Seven seas

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Oceans

As Seven Seas or seven seas were and are different waters designated.

The expression “seven seas”, which is still in use today, encompasses the most historically important waters for maritime trade. In addition to the three oceans , these include the four great “ Mediterranean seas ”: largely land-enclosed secondary seas of the oceans that are / were so important for maritime trade that they were viewed as independent seas in shipping. The seven seas are therefore:

  1. the Atlantic Ocean ( Atlantic Ocean ),
  2. the Indian Ocean ( Indic ),
  3. the Pacific Ocean ( Pacific , Pacific Ocean or Big Ocean )
  4. the Arctic Mediterranean ( Arctic Ocean ),
  5. the American Mediterranean ( Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico ),
  6. the Australasian Mediterranean (bounded by the Sunda Islands , Australia , New Guinea , the Philippines and the Asian mainland ),
  7. and the European Mediterranean .

However, depending on the time, people (point of view) and meaning, there are different combinations of the "Seven Seas". The term is first mentioned in ancient Mesopotamia around 2,300 BC. In a song of praise by the Sumerian Entu priestess En-hedu-anna in honor of the goddess Inanna .

In the ancient

The concept of the seven seas already existed in ancient times. It appears in ancient Chinese, Persian and Phoenician texts, among other things, but is always related to different sea areas.

Depending on the source, the Red Sea , the Mediterranean Sea , the Persian Gulf , the Black Sea , the Adriatic Sea , the Caspian Sea and the Indian Ocean are named.

The Greeks and Romans referred to the following waters as The Seven Seas :

  1. Ionian sea
  2. Ligurian sea
  3. Tyrrhenian Sea
  4. the Adrian Sea
  5. Aegean Sea
  6. Black Sea
  7. Mediterranean Sea

From a European perspective

From a European point of view, the designation of the Seven Seas is applied to the following seas in addition to the three oceans (Atlantic, Indic, Pacific) depending on the point of view or perspective and historical significance:

The influence of the European cultural area on the compilation of this list becomes particularly clear through the inclusion of the Mediterranean Sea and the North Sea and / or Baltic Sea in all interpretations. (The Mediterranean Sea is always included in this list, the North Sea and Baltic Sea are rarely part of the list together, but one of the two always occurs in European interpretations. Furthermore, the Red Sea is never part of this list when the Persian Gulf is included and In addition, if the Chinese Sea is mentioned, the Yellow Sea is not part of it.)

1450-1650

During the time of the explorers (1450–1650), some lead the seven seas than the seas traveled at that time:

  1. Atlantic
  2. Arctic Ocean
  3. Indic
  4. Pacific Ocean
  5. the Mediterranean
  6. the caribbean
  7. and the Gulf of Mexico

The modern seven seas

Rudyard Kipling , author of The Jungle Book , brought out the poetry collection The Seven Seas in 1896 . It mentions:

  1. the northern arctic sea ,
  2. the southern Arctic Ocean ,
  3. the North Atlantic ,
  4. the South Atlantic ,
  5. the North Pacific ,
  6. the South Pacific ,
  7. the Indian Ocean ( Indic ).

With this classification, the modern seven seas are commonly distinguished.

The ocean

The term Weltmeer is a German translation of the Greek  ὠκεανός ("Okeanos", "Ocean", the current of the world flowing around the disc , personification as the ancient god Okeanos ). It is used as a synonym for the term ocean .

According to ancient and Christian beliefs, a closed body of water surrounded all land masses. These land masses swam in this world sea. In the course of the voyages of discovery , other oceans (e.g. the Pacific Ocean ) were discovered. Thus the idea of ​​the one ocean of the world changed to the oceans. Likewise from the ocean to the oceans.

If the “ seven ” oceans are understood to mean “all known seas”, then the significance and affiliation of the respective oceans change with growing geographical knowledge. Therefore, the term is used today to refer to larger seas, which cannot be clearly differentiated from one another. But what was and is always meant "the ocean of the world", which encompasses all continents.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c How big are the seven seas? on: Science in Dialogue.
  2. ^ Betty De Shong Meador: Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna . University of Texas, Austin 2001, ISBN 0-292-75242-3 (English, quod.lib.umich.edu ).
  3. ↑ What and Where are the Seven Seas? on: WorldAtlas.com