Seven Seas Totally Explained

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The phrase "Seven Seas" refers both to a particular set of seven seas and in general to a great expanse of ocean (as in the idiom "sail the Seven Seas"). Different time periods have used different definitions of the phrase "Seven Seas".
In Medieval European literature, the Seven Seas referred to any seven of the following eleven bodies of water: the Adriatic Sea, the Aegean Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Irish Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the North Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea.
The International Hydrographic Organization lists over 100 bodies of water known as seas.

Origins

While the Medieval concept of the 7 Seas has its origins in Greece and Rome, the term "Seven Seas" has existed much longer, appearing as early as 2300 BC in Hymn 8 of the Sumerian Enheduanna to the goddess Inanna.
In the 9th century AD, the Muslim author Ya'qubi wrote:

"Whoever wants to go to China must cross seven seas, each one with its own color and wind and fish and breeze, completely unlike the sea that lies beside it. The first of them is the Sea of Fars, which men sail setting out from Siraf. It ends at Ra’s al-Jumha; it's a strait where pearls are fished. The second sea begins at Ra’s al-Jumha and is called Larwi. It is a big sea, and in it's the Island of Waqwaq and others that belong to the Zanj. These islands have kings. One can only sail this sea by the stars. It contains huge fish, and in it are many wonders and things that pass description. The third sea is called Harkand, and in it lies the Island of Sarandib, in which are precious stones and rubies. Here are islands with kings, but there's one king over them. In the islands of this sea grow bamboo and rattan. The fourth sea is called Kalah and is shallow and filled with huge serpents. Sometimes they ride the wind and smash ships. Here are islands where the camphor tree grows. The fifth sea is called Salahit and is very large and filled with wonders. The sixth sea is called Kardanj; it's very rainy. The seventh sea is called the sea of Sanji, also known as Kanjli. It is the sea of China; one is driven by the south wind until one reaches a freshwater bay, along which are fortified places and cities, until one reaches Khanfu."

This passage demonstrates the Seven Seas as referenced in Medieval Arabian literature, the Persian Gulf ("Sea of Fars"), the Gulf of Khambhat ("Sea of Larwi"), the Bay of Bengal ("Sea of Harkand"), the Strait of Malacca ("Sea of Kalah"), the Singapore Strait ("Sea of Salahit"), the Gulf of Thailand ("Sea of Kardanj")

Venice

A history of Venice states that the expression refers to a specific navigational challenge in the local waters near Venice, and that the "seas" referred to were small bodies of water, or lagoons:

Deposits of silt hadn't yet built up in the deltas of the Po and the Adige which now separate the Venetian lagoon from that of Comacchio to the south. In that area in Roman times were open bodies of water to which Pliny gave the name "the seven seas." The expression "to sail the seven seas" was a classical flourish signifying nautical skill. It was applied to the Venetians long before they sailed the oceans."

These ideas have been changed and altered over time mainly because of stories having been told generation after generation

Rome

Not all Roman uses of septem maria (Latin) would strike a responsive chord today. The navigable network in the mouths of the Po river discharge into saltmarshes on the Adriatic shore; these were locally called the "Seven Seas" in ancient Roman times. Pliny the Elder, a Roman author and fleet commander, wrote about these lagoons, separated from the open sea by sandbanks:

"All those rivers and trenches were first made by the Etruscans, thus discharging the flow of the river across the marshes of the Atriani called the Seven Seas, with the famous harbor of the Etruscan town of Atria which formerly gave the name of Atriatic to the sea now called the Adriatic."

The 17th century churchman and scholar John Lightfoot mentions a very different set of seas in his Commentary on the New Testament. A chapter titled The Seven Seas according to the Talmudists, and the four Rivers compassing the Land includes the "Great Sea" (now called the Mediterranean Sea), the "Sea of Tiberias" (Sea of Galilee), the "Sea of Sodom" (Dead Sea), the "Lake of Samocho", and the "Sibbichaean".
Among mariners, starting from Colonial times, "sailing the Seven Seas" meant one had been to the seven small seas throughout the Dutch East Indies. In effect it meant they'd sailed to, and returned from, the other side of the world.

Modern seven seas

Some modern geographical classification schemes count seven oceans in the world: The North Pacific Ocean, the South Pacific Ocean, the North Atlantic Ocean, the South Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean.
A moderately standardized iconography of the four continents and the four rivers of the world, which developed from the Renaissance, fixed recognizable images in the European imagination, but the Seven Seas were not identifiably differenced — Neptune ruled all. Rudyard Kipling titled a volume of poems The Seven Seas (1896) and dedicated it to the city of Bombay.

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