HX Report
Irishman in the Middle East
Weekly Photo Challenge – Heritage
When you grow up in Ireland, your heritage is all about you, and you are immersed in it from the moment you leave the womb. Sport. Music. Dance. Drama. Language. Literature. Castles. Prehistoric monuments. The list is endless.
In the Middle East, it’s a totally different kettle of heritage fish. And a totally different heritage. One similarity in the heritage of both locations, however, is ancient exploring and explorers.
Did you know that it was not Christopher Columbus who ‘discovered’ America. It was an Irishman who did so – St Brendan the Voyager, hundreds of years before ‘Columbus the Pretender’. Google it guys – discover the truth!
The Arabs have a similarly famous voyager – Ibn Battuta. MB has mentioned in past posts that there is a shopping mall in Dubai called Ibn Battuta Mall – with each section of the mall themed on the different geographical locations explored by IB – China, Persia, North Africa, etc.
MB took this shot of some Arabic boats (dhows) at a heritage market in Qatar, December 2016; miniature models of the real thing.
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Stephen took my comment, MB. All those explorers were interesting and their stories are often amazing.
janet
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I follow in their footsteps J, as you are well aware. And my stories are even more amazing. Regards!
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🙂
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Nice post – but there were Europeans in North America much earlier than Brendan
“The Viking Settlements. Vinland (pronounced “Winland”) was the name given to part of North America by the Icelandic Norseman Leif Eiríksson, about year 1000. Later archeological evidence of Norse settlement in North America was found in L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada.”
Of course there were already lots of people living here to who had “discovered” the continents for themselves many millennia earlier than that!
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Nice comment SR. And all factually correct. And you will notice I used the word discovered as ‘discovered’ for the reason you state. But lets also give St Brendan a little credit! You should look up the book ‘The Brendan Voyage’ by modern Brit explorer Tim Severn, now deceased I believe. Thanks for comment SR. Much appreciated.
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