The Four or More Winds Trivia Quiz

Answer: China

Records of magnet compasses being used first appear during the Han Dynasty between the second century BC and the first century AD. Lodestone, the naturally-occurring magnet used, however was known to the Ancient Greeks as early as the sixth century BC. The word 'lodestone' comes from Middle English and means 'course or leading stone'.

Answer: Geomancy

One meaning of geomancy is the auspicious arrangement of buildings. There is a 2,000 year old literary reference to the Chinese using a 'south-pointing' spoon for this purpose however this is possibly trumped by a theory that the Olmecs of present-day Mexico were doing similar things a thousand years before that.

Answer: Desert

The Hebrew world was centred on Judea with the Negev desert lying to the south.

It is theorised that ancient settled peoples probably started off with geographical features as a way of marking directions. The Hebrew bible fits with this theory, using saphon (Mount Zaphon, lying to the north of Judea), kedem (possibly the red sandstone cliffs of Edom to the east), negev (the desert to the south) and yam (meaning 'sea', in other words the Mediterranean Sea, to the west).

Answer: Homer

The Ancient Greeks started with two distinct systems, however they settled down to a wind-based system. Homer used four winds - Boreas, Eurus, Notos, Zephyrus for north, east south and west respectively - although some believe vagueness in his writings implied six winds. These were more of meteorological than navigational use.

Hippocrates worked with four winds but based their names on the directions they came from. Aristotle promoted a version with ten winds on an asymmetric compass rose in his treatise 'Meteorology', and Timosthenes turned this into a symmetrical twelve-wind compass rose.

Answer: Athens

The Horologion of Andronikos Kyrrhestes is a twelve-metre tall marble octagonal clock tower standing in the Roman Agora in Athens. Also known informally as Aerides (Greek for 'winds'), it was built as a time-piece around 50 BC (or possibly as early as 200 BC) and featured a water clock, sun dials and a triton-shaped weather vane.

By this time, the number of winds in the compass rose had dropped to eight, hence the number of sides to the building. Eight wind deities are depicted in a frieze around the top.

Answer: Fish species

Although distribution of fish species varies across the Pacific, it does not particularly help with navigation. Celestial navigation is simpler around the equator with the stars rising and setting at known compass points. Island chains and groups have predictable effects on wave and swell patterns and can be used for navigation. Migrating birds tend to go to specific destinations so, for example, the long-tailed cuckoo (Eudynamis taitensis) could be used to navigate between Tahiti and New Zealand.

Answer: Arab

Arab navigators developed a variety of tools to support their use of celestial navigation. They made use of the magnetic compass and the kamal, a simple tool which allowed the calculation of latitude, from the late ninth century.

Answer: Iceland

Several mediaeval Icelandic texts mention the sunstone. Two allegorical texts describe its use, however modern attempts to replicate the technique using the light-polarising properties of Icelandic spar (which is believed to be the sunstone) have given mixed results. Icelandic spar, a transparent form of crystallised calcium carbonate, could also be used as a sundial.

Answer: Fleur-de-lis

They have all been used however the fleur-de-lis quickly took over after being introduced by Pedro Reinal around 1504. Many old Mediterranean compass roses used to have a Christian cross at Levante, the wind depicting East. This showed the direction of Jerusalem.

Answer: Meteorologists

In its modern form, the wind rose is a graphical tool to show the wind directions, strengths and frequency for a particular location. Such plots are made typically when looking at the potential location of an aircraft runway.