Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Ibn and Marco in Ch 22

I think Ibn and Marco were atypical of the people from their time period. In the maps, their travels cover Europe, Asia and Africa. The sheer quantity and distance of their travels are atypical. During their time period, a single person would not travel that far. First of all, they would have no reason to and secondly, there would not be easy ways to travel that far. Good or trade items may pass from one end of the world to the other end, but through many middlemen. Wether Ibn and Marco traveled for trade or not, or for trade and other reasons, this amount of travel was a typical to their time period.
Ibn and Marco's are still atypical of the people now a days. They are less atypical, but still different. A typical person of this time period would not travel that extensively, and if someone were a world traveler, they'd travel the whole world, not just Europe, Africa and Asia. Another interesting aspect is the type of transportation; now a days it would be more likely that these travels would be made by plane, and thus Ibn and Marco's land and sea route are atypical.

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