The Legend of the Voyage of Hanno the Navigator: The Carthaginian Exploration of the West African Coast, the Wild Gorillas, and the Mountain of Fire
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...