To our knowledge, Bronze Age navigators did not possess maps and charts, so how then can we describe the mental process of the voyage? Often, the navigator is said to have carried “mental maps" or “cognitive maps" of the desired route and its features (Frake 1985; Lewis 1976; Oatley 1977). This notion has been criticized by Alfred Gell (1985) as flawed and inadequate, in an argument that is to some extent semantic, focusing on what we mean by map, but with interesting substantive implications. Gell distinguishes map from image: the former refers to a model of reality in Cartesian space, showing all of the possible routes and territories that could be encountered, but without the point of view of the sailor and with no particular sequence of movement indicated. Gell asserts that navigators in mapless societies do not call up cognitive versions of such allinclusive devices (it would anachronistic to claim that they do), but rather they work from a compendium of images that constitutes a perspectival experience of the seascape. The actual mental process combines knowledge of fixed spatial relationships of landscape features (referred to by Gell as “non-token-indexical" statements or beliefs) with a constant monitoring en route of the ship's relative position (“token-indexical" statements or beliefs). For instance, “Chios is south of Lesbos" is a non-token-indexical statement (i. e., it is assumed to always be true and does not depend on where the ship is currently located), while “The ship is currently passing Chios, so it must be south of Lesbos" is a statement that may be true for some part of the journey, but depends on the ship's position relative to these fixed features. If one's final destination is Lesbos, this token-indexical determination permits decision making and the action of setting or maintaining a course to the north. Navigational success is secured by knowledge both of the fixed relationships between known places, and of one's relative position among them, and Gell views these as distinct but complementary cognitive processes.
If these relationships have a form more like a series of mental images than a Cartesian map, then the knowledge and the mental process can be described as phenomenological, experiential, and embodied, but here an important distinction must be made. Gell explicitly critiques Pierre Bourdieu's “practical mastery theory" (Bourdieu 1977: 2), an early phenomenological perspective on landscape that proved a fertile source for the development of the postmodern phenomenologies of Christopher Tilley and others (Bender 1993; Tilley 1994). Bourdieu envisions the landscape not as Cartesian map space, but as a “practical" space that constantly morphs in response to the shifting perspective of a subject moving through it. In this kind of subjective, embodied experience, there is no objectively definable landscape, but instead a myriad of landscapes — both tangible and intangible — come into being through the contingent experiences of each individual subject. Practical mastery of maritime routes would involve committing to memory a series of images of landscape features from point of departure to destination, and then linking them en route. Gell rejects this relativistic view of landscape, insisting that landforms have a reality (spatial, substantive) independent of our momentary perceptions of them. Landscape change lies in the realm of geology and other longer-term processes; the change that occurs during a sea voyage is rather our position relative to these fixed features, so we must have external, fixed reference points in order for decisions based on our relative position to make sense. In Gell's phenomenology, the navigator's mental process is to refer to a kind of non-Cartesian mental map consisting of known features in fixed spatial relationships; in order to use this information, he must “match the images produced at particular map-coordinates with perceptual images of the surrounding terrain" (Gell 1985: 282).
To this point, the discussion of phenomenology has concerned one type of voyage only, albeit a common one: the daytime route that is known to a maritime community, but sufficiently long or complex to require aids to wayfinding, such as mental maps and landscape images. The mental images that facilitated such journeys in the Bronze Age are likely to have been similar to those of later times in Homer and in the periploi of Archaic to Roman times: islands, headlands, rivers, bays, and other coastal features that functioned as nodes in segmented journeys and potential places of refuge.4
Yet there were several other types of sea voyages for which the mental processes and practices were quite different. One of these was the very short journey, along a coastline to a neighboring settlement or across a gulf, for which way-finding was unnecessary. Another type was the night voyage that relied on stellar navigation. Using stars and constellations to maintain general direction is much like using islands and headlands as landmarks, and this is precisely the way Odysseus was instructed by Calypso to navigate to the island of the Phaeacians (Odyssey 5.270-77). By contrast, the star path steering practiced by the mariners of the South Pacific is tantamount to the creation of a Cartesian map of the heavens, which could be read like a modern road map. Finally, some voyages extended beyond the limits of the maritime world known to the navigator, as for example when a ship was blown off course or when pioneering seafarers ventured into unknown waters. In those situations, the crew had no references at all and were forced to fall back on their experience with landmarks, seamarks, and skymarks to travel safely.
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