Navigation aids, navigational practice and construction of maritime landscapes in the North-East Atlantic: a few thoughts

• Published in: Gallia
• Main Author: Arnaud, Pascal
• Other Authors: Histoire et Sources des Mondes antiques (HiSoMA), École normale supérieure de Lyon (ENS de Lyon)-Université Lumière - Lyon 2 (UL2)-Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3 (UJML), Université de Lyon-Université de Lyon-Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne (UJM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: French
• Published: HAL CCSD 2020
• Subjects: lighthouse; beacon; daymark; phare; balise; amer; [SHS.ARCHEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory; [SHS.HIST]Humanities and Social Sciences/History; Phare; North East Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-03172837; https://hal.science/hal-03172837/document; https://hal.science/hal-03172837/file/Gallia_2020_77-1_29-43_ARNAUD.pdf; https://doi.org/10.4000/gallia.5298

International audience This article aims to lay the foundations for a study of different types of navigational aids (lighthouses and daymarks) and to put these into the context of navigation practices in the Atlantic sea: direct navigation, coastal navigation, navigation in estuaries and channels, daytime and night navigation. Studies focused mainly on lighthouses and, among these, on the most spectacular lighthouses. Lighthouses were not the more essential aid to navigation and even played a minor role. A certain type of beacon was used to guide ships from the open sea towards a known port, both at night and during the day. Their reach and their viewing angle are essential data, which are only now attracting interests. Such beacons may have been very small structures. Others were larger and marked dangers. The closer pilots go to the coast, the more the identifiable daymarks, arranged within a system, made it possible for them to determinate their location and to define their route within a theoretical space based on their mental construction of the landscape. The traces left by these daymarks, only a small number of which were specifically designed to act as a navigation aid, are often very subtle and only specific, small-scale field surveys are likely to reveal navigational aid systems which are more the result of the pilot’s science than the intention of a planner. Cet article s’attache à poser les jalons pour une étude des aides à la navigation (phares et amers) et tente de les replacer dans le contexte des pratiques de navigation atlantique : navigation en droiture, navigation côtière, navigation dans les estuaires et dans les chenaux, navigation diurne et nocturne. L’érudition s’est généralement concentrée sur les phares – et, parmi eux, sur les plus spectaculaires –, qui n’ont pas toujours été les plus essentiels à la navigation et qui ont constitué une minorité des aides à la navigation. Un premier type de balise vise à se diriger depuis le large, nuit et jour, vers un port connu. La portée et ...