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The cross-staff was an ancient precursor to the modern marine sextant. "The light of navigation", Dutch sailing handbook, 1608, showing compass, hourglass, sea astrolabe, terrestrial and celestial globes, divider, Jacob's staff and astrolabe. Fairly accurate maps of the Americas were being drawn in the early 17th century.
This text described over a hundred mechanical devices, some of which may date back to ancient Greek texts preserved in monasteries. A geared calendar similar to the Byzantine device was described by the scientist al-Biruni around 1000, and a surviving 13th-century astrolabe also contains a similar clockwork device. [94]
A simple wooden kamal. A kamal, often called simply khashaba (wood in Arabic), [1] is a celestial navigation device that determines latitude.The invention of the kamal allowed for the earliest known latitude sailing, [2] and was thus the earliest step towards the use of quantitative methods in navigation. [3]
All those mentioned were the traditional instruments used until well into the second half of the 20th century. After World War II electronic aids to navigation developed very rapidly and, to a great extent, replaced more traditional tools. Electronic speed and depth finders have totally replaced their older counterparts.
In 2014 and 2015 it conducted robotic mapping surveys over the two ancient wreck sites, cooperating with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Australian Centre for Field Robotics of the University of Sydney. Subsequent excavations of the Antikythera Wreck in 2014–2016 delivered new finds from the ship: wood elements from the hull ...
The earliest reference to a specific magnetic "direction finder" device for land navigation is recorded in a Song dynasty book dated to 1040–44. There is a description of an iron "south-pointing fish" floating in a bowl of water, aligning itself to the south. The device is recommended as a means of orientation "in the obscurity of the night."
A company drilling for natural gas off the coast of northern Israel discovered a 3,300-year-old ship and its cargo, one of the oldest known examples of a ship sailing far from land, the Israel ...
Model of Ancient Egyptian ship. Drawing of Ancient Egyptian ship with a sail. Ships and boats were an important part of the ancient Egyptian's life. [1] The earliest boats in Egypt were made during the time of the Old Kingdom where they were used along the Nile River. Because of the lack of wood, boats were made with bundled papyrus reeds.