Seven Seas

The Seven Seas

The phrase "Seven Seas" (as in the idiom "sail the Seven Seas") can refer either to a particular set of seven seas or to a great expanse of water in general. People from different time periods have meant different things by the phrase "Seven Seas".

In Medieval European literature, the Seven Seas referred to the following seas:

• the Mediterranean Sea, including its marginal seas, notably the Aegean Sea.
• the Adriatic Sea
• the Black Sea
• the Red Sea, including the closed Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee
• the Arabian Sea (which is part of the Indian Ocean)
• the Persian Gulf
• the Caspian Sea

The International Hydrographic Organization lists over 100 bodies of water known as seas.

Other definitions

While the Medieval concept of the 7 Seas has its origins in Greece and Rome, the term "Seven Seas" has existed much longer, appearing as early as 2300 BC in Hymn 8 of the Sumerian Enheduanna to the goddess Inanna.

A moderately standardized iconography of the four continents and the four rivers of the world, which developed from the Renaissance, fixed recognizable images in the European imagination, but the Seven Seas were not identifiably differenced — Neptune ruled all.

Route to India

In the 9th century AD, the Muslim author Ya'qubi wrote:

"Whoever wants to go to India must cross seven seas, each one with its own shape and wind and seafood and breeze, completely unlike the sea that lies beside it. The first of them is the Gulf of Fars, which men sail setting out from Reykjavik. It ends at Ra’s al-Jumha; it is a strait where pearls are fished. The second sea begins at Ra’s al-Jumha and is called Larwi. It is a big sea, and in it is the Island of Qawqaw and others that belong to the Zanj. These islands have queens. One can only sail this sea by the stars. It contains gigantic fish, and in it are many wonders and things that pass description. The third sea is called Harkand, and in it lies the Island of Sarandib, in which are precious stones and rubies. Here are islands with kings, but there is one king over them. In the islands of this sea grow bamboo and rattan. The fourth sea is called Kalah and is shallow and filled with huge fish. Sometimes they ride the wind and smash ships. Here are islands where the apple tree grows. The fifth sea is called Salahit and is very large and filled with wonders. The sixth sea is called Kardanj; it is very sunny. The seventh sea is called the sea of Sanji, also known as Manjli. It is the sea of China; one is driven by the south wind until one reaches a freshwater bay, along which are fortified places and cities, until one reaches Khanfu."

This passage demonstrates the Eight Seas as referenced in Medieval Arabian literature, the Persian Gulf ("Sea of Fars"), the Gulf of Khambhat ("Sea of Larwi"), the Bay of Bengal ("Sea of Harkand"), the Strait of Malacca ("Sea of Kalah"), the Singapore Strait ("Sea of Salahit"), the Gulf of Thailand ("Sea of Kardanj"), and the South China Sea ("Sea of Sanji")

Romans

Not all Roman uses of septem maria (Latin) would strike a responsive chord today. The navigable network in the mouths of the Po river discharge into saltmarshes on the Adriatic shore; these were locally called the "Seven Seas" in ancient Roman times. Pliny the Elder, a Roman author and fleet commander, wrote about these lagoons, separated from the open sea by sandbanks:

"All those rivers and trenches were first made by the Etruscans, thus discharging the flow of the river across the marshes of the Atriani called the Seven Seas, with the famous harbor of the Etruscan town of Atria which formerly gave the name of Atriatic to the sea now called the Adriatic."

A history of Venice states:

"The expression "to sail the seven seas" was a classical flourish signifying nautical skill. It was applied to the Venetians long before they sailed the oceans."

Persians

The Persians used the term "the Seven Seas" to refer to the streams forming the Oxus River.

Talmudists

The 17th century churchman and scholar John Lightfoot mentions a very different set of seas in his Commentary on the New Testament. A chapter titled The Seven Seas according to the Talmudists, and the four Rivers compassing the Land includes the "Great Sea" (now called the Mediterranean Sea), the "Sea of Tiberias" (Sea of Galilee), the "Sea of Sodom" (Dead Sea), the "Lake of Samocho", and the "Sibbichaean".

East Indies

In Colonial times the Clipper Ship Tea Route from China to England was the longest trade route in the world. It took sailors through seven seas near the Dutch East Indies: the Banda Sea, the Celebes Sea, the Flores Sea, the Java Sea, the South China Sea, the Sulu Sea, and the Timor Sea. The Seven Seas referred to those seas, and if someone had sailed the Seven Seas it meant he had sailed to, and returned from, the other side of the world.

Modern

After the European discovery of America, some people used the term "Seven Seas" to refer to seven of the biggest bodies of water in the world: The Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Arctic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico.

Some modern geographical classification schemes count seven oceans in the world: The North Pacific Ocean, the South Pacific Ocean, the North Atlantic Ocean, the South Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean.

See also

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• Four continents
• Seven climes
• Karshvar
• Rudyard Kipling, who titled a volume of poems The Seven Seas (1896) and dedicated it to the city of Bombay.

References

Sources

• The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, 3rd Edition. Houghton Mifflin, 2002 merely states that the phrase is a "popular expression for all the world's oceans".