Remote Sensing of the European Seas

By Martin Gade and Vittorio Barale

Book Overview

Princess Enheduanna, daughter of king Sargon of Akkad, lived around 2300 BC. She was a high priestess of the moon god Nanna in the ancient city of Ur. And an accomplished poet too. In fact, she is the author of a number of Sumerian hymns, and is generally considered to be the earliest author known by name. When she came to honor Inanna - the goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare, daughter of Nanna and often associated with the planet Venus (the one that the Akkadians called Ishtar) - above all the other gods of the Sumerian pantheon, she mentioned for the very first time, in her Hymn number 8, nothing less than the "Seven Seas". . . Septem Maria, would call them the Romans centuries later, after inher- ing the concept from the Greeks (for whom seven probably just meant several), but perhaps applying it to the wrong place - i. e. the extensive system of coastal lagoons, which at the time dotted the northern Adriatic Sea - at least in the description of Pliny the Elder, Roman fleet commander and scholarly author of Historia Naturalis. Indeed, which seven seas are int- ded depends on the context. According to the historians, there are at least nine bodies of water in the medieval European and Arabic literature that can - pire to qualify as one of the famous seven.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1402067712
• ISBN13: 9781402067716
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Springer
• Length: 514 Pages
• Weight: 2.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"