Dr Kynes
Well-Known Member
View attachment 2357410
yes, once upon a tiime greenland was green and NOT covered by ice. the norse had several settlements there, including the inland valleys (now under massive ice sheets, but 1000+ years in the cooler will do that)
and in that distant time greenland was called Thule. it was on maps used by the greeks the romans, and the cartheginians.
Strabo in his Geography (c. 30), Book I, Chapter 4, mentions Thule in describing Eratosthenes' calculation of "the breadth of the inhabited world" and notes that Pytheas says it "is a six days' sail north of Britain, and is near the frozen sea." But he then doubts this claim, writing that Pytheas has "been found, upon scrutiny, to be an arch falsifier, but the men who have seen Britain and Ierne (Ireland) do not mention Thule, though they speak of other islands, small ones, about Britain." Strabo adds the following in Book II, Chapter 5:
Now Pytheas of Massilia tells us that Thule, the most northerly of the Britannic Islands, is farthest north, and that there the circle of the summer tropic is the same as the Arctic Circle. But from the other writers I learn nothing on the subjectneither that there exists a certain island by the name of Thule, nor whether the northern regions are inhabitable up to the point where the summer tropic becomes the Arctic Circle.
Strabo ultimately concludes, in Book IV, Chapter 5, "Concerning Thule, our historical information is still more uncertain, on account of its outside position; for Thule, of all the countries that are named, is set farthest north."
- Ancient Greeks had a legend of Hyperborea, a land of perpetual sun beyond the north wind. Hecataeus (c. 500 BC) says that the holy place of the Hyperboreans, which was built after the pattern of the spheres, which lay in the regions beyond the land of the Celts on an island in the ocean believed to be Thule.
- In 330 B.C., Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia, while sailing the North Atlantic, discovered what he believed to be Thule. His book About the Oceans gave an account of the journey, but it remains lost.
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- Cleomedes referenced Pytheas journey to Thule, but added no new information.
. - Virgil, c. 37 B.C., coined the term Ultima Thule (Georgics, 1. 30) meaning farthest land as a symbolic reference to denote a far-off land or an unattainable goal.
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- In the 1st century B.C., Greek astronomer Geminus of Rhodes claimed that the etymology of Thule came from an archaic word for the polar night phenomenon the place where the sun goes to rest.
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- Dionysius Periegetes in his De situ habitabilis orbis also touched upon the subject, as did Martianus Capella.
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- Roman historian Tacitus, in his 98 A.D. book chronicling the life of his father-in-law, Agricola, describes how the Romans knew that Britain (which Agricola was commander of) was an island. He writes of a Roman ship that circumnavigated Britain, and discovered the Orkney Islands and says the ships crew even sighted Thule. However their orders were not to explore there, as winter was at hand.
. - A novel in Greek by Antonius Diogenes entitled The Wonders Beyond Thule appeared c. A.D. 150 or earlier. Gerald N. Sandy, in the introduction to his translation of Photius 9th-century summary of The Wonders Beyond Thule, surmises that Thule was probably Iceland.
. - Latin grammarian Gaius Julius Solinus in the 3rd century A.D., wrote in his Polyhistor that Thule was a 5 days sail from Orkney:
Thule, which was distant from Orkney by a voyage of five days and nights, was fruitful and abundant in the lasting yield of its crops.
Ab Orcadibus Thylen usque dierum ac noctium navigatio est; sed Thyle larga et diutina Pomona copiosa est.
- In the 4th century A.D., Avienus in his Ora Maritima added that during the summer on Thule night lasted only two hours, a clear reference to the midnight sun.
- The 4th century Virgilian commentator Servius also believed that Thule sat close by to the Orkney Islands:
Thule; an island in the Ocean between the northern and western zone, beyond Britain, near the Orkneys and Ireland; in this way Thule is with the sun in Cancer, in perpetual daylight without night, it is said.
Thule; insula est Oceani inter septemtrionalem et occidentalem plagam, ultra Britanniam, iuxta Orcades et Hiberniam; in hac Thule cum sol in Cancro est, perpetui dies sine noctibus dicuntur
- Early in the fifth century A.D., Claudian, in his poem, On the Fourth Consulship of the Emperor Honorius, Book VIII, rhapsodizes on the conquests of the emperor Theodosius I, declaring that the Orcades [Orkney Islands] ran red with Saxon slaughter; Thule was warm with the blood of Picts; ice-bound Hibernia [Ireland] wept for the heaps of slain Scots. This implies that Thule was Scotland. But in Against Rufinias, the Second Poem, Claudian writes of Thule lying icebound beneath the pole-star.
. - The known world came to be viewed as bounded in the east by India and in the west by Thule, as expressed in the Consolation of Philosophy (c. A.D. 524) by Boethius.
For though the earth, as far as Indias shore, tremble before the laws you give, though Thule bow to your service on earths farthest bounds, yet if thou canst not drive away black cares, if thou canst not put to flight complaints, then is no true power thine.
- In 551 A.D. Jordanes, in his Getica wrote that Thule sat under the pole-star.
. - Seneca the Younger wrote of a day when new lands will be discovered past Thule. This was later quoted widely in the context of Christopher Columbus discovery of America:
There will come an age in the far-off years when Ocean shall unloose the bonds of things, when the whole broad earth shall be revealed, when Tethys shall disclose new worlds and Thule not be the limit of the lands.
Venient annis saecula seris, quibus Oceanus vincula rerum laxet et ingens pateat tellus Tethysque novos detegat orbes nec sit terris ultima Thule..
b8ut yeahh im just blowin smoke, i really dont know shit since im not a mathlete and dont have a phd behind my name. and since you obviously cant recognize a reference from literature in my nome du plume, p[erhaps you should re-evaluate you declarations as to who may or may not be ignorant.
you may bow begin criiticising my typing, spelling and grammar.
As my lack of recognizing your nom de plume, if the only thing you can claim I am ignorant about is a science fiction novel, then so be it.
