In two months, Christopher's name will be glorified again
Columbus on the 510th anniversary of his landing on the American continent
Uri Katzir, Joshua Allen
The bronze statue of Leif Erickson in Boston. Northern European hero
We are all able to memorize in our sleep that it was Columbus who discovered America. Most of the world's inhabitants know that Columbus is synonymous with pioneering, curiosity and daring. This is what we were taught in kindergarten, at school and in history books. But was the giant continent (northern and southern) really discovered first only 510 years ago?
Over the years, the studies that claim that there were countries and nationalities that discovered America before Columbus have multiplied. The studies give credit to a variety of adventurers - from Scottish sailors to Chinese sailors. On the one hand, it is difficult to take many of these studies seriously. On the other hand, you won't find a better lesson on how myths are made.
Just at the time when the construction of the pyramids in Egypt stopped, huge pyramids began to appear precisely in Mexico. After the first Egyptian kingdom collapsed, no more pyramids were built.
This phenomenon, in addition to a certain similarity in cultural and ethnic characteristics between the inhabitants of the two regions, caused quite a few researchers to wonder if there was indeed a connection between the two continents in the third millennium BC. Many have tried to prove that such a connection is possible, among them Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian anthropologist who is best known for the balsa raft he built, "Kun Tiki", in which he crossed the sea between Peru and Polynesia in 1947. Heyerdahl was one of the pioneers of the theory about the maritime connection between the distant continents thousands of years ago. He built a ship from papyrus reeds (which then grew on the banks of the Nile and were used to build ships in ancient times too), named it "Ra", (Ra as the name of the sun god in ancient Egyptian mythology) and sailed it from Morocco to the shores of Barbados, a few hundred kilometers from the shores of America. Heyerdahl proved that with the technology then available to the Egyptians, such a journey was possible. Some argue that the Aztecs, Toltecs and Mayans were all influenced by ancient Egyptians who brought modern knowledge to the Americas.
The Phoenicians are coming
One of the claims about Mediterranean explorers in America focuses on 600 BC. In this year, more or less, a severe storm that lasted about a week swept a Phoenician slave ship off course in the Mediterranean Sea. When the sea was calm, the passengers found themselves in the heart of an unfamiliar maritime area. The ship was badly damaged in the storm, and it was clear that the damage must be repaired as soon as possible, before another storm breaks out. When they saw land on the horizon, they immediately turned their ship towards it. For them it was the only option; In addition to repairing the ship, the supplies in the warehouse also ran out and it was necessary to stock up on water and food.
Was it the land of Brazil? According to a new version of the origin of the name Brazil, the Phoenicians discovered that the land they landed on was green and fertile. One of the things that caught their attention was the rocks and cliffs along the coastline, with veins of iron-rich minerals popping out of them. Due to the large iron deposits, the Phoenicians called the place "Hoi Brazel", a phrase that in the Phoenician language means "iron stones", or "rusty rocks".
A few months later, the damage to the ship was repaired, proper supplies were collected, and the Phoenician sailors sailed on their way. Apparently, they managed to return home safely, and there they told their stories in that wonderful land Shema Barlim. These stories about "Hoi Brazel" soon spread throughout the Mediterranean basin. The words "Hoi Brazel" - in variations on their Phoenician pronunciation - even became associated with heaven on earth. In Portugal they pronounced the name of Paradise as "Hi Brazil". 2,000 years later Portuguese ships landed on the shores of South America. Apparently the landing spot was so beautiful that their commander decided to call the place "Brazil". It is very possible that today's Brazil is Hui Brasil, the country discovered by Phoenician sailors 2,600 years ago.
The Irish were first
A thousand years after the "landing of the Phoenicians in America", in the fifth century AD, a legend originating in Ireland began to spread. She told about a man named Orry, who crossed the ocean by sea and reached a distant land on the other side. This story, apparently nothing more than a myth, inspired another famous Irishman about a century later. This Irishman was Saint Brendan, also known as "The Navigator".
Brendan, who like most of the Irish had heard the stories about Uri's journey, built a large ship, recruited a crew of monks he knew and sailed west. His journey probably ended on the northern coast, which he called the "Land of Eternal Youth". There is some evidence that Irish monks continued to travel to the "Land of Eternal Youth" for several centuries, probably for the purposes of worship. The reports given by the Vikings 500 years later describe, among other things, an encounter with a mysterious group, clearly not Indian, whose people were, perhaps, monks. They were not interested in accumulating capital, establishing a state or multiplying. Until about 200 years ago, Irish monks used to shave their heads in a design that was very similar to the hairstyle of the Mohawk people in North America. It is possible that they received this hairstyle from the Indians, and it is possible that the opposite - the Indians inherited it from them.
The Muslims came from Spain
A story that originated in the Muslim countries of North Africa is about the first of the Muslim tourists who discovered America, Ibn Cid Ibn Aswad, a teacher from the city of Córdoba in Spain. Hashash sailed from the city of Palos, now called Delba, passed by the Canary Islands and reached a land he called "Arad Majhola" (unknown land). This story has never been verified, but on the map of the world drawn by the Muslim cartographer al-Mas'udi at the beginning of the tenth century, an "unknown country" is vaguely marked in the same part of the globe where the continent of North America is today.
Another story of Muslim explorers of the Americas took place in 961 AD. Here, too, it is a voyage that left from the Spanish city of Palos. A ship with Muslims of African origin left the harbor and headed west. The voyage lasted a long time and when the ship returned, a few months later, its crew had loot taken from a "foreign and intriguing land". This journey gained tremendous publicity in the Muslim Empire, and word of it even spread throughout Spain. In 999, so the Muslim myth goes, a Moorish son of Granada named Ivan Farouk sailed from Spain. He passed the Canary Islands far to the west and discovered two large islands, which he named Capraria and Peluitana, which may be Cuba and the island of Hispaniola, on which Haiti and the Dominican Republic are now called. Ivan Farooq traveled, apparently, following the legends about the journey of Khashash Ibn Sid Ibn Aswad, about a hundred years earlier.
Of course, the Vikings
Around the same time, the Vikings began to explore North America. Somewhere in the eighties of the tenth century AD, the ship of a Viking named Bjarni (Herjolfsson) drifted hundreds of miles west of the original route. Biarni reported that he saw islands and birds that he had not known before, but unlike the others, he had no special desire to investigate the matter and stay there longer than necessary. These may have been the islands along the northeastern coast of Canada. Anyway, Bjarni returned to Greenland and reported on his experiences.
It seems that the only one who was interested in his stories was "Eric the Red". Right on the verge of going on a journey, he broke his leg when he fell from a horse. Left with no choice, he handed over the command of the expedition to his son, Leif Eriksson. During the journey, they saw in the distance a coast covered with glaciers, and named it, accordingly, Telluland, a word that means "frozen land". When they sailed even further south, they discovered a wooded area which they called Markland, "wooded land". They decided to anchor at the beach and check it out, and there they met the native Indians for the first time. Life's Vikings were not exactly enthusiastic about these red-skinned people, and called them "scarlings", a word that means "wretched". When they also left Markel Ned, they continued their journey south, and this time they reached a place they called Vinland, which means "the land of the wine" or "the land of the vines". There Leif Erikson and his people decided to establish a colony.
The Vikings initiated several tours of the coastal area, and thus discovered that the area is rich in water sources and salmon fish. Since the area was wooded, they found many trees for building and heating, and the climate was so pleasant that the grass remained green even in the winter. When summer came, they sailed back to Greenland, their ships full of trees and grapes. The wood was of great value to the Greenlanders, because the frozen island where they lived had almost no wood that could be used for construction.
Leif was followed by other Viking expeditions. In 1960, a couple from Norway, the writer Helga Ingstad and his archaeologist wife Ann Stein Ingstad, discovered mounds that seemed to have the remains of ancient buildings underneath. The two began digging at the site, near the small Canadian town of Lance or Meadows in the state of Newfoundland in northeastern Canada. The mounds covered the lower layer of the walls of eight Viking houses from the 11th century. In the mid-seventies, Parks Canada, which plays a key role in preserving historical sites in Canada, also excavated the site. 130 Viking or Finnic findings, including metal tools and household furniture items, left no room for doubt: the Vikings preceded Christopher Columbus in their settlement in America.
The Chinese thought of it first
At the time when Leif Erickson explored the eastern coast of America, the Chinese discovered the western coast. In 1989, the remains of a Chinese junk were discovered under the sea sands off the coast of California. The design of the ship and its level of disintegration show that it probably sank between 1100-1000 AD. There is no Chinese record about the discovery of America, nor about the loss of that junk that was discovered in the sands. Apparently the ship was caught in a severe storm and swept by the winds and currents to the shore, similar to that Phoenician ship mentioned earlier. Apparently, the ship's passengers tried to divert it towards the coast, in order to repair and continue the journey. At some point a fire broke out in the ship and it sank not far from the shore.
In March 2002, another theory was published regarding Chinese visitors to America before Columbus. An English navigation expert, Gavin Menzies, analyzed, using a computer program, a documented voyage made by a Chinese admiral named Zheng He at the beginning of the 15th century. Zheng He was sent by the Emperor of China, leading a fleet that included more than a hundred armed ships with enormous treasures, When the direction of his sailing is the Middle East and East Asia. Menzies developed a theory according to which Zheng and his men continued to South America and even toured the Caribbean and the Sea of Cortez and reached California. This journey took place between the beginning of 1421 and the end of 1423. Menzies believes that Columbus's maps, like other maps used by European travelers during the 15th century and after, were based on charts made by the Chinese.
British adventure
In the 12th century, there was a story circulating in the British Isles about a Welsh king who decided to abandon his country due to the frequent civil wars that broke out in it, and find a new place to settle. He went on a long voyage, at the head of a fleet that included a dozen ships and no less than a thousand men on board. 800 years later, in the 19th century, an engineer who was part of a military engineering unit that stayed in the United States testified that during a conversation that revolved around the remains of an Indian settlement in Alabama, he was told that the buildings there were built by "Welsh men" who came to the place by sea.
These Welshmen met local Indian tribes, lived with them and to a large extent marriage ties were even formed between the two tribes. To such an extent were the ethnic groups mixed together that the Welsh looked, at the end of the process, more like Indians than Celts. According to the same opinion, they penetrated into the interior of the country by sticking to the path of the Mississippi River, and even established several settlements along it. If this theory is indeed true, then those "Welsh Indians" survived until 1850 in the area that is now the state of Oklahoma, and then they died out in a smallpox epidemic that broke out there. Sir Walter Raleigh mentioned in his book "History of the World" that he met Indians whose language included many Welsh words.
Scotland also claims first right to the discovery of the New World. In 1398, Sir Henry Sinclair, a Scottish nobleman, was at the head of a fleet that set out on a voyage across the seas. Sir Henry belonged to an old traveling family. His dream was to establish a Templar kingdom in a new place, after a few decades earlier the Templars were confiscated and expelled from almost all European countries. A text from the 15th century called "Zeno Stories" tells of an encounter between Sinclair and his men with Indians from the Mi'kmaq tribe, who described the foreigners' vessel as a "floating island with three masts". The journey itself was full of hardships. Stormy weather resulted in the sinking of five ships. After that they sailed south, along the eastern coast of the continent, to the present-day state of Massachusetts. The expedition returned to Scotland, but surprisingly few showed any interest in the reports of its men about what happened to them overseas. Among those who support the theory that Sinclair is America's true white explorer, some cling to a rock found near Westford, Massachusetts. On this rock, a mysterious engraving of a knight in armor, a shield and a sword was discovered - all typical of the 14th century
A legendary colony at the intersection of Memorial and Mount Auburn streets
By Joshua Glenn
The possibility that dark-eyed Vikings had come to America in the distant past fired the imagination of Boston veterans in the 19th century.
Last month, a team of archaeologists from the University of California, Los Angeles announced the discovery of the remains of a Viking dwelling in Newfoundland, which was the subject of a "thousand-year-old legend".
The head of the team of researchers speculates that the thousand-year-old mud structure was built by Snorri Thorpinson, whose birth and travels were commemorated in an Icelandic saga from the 13th century. This saga tells of his parents' attempt to join Leif Eriksson's legendary colony in "Vineland", whose exact location is unclear. Thorpinson, it is said, was the first person of European descent born in the New World.
America did not hold its breath when the discovery was published, but there was a time when Americans - and especially the residents of Boston - were crazy about Vikings. Near Canmore Square in the city still stands a bronze statue of Erickson sailing on a tiny Viking ship. The monument was erected in 1887 and was then received with joy by the city's Scandinavian-American community, and with a sigh of relief by a man named Eben Norton Horsford.
Prof. Horsford - a food chemist at MIT and Harvard, who made a fortune in the 50s due to a new formula he developed for baking powder, tried to promote what was then considered a crazy theory: he claimed that the location of Vineland was in North America. Christopher Columbus, Horsford announced in a speech he gave at the ceremony of removing the lot from the Erickson statue, arrived in the area almost 500 years late.
Descriptions of Viking waterfalls in medieval Icelandic sagas reminded Horsford of the terrain around his home in Cambridge. He did some digging near the intersection of Memorial and Mount Auburn streets, and soon discovered the
The ruins which, according to the sign marking the site today, constitute the remains of Erickson's house. Here was the proof, he thought, that as early as 1,000 AD the Vikings had navigated the Charles River.
Although it is true that the members of the Norse culture landed on the North American continent long before Columbus discovered what an open sea was, there is no archaeological evidence that they traveled as far as Maine, and certainly not as far as Massachusetts. The Vikings were not explorers. They were entrepreneurs, engaged in logging and walrus hunting in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of present-day Canada.
It is easy to understand why immigrants who came to the US from Denmark or Norway wanted to believe the heroic tales of Viking discoveries. But why did respectable Bostonians, in whose veins not a single drop of Scandinavian blood flowed, yearn for a statue of Erickson to be placed in their city?
In the summer issue of the journal Critical Inquiry, Joanne Mancini, lecturer in American studies at the University of Sussex, offered an interesting explanation. According to her, the Viking discovery was adopted by US-born writers, historians and statesmen as a response to the social and political changes of the time. "The thought of Viking ghosts roaming the streets of a city that was gradually being filled with masses of Irish, Italians and Jews must have provided some comfort to the Anglo-Saxon elite whose power was fading," writes Mancini.
It seems that the motivation for erecting a monument to a Viking hero lies less in the act of a strange professor and more in the desire of a group of Boston veterans, who wanted to rewrite America's founding myths.
"Historic monuments always reflect values of the existing culture," says William Fowler, director of the Massachusetts Historical Society. "It seems that those who promoted the erection of the Erickson statue were interested in a Northern European hero."
Mancini notes that Henry Adams, Edmund Saltpeter, and other Boston-based historians tried to create a continuous connection between America's founders and a distant past "where Teutonic tribes planted the original seeds of contemporary democracy." In this new national narrative there was little room for the Catholic and dark-skinned Columbus. There was plenty of room for the white, high-cheekbone Erickson; And so the discovery of America by Vikings - which was the obsession of a handful of Nordic immigrants - became an all-American motif.
But by the middle of the 20th century, "the Nordics had achieved a status of popular anonymity in the US," writes Mancini. Today, the adoration for the Vikings is limited to a few kitschy statues, football fans from Minnesota wearing hats decorated with horns (although the original Viking helmets had no decorations) - and that's it.
Today, few imagine brave sailors, as the Boston poet John Greenleaf Whittier did in his poem "The Norsemen": sailors who "rowed the corresponding and cruel rhythm / of the hymns of the sagas, of the rhymes of the past". And how many of us noticed that the Longfellow Bridge, named after the author of the poem "The Skeleton in Armor" about the discovery of America by the Vikings, rests on supports in the shape of long ships decorated with dragon prows?
Although President George Bush made an annual announcement this month on the occasion of Leif Erickson Day, there was no salted fish celebration in Boston's historic Central Park this year.
Although many generations of heavy rock fans were enthused by the words of Robert Plant's death cult in Led Zeppelin's "The Immigrant Song", in which sentences such as "The hammer of the gods will move his ship to new lands, fight the crowd while chanting 'Vahla, here I come!'" appear, but Like the Norwegian immigrants who founded the Sears & Roebuck chain, most Americans are not particularly interested in the drum beats of the leader of the oarsmen.
All this may change if the editors of the TYR journal get their way. The founders of the new academic journal - which bears the name of one of the ancient Germanic gods - are less concerned with glorifying the "blonde beasts" from Nietzschean mythology and more with the fate of the warrior nowadays. The editor, Joshua Buckley, claims that he easily identifies with the romanticization of the Vikings. "This is a nice contrast to the type of modern man, who tends to be overly civilized, or just weak," he said.
TYR draws inspiration not only from the myths, culture and social institutions of pre-modern Europe but also from contemporary sources such as a manifesto authored by a serial killer who sent explosive casings to US universities. The manifesto expresses opposition to the industrialization of modern society. Another possible source is, for example, the pagan neo-folk music of the German band Waldteufel. The journal seeks to "chart the rise of the 'counterculture' of modern pagans, which is currently taking shape in Europe and North America."
The bearded editors of TYR are themselves full partners in the emerging movement, avoiding the routine academic life. Buckley, 28, says that in his latest research he dealt with the "use of hallucinogens in the European tradition". The writers at TYR consider themselves experts in the fields of European myth and esoteric spiritual traditions, and are an equally colorful bunch. Although Buckley insists that the journal does not advocate neo-Nazi philosophies in the spirit of "the strong is right" - the articles published in the first issue express a desire to return to what the editors call a "natural social hierarchy". They also flirt with dubious ideas of genetic determinism. "The body itself, in the form of DNA, is considered by many to encode certain cultural patterns," it says.
