Age of Discovery: Definition
The Age of Discovery, also called the Age of Exploration, is the period from the first half of the 15th century to the mid-17th century. Portugal and Spain led it. Their goal was to find alternative trade routes.
Turkish historians call it Coğrafi Keşifler, “Geographical Discoveries.” The word “discovery” is a European point of view. Many of these lands already had people living in them. Some historians use “exploration” instead, and this article uses both terms.
The question this article asks is simple. Why did Europe’s sailors cross the oceans first? And what happened to the Ottomans, who ruled the eastern end of the old trade routes?
Why Europe Took to the Seas
No single cause explains it. Several pressures worked together.
Spices and middlemen. In the 15th century, European merchants wanted to buy Asian spices closer to where they were produced. Every middleman added to the price. A sea route that cut out intermediaries would lower costs.
Gold and silver. Europe paid for Asian goods in gold and silver. It needed new sources of both. This was one reason the Portuguese turned toward the coasts of West Africa.
Religion and rivalry. Spreading Christianity was a stated aim of the 15th- and 16th-century voyages. It worked alongside rulers’ wish to gain land, resources and an edge over rivals. Faith and politics were tied together.
Ships and sails. Fifteenth-century European sailors borrowed maritime technology from outside Europe. One example is the triangular lateen sail. It made their ships easier to maneuver.
Geography. At the start of the 15th century Portugal faced the Atlantic. It had natural harbors and access to the African coast. That gave it a head start on overseas voyages.
There is also a detail many people get wrong. The Portuguese began systematic exploration of Africa’s Atlantic coast in 1418, with the backing of Prince Henry the Navigator. That is before Istanbul fell to the Ottomans in 1453. So the push to the sea did not start as a reaction to that event.
Age of Discovery Timeline
Here is the sequence, with the Ottoman events placed alongside the European ones.
- 1418: The Portuguese begin systematic exploration of Africa’s Atlantic coast.
- 1488: Bartolomeu Dias rounds the southern tip of Africa.
- 12 October 1492: Christopher Columbus reaches new lands across the Atlantic.
- 1494: The Treaty of Tordesillas is signed.
- 20 May 1498: Vasco da Gama reaches Calicut.
- 1513: Piri Reis prepares his world map.
- 1517: The Ottomans conquer Egypt.
- 1521: Piri Reis’s Kitab-ı Bahriye is prepared.
- 6 September 1522: The Victoria returns to Spain, completing the first circumnavigation.
- 1532: The resources for a planned Ottoman expedition to India are diverted to other fronts.
- 1538: Hadım Süleyman Pasha launches the expedition to Diu.
- 1552: Piri Reis’s Hormuz expedition fails to end Portuguese control.
- 1565: The Manila–Acapulco trade link opens.
- 1760s–1820s: Some historians call this a second great age of European exploration.
Age of Discovery Explorers and Their Routes
Bartolomeu Dias sailed around the southern tip of Africa in 1488. His voyage showed that ships could pass from the Atlantic into the Indian Ocean.
Christopher Columbus reached the lands he found on 12 October 1492. They were not India. Europeans later understood them to belong to a separate continent.
Vasco da Gama left Lisbon in July 1497. His fleet rounded Africa and reached the Indian port of Calicut on 20 May 1498. That was the sea route to India that Portugal had been seeking.
The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) divided Spain’s and Portugal’s overseas claims. The line was a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.
Magellan’s expedition ended with the Victoria’s return to Spain on 6 September 1522. Only 18 of the original crew had completed the first voyage around the world.
Age of Exploration: Where Did It Happen?
It happened in four main arenas:
- The Atlantic coast of Africa, where the Portuguese began in 1418.
- The Atlantic crossing, where Columbus reached new lands in 1492.
- The Indian Ocean, which Portuguese ships entered after Dias and da Gama.
- The Pacific, linked by the Manila–Acapulco connection, opened in 1565.
That last link joined Pacific and Atlantic routes. It created a trade chain between China, the Americas and Europe.
Age of Discovery and Globalization
The voyages tied continents together, and not only through trade.
After 1492 came the Columbian Exchange. Plants, animals and diseases crossed the Atlantic. So did enslaved people, beliefs and cultural practices. The exchange was not a fair trade between equals. Some of what moved was deadly.
Here is the everyday link. Think of the spices on your kitchen shelf. Europeans wanted exactly this kind of Asian spice in the 15th century. Cutting out the middlemen who raised its price helped drive the first ocean routes.
The Indian Ocean was not simply taken over, either. In the 16th century Portugal held the upper hand on the link between Europe and the Indian Ocean. Even so, Indian, African and Middle Eastern merchants kept trading within the ocean.
Why the Ottomans Fell Behind: A Contested Question
The popular story says the Ottomans simply missed the age of oceans. The evidence is more complicated.
What the Ottomans did
In 1517, Sultan Selim I conquered Egypt. This put the Ottoman state in direct contact with the Indian Ocean trade world.
The Ottoman administration then struggled against Portuguese expansion in the 16th century. Its aim was to keep open the trade routes between the spice-producing regions and the eastern Mediterranean ports.
Hadım Süleyman Pasha’s 1538 expedition to Diu was one of the main Ottoman naval operations against the Portuguese military presence in India. Piri Reis led another in 1552. It did not end Portuguese control of Hormuz, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.
Ottoman sailors also produced knowledge. Piri Reis’s 1513 world map combined eastern and western sources. It was rediscovered in 1929 in the Topkapı Palace Library. His 1521 Kitab-ı Bahriye is an Ottoman maritime work containing many maps.
What held them back
Historians point to several limits.
- Shipbuilding at Suez. The Ottoman shipyard at Suez lacked easily available timber and other shipbuilding materials.
- The wrong ships for the ocean. Philip MacDougall notes that galleys and other oared ships were used heavily in the 1538–1553 campaigns. They suited the Red Sea better. In the open ocean they suffered heavy losses, both to Portuguese ships and to natural conditions.
- Other fronts. An Indian expedition planned for 1532 was postponed twice. First, supplies were moved to the Mediterranean for a German campaign. Then the commander was called away to an Iraq campaign with Egypt’s treasury.
Two historians, two answers
Svat Soucek argues that the Ottoman withdrawal from the Indian Ocean was not mainly a technical impossibility. He sees the core problem as missing will. The empire did not build a lasting naval policy or a strong merchant fleet.
Giancarlo Casale disagrees. In his 2010 study, he argues that the Ottomans were active participants in the Age of Discovery. In Indian Ocean politics, he says, they could outdo the Portuguese through naval power, dynastic prestige and commercial skill.
The honest conclusion is that “falling behind” is not a settled fact with one cause. The two views can be read side by side.
Details You Won’t Find in Guidebooks
- Only 18 returned. When the Victoria reached Spain in 1522, just 18 members of the original crew had completed the first trip around the world.
- A map that sat in a library. Piri Reis’s 1513 map was rediscovered in the Topkapı Palace Library only in 1929.
- A pass for the sea. In the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese expected merchant ships to buy a pass called a cartaz. Ships without one risked attack and seizure of their cargo.
- A plan postponed twice. The Ottoman expedition to India planned for 1532 never left. Supplies were redirected, and the commander was called to Iraq.
Age of Discovery Maps and Books
For a map, start with Piri Reis. His 1513 world map is an Ottoman work that merges eastern and western sources. If you visit Istanbul, the Topkapı Palace Library is where it was found in 1929. His Kitab-ı Bahriye of 1521 contains many more maps.
For a book, read Giancarlo Casale’s The Ottoman Age of Exploration. Oxford University Press published it on 28 January 2010. It examines the Ottoman–Portuguese rivalry. For the counterargument, read Svat Soucek’s article on Ottoman naval policy in the Indian Ocean.
You can also follow the later story. In a 2013 academic chapter, Peter Boomgaard treats the era of Cook and Bougainville, roughly the 1760s to 1820s, as a second great European age of exploration, separate from the first one of the 15th to 17th centuries.
FAQ
What is the Age of Discovery?
It is the period from the first half of the 15th century to the mid-17th century. Portugal and Spain led the search for alternative trade routes.
Did the Ottomans take part in the Age of Discovery?
Yes. They fought the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, for example at Diu in 1538. Giancarlo Casale argues they were active participants. Svat Soucek stresses that they lacked a steady naval policy.
Did Columbus reach India?
No. On 12 October 1492 he reached lands that people later understood were not India. Europeans came to see them as a separate continent.
Where can you see Piri Reis’s map?
The 1513 world map was rediscovered in 1929 in the Topkapı Palace Library in Istanbul.
Sources
- Türkçe Vikipedi — Coğrafi keşifler tr.wikipedia.org
- Oxford University Press — European Exploration, Perception of the Other, and the Columbian Exchange learninglink.oup.com
- Rice University OpenStax — Crossing the Atlantic openstax.org
- English Wikipedia — Age of Discovery en.wikipedia.org
- TÜBİTAK Sosyal Bilimler Ansiklopedisi — Keşifler ansiklopedi.tubitak.gov.tr
- The Geography of Transport Systems — Early European Maritime Expeditions transportgeography.org
- UNESCO — Piri Reis World Map, Memory of the World nomination media.unesco.org
- Ministry of Culture and Tourism — Map of Piri Reis ktb.gov.tr
- Oxford University Press — The Ottoman Age of Exploration (Casale) academic.oup.com
- Encyclopaedia Iranica — Portugal i. Relations with Persia in the Early Modern Age iranicaonline.org
- Philip MacDougall — Islamic Seapower during the Age of Fighting Sail cambridge.org
- Svat Soucek — Ottoman Naval Policy in the Indian Ocean makale.isam.org.tr
- Palomar College — European Exploration and Conquest pressbooks.palomar.edu
Image: Age of Discovery explorations in Arabic.png — Bassem Fleifel, CC BY-SA 4.0
