Hanno the Navigator

While the power of Carthage was at its height, Hanno published an account of a voyage which he made from Gades [modern Cádiz] to the extremity of Arabia; Himilco was also sent, about the same time, to explore the remote parts of Europe.

— Pliny the Elder, The Natural History 2.67[13]

Pliny may have recorded the time vaguely because he was ignorant of the actual date.[7]

Arrian mentions Hanno's voyage at the end of his Anabasis of Alexander VIII (Indica):

Hannon the Libyan set out from Carthage with Libya on his left and sailed out beyond the Pillars of Heracles into the Outer Sea, continuing his voyage then in an easterly direction for a total of thirty-five days: but when he eventually turned south he met a number of crippling obstacles—lack of water, burning heat, streams of lava gushing into the sea.

— Arrian, Indica 43.11–12[14]

Herodotus, writing around 430 BC, described Carthaginian trade on the Moroccan coast (Histories 4.196[15]), though it is doubtful whether he was aware of Hanno's voyage itself.[7]

At the terminus of Hanno's voyage, the explorer found an island heavily populated with what were described as hirsute (hairy) and savage people. Attempts to capture the men failed, but three of the women were taken. These were so ferocious that they were killed, and their skins preserved for transport home to Carthage. The skins were kept in the Temple of Juno (Tanit or Astarte) on Hanno's return and, according to Pliny the Elder, survived until the Roman destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, some 350 years after Hanno's expedition.[10][17] The interpreters travelling with Hanno called the people Gorillai (in the Greek text Γόριλλαι).

[W]e arrived at a bay called HORN OF THE SOUTH. And in this bay was an island which looked like the first, having a lake and in it another island filled with wild savages. The biggest number of them were females, with hairy bodies, which our [Lixitae] [prior brackets in original; also called the Nasamonians, a Libyan tribe] interpreters called "Gorillas". Chasing them, we could not catch any of the males, because all of them escaped by being able to climb steep cliffs and defending themselves with whatever was available; but we caught three females who bit and scratched their captors and they did not want to follow them. So we had to kill them and flayed them and we brought their skins to Carthage[.]

— Hanno, Periplus 88–99[18]

Thomas S. Savage and Jeffries Wyman, who described gorillas in the 19th century, named the species Troglodytes gorilla. They thought that the Gorillai were a species of ape.[19]

A number of modern scholars have commented upon Hanno's voyage. In many cases, the analysis has been to refine information and interpretation of the original account. William Smith points out that the complement of personnel totalled 30,000, and that the core mission included the intent to found Carthaginian (or in the older parlance 'Libyophoenician') towns.[20] Some scholars have questioned whether this many people accompanied Hanno on his expedition, and suggest 5,000 is a more accurate number.[10] R. C. C. Law notes that "It is a measure of the obscurity of the problem that while some commentators have argued that Hanno reached the Gabon area, others have taken him no further than southern Morocco."[4]

Harden reports a general consensus that the expedition reached at least as far as Senegal.[21] Due to the vagueness of the periplus, estimates for the voyage's distance range from under 700 miles (1,100 km) to at least 3,000 miles (4,800 km).[22] Some agree he could have reached Gambia. However, Harden mentions disagreement as to the farthest limit of Hanno's explorations: Sierra Leone, Cameroon, or Gabon. He notes the description of Mount Cameroon, a 4,040-metre (13,250 ft) volcano, more closely matches Hanno's description than Guinea's 890-metre (2,920 ft) Mount Kakulima. Warmington prefers Mount Kakulima, considering Mount Cameroon too distant.[23]

The historian Raymond Mauny, in his 1955 article "La navigation sur les côtes du Sahara pendant l'antiquité", argued that the ancient navigators (Hannon, Euthymène, Scylax, etc.) could not have sailed south in the Atlantic farther than Cape Bojador. He pointed out that antique geographers knew of the Canary Islands but nothing further south. Ships with square sails, without stern rudder, might navigate south, but the winds and currents throughout the year would prevent the return trip from Senegal to Morocco. Oared ships might be able to achieve the return northward, but only with very great difficulties. Mauny assumed that Hanno did not get farther than the Drâa. He attributed artifacts found on Mogador Island to the expedition described in the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax and notes that no evidence of Mediterranean trade further south had yet been found. The author ends by suggesting archaeological investigation of the islands along the coast, such as Cape Verde, or the île de Herné (Dragon Island near Dakhla, Western Sahara) where ancient adventurers may have been stranded and settled.[24]

• Arrian (2013). Alexander the Great: The Anabasis and the Indica. Translated by Hammond, Martin. Oxford World's Classics. ISBN 978-0-19-958724-7.
• Hanno (1977). Periplus, or Circumnavigation (of Africa). Translated by Oikonomides, Al. N. (2nd ed.). Chicago: Ares Publishers. ISBN 978-0-89005-217-4.
• Harden, Donald Benjamin (1963) [1962]. Daniel, Glyn (ed.). The Phoenicians. Ancient Peoples and Places (2nd ed.). New York: Frederick A. Praeger.
• Herodotus. Herodotus, With an English Translation. Translated by Godley, Alfred Denis. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press – via Perseus Digital Library.
• Hoyos, Dexter (2010). The Carthaginians. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-43645-8.
• Huss, Werner (1985). Geschichte der Karthager [History of the Carthaginians]. Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft (in German). Munich: C.H. Beck. ISBN 978-3-406-30654-9.
• Law, R. C. C. (1978). "North Africa in the period of Phoenician and Greek colonization, c. 800 to 325 BC". In Fage, John Donnelly; Oliver, Roland Anthony (eds.). The Cambridge History of Africa. 2. Cambridge University Press. pp. 87–147. ISBN 978-0-521-21592-3.
• Mauny, Raymond (1955). "La navigation sur les côtes du sahara pendant l'antiquité" [The Navigation on the Coasts of the Sahara during Antiquity]. Revue des Études Anciennes (in French). Bordeaux Montaigne University. 57 (1): 92–101. doi:10.3406/rea.1955.3523.
• Murray, Hugh (1844). An Encyclopædia of Geography (2nd ed.). London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
• Pliny the Elder (1855). The Natural History. Translated by Bostock, John; Riley, Henry Thomas. London: Taylor and Francis – via Perseus Digital Library.
• Savage, Thomas Staughton; Wyman, Jeffries (December 1847). "Notice of the External Characters and Habits of Troglodytes gorilla, a New Species of Orang from the Gaboon River". Boston Journal of Natural History. Boston Society of Natural History. 5 (4): 417–442.
• Schmitz, Leonhard (1867). "Hanno". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. 2. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. pp. 346–347.
• Warmington, Brian Herbert (1960). Carthage. New York: Frederick A. Praeger.