Carthies in the new world?

[miotas]

I think Jolt has nailed it. The route was just too difficult with Iron age tech. Maybe the Classical mediterranean civilisations were more advanced in some ways than the medieval Atlantic civs, but their naval architecture sucked by comparison.

Sorry but that's just bupkis. If it is possible to cross the pacific in a small raft(landed in my home town) then I don't think the Phoenicians would have had too much trouble surviving a trip across the Atlantic. I do think we would have heard more about it if it did happen though, but perhaps it was a closely guarded state secret that was lost when the Romans destroyed Carthage

You have read The Hatchet? By Gary Paulsen?? And the sequel? Those were only OK/mediocre/borderline rotten books, not to mention teen fiction. Very simple and un-sophisticated, not to mention, written by a half-amateur, despite the amount of books Paulsen wrote. Please, the best survival books are: Mysterious Island (Jules Verne) - the best of them all, Swiss Family Robinson, and of course, Robinson Crusoe and the sequel.

Sorry to trash your favourite book like that :P

I've never heard of "The Hatchet" but I read the whole of "The Swiss Family Robinson" when I was 9, I remember I was rather proud of myself for reading such a big book It's a brilliant book, but I never did understand why there were kangaroos there. And then reading it when I was older I realised there was a whole cornucopia of plants and animals that just shouldn't have been there. Still one of the best books I've ever read though.

[Apázlinemjó]

Sorry but that's just bupkis. If it is possible to cross the pacific in a small raft(landed in my home town) then I don't think the Phoenicians would have had too much trouble surviving a trip across the Atlantic. I do think we would have heard more about it if it did happen though, but perhaps it was a closely guarded state secret that was lost when the Romans destroyed Carthage

They feared that the romans would be able to get the secret, that's why they destroyed the evidences. Think about it, replacing the USA with the UPRP, United Provinces of Roman Republic. All hail the fantasy genre.

[mountaingoat]

They feared that the romans would be able to get the secret, that's Think about it, replacing the USA with the UPRP, United Provinces of Roman Republic. All hail the fantasy genre.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I just want to say this is one of the more interesting threads this subforum has had for a while.

[Cyclops]

Sorry but that's just bupkis. If it is possible to cross the pacific in a small raft(landed in my home town) then I don't think the Phoenicians would have had too much trouble surviving a trip across the Atlantic....

Its also possible that elephants flew out of their butts, so bupkis yerself (anyway I thought bupkis meant "nada", rather than "horsefeathers").

Any claim that the Phoenecians regularly crossed the Atlantic are nonsense at this point. There is no credible evidence to support the thesis, and they did not have the technology to regularly do this in the way that the Medieval Atlantic civilisations (Spain, Portugal, France, later Holland and England) did.

I may be wrong and I accept this, but the evidence and consensus of opinion agree that the fantasy of Phoenecian colonisation of the new world is on the crackpot shelf for now.

The Phoenecians showed no tendency to strike out in the utterly fearless manner of the mighty Polynesian seafarers. They were brave in their own way, but coasthuggers nevertheless.

Even a one-eyed drunk like me would not deny the chance that a Phoenecian vessel straggled to Brazil or the Antilles, in fact I would bet there's a sunken Carthaginian bireme just waiting to be discovered, but it hasn't been and there wasn't a "Mighty Baal" sea ferry from Utica to Aruba.

"Mighty Baal seaferry now departing, stopping Arse, Pillars of Hercules, Gades, Hy Breasil, running express to Guatamala, not stopping Barbados or St Kitts. Stow your luggage in the under-bench compartments as we will definitely be sinking before we make it home. Thank you for sailing Phoenecian & Occident""

[miotas]

LOL.

I was just trying to point out that if a raft can make it then the Phoenician ships could have. But yes surviving repeated trips with their level of technology is highly unlikely, no doubt most of the rafts that set out never made landfall in one peice, in fact if you read the article even those rafts were in pretty bad shape when they arrived, one even sunk. If any rafts did make it with their crew alive then it would have been throught the sheer numbers of the crazy buggers setting out. Couple this high likelyhood of failure with incredibly few, most likely accidental Phoenician attempts and the chance seems extremely unlikely.

And bupkis means something of no value, worthless, so perhaps a little strong.

[Fluvius Camillus]

Bay of Arguin, modern day Mauretania, that's the name. I heard the Phoenicians colonized it.

~Fluvius

[Apázlinemjó]

Let's send the idea to the Mythbusters. Lol.

[Mediteran]

Let's send the idea to the Mythbusters. Lol.

hey that would be cool

[Urg]

Let's send the idea to the Mythbusters. Lol.

Or we could just accept it didn't happen and move on...

Does that sound bitter?

[Cyclops]

Let's send the idea to the Mythbusters. Lol.

Jamie (in moustachioed monotone): "Well my approach was to create a paralell universe ab initio, developing in parallel to our own up to 700 BC and then observing every single sea journey by a bireme or greater rated vessel using time lapse cameras, to see if this was possible in the same circumstances"

Adam (somewhat more flamboyantly): "Typically boring, Jamie, I've decided to blast Europe back to the middle iron age using neutron bombs, and establish a Carthaginian-approximate city state in Tunisia. They will be encouraged to sail across the Atlantic infecting them with a deadly retro-virus whose cure is only found in a certain Guatamalen rainforest flower. When they get to the Caribbean they will encounter our resident hostile Amerindians Kari and Grant armed with the chicken cannon."

[Apázlinemjó]

Jamie (in moustachioed monotone): "Well my approach was to create a paralell universe ab initio, developing in parallel to our own up to 700 BC and then observing every single sea journey by a bireme or greater rated vessel using time lapse cameras, to see if this was possible in the same circumstances"

Adam (somewhat more flamboyantly): "Typically boring, Jamie, I've decided to blast Europe back to the middle iron age using neutron bombs, and establish a Carthaginian-approximate city state in Tunisia. They will be encouraged to sail across the Atlantic infecting them with a deadly retro-virus whose cure is only found in a certain Guatamalen rainforest flower. When they get to the Caribbean they will encounter our resident hostile Amerindians Kari and Grant armed with the chicken cannon."

Rofl.