Did the Phoenicians Discover America? - Thomas C. Johnston |
The Aztec Calendar or Water Stone described—Its connection with the origin of the compass—Did the Chinese invent this instrument? —The Phoenicians and the compass—Its importance to their naval expansion—Primitive compass familiar to early navigating nations—Instrument closely identified with Phoenician civilisation—Bactellium and the discovery of the Pole Star due to the Phoenicians.
"For I saw that among rude people of early times, inventors and discoverers were reckoned as gods."—Francis Bacon.
"Moreover the god Ouranas devised Bactellia, which were stones that moved as possessing life."—Phanician History of Sanekoniathon, translated by Philo of Byblius.
There were four things essential to the successful accomplishment of any voyage undertaken by the Phoenicians. These were the ships of which we have already spoken, charts of the seas frequented, the cross staff, and the loadstone. That the Phoenicians were accustomed to survey by some means the coasts which they frequented there can be no question, for Herodotus (iii. 136) makes a positive statement to this effect, supplementing it with the information that when so doing they tabulated their notes for future reference. Strabo supports the testimony of Herodotus by explaining that the Phoenicians applied their knowledge of astronomy and arithmetic to reckoning a ship's course. The knowledge thus acquired also enabled them to sail by night.
We have no positive information with respect to the date of the invention of the cross staff, but it seems to have been created by the early astronomers for just the purpose for which it would be required in navigation. We may, therefore, assume that it was known to, if not invented by, the first astronomers and navigators of the Persian Gulf and the Syrian coasts.
But the one instrument on which it is absolutely necessary to obtain further light in connection with our investigation is the loadstone or compass. Without the possession of this instrument it is impossible to conceive of such voyages as the Phoenicians systematically undertook and prosecuted successfully, for while those on the eastern seas were by no means impossible during the well determined season of navigation, those to the west would have been extremely hazardous in the high latitudes.
Had they depended on astronomical help alone it is easy to see that a slight change of weather would have left them at night without any accurate means of determining either their position or the direction in which they were sailing. It is unfortunate, therefore, that we have as little definite information with respect to the origin of the loadstone as we have with regard to the cross staff. This, however, is scarcely surprising when we remember the care that was exercised by the Phoenicians in preserving from the rest of mankind, but especially from competing nations, all knowledge with respect to their navigation and their trade. Still there is sufficient historic data to enable us to solve the enigma satisfactorily if we approach the subject with an open mind.
Among the more prominent features of the remains of the ancient civilisation of Central America there is to be found a monument which seems to provide the guidance necessary to lead us to a clear solution of our problem. Built into the walls of the Cathedral of Mexico is a rectangular parallel opipedon of porphyry 13 feet 1.5 inches square, 3 feet 3.5 inches thick, and weighing in its present mutilated state twenty-four tons. By some writers this monument has been described as a Calendar Stone and by others as a $$Piedra de Agua##, or Water Stone. The sculpture on this strange memorial is of a unique character. Baron Humboldt, in describing it, says "the concentric circles, the divisions and subdivisions without number, are traced with mathematical exactitude, and the more we examine the details of the sculpture the more do we discover that taste for repetition of the same form, that spirit of order, that sentiment of symmetry which, among half civilised peoples, takes the place of the sentiment of the beautiful."
A careful examination of this memorial will, we venture to submit, throw a flood of light on the origin of the compass, this so-called Calendar or Water Stone being neither more nor less than a national memorial of a seafaring people in the form of a mariner's compass to the invention or possession of which they seem to have attributed the discovery of the New Continent. The Calendar Stone presents one or two features that may be counted as giving weight to this view. It will, for instance, be observed that the design possesses not only a north and a south point but also the remaining cardinal points, these being duly emphasized—Kan to the south, Maluc to the east, Ix to the north, and Cuac to the west (Laudas); in addition there are symbols of the four winds that blow. Not only are the cardinal points and winds indicated, but in sub-divisions mathematically correct. The thirty-two points into which what we call the modern compass is divided are all here. Again, in the main or south point will be observed the faces of Coxcox and Xochiquetzae, the Mexican Noah and his wife, the grandparents of Chan, the progenitors of the Phoenicians, the first recorded navigators (Gen. vi. 14), and underneath these the Aztec symbol for water. All this clearly indicates that navigation was the subject which the stone was originally intended to commemorate.
But the wonder does not end here. If the stone be placed in its correct position with respect to the sun god, the Phoenician Ouranos, it will be observed that the main or emphasized point is not north but south, and that in this respect it agrees with the Chinese compass. Clearly then the design had its origin among a people who were the common inventors of both instruments, and to whom the South Pole had either a special religious significance or whose early navigation was mainly in a direction to the south of the harbours from which they set out. Both of these presumptions are in perfect accord with our knowledge of the Phoenicians. All the early navigating nations considered the south the important point. To the sun worshipper the south was the right hand of the world, the place of power, the region whence emanated the divine influence, and therefore sacred. The early nations therefore reversed our usage, and were accustomed to think of the world as having its south on top and its north underneath.
What in all probability led the Mediterranean nations to make the change in the relative positions of the poles, placing the north above and the south below, was the discovery that the Pole Star was the one constant star in the heavens—a discovery which is universally accredited to the Phoenicians.
Now if this change be placed about the ninth century B.C. our problem will be simplified, for, as Greek navigation never extended to a point south of the equator, the constellations used by them for this purpose were not those of the southern but the northern hemisphere.
The so-called Chinese compass (using the word in its restricted sense) was not in use for purposes of navigation until about the third century of our era, and was a rude and unsatisfactory instrument with only sixteen points, so that it is useless to attempt to make any direct connection between it and the very elaborate design found on the Mexican calendar stone. There has been, however, so much misunderstanding regarding the supposed relation of this instrument to the mariner's compass that it will be profitable to give some attention to the Chinese narrative on which the claim is founded.
The earliest historic reference relative to the discovery of the directive properties of the suspended magnet is, according to these Chinese records, 200 years after the erection of the temple to Hercules at Tyre, by which time the Phoenicians were already the great trade intermediaries of the ancient world. But this Chinese document nowhere refers to the instrument as a Chinese invention. Indeed the fact that it was hastily constructed during the progress of a war leads us to infer that the story was not designed to give an account of its invention, but simply to show the surpassing value of the instrument to the Chinese during a period of national stress. This story was not translated into any European language until Klaproth published his letter to Baron Humboldt in 1834. It was entitled "La invention de la Console." A translation from the French was made by Mr. T.S. Davies in his "Early History of the Compass," published in the British Annual of 1837, to which we now advert. The document refers it to 2634 B.C. and is entitled "Honang-ti punishes Tchi-Yeon at Tchon-lon."
"The Wai-ki said Tchon-Yeon bore the name Khiang: he was related to the Emperor Yan-ti. He delighted in war and turmoil. He made swords and lances and large cross-bows to oppress and devastate the empire. He called and brought together the chiefs of all the provinces; his grasping disposition and avarice exceeded all bounds.
"Yang-ti was obliged to retire and seek an asylum in the plains of Tchon-lon. The latter then raised a thick fog that by means of the d arkness he might spread confusion in the enemy's ranks, but Honang-Yonan, which is the proper name of the Emperor Yang-ti, constructed chariots for indicating the south in order to indicate the four cardinal points by means of which he pursued Tchi-Yeon and took him prisoner. He caused him to be ignominiously put to death at Tchonng-ki, the spot from this circumstance receiving the name of the broken curb."
It is on this bald statement of the manufacture of a land carriage, surmounted by a loadstone for the purpose of indicating the south and north points, that the Chinese claim to the invention of the compass is founded. But this is not the only reference to these magnet cars found in Chinese literature. A passage from the Sze-ki, a historical memoir of Szi-ma Tseen, the restorer of Chinese history, compiled in the early part of the second century of our era from authentic documents, says that in the second year of the reign of Chang-wang, the second emperor of the Cow dynasty (1110 B.C.), five of these magnetic chariots, called Fse-nan or indicators of the south, were presented to the ambassadors of Tonquin and Cochin China to direct their course over the immense grassy plains which it was necessary for them to cross on their return journey. These chariots are said to have been finished with a little manikin clad in a vest of feathers, having his outstretched arm so suspended that, despite the movement of the car, the magnetised hand pointed steadily to the south. In addition to this figure a hodometer was attached to each car, which by strokes marked the distance covered on a bell so arranged as to exhibit a sort of dead reckoning
The use of these magnetic cars does not seem to have altered in any particular throughout the succeeding centuries, for their presence in Tartary as late as the fifteenth century of our era is vouched for by Baron Humboldt. Mr. Klaproth, in his study of the subject, calls attention to the use to which the Chinese put the magnet and magnetised iron. The most ancient of the two was the employment of the loadstone or magnet in the manufacture of magnetic cars. The other was the employment of magnetised iron in making compasses either to float or to balance on a pivot, which enabled them, without obstruction, to move in the Polar direction. Many writers, failing to grasp this distinction, have confounded the land chariot with the compass, and consequently have erroneously supposed that these chariots were directed by a magnetised needle instead of the loadstone. China, so far as we know, during the period 2634 B.C. did not extend to the sea, the capital of the old emperors being situated in the central plains either on the Yellow River or on one of its affluents. The construction of the magnetic chariot, therefore, did not involve the invention of the sea compass which, according to our best authorities, was not known in China before the third century of our era, or about 3000 years after the construction of the first magnetic car by the Emperor Honang-ti.
From all this it should be apparent that prior to a.d. 300 China did not possess a sea compass. On the other hand, it was in possession of a knowledge of the directive properties of the loadstone or suspended magnet as early as 2634 B.C., and applied it then in the only direction in which it could have been of any service to them, namely, for land journeys and to enable them to cross uninhabited territory at a period when land transportation over the Asiatic continent was in the hands of the Phoenicians.
There is nothing in Chinese history but the stories, to which we have referred, to indicate that the compass, any more than their systems of astronomy, numerals, or religion, were of indigenous birth. The astronomical system of the Chinese was Babylonian, and their numeral and religious systems Indian. If, therefore, we take these as affording any light regarding the origin of the compass, it will be necessary to look to some more ancient civilisation for the source from which it was drawn.
The earliest reference to the magnet and its peculiar properties is that found in the Phoenician history of Sanchoniathon preserved in a fragment translated into Greek by Herenius Philo, better known as Philo Byblius. In this fragment Sanchoniathon ascribes to the god Ouranos the construction of the first suspended magnet or bactellium. The passage is as follows:
"But in process of time, whilst Ouranos was still in banishment, he sent his daughter Astarte, being a virgin, with two other of his sisters, Rhea and Dione, to cut off Chronus by treachery, but Chronus took the damsels and married them, notwithstanding they were his own sisters. When Ouranos understood this he sent other auxiliaries to make war against him, but Chronus gained the affection of these also and detained them with himself. Moreover the god Ouranos devised bactellia-contriving stones that moved as having life."
Ouranos, one of the progenitors of the Phoenician race, by a comparison of Phoenician and Hebrew chronologies, is identified with Noah, who lived many centuries before the arrival of the Chinese in the region of the Yellow River. We have, therefore, a historic or at least traditional account of the discovery and invention of the suspended magnet from a source where the stress of the national life of its possessors would naturally lead us to look for its presence.
Now it is as impossible to suppose that this discovery would have been one of the few surviving fragments of Phoenician history unless it had a very definite association with the national career of the people, as it would be to carefully observe the vibratory, life-like movement of the suspended bactellium without one's attention being conscious that it only continued so long as the bactellium was turned from the Polar direction, and that, however turned or set in motion, it always came to rest when pointing to the Kibleh or sacred point. It seems reasonable, therefore, to assume that the discovery of the directive power of the bactellium was synchronised with the discovery of the vibratory, life-like movement of the suspended magnet.
Can we suppose then that the Phoenicians, who were the discoverers of the Pole Star and used it as the principal sign in their navigation, never observed the connection that existed between the Polar directive properties of the bactellium and the Phoenician or Pole Star? The Phoenicians were accredited by the ancient world with having out-stripped all other nations in navigation, largely on account of the discovery that the Pole Star alone remains constant in the heavens, so that if the use to which the suspended bactellium was put by them was that of locating the position of this Phoenician star in stormy and cloudy weather, we are able to establish a most important relation between the two discoveries.
It is, however, unnecessary to presume merely that this was the case, for all the early writers on the compass, while still in the bactellium or oadstone stage, emphatically state that it was an instrument used for finding the Pole Star when the sky was clouded. It is a very significant fact that the Phoenician nation evidently placed a higher practical value on the invention of the bactellium than they did on the discovery of the Phoenician or Pole Star. The first is incorporated in their history of themselves as among their crowning achievements, whereas the discovery of the Pole Star is not recorded by themselves but by Greek historians. The reason is obvious. The discovery that the Phoenician Star was the one constant star in the heavens would not of itself have solved the problem of navigation, nor would the invention of the bactellium have done more for Phoenicia than provide a plaything for the children of Tyre and Sidon if it had not been known to provide a definite and unfailing guidance from its suspended polar direction to the Pole Star. It is in the due conjunction of these two great discoveries that we find the key to the phenomenal naval expansion of the Phoenicians.
To suppose that the Phoenicians actually ventured on such long voyages as those to Ophir (1 Kings ix. 28) and carried valuable cargoes (the return cargo in gold alone on one voyage amounted to four hundred and twenty talents or about four million pounds sterling), with no better guide than the coast line, when caravan transport would not only have eliminated risks but cut down the journey to eight months, is to exhibit amazing credulity with respect to the sagacity of the Phoenicians and gross ignorance as to the means by which they became the greatest navigating power of the ancient world. We find traces of their presence in localities which, as we shall see later, they would never have sought and from which it would have been practically impossible to return unless they had been in possession of some instrument that rendered them independent both of a stellar object and weather conditions.
The more this subject is considered the more does it become apparent that the stress of the national life of Phoenicia demanded the compass. Indeed, it is more than evident from the fragments of their history surviving, to which attention has been called, that it existed, though the secret of its existence was guarded with as scrupulous care from the other nations of antiquity as the secret of the destination of their most distant voyages. The invention and development of the compass from the crude bactellium or suspended magnet to the Piedra de Agua found in the first centres of civilisation on the American continent, stands in much the same relation to the commercial and colonial development of the Phoenicians that the invention and development of the steam-engine does to the commercial and colonial development of our day.
In order to understand the full significance of the compass to the Phoenicians, it will be necessary to follow the evolution of the instrument from the simple bactellium, a Bethel or house of God, in which was supposed to be resident the indwelling, vibrating life of the Deity.
It has been said that one of the first uses to which the south-pointing chariot was applied was locating to the worshipper the Kibleh or sacred south point when the sky was obscured. What truth there may be in this statement it is difficult to discover, but if true it would at least enable us to trace the existence of a connection in the mind of the early Semite between the south point of the bactellium and that of the supposed residence of the deity to whom he presented his devotions. Among the Semites sacrifices originally were not burned. The god was not conceived of as seated aloft but as present in the place of sacrifice, inhabiting the sacred stone, the bactellium. To underderstand this belief it is necessary, in our conceptions of the ideas associated with stone worship and true worship, to think of both as containing evidences of life, otherwise the symbolism would be wholly meaningless. The presence of life in the tree is self-evident, but it is not so in the stone, so that the construction of bactelloi that manifested the divine immanence was a feat of no ordinary significance to the subtle oriental mind. At the outset, therefore, we must not conceive of the bactellium as a mass of inert magnetic ore like the Caaba— the great black stone at Mecca—but as a manufactured and suspended instrument whose vibrating, life-like movement suggested a spiritual infilling.
How long a period, it will be asked, was occupied in the evolution of the compass from the bactellium or Bethel stage until it arrived at a really effective instrument? The answer is that it was an effective instrument from the date on which it was discovered that the Polar axis rested when the bactellium pointed in a north and south direction.
Although the compass was moving steadily towards perfection from 3400 B.C. (which date some of our, authorities identify with the life of Ouranos) it was only finally perfected at the hands of Lord Kelvin in 1876. If, therefore, the final constructive stages of the compass took 600 years it should surely teach us to view with complacency the apparently slow progress of its early development.
That the Phoenicians possessed some instrument that enabled them to steer a definite course through the trackless deep, irrespective of obstacles interposed by sea, coast line, or sky, seems to be incontrovertible. But if further proof were needed one might point to the statement of the prophet Ezekiel (xxvii. 8): "Thy wise men that were in thee, O Tyre, were thy pilots." Why should the wise men of Tyre go to sea to direct the navigation of a ship on a port to port coasting voyage where the practical experience of any captain in the marine familiar with the coast line would have been of more practical value? Of course the prophet is not referring to the coasting trade but to the more distant navigation of the Phoenicians, when a direct course thither was steered either by a stellar object, when this could be seen, or by the use of some instrument which would infallibly determine the ship's position by day or night. In navigation of this kind the wise men of Tyre, who were expert in astronomy and the use of numerals and possessed the bactellium, would be invaluable.
For overland travel, where the contour of the country provided an infallible means of determining direction and position, a rude map or chart of the general course pursued, when accompanied by the primitive bactellium or magnetic cross, was all that was necessary. This likewise was sufficient for the navigation of the eastern Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea. When, however, the Phoenicians began to venture on long voyages with valuable cargoes and large ships requiring much tacking in the open sea, the use of an instrument of finer adjustment must have been necessary, and it is from this date, which Herodotus places about 1200 B.C., when Cadiz became the port of entry for the Atlantic trade, that substantial improvements were made which constituted a distinct departure from the primitive bactellium. It is impossible to conceive of the phenomenal expansion that took place in Phoenician naval construction and navigation at this period, which culminated in the great ship of Tharshish, unless it is assumed that a corresponding advance had been made in the means by which both ships and cargoes were safeguarded.
The first form in which we find what, for simplicity's sake, we will designate the Amain or western compass, was divided into eight points, whereas the Chinese compass of that date was divided into sixteen, and, according to some authorities, into twenty-four parts. Both compasses, however, used the same method of suspending the needle just a little below the centre of gravity with a view to increasing the sensitiveness of its movement, yet the one compass had a determined north and the other a determined south point, whereas what we may call the Aztec compass, he so-called calendar stone or $$Piedra de Agua##, had the divisions carried to an infinitely finer degree, it being possible to read to a sixty-fourth part, as would be convenient, if not necessary, in navigating the tremendous stretch of ocean that lay between Torres Straits and the American continent. It is interesting, therefore, in this connection to notice that the compass, although a unit in its basic principles, seems to have been adapted in the various stages of its construction to the particular needs of the navigation on which it was employed. But the perfect instrument is only found where we would expect to find it, namely in Phoenicia's most distant colony, in that place the navigation to which would call for the finest possible adjustment.
To navigate from the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf through the Indian and Pacific Oceans to America would not have required the use of superior ships or finer seamanship than that on the Atlantic voyages, but it would certainly have demanded a compass with a much finer degree of adjustment. The situation is therefore suggestive of the origin of the $$Piedra de Agua## or calendar stone, more especially in view of the fact that we find it in a place where the plainest evidences of the presence of the Phoenician occupancy exist.
In order that the whole scope of this inquiry may be clearly understood it will now be necessary to forge again some of the links that in a remote past seem to have united these various forms of the compass in a common symbol.
The Arabs, as was indicated in an earlier chapter, were from the beginning the most intimate neighbours of the Phoenicians. Arabian tribes were their carriers and commercial correspondents in connection with the produce of the Arabian Peninsula. It is not surprising, then, that we find them in possession of a compass, which, though rude, fulfilled all their needs. The Arabs used not only the bactellium but the Phoenician Star in the prosecution of their journeys, and the relation of these two facts is, to say the least, very significant of the source from which their knowledge was derived. There was, moreover, no good reason why the Phoenicians should have withheld this information from the Arabs. Every reason indeed was present why they should not have withheld knowledge that would safeguard the transportation of the valuable merchandise of the central and southern markets of that country on which they were so dependent for their Mediterranean trade.
Koulak Kibdjalick, an Arabian author, who made a voyage across the Indian Ocean in a.d. 1242, describes vividly the manufacture of one of these primitive compasses under his own observation. It incorporated all that was thought to be necessary when the bactellium was first applied to navigation, and at that early period seems to have been such common property that the mariners did not hesitate to make it known to a stranger. Says the traveller:
"They took a cup of water which they sheltered from the wind, they then took a needle which they fixed on a reed or straw so as to form a cross, they then took the loadstone in their hand and turned it round for some time above the cup, moving from left to right, the needle following; they then withdrew the loadstone, after which the needle stood still pointing north and south."
It will be evident from what has been said that the earliest statement from Arabian sources does not afford us any more satisfactory light on the origin of the compass than does the Chinese stories. And this will be more evident as we proceed, for it will be found that all the information conveyed by this Arabian author was possessed by the Icelanders 400 years before this date, a fact all the more startling because we can establish no historic connection between either China or Arabia and Iceland.
But there is very little difficulty in tracing the movements of the compass in its progress from Phoenicia to Europe. Exasperated at the assistance which the Phoenician seamen rendered to the Persians in their wars against the Greek States, Alexander the Great determined on an expedition with a view to terminating for all time the menace which this co-operation presented to his absolute sovereignty of the ancient world. He therefore set about the reduction of the Phoenician towns and the destruction of their fleets. After a relentless war he secured not only the capitulation of the main Phoenician towns, but he took island Tyre by storm and massacred 8000 of the inhabitants.
It was, however, through the erection of Alexandria much more than the destruction of island Tyre that the purposes of the conqueror Alexander in the ruin of the Phoenician hegemony were secured, for Alexandria was speedily transferred to that proud pre-eminence as the great emporium of the trade between the East and West that had for so many centuries been the distinction of the Phoenician towns.
Shortly after the rise of Alexandria came the death of the Greek conqueror, and Tyre, which had ceased to be a city, speedily sprung into life again. But its greatness as a naval port and the central emporium for the eastern and western trade was a thing of the past. Carthage meanwhile had sprung into power, peopled with the fugitives from the Phoenician towns. These carried to their new home not only an intimate knowledge of the western Mediterranean trade, which speedily became tributary to their port, but also the ability to administer the government of Carthage and stimulate the commerce of the adjacent regions. The usual result from such a division followed. Alexandria, profiting by the disaster to Tyre and the growth of Carthage which began to monopolise the western trade, steadily grew in importance and wealth, so that the great Alexandria corn ships soon took the place of the stately ships of Tharshish.
Of all the nations engaged in the eastern Mediterranean business the Italians had the shortest and most direct voyage to make in order to reach Alexandria, so that a practical monopoly of the eastern trade fell into their hands before the end of the thirteenth century a.d. First among the Italian cities to profit by this change were Amain and Pisa. It was as the result of the transference of the Tyrian trade to Alexandria and the growth of Amalfi to be an independent republic regulating the commerce between Alexandria and Italy, that the compass made its appearance in a definite commercial form.
It has been claimed that the compass was first introduced into Italy from China by Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller, in a.d. 1260. This claim is largely based on the fact that the Amalfi and Chinese compasses used the same method of suspending the needle. It does not, however, accord with other well-established historic facts, for a reference to the use of a rude compass as early as a.d. 868 is made by Hanstein in a quotation from an Icelandic historian of the eleventh century. He again is followed by Alexander Neckham, the foster brother of Richard Coeur de Lion, who speaks of the instrument not as a secret of the learned, but as a guide of the mariner.
Guiot de Provence also sheds some light on the hold which the compass had taken on the public mind of his day in a poem dated a.d. 1190. Says he, "The mariner can sail to the north star without seeing it by simply following the needle floating on a straw in a basin of water after it has been touched with the magnet." Brunetto Latini, author of $$Le Tresor## and Dante's tutor, refers to a visit to Roger Bacon in a.d. 1258, when the friar showed him the magnet and explained its properties. The Cardinal de Vitray, who visited Palestine during the fourth Crusade, also refers to the instrument. In chapter xci. of his $$Historia Orientalis## he notes the use of the bactellium in almost identical terms to Guiot de Provence. He says, "The needle after contact with the magnetic stone constantly turns to the north star which, as the axis of the firmament, remains immovable, whilst the others revolve, and hence it is essentially necessary to those who navigate the ocean"—words as explicit as they are remarkable.
From these references it should be clear that the form in which the primitive compass was familiar to all the early navigating nations was either the bactellium or loadstone or the magnetised needle.
As to the Chinese claim to the invention the documents already referred to determine absolutely nothing. The Chinese were not deep water sailors. They were river navigators, and although they seem to have cultivated the coasting trade they did not venture out of sight of land, being ignorant of the islands adjacent to their own shores. Even the large island of Formosa was unknown to them until it was discovered by the Dutch.
To sum up, we seem to have no option but to turn away from China, Arabia, Amalfi, and all other sources to Phoenicia if we would obtain any satisfactory solution of the difficulty that has for so long surrounded the origin of the compass. It should now be apparent that five things were necessarily involved in the evolution of the compass, and that at least four of these were intimately identified with the national life of Phoenicia,
In answering this last point as to whether there is any sufficient reason for believing that the Phoenicians did establish this connection between the Polar directive properties of the suspended magnet and the Phoenician Star which solved the great problem of navigation for all time, we at the same time settle the question of the origin of the compass.
Now it is important to remember that the invention of the bactellium and the discovery of the Pole Star are peculiarly Phoenician, no nation of antiquity but Phoenicia laying claim to either. Furthermore, it was through the discovery of this star that a means was found by which to steer the compass. It cannot, however, be supposed that Phoenician navigation can be explained by the mere fact of their having discovered the Pole Star, for centuries after the death of Ouranos the trend of their navigation was in a direction where the Pole Star could not be seen. If, therefore, it was used as a constant it must have been through the medium of such an instrument as the bactellium, which was capable of locating its position when the object to which it pointed was not in sight.
Apart therefore from a definite statement from the Phoenicians themselves as to the use to which the bactellium was applied, there can be no question that they were not only capable of establishing but actually did establish the connection existing between the Polar directive power of the bactellium and the Phoenician Star, and so used it in their navigation. The paramount value of the compass to the Phoenicians was undoubtedly the cause of their long retention of the secret of its existence at least on the Mediterranean coasts, for there was much to be feared, as they found, from Greek expansion.
It has been said with a considerable show of learning that sea charts did not exist until the end of the thirteenth century a.d. This is clearly a mistake. It is probable that the first Italian or Pisan compass charts which cover the whole Mediterranean belong to this period. The first, of which we have any exact information, are those of P. Visconti in a.d. 1311, and these seem to have been made from data obtained in the same manner as that ascribed by Herodotus (iii. 136) to the Phoenicians, who, he says, "surveyed the coasts of Hellas, taking notes in writing." Either of these charts would, however, have been of very little value to seamen if they had not been correctly platted by a compass and the seas they represented navigated by the same instrument. So that we may fairly enough assume that all that was involved in the discovery and invention of the bactellium and compass was clearly of Phoenician origin.
Well may the prophet Ezekiel (xxviii. 3) say of such people, "Behold thou art wiser than Daniel, there is no secret that they can hide from thee."