All Around the World with the Most Travelled Indian
By NITIN GAIROLA
This is a series on the story of humankind with the focus on travel and exploration, since humans have always been on the move. The history of humanity can’t be delinked from the geography of Earth and the geographic location of man over time. I continue with this story from last week and move from the very ancient hunter-gatherers, the agrarian settlers and early civilizations into the world that was there just 2500 – 2000 years ago or around 500 – 0 BC. This is the world in present day Middle East and Southern Europe, just before the BC-AD (‘Before Christ’ & ‘Anno Domini’) changeover in 0 BC (they apparently ran out of it numbers).
Arabia’s Fertile Crescent
We had the Canaanites and Philistines (present day Israel & Palestine) and the desert nomads of the Biblical lands. The Canaanites were great craftsmen and traders and they made beautiful objects from gold and ivory (bought as raw materials from other lands) and then sold them at a higher price to other countries, with their most valued customers being the Egyptians. This was one of the most complex supply chains for its time, not too different from today’s ‘free market’ global supply chains, in which cheap labour or raw materials are procured from one place and the products are sold at a premium in effluent markets, and the reward for taking the trouble is the profit of the merchant.
As we can see, the merchants were the explorers. The warriors were the explorers too. There were so far no ‘explorer-explorers’. However, the ‘preacher-explorers’ were not too far away from making their grand entrance on the world stage either. The scene for this entrance was building.
In 1,190 BC, we had an invasion of the eastern Mediterranean by those who were called the ‘sea people’. One tribe of the sea people, the Peleset, settled towards the south of Canaan. The land was later named Palestine after them and in the Bible they are addressed as Philistines. These Philistines had full control on the trade of iron, with which they made strong weapons, and hence were feared by their neighbours.
In the same area, there were also nomadic tribes that walked great distances on the edges of the Arabian and Syrian deserts. By around 1,000 BC they had learned to tame camels, which are aptly called the ships of the desert. Many nomads would have done epic journeys, from one distant settlement to the other. Among such nomad tribes were the ancestors of the Israelites, who battled with the Canaanites to take some land for themselves. These newly settled nomads would be at loggerheads with the Philistines and incredibly the ancient rivalry continues to this present day, some 3 millennia later. Sadly the burden of this rivalry is being borne by people even today, as we all know.
The Israelites had great kings such as David and Solomon under which they traded and grew wealthy. After Solomon’s death in 925 BC, the kingdom split into Judah and Israel, and it was taken over by the newly emerging Assyrians in northern Mesopotamia. The Assyrians even took over Babylon for themselves which however the Babylonians reclaimed under Nebuchadnezzar. He rebuilt the city to be one of the finest in the world. Is it this city which had the famous Ishfar Gate covered with glazed blue tiles and the wonder the ancient world – The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. This was the golden era of Babylon for which it is remembered by present day historians and educated tourists alike.
Back in Canaan, around 800 BC, the Phoenicians (rich merchants) established colonies all along the Mediterranean shores to trade with. The biggest of them was Cartage, founded by Phoenician princess Dido, on the coast of North Africa in present day Tunisia. Phoenicians were daring explorers and around 475 BC, a trader called Hanno led a fleet of ships to Carthage and then further down the coast of Africa, in what is possibly the first recorded travel of any individual human (we independent travellers go all the way back to Hanno I suppose). En route his voyage, it is said that he and the crew even saw a volcanic eruption, which means they could have well crossed Morocco to the west and reached as far south as Cameroon. This is since Mt. Cameroon is the only active volcano on Africa’s west coast.
However Hanno was certainly not the first actual ‘voyager of the world’. This is since besides the 1500 BC journey from Egypt to Punt (in Somalia), sometime around 600 BC the Egyptian pharaoh, Necho II, had hired a Phoenician crew to sail down the Red Sea, all the way around Africa and back through the Mediterranean to Egypt; a mindboggling circumnavigation of Africa some 2,600 years ago and we are surely glad to have a vague ‘outline’ of this journey.
The Persians & Greeks
This great Mediterranean lands were about to witness a big storm that was gathering in the east. Babylon and the land of the Phoenicians would soon come under the sway of the Persians conquerors from present day Iran, who would make the great Persian Empire. They were led by King Cyrus and succeeded by King Darius who set up a huge palace at the capital, Persepolis in 518 BC. This was also the birth of the Zoroastrianism religion by the prophet Zarathustra, who advocated the worship of one god, Ahuramazda. Zoroastrianism is the oldest major religion alive today, with the Parsi community in Western India (migrated from Iran) following it still. The birth of Zoroastrianism was the birth of the traveller who would travel to preach and convert – A new reason to move. But this was a small precursor to the two biggest religions that were to descend on us.
The Persians can never be delinked from the Greeks, with whom they had constant skirmishes besides clashes that were more than skirmishes. But before the Persians had become this strong, sometime from 1,100 BC to 700 BC, all was not well in Greece. This was a period referred to as the ‘dark ages’, called thus as little is known of it to this day. The reason little is known is that not many architectural structures were built then and people lived very simple lives. The significance of this era is however from the wealth of literature, which was not written but passed down by word of mouth, often recited. The great poet, Homer composed his masterpieces on the siege of Troy and the trials & adventures of the great hero, Odysseus, with Odysseus seen as the archetypal man of the world. While a fictional character, he was the ‘Explorer-explorer’, a fictional hero who many would aspire to be like in real life.
After a few centuries, the Greeks were slowly coming out of the dark ages and were regaining their prosperity and this is the time when Persia was coming into power as well. It would inevitably lead to the first of the major fights between Persia and Greece, when the Persians were defeated at the famous battle of Marathon in 490 BC (you can Google the story of ‘marathon’). This was also the time of the great Greek states of Athens and Sparta who (when they were not clubbing each other’s heads), took time out to build mega ships with rams that ran on human power. It was the cutting edge of transport technology.
Athens, in fact became one of the greatest cities of the ancient world, at par with Babylon that was gone and Rome that was to come. Athens was finally defeated by Sparta after the 27 year Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. However before that, Athens was the center of politics, wealth, trade and arts, not only for Greece, but for the entire world. As far as politics went, it was the first time that people voted on important issues hence it was the start of democracy for the human race. In fact the word ‘politics’ was derived from the Greek word ‘politikos’ which meant ‘affairs of the city’. This was the time and place in which Socrates and Plato lived and later was visited by Aristotle, the tutor of Alexander the Great.
From a travel history point of view, there was one figure from history, often referred to as father of history itself, who not only travelled more than any other person in his day but also recorded his travels. Herodotus, who received a mention as one of the early writers, lived from 484 to 425 BC and was born in the western part of the Persian Empire (modern day Turkey). He wrote the book ‘The Histories’ which alludes to his travels through the Middle East (present day Iran, Iraq, Syria), Greece, Rome, Spain, Morocco, Algeria and Egypt. Historians are quite sure that he was the first truly educated global citizen of the world, whose aim was certainly not to just survive or to trade, to conquer or even to spread a religion, but to learn from his travels. He was a travel maverick of his age but today there are quite a few of his kind. They are known as ‘educated tourists’ and I would like to believe I am somewhat educated too, and definitely a tourist.
Another of the early known explorers was a Greek, Pytheas of Massalia. He was Greek geographer and explorer, born in Southern France (at that time a Greek colony). He sailed all the way across the English Channel to England and Scotland sometime in 330 BC. He may have even reached as far as Iceland, a place which he referred to as ‘Thule’, although this is not certain.
While historians would naturally record the deeds of emperors more than of explorers, we also have to reconcile to the fact that some of the greatest early travellers where the conquerors themselves and one such was Alexander the Great. This was so because they had the resources and freedom to do as they wished, unlike the common man who had a family to feed before the world to visit. Alexander, the son of King Phillip of Macedon, set forth to carve out an empire. As mentioned earlier, he was taught by none other than Aristotle, so it is certain that he had a well formed world view. In 333 BC, he started moving east from Turkey to Syria and Egypt before he defeated Darius III of Persia and razed Persepolis (in present day Iran). His entourage continued east via Afghanistan and reached northern India where they won their battle against King Porus. He died on his way back from fever, most likely due to malaria. Even when dead, he continued to travel as his mortal remains were taken to Alexandria, the north port city in Egypt (now you know why it was named so). Alexandria at that time was a ‘modern’ marvel of the world, which had one of the 8 ancient world wonders, called the Pharos. It was a gigantic lighthouse on the shores of the Mediterranean. The famed (almost fabled) lighthouse no longer exists there, in case you were thinking of paying it a visit in Alexandria. Amongst the 8 ancient world wonders (which used to include the Hanging Gardens of Babylon as well), only the Giza Pyramids remain standing to this day. All others have bitten the dust of history.
Rome & the Rise of Christianity
After Alexander and his great empire, there was turn for another mega empire to rise before the BC-AD changeover. It was called the Roman Empire, which had humble beginnings in a village in today’s Rome, the so-called Eternal City. After Rome had grown it became a republic, which is a state without a king. However this could not last long as many wanted to gain control over the city. One such person was the general Julius Caesar, who came with his army to take over Rome in 49 BC. He won many battles and led his troops many miles to expand his control, from Carthage in North Africa and Southern Spain to Sardinia and all of Italy. However Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC by a group of conspirators who were wary of his growing power and this was the time Rome went into social chaos. After a civil war his nephew Octavian (called Augustus) became the first Roman emperor and restored order within a society that was in disarray. During his reign, there was peace in Rome and a time of great architecture, games, arts and traditions; with the most famous being the gladiator fights at the Colosseum. These brawls were less artistic and more barbarian however.
After Augustus, the empire was ruled well but later they started having trouble keeping out the ‘barbarians’ from north-western Europe, present day Germany and France. This was the time of emperor, Marcus Aurelius (161 to 180 AD), the last great Roman emperor and a great philosopher who propounded the Stoic philosophy. It is rather strange (in a funny way) that his book called ‘Meditations’ has become a best seller in the 21st century and is often quoted in life and motivational lectures by pompous ‘life gurus’.
Shifting gears from politics, also very relevant to the Romans would be a religious leader or the Messiah called Jesus Christ. He was born into a Jewish home but later his followers were called Christians. The lives of the people of this time, the pilgrims and preachers of the Holy Land, have been captured in the old and new testaments and some stone tablets and mosaics. There are stories from Jordan to Israel and Egypt across the Red Sea. The holy texts tell the tale of Abraham where he travels from Ur of the Chaldees (present day Iran) to the land of Canaan (Israel) and finally to Egypt. Moses also leads the Israelites from Egypt to Jericho; Rehoboam travels from Jerusalem to Shechem; a prophet named Elijah goes to Mount Horeb and the apostle Paul travels to Rome to spread the Gospel there. There are many more stories of human movement in the Bible but their objectives were more to do with spreading the word of God than to understand a new place out of sheer curiosity.
Jesus Christ himself must have travelled a lot to give sermons all across present day Israel, Palestine and Jordan, from his birth around 6-4 BC in Bethlehem to his death around 30 – 36 AD in Golgotha, Jerusalem. The majority of his time would have been in the area around the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, as his early years were in the town of Nazareth nearby. Just as Jesus met his end when he was crucified by the Romans, his followers would also be badly persecuted by the Romans for years to come, a dark chapter in Roman history.
The age of empires and conquest had begun in Europe and Western Asia, but this doesn’t mean that the Orient was sleeping. They didn’t have the natural urge to conquer new lands but they did have the curiosity to learn and from there came some great travellers and explorers who connected east and west together, through travel stories and trade on the famed ‘Silk Route’. More on that later down the road…
(Nitin Gairola is from Dehradun and has travelled the natural world more than almost any Indian ever. He has set world travel records certified by India Book of Records, has written for Lonely Planet, and holds National Geographic conservation certifications. He is also a senior corporate executive in an MNC and in his early days, used to be a published poet as well. More than anything else, he loves his Himalayan home. Reach him at facebook.com/MostTravelledIndian/ and instagram.com/ MostTravelled_Indian/)
