Tyler, I have to contradict you, sorry. Traveling requires that you know the place you are starting from very well, but not where you are going. That is mentioned many times in the book. Rand thought it seemed like the opposite of what it should be, but that is why the Aes Sedai and Asha'man had to spend time learning the ground where they planned to make a gateway from, and it was also mentioned that holding the Power in a place was the quickest way to learn it, because the awareness of surroundings was so heightened.

 

 

There are too many examples of channelers making gateways to places they only knew about but had never visited to list them all. One glaring example was Aviendha making a gateway to Seanchan (much cooler than taking the midnight train going aaannnnywhere). Another was the Asah'man with Perrin making gateways to Malden based on descriptions from Elyas, also jumping around in search of the Shaido.

 

 

In the Age of Legend, we presume that since Traveling was common (based on Rand's Rhuidean glass array revelations), all Aes Sedai had the weave available to learn and that the only ones who would not use it were those too weak in the Power to make it work. Unless we assume that all the weak Aes Sedai lived and all the strong ones died, and there is no reason for that assumption, there was also no reason for the weave to be lost. Aes Sedai survived for many years after the Breaking. Remember also, even the ones too weak (and it seems strength in the Power in the AoL as a whole was greater) they may have known the weave anyway. Look at Sorilea - far too weak to make a functional Gateway, she still was able to demonstrate the weave sufficiently well to Cadsuane for her to learn it immediately! As I recall, Sorilea was too weak to even become Accepted even in Rand's time!

 

 

My final argument is this: even though the White Tower discouraged experimentation with the Power, it beggars the imagination that, having already known of the prior existence of Traveling, cuendillar and other "lost" weaves and Talents, that NO AES SEDAI EVER was able to replicate these techniques! Puh-leeze. It's one thing to invent something new and unknown from the imagination. It is quite another, and FAR easier to deduce how to do something that one knows with absolute certainty has been done before.

 

 

I also refuse to believe that no "modern" Aes Sedai before Pevara and Co. ever thought of using the Oath Rod to remove oaths.

 

 

By the way, the answers to all these questions and more may be found in Book 3, Chapter 7 in the Library Ter'angreal that Elayne found in Ebou Dar AND HAS NEVER HAD THE WIT TO LOOK AT SINCE! This from the woman who can't stand not knowing how to MAKE ter'angreal! (Book 53, Chapter 74 - How to Make Ter'Angreal for Fun and Profit) Hello! Elayne!! Open the Book Ter'angreal, wouldya!

 

 

Augh!

 

 

Ok, I'll get of my soapbox now....

How could Traveling have been lost? Because the ones who knew how to do it died in the breaking. Look at the story of the Jenn Aiel. They and Aes sedai with them simply died off, the only knowledge of what they had done retained in the ter'angreal in Rhuidean. Look at the song that was lost. How can u lose a song? Because they stopped singing it. Look at the portal stones. No one remembers what the symbols mean bacause the werent used for thousands of years. The breaking was an Extinction Level Event. It left cities on the bottom of oceans and others on the top of mountains. Knowledge was lost, way of life was lost, technology was lost. The Aes Sedai, who were already losing the war before the bore was sealed, had to be dwindling. All knowledge of the male weaves died out with madness. Whatever few female Aes Sedai survived the years and years of cataclysm may not have been able to pass the knowledge on. There was no school like the White Tower. Considering the power had caused the breaking, they may not have wanted to pass it on. They may have been shunned. Its quite possible that all the weaves were relearned by women who had the spark and just began channeling after the breaking. As their numbers grew they started the White Tower to preserve and teach what they had learned on their own. Guess we'll never know.