ELEMENTI DI NAUTICA ANTICA, TRA ARCHEOLOGIA, STORIA ED ETNOGRAFIA

Abstract

Ethnographic data represent a particularly interesting factor of comparative analysis in ancient navigation
studies and, in a more general sense, for the culture of seafaring peoples, especially about rituals and beliefs of
sailors and fishermen. A critical reading is necessary, since some aspects of nautical ethnography present themselves
as true living fossils, i.e. as technical and practical solutions directly derived from antiquity, while others
have undergone forms of substantial evolution over time, with contributions and transformations referable to
different chronologies and contexts. Furthermore, we must always bear in mind the fact that the imperatives due
to the marine environment have determined essential responses to essential needs, which may reappear in similar
forms in time and space, without any direct relationship between them, at least as long as man has tackled
the sea without engine, that is, until the demise of the sail. By means of four real examples, this article considers
both the properly nautical aspect, linked to two systems used to cope with storms, and that linked to the symbolic
elements through which the feelings of seafarers towards their boats were expressed.

Key words: ancient seamanship, nautical ethnography, seafaring tradition, seafaring people.