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The Riddle of "Erythraean Sea"!

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K. V. Ramakrishna Rao View Drop Down
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  Quote K. V. Ramakrishna Rao Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: The Riddle of "Erythraean Sea"!
    Posted: 12-Jan-2007 at 21:02

The Riddle of Erythra

 

The term Erythraean Sea was the term applied by  Greek and Romans geographers to the Indian Ocean, including its adjuncts, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. According to different interpretations, the meaning of erythra is obtained as follows:

 

    Erythra means Red; this is historical idiosyncrasy, as modern connotation is reflected on the past.

    Agatharchides, however, is stated to be asserting based on a Persian legend that Erythra was not Red sea, but Sea of King of Erythra.

    Thus taking the expressions Erythra Thalatta and Thalatta erythra, it is interpreted that Erythra Thalatta means  Sea of Erythras and Thalatta erythra connotes the Red sea.

    In any case, the story of Erythras, son of Myozaes reaching a land after a storm, just like Sindbad in intriguing, as the land or place is not named but erythra!

    It is just like the Punt expedition searching for gold, of course, the Punt is located in India, though, other views differ.

    In any case, just like Columbus, all declare that they reached India, located India or associated anything with India.

 

I would like to get more details from the readers of AE forum.
History is not what was written or is written, but it is actually what had happened in the past.
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Lepidodendron View Drop Down
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  Quote Lepidodendron Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Jan-2007 at 22:32
Originally posted by K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

The Riddle of Erythra

 

The term Erythraean Sea was the term applied by  Greek and Romans geographers to the Indian Ocean, including its adjuncts, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. According to different interpretations, the meaning of erythra is obtained as follows:

 

    Erythra means Red; this is historical idiosyncrasy, as modern connotation is reflected on the past.

 

 
Well, though I'm not familiar with the subject, I don't see the historical idiosyncrasy here. The adjective 'erythros' (feminine form 'erythra') simply means 'red' in Ancient Greek. It derives from an Indo-European stem and corresponds with Latin 'ruber' and English 'red'. 'Erythraia' (Latin form 'Erythraea'), which basically means "having something to do with the thing called 'erythros'", is currently the name of a country in Africa adjacent to the Red Sea and close to the Indian Ocean; if it was called so in antiquity, that could be a reason for naming the Indian Ocean 'Erythraean Sea'. Or just the fact that the Ocean was contingent with the Red Sea.
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K. V. Ramakrishna Rao View Drop Down
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  Quote K. V. Ramakrishna Rao Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Jan-2007 at 19:54

Thank you for your clarification.

 

Agartharchides answers your objection as follows:

 

And so, for the reason here set forth, it is to be well distinguished (for to say Erythra thalatta, Sea of Erythras, is a very different thing from Thalatta erythra, Red Sea); for the one commemorates the most illustrious man of the sea, while the other refers tro the color of the water. Now the one explanation of the name, as due to the color, is false (for the sea is not red), but the other, ascribing it to the man who ruled there, is the true one, as the Persian story testifies. (Wilfred H. Schoff, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 1995, p.50)

 

Had the legendary person seen the ocean in the evenings or in the early mornings, the color would have been red due to the reflection of Sunrays on the surface of sea waters.

 

Here comes the idiosyncrasy, as we know about atom, but still accept it as an atom!.

History is not what was written or is written, but it is actually what had happened in the past.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Jan-2007 at 02:00

I think a lot of myth has created under the name of erythrean sea. A popular myth, which Zecharia Sitchin debunks, is that the term Erythrea refers to the Red Sea. The myth was made famous by the book Periplus of the Erythrean Sea by a Hellenised Egyptian traveller and storyteller probably the prolific Manetho of classical antiquity.

It has hitherto been assumed that this periplus (a Latin word taken from the Greek periploos, which means narration of a coasting voyage) took place along the African shores of the Red Sea. This is the myth that produced "Eritrea" the name of a northeastern African country.

However, that Erythrea was only the Greek version of Eridu and referred, rather, to the Persian Gulf, according to one version. Moreover, that a man or a god from Eridu was known as Yared (rendered in Greek and Latin translations as Jared).

In Persia itself and Turkey, Eridu also produced the word Ordu, which means a settlement, a colony or an encampment of the kind that Eridu was.

Does Ordu have anything to do with Urdu, the beautifully poetic form of Hindustani, which has a strong Persian and Arabic superstructure?

The word "urdu" is the Hindi word for camp or settlement. From its Turkish setting, Ordu also produced the English word horde, which means a migratory or wandering tribe or clan, a nomadic community, a multitude. To horde is to come together to form a settlement or a horde.

So how reliable is the writings of the unknown author supposedly wrote in 60 CE for which others give interpretation.

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  Quote M. Nachiappan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12-Feb-2007 at 04:04

How Asok would react to it?

 
In another posting, he interprets that "Caspian sea" was Khasyapa sea after the Vedic Rishi Khasyapa. Then, this "Erythrean sea" is named after which Rishi?
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