Description: While the story of Jason and the Argonauts and Homer's tales of Ulysses' wanderings are among the greatest of the ancient epics, they are not merely fiction. Following the cities in the classical texts, Mauricio Obregon here maps the likely routes of these adventures and reveals the remaining traces of the things and places they describe, re-creating the geographical discovery of the ancient world.

Obregon takes us with him on his reenactments of the hazardous adventures of Jason, sailing east along the coast of the Black Sea, and of Ulysses, sailing clockwise around the Mediterranean. These voyages map the two major seas of the ancient world and help us understand how the Greeks viewed their world -- including the many startling deductions they were able to make about it (such as the circumference of the earth) from what today seems like limited knowledge.

Obregon has traced the voyages depicted in the Norse legends as well, and followed the Muslims who sailed south and the Polynesians who traversed the seemingly limitless Pacific. He illumines every detail of sailing in ancient times.

This wonderful little book contains more than forty drawings and photographs, including depictions of the explorers' ships, based on the descriptions in the literature that has come down to us.

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