34.1 The Beginnings of Navigation in the Black Sea: The
Thracian-Getae, the Greeks, the Romans
and the Byzantines
Written historical evidence and discoveries of an underwater research campaign
support the statements above. For instance, Herodotus informs us that ThracianGetae kings allied with the famous city of Troy helping it with ships. In his turn,
Diodorus of Sicily, highlights that in the twelveth to eleventh centuries B.C., there
was a Thracian thalassocracy. Professor Charles King, from Georgetown University, in his history of the Black Sea, noticed phantasmagoric, bizarre elements of the
Thracian tribes on the coasts of the Pontic region (King 2015: 44–45). In the 1960s,
as a result of an underwater research campaign by American specialists in the area
between Caliacra head and Sozopol, there was evidence that the Thracian-Getae
practiced navigation using ships of a few tons. The discovery and complex analysis
of 150 stone anchors of about 70–80 kg, of local materials, dated from the 2nd–1st
millennium B.C. and by some appreciation from the 3rd millennium B.C., prove the
beginnings of navigation in the Pontic region. These elements show that the ancient
Greeks, considered for a long time the first mediators of the maritime relations
between the Pontic west coast from the mouth of the Danube to the south, between
the Thracian-Getae and the Aegean Mediterranean world, were actually preceded
by the natives (Ciorbea and Atanasiu 1995: 9).
Very well known historians, such as Gheorghe Bra ˘tianu, the author of a monograph dedicated to the Black Sea (Bra ˘tianu 2000), and Radu Vulpe claimed that the
Phoenicians, brave sailors, also entered the Black Sea. Moreover, the Cariens,
holding the thalassocracy of the East-Mediterranean area in the eight century B.
C., explore the Pontic coast. Thus, the impact of the Hellenic civilization on the
Thracian-Getae population is traced back to the eight century B.C. and it grows in
the following centuries in concrete terms through the founding of commercial
centres of production, in time turned into real city-ports at the Black Sea, which
stimulated the economic and cultural exchanges and developed the level of the
Greek influence at the mouth of the Danube and the region between the river and the
west coast.
On the banks of Sinoe lake, in an area favorable to sheltering ships, the colonists
from Milet founded the city of Histria in 657 B.C. The Doriens from the Pontic
Heracleea founded at the end of the sixth century A.D. the city of Callatis and the
Milesiens established Tomis in mid-sixth century.
Navigation on the Black Sea was not easy. If to the south they sailed in the sense
of the current anti-clockwise, to the north they had to confront the currents at a
distance of 3–9 km from the shore, wide of 35–50 km. It was estimated that the
sailors of those times practiced the cabotage, skillfully using the coast winds and the
anticyclone currents. There are also views according to which, they sailed in open
ships to shorten the passage from the Straits to the west coast.
The interest for the Istro-Pontic politics connected by the Bosporus and the
Dardanelles to the great ancient powers starts with the conflict between the Persian
584
V. Ciorbea and N. Stanca
Thracian-Getae, the Greeks, the Romans
and the Byzantines
Written historical evidence and discoveries of an underwater research campaign
support the statements above. For instance, Herodotus informs us that ThracianGetae kings allied with the famous city of Troy helping it with ships. In his turn,
Diodorus of Sicily, highlights that in the twelveth to eleventh centuries B.C., there
was a Thracian thalassocracy. Professor Charles King, from Georgetown University, in his history of the Black Sea, noticed phantasmagoric, bizarre elements of the
Thracian tribes on the coasts of the Pontic region (King 2015: 44–45). In the 1960s,
as a result of an underwater research campaign by American specialists in the area
between Caliacra head and Sozopol, there was evidence that the Thracian-Getae
practiced navigation using ships of a few tons. The discovery and complex analysis
of 150 stone anchors of about 70–80 kg, of local materials, dated from the 2nd–1st
millennium B.C. and by some appreciation from the 3rd millennium B.C., prove the
beginnings of navigation in the Pontic region. These elements show that the ancient
Greeks, considered for a long time the first mediators of the maritime relations
between the Pontic west coast from the mouth of the Danube to the south, between
the Thracian-Getae and the Aegean Mediterranean world, were actually preceded
by the natives (Ciorbea and Atanasiu 1995: 9).
Very well known historians, such as Gheorghe Bra ˘tianu, the author of a monograph dedicated to the Black Sea (Bra ˘tianu 2000), and Radu Vulpe claimed that the
Phoenicians, brave sailors, also entered the Black Sea. Moreover, the Cariens,
holding the thalassocracy of the East-Mediterranean area in the eight century B.
C., explore the Pontic coast. Thus, the impact of the Hellenic civilization on the
Thracian-Getae population is traced back to the eight century B.C. and it grows in
the following centuries in concrete terms through the founding of commercial
centres of production, in time turned into real city-ports at the Black Sea, which
stimulated the economic and cultural exchanges and developed the level of the
Greek influence at the mouth of the Danube and the region between the river and the
west coast.
On the banks of Sinoe lake, in an area favorable to sheltering ships, the colonists
from Milet founded the city of Histria in 657 B.C. The Doriens from the Pontic
Heracleea founded at the end of the sixth century A.D. the city of Callatis and the
Milesiens established Tomis in mid-sixth century.
Navigation on the Black Sea was not easy. If to the south they sailed in the sense
of the current anti-clockwise, to the north they had to confront the currents at a
distance of 3–9 km from the shore, wide of 35–50 km. It was estimated that the
sailors of those times practiced the cabotage, skillfully using the coast winds and the
anticyclone currents. There are also views according to which, they sailed in open
ships to shorten the passage from the Straits to the west coast.
The interest for the Istro-Pontic politics connected by the Bosporus and the
Dardanelles to the great ancient powers starts with the conflict between the Persian
584
V. Ciorbea and N. Stanca