Lux Esoterica (Nifiluz)

The New City of the Phoenicians On the northern coast of Africa, overlooking the blue waters of the Gulf of Tunis, once stood the capital of the most powerful commercial empire of the western Mediterranean. Carthage (known to the Phoenicians as Qart-hadasht , meaning "New City") was founded in the late ninth century before the common era by Phoenician colonists from the city of Tyre. According to the classical history and Roman epics (such as Virgil's Aeneid ), the city was established by the princess Elissa (known in Roman literature as Dido ), who fled from Tyre after her brother, the king Pygmalion, murdered her wealthy husband Acerbas. The legend of the foundation of Carthage is the mystery of the space optimization . When Elissa landed on the coast, she negotiated with the local Berber king Hiarbas to purchase as much land as could be enclosed by a single bull's hide . The king, believing the trade to be trivial, agreed. Elissa, however, cut the bull's...

The Navigator of the Carthaginian Atlantic In the fifth century before the common era, during the golden era of the maritime empire of Carthage, the Carthaginian Senate commissioned a major expedition to explore the northern trade routes of the Atlantic Ocean. Led by the navigator Himilco (contemporary with Hanno the Navigator), the expedition sailed north from the Strait of Gibraltar, exploring the coasts of modern Spain, Portugal, and France, reaching the shores of Britain and the Tin Islands ( Cassiterides ), where the Carthaginians traded for the precious tin necessary to make bronze. The legend of Himilco is the mystery of the carthaginian secrecy . The Carthaginians, who held a monopoly on the Atlantic trade, kept their navigational routes as state secrets, spreading terrifying stories of the ocean to discourage their Greek rivals. Himilco's report, preserved in fragments by the Roman writer Rufus Festus Avienus in his geographical poem Ora Maritima (written in the fourt...

The Navigator of the African South In the fifth century before the common era, during the expansion of the maritime empire of Carthage, the Carthaginian Senate commissioned a major expedition to colonize and explore the west coast of Africa. Led by the suffete Hanno the Navigator , a fleet of sixty ships carrying thirty thousand men and women sailed south from the Strait of Gibraltar. Hanno established several colonies along the coast of modern Morocco, before navigating further south to explore the uncharted tropical coastlines of Senegal, Guinea, and Gabon, returning to Carthage to dedicate a bronze tablet describing the voyage in the Temple of Baal Hammon. The legend of Hanno is the mystery of the geographic encounter . His report, preserved in a Greek translation known as the Periplus of Hanno , described a landscape that was completely foreign to the Mediterranean world: * A river filled with crocodiles and hippopotamuses; * A land where the inhabitants spoke an unknown tongu...