifth century CE, sums up this image, visualizing oceanic currents that separate the people dwelling beyond the tropics and form “two islands on the upper face of the earth and two on the underside.” (6) 

Launching the Medieval Battle for the Atlantic

"The fourteenth century saw the major breakthrough in the exploration of the ocean. During the fifty-year period, major archipelagos of the Central Atlantic were discovered and mapped. The Little Age of Discovery was unfolding..." 

This is the promo fro my new article which I published at https://scriggler.com/DetailPost/Opinion/71178 

I have decided to move a range of excerpts about maritime explorations to a font of materials for my third book. This makes them available for publication even though my work on the second book is going on. 

I claim that the Age of Discovery had a "younger brother", a period starting with the tail end of the 13th century (the expedition of Vivaldi brothers to India) through the most part of the 14th century, when almost all islands in the Central Atlantic (the Canaries, the Madeiras, and the Azores) had been identified. I make use of the evidence from a series of portolan charts, from Angelino Dulceti to Abraham Cresque, and a pseudo travelog the “Libro del conosciemento” [“The Book of Knowledge of All Kingdoms”].  

Meanwhile, I keep working on another chapter from my second book, The Enchanting Encounter with the East. My next extract deals with the Antipodes, a conjectured land below the tropics. I have collected much more evidence than what I have published already (the original version is available at 
https://scriggler.com/DetailPost/Opinion/37535
and I am currently assessing my new findings. I very much hope that I am through until the end of July. 

I'd like to thank my Russian readers of this blog. I wish you left some comments which will help me build a new channel of communication making my writing relevant to you.