The planet Neptune is the farthest planet orbiting the Sun and is invisible to the naked eye. In 1613, Galileo Galilei had mapped the planet with his telescope, but he mistakenly perceived it as a star, even though he appeared to observe that it had moved relative to other fixed stars. Rather it was unexpected deviations in the orbit calculation of the planet Uranus in 1821 that led to the inference of an unknown planet perturbing Uranus’ orbit through its gravitational pull. The planet was officially seen through a telescope in 1846. Because of its blue-green color, it was named after the Roman god of the sea Neptune.
The sea has always been the ultimate destination for brave souls with curious eyes, who possessed a great sense of adventure, and who could develop the shipbuilding and navigational technologies to undertake such adventures. Seafaring evidence shows glass trading between Egypt, the Levant, Mycenaean Greece, and the Indus Valley as early as the third millennium BCE, particularly for a type of glass ingot made to imitate lapis lazuli, a most precious bead-making stone found in Badakhshan in northeastern Afghanistan. Between the late third and mid-second millennium BCE, a glass imitation of lapis, made by adding cobalt to achieve a purplish-blue color, became a popular substitute. By the 2nd millennium BCE, the Akkadian word for glass had become “lapis from the kiln” to distinguish it from “lapis from the mountain.” Among the earliest shipwrecks discovered was off the Uluburun cape on the southern coast of Turkey just a few years after the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun’s death in 1323 BCE. The Uluburun shipwreck provides some of the best evidence for the scale and scope of early Mediterranean exchange, which included at least four hundred kilograms of glass ingots among the seventeen tons of artifacts recovered.
Around this same time period, the Austronesians established well-trodden exchange networks between Southeast and South Asia. These early contacts introduced Austronesian crops to South Asia, notably among which was a betel chewing culture. To make a betel quid requires the areca palm nut, slaked slime, and the betel leaf. The composition is similar to the coca leaf chewing culture in South America, which also requires an alkaline substance, such as lime powder. Like the coca leaf, the areca nut is mildly narcotic, reportedly providing a sense of well-being, heightened alertness, a warm body sensation, improved digestion, and increased stamina. While betel habits and the arboriculture of the areca nut palm in Southeast Asia date as early as 13000 years ago, linguistic analysis confirms that neither areca nut nor betel leaf were native to Southern India. However, charcoal evidence of sandalwood, another import from the Indonesian archipelago, dates its presence in South India to 1400 to 1300 BCE. Thus betel ingredients may have been a part of the influx of new plant species import into India in this time period. The use of sandalwood and the practice of betel chewing are examples of exchanges in aesthetic ideals, medicine, and ritual practices between Neolithic societies. By the 1st century CE, regular betel chewing spread to Northern India, stretching as far as Kashmir. By 1000 CE, dental evidence indicates betel chewing had become widely practiced in Western Micronesia. Today some 600 million people worldwide regularly chew betel.
Ancient navigators leveraged the stars, the Sun, the Moon, the appearance of the sea, wildlife, and land visuals to orient themselves. Improved understanding of seasonal weather patterns and ocean currents helped improve navigational techniques. In turn, they dictated the patterns of maritime commerce, such as those across the Arabian Sea. As early as the 2nd century BCE, ships sailed from Egypt in July to leverage the south-westerly summer monsoon trade winds, traveling along the southern coasts of the Arabian Peninsula and crossing the Arabian Sea to reach the western coasts of India in August. Then from November to March, they made their return, taking advantage of the north-easterly monsoon winds of the winter. By the 8th century CE, transoceanic routes spanned the Indian Ocean to connect the Tang Dynasty in the east and the Abbasid Empire in the west, trading exotic goods such as musk, silk, and porcelain. After moving his capital to Baghdad, whose Tigris River opened to the Persian Gulf, the second Abbasid Caliph al-Mansūr boasted, “This is the Tigris; there is no obstacle between us and China; everything on the sea can come to us on it.”
The 16th century ushered in the Age of Discovery, when European seafarers explored, colonized, and conquered across the globe. In 1519, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, hoping to secure a maritime trade route with the Spice Islands in present-day Indonesia, would lead the first-ever expedition to circumnavigate the earth. Departed from Spain, the 3-year voyage would cross the Atlantic Ocean and then to the Pacific Ocean by a sea route in southern Chile, separating mainland South America to the north and the Tierra del Fuego archipelago to the south, coming to be known as the Strait of Magellan. It remained the primary passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean until the opening of Panama Canal in 1914. Compared to traveling overland, seafaring has always been safer, border free, more fuel efficient, and having total control over the oceans brought Europe enormous wealth from their colonies from across the globe. By the 18th century, Great Britain had become “the empire on which the sun never sets,” and many expeditions were commissioned by the Royal Society, including those led by Captain James Cook and Charles Darwin, collecting immense wealth of knowledge in natural flora and biological sciences.
The end of World War I brought the Imperial German Navy to its knee, retaining the Royal Navy’s status as the world’s most powerful, which was larger than the U.S. Navy and French Navy combined at the time. After World War II, following the decline of the British Empire and economic hardships, the United States Navy became the global naval power, and remains the world’s most powerful naval power today. With more than 80 percent of goods being transported by sea, maritime transport continues to be the backbone of global trade. Each year, the shipping industry transports 11 billion tons of goods, including 2 billion tons of crude oil, 1 billion tons of iron ore, and 350 million tons of grain, all of which would not be possible by road, rail, or air. Suffice to say, who controls the world’s oceans stands to be the most important player in the world’s economy.
hardlyplaying.blog 