On the 4th of April I was invited by the Department of Classics & Archaeology of the University of Malta to give a talk, both for members & students of the department and the general public, about a favourite topic of mine: the history of celestial navigation, i.e. how cultures have, for hundreds of years, utilised celestial objects to find their way at sea. Below follows the description of the talk and a couple of photos from the event.
Description
Being able to find one’s exact position at sea is a very old problem. Over hundreds of years, different cultures came up with a number of techniques in their quest to pin down their location away from shore, with some of the finest minds applying themselves to the problem. Looking at a large number of examples from across the globe – from the astronomers of ancient Greece to the navigators of Polynesia – this presentation will trace the fascinating history of the exact methods of using the stars and other celestial objects for navigating the seas, from ancient times all the way to the present day.
