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Historians Figure Out How Ancient Sailors Navigated Mediterranean By Building One of Their Ships_我的网站

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一 | What better way to figure out a mystery of the ancients than to try it out yourself? That’s what one sailing aficionado from Israel did when confronted with a puzzle from the Christian Bible.,David Gal, a doctoral student in the Department of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa, says he has figured out why the Christian Apostle Paul sailed from Judea to Rome along the southern coast of Anatolia in 60 CE - a route that, to him, wasn’t the most obvious one, since most winds in the Mediterranean are westerlies and Paul was going west.,That year, Paul was sent to the imperial capital to answer to Jewish authorities for preaching the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who claimed to have been the Jewish messiah. Most Jews did not accept Jesus’ teachings, and he was tried and executed by crucifixion for blasphemy and subversion in either 30 or 33 CE.,Paul’s journey is recounted in unusual detail in the New Testament book of Acts. The preacher zigzagged his way across the sea, swinging north of Cyprus before heading to the city of Myra (modern Demre) in southern Anatolia. From there, he went west past Rhodes, to Knidos, then south to the southern coast of Crete and west across the southernmost parts of the Ionian Sea. However, he was shipwrecked in Malta and his journey took much longer than anticipated.,“Until recently, we didn’t understand why the Alexandrian grain ship that Paul joined in southern Anatolia, bound for Rome, chose that particular route,” Gal told Haaretz.,The boat, Ma’agan Mikhael II, is a replica of a ship found in 1985 about 2 meters underneath the seabed off the coast of Kibbutz Ma’agan Mikhael in northern Israel, not far from Caesarea. In ancient times, the city was known as Caesarea Maritima or Caesarea Palestine, named after the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar. The replica boat was finished in 2016 and is just one of two ships in the world that simulates a merchant sailing vessel from Before the Common Era (BCE).,By coincidence, Caesarea also happens to be the port from which Paul left on his trip to Rome.,In part, Gal’s study was based on computer modeling, which combined vast amounts of weather data and conducted 5,479 virtual sailing trips along 224 different possible routes from Caesarea to Rome, for a total of 1.2 million virtual sailing trips. However, that wasn’t enough: Gal also took a crew of 10 volunteer sailors out in the Ma’agan Mikhael II to explore the intangible human element of the journey. With just one sail, the ship moves along at a brisk 3.9 miles per hour.,“Only when we sailed on Ma’agan Mikhael II did we understand the real limitations of the ship and the sailors,” Gal told Haaretz. “We found that in many sections of the coast, the breeze doesn’t support this type of movement.”,“They didn’t sail counter to the prevailing wind, but waited for days with a favorable wind in the opposite direction,” Gal concluded. “We found there were such days in a large meteorological sampling. Until now, scholars didn’t examine that but used low-resolution meteorological averages that erase the variance in the wind.”,Gal said he has taken the ship out more than 80 times, sailing as far as Cyprus, and found that the daily wind patterns, in which breezes can blow westward from the Levantine coast, have remained strong after 3,000 years. By navigating those patterns, ancient sailors could have crept up the coast until they found more favorable winds.,“We have data about its performance in all wind conditions and how various currents affect it, and that enables us to conduct a reliable simulation of sailing. With its help, we acquired insights into the way such a ship is operated; we had a better understanding of how four people can sail from Greece to here and back,” he said.。

二 |

据央视新闻报道，据卡塔尔半岛电视台19日报道，以色列军队当天袭击巴勒斯坦加沙地带中部努赛赖特难民营，造成至少20人死亡、数十人受伤和失踪。电视画面显示，医护人员在加沙地带中部一家医院急诊大厅中抢救伤员，部分伤员伤势严重，一些伤员因病床不足只能躺在地上接受救治。

半岛电视台还报道说，以军当天袭击了加沙城东部一所学校和一处民房，造成至少9人死亡。另据巴勒斯坦通讯社19日报道，一名记者在加沙地带北部遭以色列空袭身亡。截至目前，以色列军方没有就这些报道发表评论。

另据央视中文国际报道，当地时间18日晚间，以色列战时内阁成员甘茨发表电视讲话，要求以色列总理内塔尼亚胡领导的政府在6月8日之前完成加沙战后方案的制定，否则甘茨将带领国家团结党退出以色列紧急联合政府。

甘茨表示，他要求内塔尼亚胡就加沙地带的军事行动达成共识，明确加沙战后治理、以色列遭扣押人员获释、以色列北部局势缓和、与阿拉伯国家关系正常化等问题的解决方案。甘茨在讲话中指责称，目前以色列领导人处理冲突的方式存在严重问题。他表示，现在“一小部分人占据了以色列这只船的舰桥，并将其驶向礁石”，“（关于加沙问题）没有做出关键的决定，确保以色列胜利所需的领导行动并未全部实践。”

甘茨称，如果他的要求没有得到满足，他将带领其领导的国家团结党从当前的以色列紧急联合政府中退出。

去年巴以新一轮武装冲突爆发之后，甘茨领导的国家团结党加入了内塔尼亚胡的执政联盟。近期一段时间以来，以色列战时内阁的内部分歧正越来越大并公开化。战时内阁成员甘茨与以色列防长加兰特保持类似的立场，但是极右翼政治人物则强烈要求以色列保持对加沙长期的军事占领。

据参考消息援引美联社5月18日报道，内塔尼亚胡在一份声明中回应说，甘茨选择向自己的总理而不是哈马斯发最后通牒，并称他的条件等于是“委婉地说”以色列已经失败。报道指出，甘茨是内塔尼亚胡的长期政治对手，在战争初期加入了后者的战时内阁，以示团结。甘茨的离开将使内塔尼亚胡更加依赖极右翼盟友，这些人认为以色列应该占领加沙，并在那里重建犹太人定居点。

甘茨作出这番表态的几天前，战时内阁的另一名成员、以色列国防部长约亚夫·加兰特说，如果以色列选择重新占领加沙，他将不再留任。他呼吁政府为成立巴勒斯坦行政当局做好准备。

2月7日，在位于耶路撒冷的以色列总理办公室，以色列总理内塔尼亚胡在新闻发布会上讲话。图片来源：新华社发（马克·伊斯拉埃尔·塞勒姆摄/基尼图片社）

据新华社5月17日消息，以总理内塔尼亚胡16日视察拉法附近一处以军基地时说，拉法之战对于打击巴勒斯坦伊斯兰抵抗运动（哈马斯）的战役“至关重要”，“将决定（整场）战役许多事情”。

为躲避战火，逾百万巴勒斯坦平民从加沙地带北部和中部逃难至拉法。国际社会担忧，以军全面进攻拉法会导致大规模人员伤亡。

内塔尼亚胡此前多次表示，只有彻底摧毁哈马斯在拉法的四个营，才能实现以方军事行动三大目标，即解救被扣押以方人员、消灭哈马斯和确保加沙地带不再对以色列构成威胁。

本月9日晚，以色列安全内阁批准以军扩大在拉法的军事行动。以色列军方称，已打击拉法数以百计目标并摧毁多条地道。以国防部长约亚夫·加兰特16日宣布将向拉法部署更多兵力。