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The Phoenicians | This is so exciting!

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In his Histories, Herodotus writes,

The Phoenicians took their departure from Egypt by way of the Erythraean [Red] Sea, and so sailed into the southern ocean. When autumn came, they set ashore … and having sown a tract of land with corn, waited until the grain was fit to cut. … And thus it came to pass that two years went by, and it was not until the third year that they doubled the Pillars of Hercules, and made their voyage home. Once there, they declared– I for my part do not believe them, but perhaps others may– that in sailing around Libya [Africa] they had the sun upon their right hand.

The three lines I have penciled in are, from north to south, Tropic of Cancer, Equator, Tropic of Capricorn. The Tropic of Cancer represents the most northern latitude at which the mid-day sun would ever be directly overhead. Anyone living in the ancient Mediterranean societies would know that if you travel from east to west, the sun will always be in the south, or on your left hand, because those societies were north of the Tropic of Cancer (and certainly north of the equator).

To have the sun on your right hand, you must be traveling east to west, south of the Tropic of Capricorn.

There’s plenty more evidence of this besides Herodotus’ report. The point is Africa was circumnavigated around 600 BC, long before Vasco de Gama (1497 AD).

Now, you may ask why– the Phoenicians being exceedingly excellent sailors– it took so long? Why make two stops to plant grain and wait for it to be harvested?

Because the Phoenicians were a very private people. Though they were traders, they did not reveal to their trading partners anything about their other partners. Nor did they tell anyone of their own trading routes. It was the Egyptians who had originally wanted to find a way to sail from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Stopping was stalling. By the time they returned no one believed them, and no one cared anymore. It was brilliant!