Category Social Sciences

               Erik the Red is credited with the discovery of Greenland; he ushered in the country’s Viking era. According to sagas, Erik the Red migrated to Iceland in 960 AD. His father, Porvaldr Asvaldsson, was exiled from Norway for instigating crimes. Porvaldr took his entire family to Iceland, and settled there.

               From the top of the mountains of western Iceland, another island that lay to the west was clearly visible. It lay across 289.6 kilometres of water. When Eric was exiled for three years as a punishment, he sailed west to that scenic island, and spent three years there.

               After he returned to Iceland, Erik exaggerated the merits of the island he had explored. He deliberately named the island ‘Greenland’, to make it sound green and fertile.

               Erik the Red was a born leader. He went on another voyage to Greenland later, leading a fleet of 25 long-ships. On board were around 500 men and women, domestic animals, and all the other elements required to create a new existence in a new place. 

            The Vikings were Norse sea-farers, mainly speaking the Old Norse language. The Vikings were from three countries of Scandinavia: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. They sailed across the North Sea, sometimes to the east coast of England, where they raided and looted.

            Sometimes, they took their ships to the north of Scotland, then round to the west coast of Scotland, and on to Ireland and the west coast of England. No coastal community was safe from their unpredictable raids and loots.

            The Vikings knew that there was an uninhabited island towards the setting sun in the North Atlantic. They explored the island and called it Iceland, because most of the island was covered in ice and snow. The recorded history of Iceland began with the settlement by Viking explorers in the late ninth century.

            A group of Norsemen, headed by Ingolfur Arnarson, who instigated a blood feud with the Norwegian king Herald I, sailed and migrated to Iceland. Ingolfur called the place where they landed ‘Reykjavik’, meaning smoky bay. The settlement was a huge success, and the population grew steadily. By the middle of the tenth century, it had reached several thousands.

               The Vikings were Scandinavian seafaring traders, warriors and pirates who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe. They travelled in long, open ships. The Viking ships, also known as ‘dragon-ships’ or ‘long-ships’, were designed to travel at a comparatively high speed.

               The largest Viking ship could carry about 100 sailors at a time. Their unique construction made them seaworthy. They were ‘clinker built’, which is a method of boat building, where the edges of hull planks overlap. They were usually finished with copper nails. These Scandinavian pirates were infamous for their raiding and invasion skills. They used to attack, raid, and loot coastal areas without any warning. The Vikings conquered most of the places they raided, and established their colonies in many of these lands.

               Though the Vikings travelled mostly for trading, their interest in raiding and looting made them the most-feared pirates of their time. They mainly targeted the British Isles, the Atlantic, and the North Sea shoreline of the Carolingian Empire, which included most of what is now France, Germany, and to the east of what became Russia. 

               The Polynesians used to make their voyages in canoes built with tools of stone, bone, and coral. These canoes were navigated by expert seafarers, who depended mainly on traditional techniques of way finding.

               The Polynesian canoes were dugout canoes, which are boats made out of hollowed tree trunks, or planks sewn together with cords of coconut fibres twisted into strands.

               An outrigger was attached to a single hull for greater stability during the voyage. Two hulls were lashed together with crossbeams, and a deck was also added between the hulls to create double canoes capable of withstanding long distance voyages.

               The canoes were paddled when there was no wind, and sailed only when there were enough breezes. Though these double-hulled canoes had less storage capacity, they were much faster.

               The Polynesians were skilful and daring navigators. They were the original inhabitants of a vast string of islands in the Pacific Ocean. Their voyages were made very early in the history of exploration. They established colonies on islands miles away from their native island groups.

               They were vigorous explorers, who made important migrations. They were said to have inhabited Easter Island around 440 AD. They arrived in the Hawaiian Islands around 400-500 AD. The Polynesians were also credited with the discovery of New Zealand, probably about 1150 AD.

               The Polynesians had excellent navigational systems; they had maps showing their neighbouring islands. Polynesian navigation used instruments which are distinct from the tools used by European navigators. However, they also relied on close observation of sea signs, and had a large body of knowledge from oral tradition. 

               Hanno was a Carthaginian explorer of the sixth or fifth century BC, who sailed beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, out of the Mediterranean, and down the mysterious Atlantic coast of Africa. Carthage was the capital city of the ancient Carthaginian civilization.

               According to literature, Hanno was the highest administrative officer in the Carthaginian government. Carthage dispatched Hanno as the head of a fleet of 60 ships to explore trading colonies along the north western coast of North Africa. He sailed through the straits of Gibraltar, established seven colonies along the African coast of what is now Morocco, and explored significantly farther along the Atlantic coast of the continent.

               Hanno also encountered various indigenous communities. The primary source for the account of Hanno’s expedition is a Greek translation, titled ‘Periplus’, of a tablet Hanno is reported to have hung up in the temple of Kronos on his return to Carthage. The title translated from the Greek is ‘The Voyage of Hanno, commander of the Carthaginians, round the parts of Libya beyond the Pillars of Heracles, which he deposited in the Temple of Kronos’.