How the Amazon River’s Name Was Influenced by Ancient Greece

Aerial presumption of the Amazon River and Rainforest. Credit: Neil Palmer / CIAT / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0

The Amazon River’s sanction and its nexus to Ancient Greece originated with a Spanish expedition into the jungle successful 1541, erstwhile a tiny scouting enactment sent to fetch nutrient drifted each the mode to the Atlantic, according to the surviving 16th-century accounts.

That concatenation of events, and a examination to the warrior women of ancient Greece, is the crushed Europeans began calling the waterway by the sanction that inactive stands today.

Gonzalo Pizarro led a ample expedition eastbound from the Andes successful 1541, looking for riches and supplies. As the onshore way grew harder, Pizarro ordered Lieutenant Francisco de Orellana to spell downstream with a tiny radical and an improvised vessel to find nutrient and travel back.

Strong currents and repeated clashes made it intolerable for Orellana to return. Instead, helium and his men kept going and, aft galore months, reached the Atlantic coast.

A sanction inspired by women warriors from past Greece

The astir celebrated facet of the communicative comes from Gaspar de Carvajal, the Dominican friar who accompanied Orellana and wrote a agelong relationship of the trip. Carvajal said that successful 1 battle, the Spaniards saw women warring alongside men.

Orellana, according to Carvajal’s report, compared those fighters to the Amazons of Greek stories and utilized that sanction for the river. That classical examination caught connected successful Europe, and the stream became known arsenic the River of the Amazons.

Modern scholars counsel readers to see erstwhile speechmaking aboriginal accounts. Some researchers pass that the chronicles whitethorn person stretched the facts to marque the voyage look much dramatic.

Other scholars enactment the Spanish whitethorn person misunderstood what they saw—for example, the beingness of women successful conflict successful immoderate autochthonal groups, oregon antithetic formal and hairstyles that Europeans interpreted arsenic having a antithetic meaning.

These historians accidental the Amazon’s sanction originated from a operation of what the voyagers reported and the past Greek stories they had already learned.

Greek power inactive shapes however the Amazon River is understood

Archaeological enactment successful the Amazon has besides changed however radical presumption the country the Spaniards described. In caller decades, scientists person uncovered indications that galore parts of the basin contained large, organized towns and farms earlier Europeans arrived.

These finds marque it much apt that the groups Orellana met were well-organized and could person offered beardown resistance—even if the nonstop words successful the old chronicles cannot beryllium checked successful each case.

For reporters, the naming communicative reveals however Europeans utilized acquainted elements to explicate the unfamiliar. Carvajal’s chronicle provided the main study of the trip.

Orellana’s travel provided Europeans with the route, and the prime to telephone the stream by a Greek sanction tied South America to a long, older representation of the satellite successful the European mind.

The Expedition of Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco de Orellana (1541–1542) was a Spanish exploration ngo done present-day Ecuador and the Brazilian Amazon. 🌎 Pizarro led implicit 200 conquistadors and thousands of Indigenous porters from Quito successful hunt of the mythical onshore of El Dorado and affluent sources of cinnamon. 🌿 Facing utmost conditions — dense jungle, disease, and nutrient shortages — the expedition was soon successful crisis. ⚠️ Pizarro sent his lieutenant, Francisco de Orellana, with a tiny radical downriver successful hunt of food. 🍂 However, the beardown existent carried them truthful acold that returning became impossible. 🌊 Instead of turning back, they decided to proceed drifting forward. ⛵ Over the pursuing months, Orellana’s radical traveled thousands of kilometers done chartless territory, encountering galore Indigenous tribes. 🛶 In 1 clash, they were attacked by warrior women, reminding Orellana of the mythical Amazons — and truthful helium named the river Amazon. 🏹 In 1542, the expedition yet reached the Atlantic Ocean, completing the archetypal known navigation of the full Amazon River. 🌅 #historytok #historyfacts #lostworld #epicjourney #conquistador #truestory #edutok

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