Maritime Routes

Alors que la France s’engage dans cette guerre à la fin de l’année 1859, un accord passé avec le Post Office britannique permet de faciliter l’échange des correspondances entre la mère patrie et ses soldats. Ces derniers pourront alors bénéficier, à tarif réduit, de la célérité des paquebots-poste anglais de la P&O.

These are some proposed solutions regarding Marine Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) for builders, operators, insurers, governmental agencies, international organizations, and crew members. This white paper addresses some safety, security, and crewing issues while satisfying most legal requirements or issues associated with MASS operations all while maintaining a vibrant merchant marine.

«Vessel Tracking: Venice's Marine Traffic in the First Half of the Sixteenth Century – a Geospatial Analysis» (in collaboration with Renard Gluzman), in Reti marittime come fattori dell’integrazione europea, Istituto di Storia Economica “Francesco Datini”, Prato, Atti delle “Settimane di Studio” e altri Convegni, Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2019, pp. 135-153.

The lifeline of international trade is provided by shipping – a sector that is considered by scholars as one of the four cornerstones that fostered globalization. Today, shipping lines are said to operate in a borderless environment where economic priorities are dominant. In this sense, transport geography has largely surpassed political geography and geopolitics. However, until the mid-twentieth century, the prospects of shipping were tied down to the level of economic activity of the place of registry; thus, the interplay between political change, fleet nationality and the evolution of shipping networks was crucial.

The present collaborative work in progress is an empirical attempt to verify this interplay with regard to Venice in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. On the basis of historical data on ship positions, extracted from archival sources, we create GIS-based online maps to conduct a geospatial analysis of traffic intensity and movement patterns along regional and inter-regional sea routes linking the Venetian port system with Mediterranean ports, paying special attention to the Eastern Mediterranean. In this sense, the platform “simulates” modern real-time technologies used to visualize shipping trends per vessel types.
Venice offers a good example of a maritime power that experienced diverse geopolitical contexts in the wake of Portuguese activities in the Indian Ocean. Although the consequent events did not disrupt trade with the Levant for long, they had a profound effect on Venice’s anachronistic political and economic conceptions. This period saw the gradual disappearance of the merchant galley system and a deep economic crisis in Venetian private shipping and shipbuilding enterprises.  It is therefore not surprising that a recent trend in early modern historiography is to extend the definition of proto-globalization (also known as the First Age of Globalization) to cover the early decades of the sixteenth century, a period in which the oceanic expansion already had a significant impact worldwide.

Against this backdrop, we shall examine to what extent shipping within the Venetian maritime state remained a closed system. To do so, we address the following questions: How did political and economic factors, such as the oceanic discoveries, Ottoman expansion, piracy, and so on, affect the colonial–Venetian maritime network? How did ship-owners of different socioeconomic backgrounds and geographical origins negotiate their position within this maritime network? Related to these questions are the particular privileged-based legal status of a colonial ship, entangling empires and multiple identities, the practice of “flagging out”, and illegal traffic.  In this sense, the project strives to contribute to a discussion of larger issues related to the long-term effects of Venetian rule in its overseas territories on economic development, immigration movements, cultural and ethnic identity in these possessions.

L’étude d’un petit ensemble de lettres adressées, dans les années 1890, au même destinataire résidant à Tokyo nous permettra, ce mois-ci, de présenter les voies d’acheminement maritime de l’Europe vers le Pays du Soleil Levant. Malgré la monotonie apparente des affranchissements, la grande diversité des routes suivies témoigne de l’efficacité des services postaux de l’époque.

Pyohaerok(漂海錄 - A record of Drifting across the Sea) is voyage record book which recorded that facts that Choi, Bu(崔溥) accidently drifted away to southern china to storm. Choi, Bu was appointed to a royal inspector to Cheju island District in the reign of king Sungjong(1470~1494) and he was being on the way back to main land to attend his father's funeral.
In this record book, the Chinese trade and culture were very precisely explained. It is interesting that this book referred to Choi, Bu;s drifting route.
This book also presents an apparent evidence that the drifting route was being used as a maritime way is between Korea and southern part of China.
The vessel, a private ship made in Cheju Island, was strong enough to endure rough sea travelling. Also sailors of the vessel was a Cheju Island  resident who was good at navigation. Due to the sailors' professionalism and the durableness of the vessel, the drifting journey to southern China was made without any severe damages including losing their lives.
However, the vessel was so damaged that it could not be operated. Therefore they had to voyage without sailing equipment.
His drifting voyage explains that Korea could trade with southern China by this maritime route even before the navigation and shipbuilding skills developed enough to sail on the route. By comparing Choi's voyage route with the route mentioned in Korydokyoung(高麗圖經), there is no major distinction what so ever.
As a matter of fact, Pyohaerok is a precious historical record book in that is gave a critical evidence of the main maritime route between Korea and China

Alors que le milieu du XIX° siècle voit le triomphe progressif de la navigation à vapeur dans l’acheminement des correspondances vers l’outre-mer, l’étude d’une lettre pour Melbourne, postée à la fin de l’année 1854, nous permet de rappeler le rôle non négligeable joué par les clippers et la marine à voile dont resplendissaient alors les derniers feux.

Si l’essentiel du courrier qui traverse l’Atlantique-nord au milieu du XIX° siècle, à l’image des flux d’émigrants européens, est dirigé vers les Etats-Unis, le Canada constitue une destination qu’il ne faut pas pour autant négliger. La décision de desservir directement ce territoire encore sous tutelle britannique lance, en 1851, une ambitieuse entreprise qui allait devoir s’affranchir de la contrainte des distances à parcourir mais aussi, et surtout, des conditions climatiques et météorologiques.

This paper is one of eleven articles in the series “Mastering Postal History” that describe how envelopes and other postal artifacts can be used as original source documents for researching the humanities and the social sciences.

Seafaring vessels have been around for a very, very long time. Would you believe they have been around longer than human beings? Homo sapiens showed up about 125,000 years ago, but another part of the family, Homo erectus, evolved over a million years ago. They wandered northward and eastward over the land masses connected to Africa until they bumped into the Pacific Ocean. It would appear Homo erectus wasn’t big on long distance swimming. So somewhere between 800,000 and 900,000 years ago, one of them decided to build the first boat. The island of Flores is located off the coast of southeast Asia between Java and Australia. And that is where evidence was found confirming when and where our ancient ancestors invented the boat.

While there is much more to ship mail postal history than routes, this article is devoted to researching seaborne routes. From a postal history standpoint, knowing the route will facilitate determining both the means of transport and the applicable rate(s).

The very first transatlantic letter was carried by Christopher Columbus on his initial trip to the New World. It was sent by the Catholic Monarchs to the King of Cipango (Japan), where it was believed Columbus would reach. Mail has been an important part of ship travel ever since that time. Throughout history, monarchs have recognized the importance of postal systems to controlling their empires. Indeed, as colonial empires spread worldwide, ship mail became an integral component of imperial ambitions.

The burgeoning of the British colonies in North America, including the West Indies, was accompanied by growing commercial intercourse across the North Atlantic. It is worth noting that one of the most useful research sources for understanding the evolution of ship mail is to consult histories of British postal regulations as well as those of other nations.

There are several lessons to be learned from studying ship routes. But I believe the major takeaway is that from the earliest times of maritime mail, separate systems worked remarkably well in ensuring that the posts moved expeditiously from start to finish.

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Unlike other cart ruts found elsewhere in the world, the Azorean cart-ruts, engraved on volcanic stone, at the middle of the Atlantic, raise many questions: How old are they? Who created them? Were they made during a short or long time? These mysteriously enigmatic parallel grooves are noticed on the hard volcanic rock of the nine Azorean Islands in several locations. Recent scientific evidences have provided some support to the hypothesis of human presence in the Azores Islands before Portuguese settlement during the 15 th century. Are the Azorean cart-ruts pre-Portuguese? Here we try to establish a chronology for the cart-ruts of Terceira Island, Azores, Portugal, using an historical approach, a geological approach and also a 14 C dating approach , the last one obtained by dating a placic horizon found in the grooves of the cart-ruts named " Passage of the Beasts " , which indicates the presence of human activity in the island at least during the 11 th century, or probably before. The date obtained is consistent with another date achieved through similar methods for a man-made basin in the same island and is also consistent with the historiographical records.

In this speech the mostly unpublished data about the most attested types of Late Roman Amphorae found during the excavations of University of Catania in Garrison’s Camp area, in the north-western part of the city of Nea Paphos, will be presented together with some considerations about their presence in the area. This contribution is part of my Research Project, in progress at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn from the end of 2014, about all the transport amphorae from Garrison’s Camp area and, generally, about the commercial routes in the Eastern Mediterranean through the study of this particular vessel found in different areas of the site of Nea Paphos. The analysis of the most important Eastern late Roman productions is useful for a deeper understanding of the transformations occurred in Garrison’s camp area starting from the IVth century AD, until the destructive arrival of the Arabs in the VIIth century AD. The presence in the site of a remarkable quantity of fragments especially from the Microasiatic (including Cyprus), Aegean and Palestinian areas, proves the existence of numerous commercial links, regional and extra-regional, underlining the peculiarities of its particular role, both religious and residential, during the late Roman-early Byzantine time.

ABSTRACT The spread of domestic animals through time is one of the topics studied by archaeologists to assess human trade and migration. Here we present mitochondrial analysis of 42 archaeological cattle (Bos taurus) bone samples, from 16 different sites in the Iberian Peninsula and covering a broad timeframe (from the early Neolithic to the Middle Ages), to provide evidence about the origin and dispersion of the T1 cattle haplogroup in relation to human contacts and movements. The presence of the T1 haplotype in one sample from an early Neolithic site close to the Mediterranean coast of Iberia, and its continuing presence in the Peninsula during Roman and Medieval times, clearly demonstrates that T1 was not solely a Muslim or later introduction. Rather, our molecular data show evidence for a pioneer coastal colonisation of the Iberian Peninsula from the Mediterranean basin, followed by possible further colonisation, leading to a continuity of diversity through time.

Tackling maritime security is one of the major global challenges today.
Safeguarding international transport by sea; preventing accidents and disasters; fighting transnational organised crimes like piracy and the trafficking of narcotics and weapons; addressing fishery crimes and preventing other environmental crimes are all vital for international security and realising the prospects of the blue economy.
Maritime security is a global task. It requires effective maritime security governance at both national and regional levels, but also external capacity building to assist countries in developing their human and material capacities.
Significant investments have been made in maritime security and a rich experience base has been built over the years regarding how to organise maritime security governance and do capacity building work. This report consolidates this experience and identifies best practices to organise maritime security more efficiently and devise ways in which it can be effectively supported by donors. It provides guidelines for mastering maritime security.
Mastering maritime security requires reflexive capacity building. What reflexivity means in practice is demonstrated in this report by drawing on the experience of the Western Indian Ocean region.
The report is an important toolkit for all practitioners involved in maritime security. It also provides an essential guide for the planning, programming and implementation of capacity building for maritime security.

31 août 1859, la compagnie maritime britannique P&O inaugure sur sa ligne d’Extrême-Orient une nouvelle liaison au départ de la Chine vers le Japon, reliant ainsi Shanghai à Nagasaki. S’il est une destination politiquement sensible dans les années 1850, c’est bien celle-ci : l’acheminement du courrier entre l’Europe et le  pays du Soleil Levant est en effet à l’image des relations ambiguës qu’entretiennent alors ces deux mondes.