On west coast The Caspian Sea, where the Caucasian spurs approach the sea quite closely, ancient Derbent lies on the coastal plains and hills. Today it is the second largest city in the Republic of Dagestan, after the capital Makhachkala, which lies 125 km to the north.

Derbent is one of ancient cities not only the Caucasus, but throughout Russia. Its history, according to archaeologists, dates back five thousand years - it was then, back in the Bronze Age, that a small settlement arose on this site, which later acquired city fortifications.

However, the documented emergence of Derbent as quite large city associated with the Persian king of the Sassanid dynasty - Yazdegerd II (reigned 435-57 AD), who erected it on the northern border of his possessions, on an elevated and strategically important place - between the mountains and the sea (which is reflected in the name itself : Iranian "derbend" means "mountain pass", or "mountain outpost").

About a century later, i.e. in the 6th century, during the reign of another king of the same dynasty (Khosrow I Anushirvan - ruled in 531-579), a fortified Upper (Old) city was erected on the ruins of previous fortifications, the center of which was the impregnable fortress of Naryn-Kala. Two stone fortress walls were also erected (they were equipped with powerful towers and majestic entrance gates), which departed from the citadel and ran parallel to each other towards the sea. These walls, now only partially preserved, once reached the very shore, and even went into shallow water, thus enclosing not only the city itself, which seemed to be in a “wall” protected from the enemy, but also the harbor. In addition to the two main walls, there previously existed another fortress wall - Dag-Bary (Mountain Wall), 3 m thick and up to 10 m high, which extended from the southwestern corner of the citadel and went to the side Caucasus Mountains for as much as 40 km! (now the Mountain Wall is almost completely destroyed, only isolated fragments remain).

Subsequently, thanks to its favorable geographical position, Derbent turns into one of the largest and most developed medieval cities in the East. True, his story is full of drama: he finds himself at the epicenter of turbulent events, experiences many assaults and destruction, and experiences periods of prosperity and decline. In the 630s. Derbent is captured by the Khazars, from 652 it is part of the Arab Caliphate, in the 10th century. becomes the center of an independent emirate. Further, in 1071 the city was captured by the Seljuk Turks, in the 13th century. it was conquered by the Mongols in the period from the 16th to the beginning of the 18th centuries. Derbent is part of Iran. Since 1743 it has been the center of the Derbent Khanate, and in 1813 Derbent annexed Russia.

The Naryn-Kala citadel, which has been well preserved to this day, is limited by thick (2-4 m) and high (10-12 m) fortress walls, made of two rows of well-processed stone blocks filled with rubble and lime mortar. On its territory you can see the ruins of the palace of the Derbent Khan (2nd half of the 18th century), this is also a special underground structure - a “stone bag” (cellar or prison for the Khan’s prisoners), baths, and a guardhouse. The ruins of palace buildings from earlier periods (starting from ancient times) have also been preserved.

In the area adjacent to the citadel there is a typical Muslim medieval city with a network of narrow crooked streets, onto which open the blind facades of 1-2-story houses, with mosques, fountains, and baths. In this part of the city there are: the Juma Mosque complex, consisting of the mosque itself (VIII century), a madrasah (XV-XIX centuries) and 3 arched gates (XVII-XIX centuries), as well as the Kirkhlyar Mosque (XVII century). ), Minaret-mosque (XVIII century, partially rebuilt in the XIX century) with the only dilapidated minaret in Derbent (XIV century), Chertebe-mosque (XVII-XIX centuries), former Khan's mausoleum (late 18th century). Here you can also see special reservoirs for storing water - underground cisterns (XVII-XIX centuries), which for Derbent, like any other fortified city of those times, was almost of paramount importance. Water was supplied here from mountain springs - through numerous stone and ceramic water pipelines discovered during excavations.

Since 1926, a local history museum has been operating in the Upper Town, and in 1989 the state historical, architectural and art museum-reserve “Ancient Derbent” was organized.

Cultural criteria: iii, iv
Year of inclusion in the List world heritage: 2003

This site is on the UNESCO World Heritage Center website whc.unesco.org/en/list/1070

There is no doubt that Greenland exists and has always existed, but it does not exist and never existed within the boundaries indicated on some ancient maps. In addition, it is very likely that the real Greenland that we know today got its name from the name of the mythical island.

The names "Iceland" and "Greenland" have always made me want to think about them. How could it be that a place not normally covered with ice was called Iceland (the Ice Land) and a harsh, barren Arctic desert was called Greenland (the Green Land)? As for Iceland, two theories are most likely: one is that the Viking Floki, who discovered the island (or perhaps rediscovered it) in the 870s, noticed pack ice washed up on the northern shore (rare but possible case); the second assumes that the Ancient Norse settlers deliberately gave their new homeland an unattractive name to discourage pirate raids.

The name “Greenland” is traditionally explained as follows: Eric the Red gave it to the land he discovered in order to attract promising colonists to it. But this doesn't sound very convincing. Whatever a fraudster Eric was, it is difficult to believe that he would want to so shamelessly and openly deceive a group of Scandinavian warriors devoted to him, among whom he was going to live, remaining their leader. The source for this version was the work of Ari the Wise, an 11th-century Icelandic chronicler. However, the earliest copy of his work known to us was made in the 13th century, and it is assumed that it was supplemented by other authors who may have added their own interpretation to it. In any case, this explanation of the name "Greenland" is very similar to fiction and must be treated with great caution.

To establish the true origin of this name, we may have to go back to the times of ancient Rome. The 1st century AD Roman writer Plutarch is famous mainly for his Book of Biographies, but he wrote other works, including a book entitled The Face in the Moon, one of those collections of eccentric information that was apparently beloved Romans. In this book he quotes a statement from a certain Demetrius, a Roman official who lived for several years in Britain. Demetrius allegedly told him that the British knew of an island lying to the west, which they called in their language something like “Kronos”.

This word requires comment. It cannot be British, since the Britons spoke the so-called "R-Gaelic" branch of the Celtic language, where glottal sounds were replaced by labial sounds, as opposed to "Q-Gaelic". So, for example, the word for “son” in Q Gaelic (modern Scottish and Irish languages) is mac, in R Gaelic (modern Welsh and Breton languages) it is ar, originally tar. Thus the word cronos would have sounded something like pronos in Old British.

University of California professor Arthur Hutson opined that the most likely source of the name would have been Cruidhne - the ancient Irish name for the island of Britain - and that this association with an island to the west (Ireland) had led to it being misinterpreted as the name of a western island. If this were so, then the original Greenland would have been Britain itself.

This idea of ​​an island called "Cronos" would fit well with traditional Greco-Roman religious concepts that Cronus, the debunked father of Zeus, lies in eternal sleep somewhere on one of the western islands. Probably the authority of Plutarch, who quoted Demetrius, was enough to enrich Roman geography with the island of Cronia in the Atlantic.

The final part of the theory is that the scientists of the early Middle Ages, who spoke the Teutonic language, replaced the Teutonic suffix with a Latin one and changed the initial letter, replacing “c” with the letter “g”, more characteristic of their guttural language; it turned out Cronia - Cronland - Gronland. That this new form the words meant Green Land in their language ( Green land), was pure coincidence, and gradually the idea that somewhere in the Atlantic there was an island called Greenland became a tradition. And when Erik the Red discovered a new land, he simply assumed that this was Greenland, which he had already heard about, so he called it that.

There is evidence that the Scandinavians living in Iceland knew about the existence of Greenland before 982, but it was only in 982 that Erik the Red undertook the first serious exploration of this country. While still a young man, Eric traveled with his father from Norway to Iceland, a country that was considered promising at the time. But when they arrived there, it turned out that all the fertile land had been dismantled, and at the head of the society were old settlers who looked askance at the new arrivals. Eric's father soon died, and Eric himself eventually managed to get a piece of land, but his neighbors did not recognize him. The Icelanders' way of life at that time was rough and cruel, and each of them's best friend was their own sword. Twice Eric killed a man in a duel. In both cases it was apparently self-defense, but he had no influential friends, and both times he was sentenced to exile: the first time for one year, the second - for three.

When the second incident occurred, all his wealth consisted of a ship and faithful servants, and he decided to sail west to explore the islands located in that direction, perhaps the "skerries of Gunbjorn", now defunct. His efforts were not in vain. He discovered the vast island of Greenland and created a colony on it. When three years of exile were over, he returned to Iceland to recruit new colonists.

For more than a century, information about Greenland was passed on from mouth to mouth, reflected in the Icelandic sagas. The first written evidence of this island, which circulated among European geographers, dates back to approximately 1070.

At this time, a German priest known as Adam of Bremen completed his work "History of the Diocese of Hamburg." This title will seem uninteresting if you do not take into account the fact that at that time the diocese of Hamburg included all of Scandinavia and all the overseas countries colonized by Scandinavia, and that this book is a valuable source of information about the life of the ancient Scandinavians and their research. Adam had conversations with King Svein II of Denmark regarding these areas, and his references to Greenland and Vinland are the first reliable accounts of America in all European literature.

About Greenland, he said: “... in the north the ocean flows past the Orkney Islands, then endlessly far around the circle of the earth, leaving on the left Hibernia [now called Ireland], the homeland of cattle, on the right the Norwegian skerries, and then the islands of Iceland and Greenland.”

And below, in another paragraph: “...besides, there are many other islands in the distant ocean, of which Greenland is not the smallest; it is located further, opposite the Swedish, or Riphean, mountains. The distance to it is such that it is a journey by ship from Norway to this island it is said to take from five to seven days, the same as to Iceland. The people living there are bluish-green from the salt water, and therefore these places are called "Greenland". Their way of life is the same, "like the Icelanders, but they are savages and commit pirate raids on seafarers. They report that Christianity has recently reached them."

Here we have a fair amount of confusion, which was destined to leave its mark on cartography. In the first of these quotes, Greenland is definitely given a place somewhere far in the ocean, while in the second, it is somehow associated with the Swedish Mountains (“Riphean Mountains” are themselves mythical, they will be discussed in Chapter 11). In medieval geography, the position “opposite” something meant “on the same latitude,” which means that Adam of Bremen correctly spoke about what was then known about Greenland. But such loose terminology was a serious source of misunderstanding, and it was apparently these two incompatible statements of Adam of Bremen that led in the late Middle Ages to the idea that Greenland was a peninsula of Europe or an area connected to Europe by a long land bridge.

I am informed that in the library of Florence there exists, or at any rate existed before the disastrous flood of 1966, a map dated 1417 in which Groinlandia is shown in almost the correct place and connected with Europe. But I did not have the opportunity to see this map or obtain a copy of it. If it exists, then this is the earliest famous maps with a picture of Greenland.

As far as I have been able to trace cartographic sources, the earliest depiction of Greenland on a map appeared ten years after the Florentine map mentioned above. It was made by the Danish cartographer Claudius Schwartz, for some unknown reason better known in history under the name Claudius Claus. Obviously, he was influenced by Adam of Bremen, but there is little doubt that he had other, more modern sources of information. Claus's first map of 1427 shows only the east coast of Greenland. Its location is correct, and the pattern of the coastline is amazingly accurate; but his Greenland is the western end of a long, looping bridge of land that extends far north from Iceland and joins the shores of northern Europe east of White Sea. This misconception about Greenland was later reflected in many later maps.

Clavus lived most of his adult life in Italy and had a great influence on cartographers of the Mediterranean. He created another map in 1467 that showed both shores of Greenland. This map reproduces Greenland's location and shape with amazing accuracy, but Greenland's connection with the northern coast of Europe still remains.

Clavus's attempt to reconcile the conflicting evidence of Adam of Bremen was not accepted by everyone. The famous "Map of Vinland" from about 1440, the discovery of which caused a sensation in 1965, shows a correctly placed Greenland with regular outlines, although rather small and not connected with Europe. However, some scholars consider this edition to be more recent. Even earlier, about three years after the appearance of the first map of Clavus in 1427, one of the representatives of the French clergy, Gilome de Filastre, published a new edition of Ptolemy, in which he argued, based only on names, that Greenland should be located south of Iceland , "despite the fact that Clavus described these northern regions and drew up a map of them, which shows them connected with Europe."

It is difficult to illustrate more eloquently all the movements of Greenland on a map before the period of serious voyages for the purpose of exploration than by describing its various configurations on maps of the fifteenth century.

The Genoese map of 1447, following Claudius Clavus, depicts Greenland connected to Europe. Fra Mauro's map of 1459 (the first European map to show Japan and accurately depict the outline of Africa) depicts Greenland as the promontory of northern Scandinavia extending to the west.

The map appended to Ptolemy's 1467 edition follows Claus, but it appears to be the first of the maps produced under his influence to show Greenland not connected with Europe.

A Catalan map from about 1480 (mentioned already in Chapter 4) showing the elongated Ilia Verde (literally translated: "Green Land") in the latitude of Ireland, associated with the island of Brazil.

Nicholas Denis's 1482 map roughly correctly shows Greenland not connected to Europe, but shows another island called Engronelant next to it. This confusion of two names referring to the same island will be repeated in the future.

An anonymous map from about the same time shows Gronland almost in the correct place, but duplicates it with another island, Engroneland, north of Norway, and further north places Pillappelanth (Lapland) - "the last of the inhabited lands."

In Martin Behaim's 1492 globe, Greenland is again represented as an Arctic peninsula north of Norway.

Johann Ruisch's map of about 1495 places the small land of Gruenlant to the west-southwest of Iceland.

Juan de la Cosa, in his map of 1500, represented Greenland as a cluster of small islands north of Iceland.

In this chaos it is impossible to imagine any system. The fact is that the geographers of the 15th century obviously simply did not know where Greenland was or what it was; the sources of information they used were confusing and contradictory, and everything depended on which of them a particular cartographer chose to use. The Norman colony in Greenland ceased to exist by mid-century; the last record of contact with it is contained in one of the papal letters of 1418, from which it appears that church services were still held there. If consider possible ways communications of that time, it will not be surprising that in the circles of the main geographers of the Mediterranean, Greenland, after fifty years of absence of any contact, could turn into an almost forgotten “something” on the edge of a complete “nothing”.

But although Greenland was out of control, it was not forgotten. At least two popes, Nicholas V in 1448 and Alexander VI in 1492, expressed their concern about this furthest outpost of Christendom. Voyages for the rediscovery of this country were inevitable, and it was clear that they would be initiated by the Danish-Norwegian kingdom, from where the first Greenlandic settlers came.

The first of these voyages, of which there is only vague written evidence, is the most obscure of all voyages ever made for the purpose of exploration; it is known only from scanty references that appeared here and there many years after the event itself, mainly on maps of the 16th century. It is not certain whether this journey took place in 1472 or 1476, and it is unclear who led it. Modern historians believe that these men were Didrik Piening and Hans Potthorst, two famous Norwegian captains, but most ancient maps attribute the leadership of this voyage to one John Skolvus, who, according to the Danish geographer Cornelis Witfleet, was a Pole. Portugal at this time was in the midst of a great era of discovery, when a route to India was found around the southern tip of Africa, but the Portuguese did not lose interest in northern routes. Henry the Navigator pursued a policy of developing good relations with the Danes in order to take advantage of their extensive experience of sailing in northern seas, and it is possible that the expedition of the 70s of the 15th century was largely stimulated by the Portuguese. Many Danes participated in Portuguese explorations of the African coast, in return for this arctic voyage In the 1470s, two Portuguese took part: Joao Vaz Cortirial and Alvaro Martins Omen.

Where exactly this expedition was heading remains unclear. There is no doubt that she visited Greenland; it is very likely that she traveled further, stopping in other areas of Arctic America. Frisius, on his 1537 globe, places the land of the Quij people north of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and attributes its discovery to John Scolvus. It is believed that this name is one of the variants of the name of the Cree Indian tribe, which at that time, apparently, lived much further east than at present.

Upon Cortirial's return to Portugal, King Affonso I granted his request and granted him a deed of gift for the lands he had discovered. But Kortirial did not take any further steps to develop these lands. His years were getting old, and he preferred the post of governor in the Azores, which required less effort. There he met an imaginative young German geographer from Bohemia, known as Martin Behaim (Martin of Bohemia), who married a relative of his wife and learned a lot from him. In his famous globe of 1492, Behaim does not avoid the mistake of his predecessors and depicts Greenland as a peninsula of Arctic Europe, but to the west of it he places several islands strikingly similar to the islands flanking the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

In 1493, a certain Monetarius from Nuremberg, a friend of Behaim, wrote a letter to King John of Portugal in which he mentioned that “several years ago” an expedition sent by the Moscow prince discovered Greenland and that there was still a significant Russian colony in Greenland. This account can only refer to Spitsbergen, which the Russians apparently reached as early as 1435 and where they founded a colony near modern Belsund Bay. Svalbard would later reappear in connection with Greenland's tangled history to further confuse it.

The grant of open lands granted to Cortirial remained the property of his family, and when the Spaniards began to explore and exploit the West Indies and the surrounding areas, Cortirial's sons asked the king to do something before it was too late to preserve the integrity of the Portuguese possessions in the New World. According to the famous line of demarcation drawn by Pope Alexander VI in 1493, the entire open world was divided between Spain and Portugal, and Greenland clearly fell into the Spanish sector. Even the revision of this line a year later in Tordesillas did not actually change the situation: all inhabited promising areas were transferred to Spain. But at that time this agreement was not implemented. And besides, since determining longitude was a very unreliable procedure in those days, a controversial situation could arise regarding the placement of Greenland east of this line.

The three sons of Cortirial spent the entire family fortune in search of the land that their father had visited. In 1500, the youngest son, Gašpar, led a journey that was unsuccessful; then in 1501 another one that cost him his life. But this time two of his ships returned with news of the rediscovery of Greenland and the "Land of Labrador." That is why this northern region of America has a Portuguese name. Gašpar Kortirial must be given credit for his genuine second discovery of Greenland. His elder brother, Miguel, set sail in 1502 in order to take actual possession of these lands, but also disappeared.

The discovery of Cortirial immediately had geographical consequences. The former supposed Greenland north of Norway was immediately removed from the maps, returned to its original location, and taken to its correct position in the western Atlantic. Cantino's 1502 map placed it on the eastern (Portuguese) side of the demarcation line and showed it to be too small and too far south, but the map at least reflected the reality of Greenland at the time.

The further history of the “wandering” Greenland relates mainly to the field of cartography, so we will briefly list the expeditions that searched for it. The main result of Cortirial's journey was that Greenland was taken from the Danes and given to the Portuguese, but the Portuguese did not complete the job, and Greenland was left without a master. King Christian II of Denmark planned a voyage to Greenland in 1513, but circumstances prevented him from carrying out his plan; the same thing happened in 1522, when King Frederick I planned a similar trip. In 1578, Frederick II finally sent an expedition under the command of one Magnus Henningsen, who saw the coast of Greenland, but did not land on it. It was about the same time that Martin Frobisher (as mentioned in Chapter 3) landed in southern Greenland, mistook it for Friesland, and took possession of it as West England.

Since that time, Greenland has become a territory quite well known throughout the world. Various English expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage explored its shores to at least 75 north latitude. At first XVII century the Danes set sail several times; Four of these voyages were led by James Hall, an Englishman who had William Baffin as navigator on his ship in 1612. Hall was killed in a minor skirmish with Greenlandic Eskimos. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Greenland was a hunting ground for walruses and seals, famous for whalers of all nationalities. But it was only in 1721, as a result of the voyage of the missionary Hans Egede, that Denmark's rights in Greenland were restored. Egede set out on a journey with the hope of finding the remains of a lost and by that time half-legendary Scandinavian colony in order to preach Protestant Christianity there, but not finding it, he remained to preach among the Eskimos. This was followed in 1832 by the voyage of Wilhelm Graa, a representative of the Danish navy; during this voyage traces of ancient Scandinavian settlements were discovered and the Danish claim was confirmed, which has since continued to remain in force.

So, we have summarized the data on practical research. Mapping data is not easy to summarize.

Greenland had been turned into part of Europe, and now in a short time it had to be presented as part of Asia. We have already mentioned that immediately after the discovery of America by Columbus, South America, which became known everywhere as a new land, was universally recognized as such, and North America was considered as a very likely extension to the east of the Old World. This concept led to the famous Contarini map of 1506. On it, South America is connected to Asia by the Isthmus of Panama; there is no North American continent, and at the latitudes where it should be, a huge elongated peninsula sticks out like a deformed thumb. Its names extreme points in the east are identical to the names that Cortirial gave to the lands he discovered - Greenland and Labrador.

But something else is strange. Greenland's displacements and separations usually entailed one of two errors: duplication or restoration of the land bridge.

The duplication is easy to explain. After Greenland was discovered by Cortirial and again took its place on the map, not as a romantic object whose existence was simply believed, but as a well-known reality, it became common among cartographers to translate the name "Greenland" into the languages ​​in which they worked, with the words Green Land (Green Land), no matter how it is written (Greenland, Gronland, Engroenland or some other way). Thus, the almost unknown Green Island appeared on the map under this name (in many languages) and as a result was quickly dissociated from Greenland.

Coppo's 1528 map shows Isola Verde (Green Island) almost in the right place. But as Greenland became more famous and its Scandinavian name more stereotypical, cartographers began to make the mistake of assuming that two duplicate names hid two islands.

It hardly makes sense to list here all the cards of that time. Throughout the 16th and almost all of the 17th centuries, maps showing true Greenland also depicted Green Island (Isla Verde or Insula Viridis) somewhere in American waters, usually in the North Atlantic - clear evidence that the name "Green Island" associated with this area.

But not all Green Islands are the result of this mistake. In 1503, Rodrigo Bastidas sailed from Seville to the West Indies and discovered a small island off Guadeloupe, which he named Isla Verde, and appears on Pedro Mártir's 1511 map. Obviously, in this case the name was associated with the vegetation of the island and had nothing to do with Greenland.

The imaginary North Atlantic Green Island was destined to live a long life, but in the course of events another smaller version of Greenland appeared. At the end of the 16th century, Greenland began to appear on maps, accompanied on the western side by a much smaller island called Grokland.

From the fact that this island was constantly placed west of Greenland, it seems that we can conclude that Baffin Island has been known for a long time.

The name Grocland undoubtedly comes from the ancient spelling of the word Greenland as Groe-land with a tilde, that is, as a result of the same abbreviation, which apparently misled Nicolo Zeno, who read the name Sinclair as Zichmni, as already mentioned mentioned in chapter three. It’s not hard to imagine that the tilde could have been overlooked and the “e” read as “s”. In addition, at this time it was customary to place as many islands on the map as there were names.

But I cannot say that I was much ahead of previous researchers in the question of which of the cartographers was the first to mistakenly place Grokland Island on his map and what exactly caused the disappearance of this island from the maps. The earliest map I know of that shows Grockland is Mercator's 1569 map, the latest is Matthias Cuadus's 1608 map. Hessel Gerritz's 1612 map of Henry Hudson's discoveries shows Greenland quite well, and there is still land to the west of it, but Grokland is not on it. In fact, Grockland did not last long on maps, but since he appeared at the moment when the great classics of ancient cartography were working, and was included in the maps they produced, he acquired more fame than he deserved.

Some curiosities of this time are curious. Ortelius in 1571 reduced mighty Greenland to a tiny squiggle, eclipsed in the west by the mythical island of Estotilandia, and he placed Grokland further north, directly below the imaginary Unknown Northern Continent (Chapter 6).

Michael Lock's map, published by Hakluyt in 1582, shows little Greenland just north of the mythical Friesland. And to the west of it, approximately on the site of Baffin Island, a much larger territory called Jac is depicted. Scolvus Grocland. This placement is interesting. Michael Locke was a very educated man who traveled extensively. He was keenly interested in geography and was undoubtedly familiar with the most reliable sources of the time. It is very likely that he obtained the information on which this map was based from some report, now lost or as yet undiscovered, which mentioned a Danish expedition in the 1470s, which was supposed to have been led, regardless of who was its real boss was a certain Scolvus, who is usually called John, not Jacob. This map can be considered as proof that the expedition penetrated the territory North America outside Greenland, but there is no conclusive evidence to support this fact.

Meanwhile, it turned out that some misconceptions are also common to the Danes themselves. The Royal Library of Copenhagen contains a map made by the Icelander Sigurd Stefansson in 1590, apparently intended to illustrate the ancient discoveries made by the Scandinavians in America. Here Greenland has almost the correct shape and size, but is a large peninsula of the American continent. It was already part of Europe and Asia, and now it has become part of North America. All other names are borrowed from the Scandinavian sagas dedicated to the discovery of Leif Erikson: Vitserk and Herjulfsnes in Greenland and further south, along east coast North America, Helluland, Markland, Promontory, Vinland and Skrölingland.

But even more interesting is the map created in 1605 by Johannes Resen, rector of the Royal University of Denmark. It also depicts Greenland as a peninsula of North America and repeats all the names used by Stefansson. The outlines of the coast are also repeated, but some more modern sources are added. Friesland and Estotiland are labeled according to Zeno's narrative (with Estotiland being equivalent to Stefansson's Helluland), and south of Vinland there is a small bay, believed to be the Gulf of St. Lawrence, called Portus Jacob! Carterii Anno 1525 (Port of Jacques Cartier, year 1525 [more correctly 1535]). The simplest explanation for this would be that Resen simply copied Stefansson with some embellishment. But among the notes in the margins of the map there is a note from Resen, which says that this map is several hundred years old. It is possible that he made a copy from the original, dating back to the time of actual contacts of the Scandinavians with North America. It is possible that one day a lucky discovery will be made, like the famous "map of Vinland", which will confirm this assumption, but at the moment the source of Resen's borrowing is not known to us.

In 1596, the Danish navigator Billem Barents, heading east in search of a northern sea passage, saw the shores of a land that he called Spitsbergen and mistook for part of Greenland. Barents himself did not live to see the end of the journey, but members of his crew brought with them a report, the result of which was another movement of Greenland.

As already mentioned, the message about the discovery and colonization of Spitsbergen by the Russians penetrated into Europe a hundred years before Barents's voyage, and then it was believed that Spitsbergen was Greenland. But since at that time it was widely assumed that Greenland was part of northern Europe adjacent to Russia, this did not in any way affect the geographical concepts.

Since the 1520s, almost all European maps have shown Greenland as separated from Europe. By this time, no actual data had been obtained that would confirm the existence of a land bridge between them. Besides, I wanted to believe in the existence open sea in the north, since this in turn allowed for the possibility of the existence of a Northeast or Northwest passage. The map appended to Zeno's account in 1558 is an exception: it shows Greenland as a greatly elongated peninsula of Europe. But it is likely that Nicolo Zeno II copied this feature from a very time-damaged map, which he had to restore and which undoubtedly reflected the concepts of his era. Greenland connected to Europe was, as far as I know, first depicted on a map by Claudius Claus in 1427, but the idea of ​​this connection may have taken root much earlier, otherwise he would not have been able to map Greenland in this form.

By Barents's time, as a result of Arctic travel north of Europe, the land bridge theory had lost favor, but the possibility that Greenland extended far to the east and that Spitsbergen was part of its territory had not yet been ruled out. If this concept were confirmed, then ancient bridge sushi could use a factual basis.

Purches in his book describes many trips to "Greenland", meaning Spitsbergen, as well as some trips to the Greenland that we know now. That is, he considers both of these areas as one territory.

When the rich hunting grounds for walruses and seals, as well as the abundant fishing grounds off Spitsbergen, became known, this island turned into a tasty morsel, which immediately attracted many hunters. At first, the right to this territory belonged to the Dutch, since they discovered it and gave it a name. During the English expedition of 1613, part of Spitsbergen was captured by the British and named " New Earth King James", but this name was never consolidated. In addition, some Englishmen began to make unsubstantiated claims that the archipelago was actually discovered in 1553, long before Barents, by Hugh Willoughby during his voyage in search of the Northeast Passage. Many insisted that Spitsbergen be renamed "Willoughby Land", but most often they themselves called it Greenland.

The rivalry between the English and the Dutch over Svalbard led to some intricate diplomatic maneuvering, but as the Dutch gradually established effective control of the harbours, the British acquiesced. By the 1640s, the Dutch had complete control over the waters of Svalbard and exploited them mercilessly. On the coast, extensive enterprises for salting fish and producing blubber were created, and the famous Arctic city of Smirenburg appeared, where workers were provided with housing and everything necessary, where life was in full swing during the short summer season, and money flowed like a river. Then, during the long winter, it became empty and only a few remained, the permanent staff preparing everything for the next season. And in the spring the ships returned.

On maps of the 17th century, Spitsbergen was usually shown shifted to the west, towards Greenland. It was assumed that they were one whole, but by this time it was no longer customary to depict a hypothetical connection connecting them coastline.

Chapter Six already mentioned the hydrographer Joseph Moxon and his meeting in the 1650s with a Dutch sailor who had just returned from fishing in “Greenland” and claimed that he had sailed across the North Pole; it was also mentioned that Moxon's "Greenland" was actually Spitsbergen. Now the reader understands where this error came from. In a 1675 map published by Moxon, the present Greenland is called Groenland and Spitsbergen is called Greenland. The area between them towards Europe is barely outlined, but resembles a timid attempt to show an old, discredited land bridge, which, however, hardly fits with Moxon’s attitude to the story of a Dutch sailor who allegedly sailed past “Greenland” to the North Pole. However, the fact remains: the inscription “Greenland” stretched on the map almost to the inscription “New Earth”.

The identification of Spitsbergen with Greenland was based on the idea that the Greenland coast stretched far to the east. On one of the maps of this time, the same mistake is made, but in the opposite direction: on it the coast of Greenland is stretched to the west. On the map of Nikolai Vischer, mentioned in Chapter Six, the western coast of Greenland at approximately latitude 78 turns to the west, then passes Baffin Island and makes a loop to the south, connecting with the western shores of Hudson Bay. If this were true, then no Northwest Passage could exist.

By the 1670s, the formerly rich fishing and hunting grounds began to be depleted by overexploitation. The Dutch began to visit the waters of Spitsbergen less and less often, and Spitsbergen lost its owner for two and a half centuries, until Norway in 1925 consolidated its claims to this island. But this will be discussed below. Meanwhile, the Dutch skipper Billem de Vlaming, in search of new seal hunting grounds, sailed north around Spitsbergen. This voyage was proof that Spitsbergen is not connected with Greenland. Vlaming accidentally managed to swim to latitude 88 10", the highest northern latitude reached by any European until 1827, when William Parry's expedition in search of North Pole reached latitude 82 45".

By the beginning of the 18th century, the difference between Spitsbergen and Greenland became clear, and Greenland, although its shores were still poorly studied, occupied approximately the correct place on the map. Still, she still had a few more moves to make.

The mythical Green Island continued to exist, which appeared as a result of the duplication of Greenland and continued to appear on maps in the North Atlantic region, usually in American waters, throughout the 18th and almost all of the 19th centuries. By the mid-19th century it had shrunk to the equally mythical Green Rock.

As already mentioned, the American explorer Elisha Kent Kane reached the northern coast of Greenland in 1854 and reported that there was an open sea behind Greenland. The German geographer August Petermann was one of the main proponents of the Open Polar Sea hypothesis, a theory that was largely based on Kane's account. But to counter this theory, Petermann suggested in the 1860s that the still unexplored northern tip of Greenland might extend northwest, past the North Pole, and end at a cape just north of Cape Barrow in Alaska. Greenland was depicted in this way only on Petermann's own maps, but the idea was finally discarded only when Peary studied its northern tip in 1900 and Greenland appeared in its true light.

Greenland established itself in its place only in the 20th century. But even after this, its position was clarified, and the old concepts had not yet completely lost their popularity. Scottish explorer Rudmos Brown noticed in 1920 that seal hunters in his homeland still called Spitsbergen "Greenland".

The “Green Rock” also disappeared from the maps, but whether it really existed remained a mystery. William H. Babcock, an expert on the mythical islands of the Atlantic, was so unsure of its existence that he even made an inquiry about the island with the United States Hydrographic Survey. The officers of this service replied that they did not believe in its existence, but mentioned (referring to a certain Captain Tullock of New Hampshire) the story of Coombs, skipper of the ship Pallas, sailing from Bath in Maine, who reported that he had seen the Green rock. According to him, it was a large rock covered with green moss, which at first glance he mistook for the bottom of an overturned ship. The depth of the sea, according to measurements taken near it, was almost 3 kilometers.

Since the Atlantic has not yet been explored to within an inch, it is possible that there is something similar in description to the "Green Rock" and matching the mythical island. But its existence has apparently never been proven.

Finally, it remains to mention two more more or less modern wanderings of Greenland.

In 1194, during one of his travels, a land was discovered somewhere north of Iceland, which was named Svalbard. It is very likely that it was some part of the eastern coast of Greenland or the formidable rocky island now called Jan Mayen. But starting in the 1890s, seven centuries after its discovery, the Norwegian government officially insisted that Svalbard was Svalbard, and cited this as a valid reason for claiming ownership of the island, citing the fact that the first it was discovered by the Scandinavians. Such an identification is, to put it mildly, highly doubtful. But in 1925, the League of Nations ratified Norway's claim to Spitsbergen, and from that time on the Arctic archipelago was officially called Svalbard, a name that was apparently first given to part of Greenland.

While I was writing the first draft of this chapter, I first heard about the report of David Humphrey's expedition to explore Greenland in 1966, which showed that existing maps of Greenland had increased its territory by approximately thirty thousand square miles. Is it possible that the result of this latest research will be the stabilization of Greenland, in other words, the latest of its movements? Undoubtedly, time will answer this question. But it still seems that even in the space age, the romantic period in the geography of our earth has not yet ended.

Notes:

Not in our understanding of this word, but the word “Caribbean” distorted by the Spaniards).

The Romans called silk "sericum". - Approx. ed.

The first mention of America speaks of "an island in that ocean, frequented by many, which is called Vinland because wild grapes grow there, which produce the best wine in the world. Wild grains also grow there in abundance, and we know that This is not fiction, as the Danes confirm this in their messages.

Nicholas V called Greenland "an island north of Norway", and Hjalmar Haaland suggested that this was the origin of the erroneous idea that Greenland was connected to Europe. I couldn't agree more. In my opinion, the source of the error is the Clavus map of 1427, which preceded the pope's letter by twenty years, and the map in turn was influenced by Adam of Bremen.

According to this line, which was drawn from the North to the South Pole across the Atlantic Ocean at a distance of approximately two thousand kilometers from the Cape Verde Islands, all discoveries to the west of it belonged to the Spaniards, and to the east - to the Portuguese. - Approx. ed.

For me, this is one of the most convincing reasons for considering Zeno's narrative to be genuine. If Nicolo II had conceived a hoax (given that he lived in Venice, a serious cartographic center), he would have used more modern maps to confirm his messages, and would not have operated with geographical concepts that were already outdated by that time.

Babcock's story does not indicate the coordinates of the rock, nor the date of the message and the date of the letter from the Hydrographic Service. His book was published in 1922.

The discovery of North America by Europeans began in the 10th century - half a millennium before the first expedition of Christopher Columbus - by the Normans (northern people). The westward movement of Norwegian colonists that led to the discovery of Greenland began from Iceland. It is impossible, even approximately, to establish to what time the first known voyage to the west of Iceland, attributed to the Norwegian Gunbjorn Ulfson, dates back to. Historians of the 19th-20th centuries date this voyage to a variety of dates, and none of them can be substantiated: some authors attribute it to the period of the first colonization of Iceland by the Norwegians, that is, to the seventies of the 9th century, others - to the end of the 9th century, others - to the first quarter of the 10th century. The earliest date proposed is 870, the latest is 920 (K. Gassert); F. Nansen carefully indicates the average date - about 900. So, between 870 and 920, the Norwegian Gunbjorn Ulfson, on his way to Iceland, was driven far to the west by a storm and discovered a number of small islands, which in the Landnamabok (Book of Landowners) are called the "skerries of Gunbjorn." Behind them, mountainous land covered with snow and ice was visible, but Gunbjorn could not approach it because of the heavy ice. The first voyage of Europeans to the shores of northeastern America took place in 985; this voyage was carried out by the Norwegian Bjarni Herulfson. Bjarni declared that he also intended to go there; all the warriors supported him, although in Iceland their decision was considered unreasonable, since none of them had ever been to the Greenland Sea. They set sail and sailed west for three days until they lost sight of the mountains of Iceland. "Then the fair wind died down and rose North wind and fog fell on the sea, so that they did not know where they were, and this went on for many days. Finally, they saw the sun again and could determine the 8 cardinal points." As soon as the weather cleared, they set off on the same western course. A day later, Bjarni saw land, but it was not Greenland. Coming closer, they saw that it was low and overgrown with forest. there are only small hills there. Bjarni ordered a change of course from the west to the north. Two days later the sailors saw land again, but this land was also covered with forest, and in Greenland there were large glaciers, so they raised the sails and continued on their way. All commentators, Those who recognize the authenticity of the story about Bjarni agree that in both cases he and his companions saw the forested American shores. But what kind of American lands did they see? In this regard, after more than a century of dispute, opinions differ: the shore of the North American continent? Nova Scotia Peninsula? Newfoundland Island? Yes, this question can hardly be resolved on the basis of a short story alone, without involving other materials, except physical card North America and maps of its vegetation. There are no other materials yet. In ancient times and in the Middle Ages, the coastal peoples of Western and Southern Europe firmly believed in the existence of islands with wonderful nature and a mild climate in the “Western” (Atlantic) Ocean; Some of these "blessed" or "happy" islands allegedly served as a refuge for hermits, exiles or entire peoples oppressed by conquerors. Already Aristotle (IV century BC) reports about islands in the ocean on the other side of the “Pillars of Hercules” (Strait of Gibraltar). Later authors say that some islands in the ocean, discovered by the ancient Phoenicians, became a refuge for the Carthaginians after their destruction by the Romans hometown. In the first century AD, Pliny spoke about the Atlantic islands, and somewhat later (late 1st or early 2nd century) Plutarch. He places them around Britain, and moves some of the “sacred” islands much further west, five days' journey. It is likely that these reports were based on actual discoveries by ancient navigators not only close to northwestern Africa, Canary Islands, but also the more distant Madeira, and maybe even the Azores, located about one and a half thousand kilometers west of the Iberian Peninsula. In the 18th-19th centuries, one can trace the revival of the legend (or rather, legends, because there were several of them) about the “blessed” islands in the western ocean. As can be seen from the book of the Irish monk Dicuil, in the monasteries of his country they read and reread the works of ancient authors, looking for in them direct indications or hints of the existence of distant happy islands. Stories about actual voyages of Irish ascetics to the islands in the northern part Atlantic Ocean mixed with reports of ancient authors about paradise islands in the central part of the Western Ocean. This can explain the origin of the legend about the wanderings of the “saint” Brandan and about the island he discovered. At the end of the 16th century, Brandan allegedly sailed from the shores of Ireland in a western direction together with a group of his followers and students, wandered in the ocean, found some wonderful remote island, lived there and returned to his homeland after many years of absence. This legend, embellished and colored by popular imagination, has spread to almost all Western European countries. Medieval cartographers showed the island of St. Brandana in the most desolate parts of the Western Ocean. It was applied first to the west of Ireland. Later, in the XIV-XV centuries, as lands actually opened up in the temperate and subtropical zone of the ocean, which by their nature had nothing in common with paradise islands, as they were described in legend, the island of St. Brandana "slipped" further south on the maps. On the Venetian map of 1367 this island stands in the place of Madeira, and Martin Beheim on his globe (1492) shows it already west of the islands Cape Verde, near the equator. In other words, the island of St. Brandana became a "wandering" island and eventually disappeared completely, without giving its name to any real land. Happier was the fate of another mysterious “wandering” island - Brazil. Born in the Middle Ages by an unknown imagination and previously approved by cartographers to the southwest of Ireland, the island of Brazil moved south and west from the European shores until (at the beginning of the 16th century) it gave its name to the imaginary island of the New World, located near the equator, turned out to be the eastern part of the South American continent. A huge Portuguese colony (Brazil) was “christened” in the 16th century with the name of this fantastic island. To the west of the Strait of Gibraltar, medieval fantasy (probably in the 18th-19th centuries) established the “island of the Seven Cities”. According to Spanish-Portuguese legend, after the Muslims (Moors) utterly defeated the Christians at the Battle of Jerez and extended their power to the entire Iberian Peninsula (early 18th century), one archbishop, along with six bishops, fled to a remote Atlantic island, where they founded seven Christian cities. This fantastic island appears on maps only at the beginning of the 15th century, sometimes next to another, even more mysterious island with an unsolved name - Antilia. The discovery of new Atlantic lands in the 14th-15th centuries pushed these fantastic islands far to the west. They were different further fate. In the middle of the 16th century, the Spanish conquistadors searched in vain for the “Seven Cities” north of New Spain (Mexico), that is, in the center and west of the continent behind which the name North America was established in the second half of the 16th century. The legendary name Antilia has survived to this day for quite a long time. real islands(Big and Small Antilles). They were first named so on the Cantino map in 1502. These mirages played a big role in the history of the Great Discoveries. Plotted on maps according to the instructions of medieval cosmographers, they seemed to H. Columbus, when drawing up his project, to be reliable stages on the western sea route from the shores of Europe to the “Indies”. And the search for the “Seven Cities” led, as we will see, to the discovery by the Spaniards in the mid-16th century of the interior regions of North America - the Mississippi and Colorado River basins.

Greenland

The Vikings' robber and military campaigns in England and France, as well as expeditions to the Mediterranean Sea, during one of which, for example, 62 ships under the leadership of the legendary Haastein reached Byzantium in 895, do not fully characterize their achievements as seafarers. The navigational art of the Vikings and the seaworthiness of their ships are evidenced by the voyages that ended with the settlement of Iceland and Greenland and the discovery of America.

The first Norwegians appeared on the Hebrides around 620. Almost 200 years later, in 800, they settled on the Faroe ("Sheep") Islands, and in 802 on Orkney and Shetland. In 820, they created a state in Ireland, which was located in the area of ​​modern Dublin, and lasted until 1170.

Information about Iceland was brought to the Vikings by the Swede Gardar Svafarsson, who in 861 transported Hebrides his wife's inheritance. During the passage, his ship was carried by a storm to the northern coast of Iceland, where he spent the winter with the crew. When Harald Fairhair created a great kingdom in Norway by force in 872, Iceland became a target for those Norwegians who did not want to obey the king. It is believed that between 20,000 and 30,000 Norwegians moved to Iceland before 930. They took with them household items, seeds and domestic animals. Fishing, farming and herding were the main activities of the Vikings in Iceland.

The Icelandic sagas that have come down to us, passed down from generation to generation and written down only in the 13th and 14th centuries, are the most important sources of information about the Vikings. The sagas tell us about the Viking settlements in Greenland and the discovery of America, which they called Vinland.

Thus, in the saga of Eirik Raud (Red), recorded around 1200 by Hauk Erlendsson, it is said that in 983 Eirik, expelled from Iceland for three years for murder, sailed in search of the country that Gunbjorn had seen when he sailed to " Western Sea." Eirik the Red reached Greenland and settled there with a group of Icelanders. The settlement was named Brattalid. Bard Herjulfsson also lived there. In 986 his son Bjarni sailed from Iceland with the intention of going to Greenland. During his voyage, he encountered unfamiliar land three times until he finally tracked down his father, who lived on the southern tip of Greenland. Upon his return to Norway, Bjarni spoke about his voyage to the court of King Eirik. The son of Eirik the Red, Leif Eriksson, purchased a ship from Bjarni and sailed on it with 35 people to Brattalid. After careful preparation, they first repeated Bjarni's journey to the Labrador Peninsula. Having reached it, they turned south and followed the coast. According to the Greenlandic saga, recorded in 1387 by Jon Todarsson of Flateybuk, they reached an area they called Vinland - the Land of the Grapes. Wild grapes and maize grew wildly there, and salmon were found in the rivers. The southern limit of salmon distribution approximately corresponded to latitude 41°. The northern border of wild grapes was located near the 42nd parallel. Thus, Leif and his team reached what is now Boston around the year 1000.

Leif's brother Torvald, after his story, on the same ship with 30 people also reached Vinland, where he lived for two years. During one of the skirmishes with local residents Thorvald was mortally wounded, and the Vikings left the settlement. Later, Leif's second brother, Thorstein, wanted to reach Vinland on the same ship, but could not find this land.

On the coast of Greenland in a number of places there were settlements of Icelanders, up to 300 households in total. Great difficulties for living there arose due to the lack of forest. The forest grew on Labrador, which is closer to Greenland than Iceland, but sailing to the Labrador Peninsula was dangerous due to the harsh climate. Therefore, the Vikings who lived in Greenland had to carry everything they needed from Europe on ships that were similar to the ships from Skullelev. This is confirmed by excavations of burials in Greenland, in which the remains of ships were also found. In the XIV century. Viking settlements in Greenland ceased to exist.

Notes:

In the 11th century In addition to England, the Normans captured Sicily and Southern Italy, founding here at the beginning of the 12th century. "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies". The author mentions exclusively the aggressive and military campaigns of the Danes and Norwegians and says nothing about the Swedes, whose expansion was aimed mainly at Eastern Europe, including to Rus'.

The decisive battle between Harald and his opponents in Hafrsfjord took place shortly before 900, and therefore there was no direct connection between the migrations to Iceland and political events in Norway.

Currently, there are about forty hypotheses about the location of Vinland. Equally not indisputable is the hypothesis of the Norwegian ethnologist H. Ingstad, who in 1964 discovered the ruins of a settlement in Newfoundland, which he identified as Vinland of the Normans. A number of scientists believe that this settlement belongs to the Eskimo Dorset culture. In addition, in the sagas the climate of Vinland is assessed as mild, which does not correspond to the harsh subarctic climate of Newfoundland.

The Atlantic Ocean, which today is a great highway for shipping, was in ancient times an insurmountable desert of water between East and West. In three places, however, geographical conditions favored an ocean crossing. On both sides of the equator, trade winds and the currents they cause are directed from the Old World to the shores of South America and the West Indies. The water spaces south of the equator, favorable for navigation, were never used to any significant extent: the peoples of Africa were at too low a stage of development to develop them. The use of waters to the north for navigation is associated with the name of Columbus. The waters along the line passing through the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland were used for navigation before any other, the Scandinavian countries raised a generation of sailors who were the first of the peoples of Europe to overcome the dangers of the open ocean. True, this did not lead to such practical results as the discovery of Columbus, and precisely because European culture in those early times was not yet mature enough to cope with the serious danger of navigation in the northern seas.

Thus, geographical position Greenland is the reason that this country came to the attention of Europe more than five centuries before Columbus landed in America. The discovery of Greenland is a natural link to sea voyages during the Viking era. The first period of these campaigns dates back to around 800. In a short period of time, this led to the creation of Scandinavian possessions from Ireland and Normandy all the way to the heart of Russia; The Vikings penetrated to the White Sea and Constantinople. After the unification of Norway, Iceland was discovered. Following this, almost simultaneously, the first, still inaccurate information about Greenland appeared. According to the old Icelandic written source “Landnamabok”, even then (about 875) Greenland was seen from afar by “Gunbjorn, son of Ulf Krake, when he was abandoned by a storm northwest of Iceland and discovered the Gunbjorn Islands.” Apparently, it was about a group of small islands near the modern trading post of Angmagsalik.

Discovery of Greenland by Erik Thorvaldsen (Red)

Following the relatively quiet tenth century, the spark of enterprise was suddenly rekindled. In the north, a route was found to Greenland and Vinland. The peasant Erik Thorvaldsen, nicknamed Red, who as a child moved with his father from his homeland of Norway to Iceland, where in 982 he was sentenced to exile for murder for three years, decided to find the country that Gunbjorn saw from afar. From Cape Snefellsnes, he headed west and saw the eastern coast of Greenland “at the middle glacier in the place where it is called Bloserk”; natural conditions apparently prevented a landing at this place, where the coast is completely blocked for most of the year floating ice. Then he changed course to the south in order to find out whether the land there was suitable for habitation, and, rounding Cape Farvel, apparently landed in the area of ​​​​the present settlement of Julianehob, near the southern tip of the island. This was the first white man to set foot in the New World! He gave the country the name Greenland, because he believed that it would attract people if the country had an attractive name,” as reported one hundred and fifty years later in the oldest source about the discovery of Greenland, in Are Frode’s book “Islendingabok.” Eric intended to add a new link to the chain of widespread Scandinavian settlements and used his three years of exile for detailed research, extending into more northern territory, up to the present area of ​​Gothob.

First settlements in Greenland

The following summer, after returning to Iceland, he set sail again, with no less than 25 ships in his wake, of which, however, only 14 reached the promised land. The settlers settled in two areas - Österbygden (eastern settlement) and Västerbygden (western settlement); the first of them was located in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe present Julianehob and the southern part of the Frederikshob district, the second - in the present Gotthob district.

The settlers led a harsh life in this country, where even the unpretentious barley did not ripen. The struggle of the Scandinavians for existence led to the fact that they gradually became familiar with the surroundings of the settlements, and this knowledge was subsequently forgotten and restored only in the 18th century.

The Scandinavian exploration of Greenland was largely the result of summer trips to collect driftwood (precious in this treeless country) and hunt for seals, walruses and whales. The fishing grounds extended as far north as Disko Bay. Some industrialists reached even more northern places. In the far north, in the area of ​​the present colony of Upernavik, near the stone pyramids on the island of Kingigtorsuaq, a small stone with runic writing was found. Judging by the linguistic structure, the signature dates back to approximately 1300.

It is possible that the Normans penetrated even further. One of the Icelandic sources reports a journey to explore the country north of the fishing grounds in the summer of 1265 or 1266. How far the explorers penetrated is impossible to establish, since it is not possible to determine the distances indicated in the book; however, it is possible that the explorers reached Melville Bay. But this is not enough. In the northernmost part of the Thule region, near Marshall Bay, between Smith Sound and the Humboldt Glacier, during excavations of ancient Eskimo ruins, various objects of Scandinavian origin were found, including the remains of chain mail. It is possible that these items were introduced as a result of barter with the Eskimos; However, if we compare the finds and the vague traditions of the Arctic Eskimos about many warlike white people who arrived in large rowing ships without masts, then the possibility that the Scandinavians actually visited these extreme northern places can hardly be completely denied.

Explorations of the east coast of Greenland

In contrast to the western coast, the eastern coast of Greenland, due to the presence of drifting ice, remained largely unexplored by the Scandinavians. There are indications that they knew the area in the vicinity of Scoresby Bay, which, despite its northern position, is still one of the most accessible parts of the coast. In any case, it is probably necessary to look for the Scandinavian settlement of Svalbard here, regardless of the fact that in later times this name was transferred to the island of Spitsbergen. For the most part, the eastern coast seems to have been visited only by shipwrecked people.

Then, towards the end of the Middle Ages, the darkness of the unknown spreads over Greenland and the Scandinavians there. The tragedy that unfolded here is reflected in the brief reports that have reached us about that period, which become increasingly scanty as time goes on. It may seem puzzling that so little has been done on the Scandinavian side to support the message. It must be noted, however, that Greenland was never completely forgotten. Immediately following the cessation of ancient sea voyages there follows a period during which fruitless attempts were made to explore Greenland.

The incentive for such research was the friendly relations that existed in the 15th century between the courts of Denmark and Portugal, the birthplace of great geographical discoveries. The Portuguese prince Dom Henrique, or, as the Danes called him, Henry the Navigator, according to the fictional story that has come down to us medieval description travel, I came to the idea that I could find sea ​​route, leading directly from Norway to China and India. His cousin was married to the Danish king Eric of Pomerania, and Scandinavia at that time was considered the bearer of the old traditions of sea voyages to Greenland and Vinland. For this reason, the prince established cooperation with Denmark. The Danish nobles were first invited to participate in dangerous journeys along the African coast, after which in Denmark itself they began preparing for the voyage to the north. In the summer of 1473, Christien I equipped an expedition that can be called the first Danish polar expedition. Two admirals were appointed as leaders - Dietrich Piening and Hans Potthorst. The expedition's navigator, or "navigator", was apparently a Scandinavian named Ion Skolp (Johannes Okolvus), and the Portuguese Joao Vas Corteral also took part in the expedition. Very little is known about the journey itself. The starting point seems to have been Norway, the expedition spent some time in Iceland, from there the journey continued towards the east coast of Greenland, where a “compass” was carved on Mount Vidserk, that is, a sign that, in all likelihood, was based on the Portuguese model was supposed to indicate that the country was occupied. In his book Carta Marina, written in 1539, and later in his descriptions of the northern countries, the Swedish archbishop Olaus Magnus gave a drawing of a “compass”, which, of course, was made from the imagination. In all likelihood, the expedition experienced severe storms and may even have been shipwrecked; it is also known that the expedition had a battle with Eskimo “sea robbers”.

But nevertheless the expedition was carried out, and its greatest achievement was that it penetrated west and south of Greenland and, undoubtedly, discovered Newfoundland.

The expedition did not have any practical significance. However, the desire to recapture Greenland did not die out, although all Danish expeditions undertaken in the next century ended unsuccessfully. The expedition planned by Archbishop Eric Walkendorff was canceled due to the fact that the archbishop quarreled with King Christian II, and when the king subsequently took the enterprise into his own hands, the Swedish uprising broke out in 1520. At the end of the turbulent period of feudal feuds and reformation, which prevented equipment expeditions, other complications arose. Equipped by King Frederick II expeditions - one in 1579 under the leadership of the Englishman Alday and another in 1581 under the leadership of a native Faroe Islands Mogens Heinesen - were unsuccessful, as they encountered an impenetrable wall of drifting ice off the east coast and were forced to return without results.