The Origins of Exploration

In the modern world, it’s hard to be an explorer. Every landmass has been discovered. Every civilization has been reached. All the best sea routes have already been mapped, and the roads have all been laid.

It wasn’t always that way. Thousands of years ago, the world was a place of vast, unknowable mystery. People rarely knew what lay on the other side of a mountain, let alone what lay on the other side of the planet.

Then came the first explorers: brilliant pioneers who dared to enter the unknown. They saw things that no one else had seen. They made journeys that no one else had made.

By the end of this pathway, you’ll know their story: the pioneers who unlocked the world.

When people think about the ancient world, they often picture the Greeks or Romans. But before these famous civilizations came a group of explorers: the Phoenicians.

The Phoenicians originated along the Levant coast – a region that runs from modern-day Lebanon all the way south to Israel. The Levant is a green, fertile region with rolling hills and forests of sweet-smelling cedars.

The Phoenician people felled these cedars, and turned the wood into ships. They sent these ships on exploratory journeys – inquisitive hands extending out through the Mediterranean Sea.

Wherever the Phoenicians sent their ships, they encountered civilizations. They met people in North Africa. They met people in Greece. They met people in Sicily and Crete. With every single ocean voyage, Phoenician horizons expanded.

The Phoenicians weren’t just daring explorers. They were also innovative ship-builders. Often, these things go hand in hand – without powerful ships, Phoenician explorers couldn’t have traveled far.

Their ships were powered by oars as opposed to sails: dozens of rowers groaning and sweating as they propelled the vessel forward. But there’s a problem with oars: you can only fit so many of them in a line.

That’s why the Phoenicians developed the bireme: a ship with two lines of oars stacked on top of each other, with enough space for twice as many rowers. You can see an example of a bireme ship in the diagram down below.

This double-decker approach to oars was a major innovation: twice as many more oars in the water meant twice as much rowing power. This allowed Phoenician explorers to travel far and wide.

With their innovative biremes, the Phoenicians didn’t confine themselves to the Mediterranean. They also surged into the Atlantic Ocean, then traveled north until they reached the British Isles. At the same time, they sent explorers south, down into the shallow Red Sea.

The spread of the Phoenicians was unlike anything else the world had seen before. From the pebble beaches at the south of Britain, to the golden sands along the coast of the Red Sea, Phoenician biremes could be spotted riding the powerful, foam-flecked waves.

They even established colonies. An important moment in Phoenician history was the foundation of the colony of Carthage in North Africa. It was built on a wide, rocky peninsula with ocean on either side.

The date of this event is disputed, but it probably happened in 814 BCE. Carthage became a staging post for expeditions further west. It even had a large, fortified harbor, which helped to protect Phoenician ships from threats like pirates and storms.

The Phoenicians didn’t just explore the world. They were also resourceful merchants – and wherever they encountered foreign peoples, they made an effort to trade.

Phoenician textiles were especially popular with foreigners. They were often dyed with a distinctive color called Tyrian purple, which the Phoenicians sourced from the mucus of a local snail. Foreign peoples had never seen this vibrant color before.

Trade was another important reason why Carthage was such a vital colony. At the crossroads of two continents – Europe and Africa – the city became a major hub for international commerce.

Eventually, the Phoenician civilization collapsed, when the Levant was seized by Assyrians in approximately 738 BCE. Later, Carthage was conquered by the Romans in 146 BCE.

But the Phoenicians left more than ruins behind. Their civilization had set a precedent for long distance travel and trade. In later centuries, other civilizations would take on the mantle, and continue to explore the world.

The Phoenicians weren't the only explorers of the ancient world. On the other side of the planet – in the Pacific Ocean – another seafaring civilization spread across the seas.

The Polynesians originated in Southeast Asia. Nobody knows quite when it happened, but at some point between 3000 BCE and 1000 BCE, they started to send exploratory boats out across the Pacific.

Wherever they went, they found islands: white sands, blue seas, palm trees swaying in the wind. On these islands, they built settlements, one by one. Then they continued to sail outwards.

The Polynesians explored a massive area – significantly more than the Phoenicians. Over hundreds of years, they traveled as far as New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island (as you can see on the map below).

Most of these places had never been visited by human beings before. Not until the Polynesians showed up there, and started to lay down homes.

Polynesian exploration (unlike the Phoenicians) wasn’t driven by a desire to trade. Instead, they wanted more living space – they explored whenever they seemed to be running out of land.

Imagine building a village on a Pacific island. The sun is shining, the trees are green, you feed on fish and fruit. But the island is small, and as your village grows, the resources start to stretch thin.

That’s when the Polynesians sent out ships. They would explore until they found another island – then set up a brand new village there, transporting some of the original villagers over.

That’s what drove them to New Zealand. That’s what drove them to Hawaii and Easter Island. The desire for space. The desire for resources. They pushed outwards as their population grew.

Just like the Phoenicians, the Polynesians were innovative shipbuilders. Otherwise, they would never have been able to explore so far.

Where the Phoenicians innovated with double-oared biremes, the Polynesians took a different approach: they invented the crab-claw sail.

The innovative shape of a crab-claw sail allowed it to catch wind from a range of different angles. This was very different to a traditional square sail, which could only catch wind from behind.

This difference was pretty important. A square-sailed ship could only travel in the rough direction of the wind. If you wanted to travel east, but the wind was blowing south… there was nothing much you could do.

But a crab-claw sail could harness a gust of south-blowing wind, and use it to propel a boat eastward. This allowed the Polynesians to travel where they wanted, instead of constantly relying on the whims of changing winds.

Crab-claw sails weren’t the only Polynesian innovation. They also pioneered catamarans: a specialized ship with two separate hulls, as opposed to the traditional one.

The double hull of a catamaran created a wider base on the water. This helped to counter the rolling and tipping of a turbulent ocean. It’s like standing on two legs instead of standing on one – it feels a lot more stable.

The Polynesians would put a platform between the hulls, as you can see in the image above. This platform could be used to carry more cargo and passengers. This made it easier to transport supplies to distant islands, and set up new villages when they got there.

In other words: the double hull of the catamaran was a pretty major deal. Theses boats were more stable, and could carry more supplies – perfect for exploration.

Standing tall on the backs of their catamarans, tugged forward by crab-claw sails, the Polynesians spread far and wide. They ended up with countless villages, many of them thousands of kilometers apart.

Wherever they went, they brought a spirit of exploration – and they brought other things with them too. They introduced crops like taro, and domesticated animals like chickens and pigs, to islands throughout the Pacific.

Over time, the far-flung Polynesian settlements developed local traditions. On Easter Island, for example, they built the famous Moai heads: giant statues that can still be visited today.

In some ways, the Moai are a symbol of ancient exploration. If the Polynesian people had never pushed outwards, all the way to places like Easter Island, then these giant statues wouldn’t be there today.

For ancient explorers, like the Phoenicians and the Polynesians, navigation was one of the biggest challenges. In an open ocean, with no visible landmasses, how does an explorer make sure that their ship is moving in the right direction?

In general, ancient seafarers navigated the sea by looking at celestial bodies. They oriented themselves using the sun during the day, or the stars during the night.

For example, if a Phoenician wanted to travel west from the Levant, they could keep their bireme pointed in the direction of the setting sun. If they reached the Atlantic, and wanted to travel north to Britain, they could turn their bireme in the direction of the North Star.

In reality, things were more complex than this. Ancient explorers could triangulate all kinds of angles and directions using the stars. But the general principle remained the same: look at the position of celestial bodies, then steer your ship accordingly.

Several centuries after the fall of the Phoenicians, in approximately 300 BCE, the Ancient Greeks were a major power in the Mediterranean region.

The Greeks weren’t big on exploration, but they were pioneering scientists and inventors. At some point, they developed astrolabes – an instrument that could be used to take accurate measurements of the stars.

An astrolabe consisted of a disk with a movable pointer. The user could aim the pointer at a star, then use the disk to measure the angle between the star and the horizon.

Before astrolabes, people had to rely on their own eyes to measure the position of celestial objects. Now, there was a way to measure them much more accurately.

It’s the difference between measuring a liter of water using your eyes, versus a liter of water using a measuring jug. Astrolabes were like measuring jugs for the skies.

When the Greeks first invented astrolabes, they were large, heavy, and unwieldy. Too heavy, in fact, for an explorer to carry on a ship.

As we already said: the Greeks weren’t particularly interested in exploration. Their astrolabes were designed for astronomical observations from the safety of land, not for long-distance navigation at sea.

It took almost a thousand years for this to change. And the Greeks weren’t the ones who changed it. Instead, a new-and-improved astrolabe was invented by the Islamic world.

When Islamic inventors designed these smaller, lighter astrolabes, they weren't thinking about long-distance navigation. They wanted people to use these tools to determine the direction of Mecca.

But sailors and explorers quickly adopted this new, pocket-sized technology. It improved navigation in open waters, and made exploration easier.

Another important navigational tool is a compass. You’ve probably used one at some point in your life: it’s just a magnetized needle that points north.

It was actually invented in Ancient China, about a century later than the Greeks invented the astrolabe. Again, the compass wasn’t invented with navigation in mind. It was originally used as a tool for divination.

But a thousand years later, the Islamic world got hold of the compass. Just like the astrolabes, they improved the compass, cleverly updating the design.

Compasses became the perfect tool for long-distance navigation – and by 1200 CE, almost every ship was carrying a compass on board.

The introduction of astrolabes and compasses was a revolution in long-distance navigation. And it wasn’t long before explorers found a way to use them both together.

The compass and astrolabe worked together along with a method of navigation called “dead reckoning”, which formed the backbone of navigation until the advent of modern navigational aids in the 18th century.

This method was called dead reckoning. It combined astrolabe readings with compass angles to calculate an accurate course. This method was extremely complex – we won’t try to explain it here – and it was a massive improvement on traditional navigational methods.

In terms of technological advancements, dead reckoning was right up there with earlier innovations like crab-claw sails, catamarans, and biremes. By making navigation more accurate and reliable, it changed the nature of long-distance navigation forever.