non-European exploration

To medieval Arabs the Arabian Sea was known as the Sea of India or as part of the “Great Sea,” from which smaller gulfs such as the Sea of Faris (Persian Gulf) or Sea of Kolzum (Red Sea) were distinguished. From about the 8th…

…apart from Antarctica, to be explored by Europeans. At least 60,000 years before European explorers sailed into the South Pacific, the first Aboriginal explorers had arrived from Asia, and by 20,000 years ago they had spread throughout the mainland and its chief island outlier, Tasmania. When Captain Arthur Phillip of…

The Periplus Maris Erythraei, an early Greek manual of sailing directions written in the 1st century ce, described sailing routes from the Red Sea (Maris Erythraei) to coastal areas along the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal to eastern India north of the Ganges…

There is evidence that the Egyptians explored the Indian Ocean as early as about 2300 bce, when they sent maritime expeditions to the “land of Punt,” which was somewhere on the Somali coast. The expeditions, which may have begun even earlier—perhaps about 2900 bce,…