Grove Koger

Hanno the Navigator was a Carthaginian seaman living in the fifth century BCE, and what little we know about him we know in a tenuous, roundabout way.

According to Roman author Pliny the Elder (c.23-79), Hanno hung a report in a temple in Carthage (in what’s now Tunisia) of a voyage he had taken down the Atlantic coastline of Africa. Beside his report, he hung three skins, a detail we’ll get back to later. The Navigator’s text was subsequently copied about 400 BCE in an inscription in another Carthaginian temple, and then translated into Greek and copied during the Middle Ages in two Byzantine manuscripts, Codex Palatines Graeus 398 and Codex Vatopedinus 655. Next, Swiss polymath Conrad Gessner translated the text into Latin in 1559. Along the way, portions of the narrative have been lost and others may have been corrupted, but in any case, it’s been given the title Periplus, which means “coastal voyage.”

Hanno’s mission apparently involved colonization as well as trade, and was probably based on at least some previous knowledge of the coast, as he is said to have sailed with a fleet of 60 penteconters (50-oared ships) and some 30,000 men and women. While these numbers may well be exaggerated, they certainly suggest a large expedition. The Navigator apparently established several settlements on the coast of what’s now Morocco, including Thymiaterion (Kenitra or Mehidy, at 34°15’N; that is, north latitude) and Acra (possibly Agadir, at 30°25’N). The river he refers to as the Lixos may have been the Drâa, which flows into the Atlantic opposite the Canary Islands at 28°45’N.

Hanno probably ventured farther south. But just how far? There’s speculation that he may have reached the Gambia River (13°28’N), south of which the African coastline shifts noticeably to the southeast. It’s at this point that we need to consider two tantalizing mysteries in the text of the Periplus.

In Section 13 of the work, as translated by Wilfred H. Schoff in 1913, we read that Hanno’s ships “came to an immense opening of the sea, from either side of which there was level ground inland; from which at night we saw fire leaping up on every side at intervals, now greater, now less.” Fire shows up again in Section 15, where the expedition “passed by a burning country full of fragrance, from which great torrents of fire flowed down to the sea. But the land could not be come at for the heat.” In the next section, the ships “sailed along with all speed, being stricken by fear.” After rowing four more days, the Carthaginians “saw the land at night covered with flames. And in the midst there was one lofty fire, greater than the rest, which seemed to touch the stars. By day this was seen to be a very high mountain, called ‘chariot of the Gods.’”

This “chariot” could have been Mount Cameroon, which lies at 4°13’N near the Gulf of Guinea in what’s now the nation of Cameroon. It’s known in the local dialect as Mongo ma Ndemi, or “Mountain of Greatness.” At 13,435 feet high, it’s easily the highest point in the region. And it’s an active volcano. In fact, it’s part of a chain of volcanic islands nearly a thousand miles long known as the Cameroon Line that includes the islands of Bioko, Príncipe, São Tomé (which lies practically on the equator), and Annobón (Pagalu).

Another mystery involves the skins that Hanno hung up beside his report. The final section of his report refers to an island with a lake, within which there is another island “full of savage men. There were women too, in even greater number.” These savages had “hairy bodies,” and although the men escaped “by climbing the steep places and defending themselves with stones,” the Carthaginians “took three of the women,” whom they killed and skinned when the creatures “bit and scratched” and “would not follow.” In his translation, Schoff refers to these creatures as “Gorillæ,” but the animals we call gorillas don’t throw stones. On the other hand, chimpanzees do, and one population of the apes is found in West Africa just south of the Gambia River. Two others can be found near Mount Cameroon.

Taken together, these clues suggest that Hanno’s fleet may have reached the westernmost point of the African continent, which lies just north of the Gambia River, or even approached the equator. On the other hand, most modern authorities doubt that the Navigator’s fleet could have returned if it had sailed past Cape Bojador (at 26°7’N), as the currents and winds would have been against them. Although the Carthaginian ships were equipped with fifty oars apiece, rowing against the currents for any distance would have been a Herculean task.

Making our analysis even more difficult, Hanno may have altered the descriptions of the places he visited in order to throw off competing traders from other countries. We’ll probably never know the real extent of his travels, but—based on the clues in the Periplus—it seems likely that he or his fellow countrymen possessed at least fragmentary knowledge of tropical Africa.

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The quotations in today’s post are taken from The Periplus of Hanno; A Voyage of Discovery down the West African Coast, by a Carthaginian Admiral of the Fifth Century B.C.; The Greek Text, with a Translation by Wilfred H. Schoff (Philadelphia: Commercial Museum, 1913). Surprisingly little about Hanno has been published in English; the most useful source I’ve found is the book Carthage: A History, by French historian and archaeologist Serge Lancel, translated by Antonia Nevill and published by Blackwell in 1995.

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The image at the top of today’s post is a 1754 map illustrating Hanno’s possible route down the coast of West Africa, with the island of São Tomé shown, slightly out of its true position, on the equator. The second image shows a Phoenician ship on a coin minted during the reign of King Tennes of Sidon, who ruled in the 4th century BCE. (Carthage was originally a Phoenician colony.) The third is an 1893 wood engraving of the mouth of the Drâa River, while the fourth is a map of the Cameroon line, reproduced from Wikipedia under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.2.