Share this page!

Enter Twitter Thread URL to Unroll

Needs to be the full URL like: https://twitter.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on Twitter App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Byzantine Emporia Profile picture
@byzantinemporia
Jul 17 • 8 tweets • 5 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Scrolly
Most of the adventures in the Arabian Nights take place around the Indian Ocean, stories with Persian or Indian origins. But at least one of them comes from Byzantine tales of the exotic. Thread. https://t.co/32qnrzdCOK https://t.co/KeoZXWzYnftwitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Image
In the 4th century, an Egyptian Greek visited the island of Taprobane (usually identified as Sri Lanka, based on Ptolemy’s description). He reported that magnetic rocks on the island prevented ships made with iron nails from departing. https://t.co/WsdwqjNOsAtwitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Image
This story was embellished over the ages. In the 6thcentury, Procopius related a legend circulating in his time that the entire Indian Ocean was filled with magnetic rocks that shipwrecked vessels with iron—this was said to explain why shipwrights there did not use nails. Image
Indian Ocean ships did not in fact use nails until much later. Instead, planks were stitched together with palm fiber.

Marco Polo thought this was because of the hardness of the wood—the preferred teak is indeed very hard, but is not impossible to nail.
https://t.co/HU4TffFv1C

Pictures from this excellent account of sewn boats in India: https://www.einesaite.com/blog/einesaite/2013/11/26/sewing-boats
Pictures from this excellent account of sewn boats in India: https://www.einesaite.com/blog/einesaite/2013/11/26/sewing-boats
There are several other possible explanations for this: the scarcity of iron in the Indian Ocean (as Procopius believed), the abundance of palm fiber, or to make the hull more flexible when they get beached on the many coral reefs and sandbars.
https://t.co/KUFwfh5sZS
Photo from Qatar's annual dhow festival: https://www.marhaba.qa/dhow-boats-in-qatar/
The legend got embellished even more by the time it made it into the Thousand and One Nights. In the Third Qalandar’s Tale, one of the oldest in the collection, a ship is blown by a storm toward the Magnet Mountain, causing the nails to fly out and the ship to sink. https://t.co/BRp18pBE00twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Image
There may also be a faint echo in Sindbad’s sixth voyage: when he is shipwrecked on Serendib (i.e. Sri Lanka, or Taprobane), his ship is dashed against a cliff where many other merchant vessels have been wrecked.
It seems strange that characters from Harun al-Rashid’s Baghdad were sailing around in iron-nailed ships in the first place. But the oldest manuscripts of the Nights are Egyptian and Syrian—Mediterranean people like the Byzantines, telling tales of the exotic far-off East. https://t.co/EGGvmGADWttwitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Image

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Byzantine Emporia

Byzantine Emporia Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @byzantinemporia

Byzantine Emporia Profile picture
Jul 19
How did Aleppo, which stands on a minor river in the middle of a vast plain, come to be the greatest metropolis in Syria?

Simply by standing dead center on the overland portion of the trade route connecting the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. Thread.
Image
Image
There were three main routes to the Mediterranean from the Indian Ocean in antiquity:
-Through the Red Sea then overland to the Nile
-Through the Persian Gulf, up the Euphrates, then overland to the Orontes near Antioch
-Overland from southern Arabia Image
Before the discovery of the monsoon trade routes in the Hellenistic era, there was not a large volume of sea trade between India and the Near East. The voyage was long and arduous, having to follow the desolate, waterless Makran coast in southern Iran and Pakistan. Image
Read 14 tweets
Byzantine Emporia Profile picture
Jul 18
The Crusades are sometimes presented as a flash in the pan, a meteoric burst of conquests that were bound to crumble eventually. But they could have just as easily endured centuries longer than they did.

Thread on the failed Crusade against Damascus. https://t.co/JZYbRQIvtF
Image
The Second Crusade was launched in response to the first great crisis that Outremer faced: the fall of Edessa to the powerful warlord Zengi. This brought the loss of much of their inland territories east of the defensible coastal ranges and the Jordan.
There was great danger that Zengi’s united realm of northern Syria and Mesopotamia would sweep the remnants into the sea, so in 1147 Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany set out at the head of mighty armies to oppose him.
Image
Image
Read 23 tweets
Byzantine Emporia Profile picture
Jul 4
On this date in 1187 Saladin destroyed the Crusader army at Hattin, killing or capturing all but a few hundred of more than 20,000 men.

Perhaps history’s most one-sided victory, won by a middling tactician with a decidedly mixed record against the Franks. How did he do it? https://t.co/JZYbRQHXE7
The campaign of 1187 was Saladin’s fifth major invasion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He had greatly outnumbered the Crusaders on each previous occasion, but these had resulted in one major defeat, a minor victory, and two stalemates.
There was a downside to Saladin’s large, cavalry-heavy armies: they required immense logistical support.

He could sustain them indefinitely while mustering in the Hauran or Golan Heights, but as soon as he crossed the Jordan the clock started ticking.
https://t.co/h7JIEVEWuK
Read 30 tweets
Byzantine Emporia Profile picture
Jul 3
The Frankish knights of Outremer survived more than four decades in a period of acute crisis, during which they were desperately outnumbered by an increasingly united foe.

How did they do it?
After reaching their territorial peak in the 1130s, the Crusader states were put on their back foot. Upper Mesopotamia and most of inland Syria were being united under a single dynasty, while the relatively few Frankish knights received little reinforcement from the West.
The first sign of trouble was when Zengi, the atabeg of Mosul, extended his rule over Aleppo. This brought large numbers of fighting men under his control and extended his borders up to Outremer itself. He soon began rolling up Antioch’s inland possessions.
Read 22 tweets
Byzantine Emporia Profile picture
Jul 2
The voyages of Sinbad the Sailor unfailingly met with disaster, even if he always managed to return home laden with riches.

What would a voyage look like if he ever managed to complete one? https://t.co/HK7CPQzi1I
Image
Trade expeditions usually departed Basra’s port of al-Ubullah in September or October, when the seas were still calm. Sailing down the Shatt al-Arab, they entered the Gulf.
https://t.co/kUh2thwBNq
Image
Larger ships proceeded directly down the coast. But because of difficulties navigating the currents in the Shatt al-Arab, goods were often loaded onto smaller boats for the voyage to Siraf on the desolate Persian coast, where they were transferred to larger ocean-going vessels.
Image
Image
Read 23 tweets
Byzantine Emporia Profile picture
Jun 27
Guicciardini v. Machiavelli

The most common objection I got to this thread was that Machiavelli was primarily a political philosopher who observed the broad patterns in human affairs.

This is where his friend Guicciardini serves as a useful antidote. Thread. https://t.co/nWRIEbbOUv
Francesco Guicciardini, who was 14 years Macchiavelli’s junior, also served the Florentine Republic. Not being as prominent in the government, he was allowed to retain his office when the Medici returned to power—he was even brought into Papal service under the Medici pope Leo X.
His history describes the same kinds of plots and power plays that Machiavelli emphasizes, in a perfectly matter-of-fact manner. But unlike Machiavelli, he is privy to the specific circumstances and describes them in great detail—he completely avoids stating general principles.
Read 8 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Send Email!

:(