[gothic-l] Gothic and Gotlandic Sailing

[Bertil Haggman]

The Goths and the Eruli operated sailing ships
on the Black Sea (the camarae). The Vandals
operated sailing ships in the western Mediterranean.
The first sailingships existed already around 4000 BC
in Egypt. Sailing ships appeared early both
in the ancient Greek and Roman world and in
Northern Europe.

The word sail may come from Latin sagulum, which
points to early use of sail in Europe. There are
extensive descriptions of ships on Scandinavian
Bronze Age in rock carvings but sails have
not been determined with certainty, although
many boat carvings could be seen as depict
masts in the middle of boats. The Celtic
Veneti on the west coast of Gaul have been
desvribed by Caesar to use sails (Bello Gallico
III 13). The Angli seem to have used sail
in the 6th century AD.

The picture stones of Gotland are clear indications
of the early use of sail in the Baltic Sea.

Bertil Haggman

> How do you know they operated sailing ships? Surely their warships
> were typical mediteranean galleys and typical mediterranean freight
> ships (with sails) as troop transporters.



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