CTH Virtual World Tour in 100 Ports Part 1 - Ancient World

Cruise through History of the World in 100 Ports of Human History is a virtual world tour of cruise ports in the advancement of human society over time and place. Travel grants a first-person experience with the “other,” as European, South African transplant to the US, author/artist/humanist Ellen Palestrant would say. Otherisms delivered in narratives limit human growth. In CTH style, this is part 1 of 4 in a series, offering a survey of world ports of call, in points of time, where great contributions to the human condition were made and indicia of benefactors remain available for visitors. 

Consider this a world cruise brochure, a brief signposting, and a fixing of context of cumulative impact to world history. Think beyond where to travel to consider relative importance of place. Rather than count countries or World Heritage Sites visited, consider counting visits to stepstones in societal development, port to port. 

Cruise through History as a series of stories was in part inspired by Sister Wendy, the Oxford Educated nun, and self-taught art historian, who entertained on BBC series with her intellect and sardonic wit. Sister Wendy, who sadly passed in 2018, gave great insight to world history of art. Educated in English literature, she began her foray into art history at age 5o, while ill and living a monastic life in a tiny mobile home in Norfolk, England. Notably she described nudity in art as reflection on the perfection of God’s creation. Her lesson continues in a look at the world beyond present-day political divides to beauty and indicia of the advancement of humanity awaiting in ports. Visitors add their intellects and wit, amplifying enjoyment of place.

The CTH World Tour is a cumulation of itinerary segments, running through time in what is largely known as the Western World. Left out of these itineraries are most of the Far East, Africa, and South America. No slight is intended. Rather, they are reserved for further itineraries, if reader patience permits. This World Tour list of ports does not repeat the hundreds of CTH stories and thousands of footnotes of sources and snarky asides. As most cruise itineraries, it is not comprehensive. Feel free to urge your inclusions. 

Paths of CTH World Tour itineraries are: (Stories are noted as CTH #book)

1. The Ancient World of Kingdoms and Queendoms – Identity and Order
2. In the Path of Abrahamic Religions – Reverence and Pilgrimage
3. Birth of Democracy, Free Commerce, Art, Exploration, and Innovation
4. Aesthetics & Existence – Architecture, City Planning, Preservation

So, we begin – CTH Virtual World Tour Part 1:

The Ancient World of Kingdoms and Queendoms – Identity and Order

The first tour segment begins with humans in communities of stone and ends with the cross-over of pagan to Christian world in the Roman Empire, which begins in Part 2. In stone communities are stories of order and society, prior to written record. Such a vast span of time requires four sub-itineraries:

A. Communities of Stone

B. Pre-Greek World

C. Greece and the Greek Diaspora

D. Rise of Rome

1. Communities of Stone

The Stone Age of human existence, roughly 4000 to 2000 BCE, is well represented in archaeological sites throughout the world. Intriguing sites for cruise travelers are found in Sardinia, the Orkneys, central Ireland, Scotland, Britany France, and Gran Canaria of the Canary Islands.

Port Cagliari, Sardinia, access to Nuraghe sites. At the end of the Stone Age Nuraghe people gathered in walled communities around a well, eventually building over 2,000 stone towers, without mortar. Flat, stone-roofed, burial chambers for cremated remains are unique in the ancient world. Late Nuraghe art of bronze tells of ships and soldiers of their demise. (CTH #2)

In ports of northern Scotland; Port Kirkwall, Orkney, access to 5,000-year-old standing stones of Skara Brae; Port Lerwick, Shetland, access to Jarlshof, 5,000-year-old stone community; and Port Inverness, access to Clava Cairns burial mounds and standing stones, evidence early peoples developing community and belief systems of indigenous peoples. (CTH #10)

Famed Stonehenge is only one of dozens of henges in southern England. People crossed the channel from Britany, France, Ports Gulf Morbihan, access to Carnac, where standing stones dot coastal areas and landed in England and Ireland. Port Dublin, access to Newgrange worship site, a structure older than pyramids of Egypt.  (CTH #10)

Light-skinned, blue-eyed people of North Africa came by raft to Canary Islands, forming distinct populations on islands of the group. In Port Las Palmas, Gran Canaria people treasured flour in the arid climate – living in painted caves and building grain vaults high on a mountain. (CTH #5)

CTH virtual World Tour continues with Part 1 The Ancient World, into B. the Pre-Greek World

Long before ancient Greeks populated banks of the Black Sea in 800 to 600 BCE, there were well-established communities on southern shores of the sea. Trade came from the Baltic and Far East converging at present day Odessa, Varna on the Danube, Sinope, and the eastern Black Sea havens of Colchis, home of the Golden Fleece and present-day Poti. Pre-Greek inhabitants came from as far away as Egypt. Greek settlement was resisted until populations lost vigor and Greeks gained in population and seafaring strength.

Port Batumi is access to land of Jason’s quest for gold and fame back home in Thessaly. He was aided by fifty heroes of the day. Jason’s story has been glorified, embellished, and gentrified ever since. (CTH #4)

Port Heraklion, Crete, is where Minoans landed on Crete in 3000 BCE.  They created an advanced civilization known by monumental palaces.  They dominated sea commerce in the Mediterranean, long before Greeks and Romans entered the landscape of history. Much is known about how Minoans lived. What is not known is where they came from, what this Bronze-Age culture called themselves, and where they abruptly went in 1450 BCE. In 500 BCE, Greek historian Homer wrote of ninety cities of Minoan Crete, more recently supported by scientific excavation. (CTH #3)

The name Minoan is a creation of Sir Arthur Evans, a late 19^th century curator at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Trained in classics, Evans assigned names for Bronze Age people of Crete as though they were descendants of King Minos of Greek myth. Thereafter, Evans excavated in Crete, seeking to support myth with reality. He discovered the Minoan palace of Knossos, which he reconstituted, his word, to display a home of mythological royals.

In Port Santorini find a reason for abrupt demise of Minoans on Crete. It was long thought that volcanic eruption on Santorini wiped settlements off the land and resulting tidal waves destroyed Minoan Crete. French and Greek archaeologists on Santorini have proved that eruption, though major, covered Santorini with volcanic dust, preserving cities long thought lost.  

The Santorini eruption occurred around 1550 BCE, the time Moses led the Israelites from Egypt. Volcanic dust would have covered the Egyptian sun, sent plagues of locusts in advance of clouds, and falling iron oxide dust turned Egyptian streams into blood-red currents. A resulting tsunami could part waters. (Note: There are several dates for the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt, and possibly multiple periods of Egyptian servitude and exodus to Palestine).

The prevailing academic explanation for demise of Minoan culture is that the eruption on Santorini impacted life on Crete, causing destabilization of social systems. Impact to crops affected fortunes of leading families and reduced food for common folk. If so, then smashing and burning palaces for loot ended society as it was known for fifteen hundred years.  

Port Heraklion is also access to Phaistos, a mythical city of Minos and his brother Rhadamanthys, or the second city of Crete, home to a wealthy queen. This palace was a trade depot, place of bull riding festivals, a treasury of coins minted, and books of trade stored. Minoans kept records in Linear A, ancient writing, derived from Turkey, and not yet deciphered. At Phaistos a tablet in Linear B was discovered and deciphered, in a 20^th century tale of deceit and death. Phaistos Disk is a poem, a greeting, or a warning. (CTH #3)

Along the Turquoise coast of Turkey are Port of Kusadasi, access to Ephesus and Miletus, Port of Bodrum, the ancient city of Halicarnassus, and Port Çanakkale, near the site of ancient Troy. All were wealthy cities of trade, ruled by kings and queens of Caria and Iona in Turkey. In crosscurrents of armies – Hittites – Persians – Greeks, trade languished. Troy and Miletus fell in war, Ephesus died of natural causes, and Halicarnassus fell in earthquake, which destroyed the mausoleum built by a queen to honor her husband Mausoleus, a design replicated by 20^th century architect John Russell Pope.  

Moving across the Mediterranean to trade centers of the ancient world: Port Aqaba, access to Petra, and Port Luxor, access to Luxor and Karnak, defined the axis of the far and near east, when oared ships sailed close to land and goods moved by caravan. (CTH #5)

Ancient Egypt has a tumultuous history of unity and conquest from the east. From initial unity in the 3^rdmillennium BCE, with a capital at Memphis, marked by pyramid builders of Giza, unity was next accomplished at Thebes, site of temples Luxor and Karnak. A third unifying force came from Sudan in the south, in the 25^th Dynasty of Kushian Pharaohs in the 8^th century BCE. Kushian pharaohs attempted restoration of Memphis and Luxor. Leaders of centuries later conquests by Greeks and Romans sought to emulate ancient Egypt, adding crude additions to existing monuments, amazing feats of engineering – more amazing for standing three to five thousand years.

Petra, so exquisitely crafted by Nabateans, was initially attributed by 19^th century archaeologists as Roman. Though most structures date to the beginning of the Christian era, and a Roman amphitheater sits prominently over centuries earlier tombs, in the 10^th century BCE this city may have hosted the queen of Sheba on her visits to King Soloman, or shopping tours to Punt, to fill requests of Queen/King Hatshepsut of Egypt in the 15^th century BCE.

Finally, Port Civitavecchia is access to Tarquinia, an Etruscan cultural area with tombs. Etruscans populated the northern Italian peninsula, while Greeks dominated the south, as part of Magna Grecia, to include eastern Sicily, prior to the rise of Rome. Likely artisans of the Four Horses, the Quadria of Saint Marks in Venice, Etruscan art fills museums throughout the world. (CTH #2)

CTH virtual World Tour continues to Part 1 The Ancient World, 

C. Greece and the Greek Diaspora.

In Port Athens Greeks define their rebirth in 479 BCE by victory over would be marauders the Persians, and construction of the new Parthenon by victorious general Pericles. The classical period of the Greek world begins with that event and ends with death of Alexander in 323 BCE. Root forms of western art, architecture, philosophy, literature, and theater emanate from little more than 150 years of the Classical Greek era. (CTH #3)

Feeding the robust population of Athens required grain merchants to establish satellite communities across the Seven Seas of the ancient world: Adriatic, Aegean, Black, Caspian, Mediterranean, Red, and Persian Gulf. Port Sevastopol is access to the 6^th century Greek colony Chersonesos, and Port Sinop is where Greeks farmed from the 6^th century BCE to 1923. (CTH #4) 

Ports Taormina, Syracuse, and Agrigento were communities of Magna Gracia, the extent of Greece in Sicily. In Syracuse is a Greek theater and the Orecchio di Dioniso, the ear of Greek tyrant Dionysus, who held captives where he could easily hear their whispered secrets. (CTH #2)

On the Gulf of Calabria, Italy stood the Port of Sybaris, where locals did not work, and their workers were forbidden to perspire in their presence. Rather the sybaric city was a transport hub overland to its sister city Paestum, standing elegant from 600 to 400 BCE, and reached today from the Port of Sorrento. (CTH #2) 

The undoing of Sybaris was its decision to attack neighboring Croton, where Pythagoras taught mathematics to men and women in 520s BCE. In 510 BCE, the Sybaris army rode beautifully adorned horses, trained to dance to music. Upon approach of the intimidating attackers, a youth of Croton played his flute, throwing the horses into disarray and allowing the Croton defenders to remove the threat and later demolish Sybaris. It was a war resolved by music.

Port Kourion, Cyprus is access to sites of 3,500 years of Greek occupation. Greeks believed Aphrodite was born in the seafoam off the coast of Cyprus, hence the seashell noting shrines to the goddess. Greek historian Strabo, who was born in Turkey in 63 BCE, traveled and recorded sites of the Greek world. Strabo wrote of a deer, sacred to the god Apollo, that swam to the shore of Cyprus, where a temple to Apollo still stands. (CTH #3)

Port Mykonos is access to the ferry to Delos, home of Greek gods and their bankers. Delos was a safe harbor for assets as it was neutral in war, until Pericles broke the bank to fund building the Parthenon in Athens. (CTH #3)  

The most famous chronicler of Greek history, the poet Homer, wrote of the battle of Troy taking place in forty-two days, in 8^th century epic poetry the Iliad. Later in life, Homer wrote of the homeward journey of Odysseus in the Odyssey. It is in the Odyssey that a tale of the wooden horse is told in a boast by Odysseus at a dinner party. The Iliad is a story of heroes in battle. The Odyssey is the epic of one man, who spent ten years away from home in battle and then spent ten more years in a quest to return home. Homer, though blind, walked the battlefield at Troy to best describe the battle. In the Odyssey Homer wrote of places he imagined. The Trojan Horse is fantasy.

Odysseus spent seven years imprisoned on Calypso, identified as Port Gozo, before being blown into the whirlpool of Charybdis, a feeding point for the mythical beast Scylla. Storms through time have moved boulders, which obstructed passage through Straights of Messina, where today cruise ship guests have an optimum view of Stromboli Volcano. Odysseus was held captive in the Land of the Lotus Eaters. The location is most often construed as the mouth of the Nile, Port Cairo.  

Odysseus found safe harbor with the Phaeacians. From their kingdom, Odysseus was deposited at home on Ithaca, access Port Argostoli for Ithaca and Cephalonia. The best guess identity of Phaeacia is Port Corfu. Corfu is a lovely island, with a long history of peaceful people, near Ithaca in the Adriatic Sea. In Corfu, Sissy, wife of Frans Joeph I of Austria and grieving mother, built Achilleion Palace, a tribute to the warrior god Achilles, who argued with Odysseus and perished at Troy. (CTH #2) 

The places that Odysseus did not go were those with which Homer had real knowledge. Ports of Crete, Cyprus, Phoenicia and Sicily, were known to Smyrna sailors in the eighth century BCE. Homer well describes these places through tales Odysseus tells when he is in disguise and wishes to conceal actual places of his travels. For the route of actual travels, to lands of strange sorceresses, monsters and cannibals, the traveler is left to wander the “wine dark sea” to view Homer’s “rose red Dawn” from distant shores.

CTH virtual World Tour continues, concluding Part 1 The Ancient World, with D. Rise of Rome.

Port Civitavecchia is access to Rome. There can be no doubt that of great cities of the world, Rome ranks among the first. Its monuments stand as prototypes to theaters, agora marketplaces, temples to churches, colosseums, forums, and most of all roads, seen to the extent of the Roman world. From the northern British Isles to Turkey, Rome had a commanding presence. Its rise came in descendance of Athens and destruction of Carthage. (CTH #1, 2)

All roads led to Rome and Romans were master builders of roads, viaducts, and road technology such as drains and curbs. Via Appia in the center of Rome, now a World Heritage Site, ran to the Adriatic at Port Brindisi.  Across the Adriatic Sea the road continued to Port Istanbul, previously known as Constantinople, capital of the first Christian emperor of Rome. Appius Claudius, master road builder in 312 BCE, knew that a good road was the key to a growing economy and defense of territory. (CTH #2 & 3)

At the Port of Aqaba travel north to Amman, Jordan and the World Heritage Site candidate Jerash, to see Rome in Arabia. (CTH #5)

Throughout England there is evidence of Roman presence. See Hadrian’s Wall accessed from Port Newcastle, a Roman forum in Chester from Port Liverpool, the Roman gate in Port Colchester, and Roman sites, including a coliseum from Port Dover. (CTH #10) 

In Turkey Port Antalya is access Aspendos, a Persian, Greek, Roman city. Port Split is the home of Roman emperor Diocletian, who lived to retire in style. Lesser Romans retired in Pompeii or Herculaneum, accessed from Port Naples or Port Sorrento. (CTH #2)

Poet Ovid displeased a Roman emperor in 10 CE and was exiled to the end of the Roman world in Port Constanta (Ancient Tomis), on the Black Sea. (CTH #4) Ovid’s treatise Metamorphosis is regarded as inspiration for visual projections in 15^th century Renaissance art. 

Poet Virgil entertained a Roman emperor in 40 BCE with predictions of a child born to the world to bring peace. Tenth century Christians looked upon Virgil as the first Christian, foretelling the coming of Christ. In Port Naples contemporaries of Virgil believed that Virgil placed a Golden Egg in a metal cage, later buried in the Castle dell Ovo, protecting Naples from tragedy that fell upon Pompeii. Naples will remain safe as long as the egg remains in place. Virgil is also credited with chasing flies from Naples. (CTH #2)

The Rise of Rome crosses from pagan to Christian eras. The CTH World Tour of 100 Ports in Human History continues with Part 2. In the Path of Abrahamic Religions – Reverence and Pilgrimage. See the next posting.

All photos and art are property of Cruise through History, for use with permission. All CTH storybooks are available on Amazon.