Would their ocean going ships tend to look the same as the 15th century portugese sailing ships or would they row, in galleys?
Well, Age of Discoveries happened for a reason after all : to get an easier way to Indias and monopolize the trade as much as possible.Suppose an ancient civilisation would initiate the age of discoveries, sailing to India and the Americas...
Yes and No.Did they have the technology to build such ships?
Neither.Would their ocean going ships tend to look the same as the 15th century portugese sailing ships or would they row, in galleys?
On the other hand, vikings and polynesians could cross the oceans with even less?
>No as they didn't technology for long, plain sea maritime expedition, as crossing the Atlantic regularly.
>Furthermore, they were a sea going people which the Romans were not.
Judging by found wrecks, some Roman ships were larger than the 1492 Spanish ships.
Roman ships could have been blown off course going to England and wound up in the Americas. They would have had the same fear Columbus had, running out of food.
But once they got there, what was worth taking back to europe and then sailing back and forth to the Americas repeatedly?
Suppose an ancient civilisation would initiate the age of discoveries, sailing to India and the Americas...
Did they have the technology to build such ships?
Would their ocean going ships tend to look the same as the 15th century portugese sailing ships or would they row, in galleys?
As it was said in this thread OTL ancient civilizations, meaning the Romans mostly had almost zero probability sailing to the Americas.
But hey, we are in alternate history forum! Let us imagine that Rome was strangled in the cradle by the Celts and some other surrounding local tribes. So no Rome.
In this ATL Carthage will prosper. The Phoenicians were a seafaring civilization. It is almost certain that they were doing just fine with exploring West Africa and trading gold there. Which was brutally ended by the Romans. But if we give them a few hundred years they would surely find immense gold deposits of West Africa and so that stimulates further exploration.
The idea which drove the Conquistadors was "the gold is out there". The same idea would drive the Carthaginians into new lands, seas and oceans. And if you explore Africa there is a good chance that you will find America, almost inevitable.
And in the world without Romans the Celtic Veneds of Gaul are surviving. In Julius Caesar times they had huge oceanic vessels made especially for the Atlantic Ocean. Give these guys a few hundred years of development and I will not be surprised if they stumble upon America as well, probably from the North or New Found-lend bank.
At some point the oceanic ships of the Celtic Veneds and vessels of Carthage meet in battles over control of trading routs to Britain and Scandinavia and there might be exchange of technologies and ideas and that might add some synergy to the process of developing ships and navigation.
And without Rome we would have prospering Hellenistic civilization with Archimedes living a little bit longer and Greek scientists and engineers living and creating like free men, not as Roman slaves. I would not be surprised if this ATL equivalent to Columbus will be a Greek navigator from the Indian Ocean at the service of Carthage.
Venetic Celts? Not really : they just were better used than Atlantic than romans, and it didn't prevented the latter to inflict them naval defeats.Sure enough, the vikings, polynesians and the celts did have better oceangoing vessels.
Perhaps they were just afraid of the great seas?...Or did that early suezcanal make circling africa unnecessary, thus never sparking such a shipbuilding project.
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This did not happen in europe until the turks captured Constantinople in 1453AD thus blocking the silkroad.
>It's not the size that matters, or so she said.
It's how its built : roman-era ships fit well mediterranean context, a bit less atlantic (and certainly not too much far from the coast: hence the number of shipwrecks).
The Romans found the English building ocean going ships. Ceasar mentions it in his writings.
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The Romans found the English building ocean going ships. Ceasar mentions it in his writings.
The key phrase here is "Give these guys a few hundred years of development". Something like the progressive and systematic explorations of the Portuguese during the early Age of Exploration that allows whoever to understand both the Canary Current and exploiting the "Volta do mar" maneuvre that allowed efficient and repeatable 2-way passage of the Atlantic in the mid-latitudes.