Everything about Hanno The Navigator totally explained
Hanno the Navigator was a
Carthaginian explorer who flourished c.
450 BC. He was most well known for his naval exploration of the
African
coast.
Etymology
This Hanno is called
the Navigator to distinguish him from a number of other
Carthaginians with this name, including the perhaps more prominent, though later,
Hanno the Great. See
Hanno for others of this name. The name Hanno (
Annôn) means "merciful" or "mild" in
Punic - similar to the arabic name "Hanan" (حنان) with the same meaning, the
Hebrew name "Hanan" (חנן), still used in present-day
Israel, and to the
Lebanese Hanna, ("حنا") still used in
Lebanon today.
Expedition
As Warmington states Carthage dispatched Hanno at the head of a fleet of sixty ships to explore and
colonize the west coast of
Africa. He sailed through the
straits of Gibraltar, founded or repopulated seven colonies along the African coast of Morocco, and explored significantly further along the Atlantic
coast of the
continent. Hogan cites the visit of Hanno to
Mogador, where the Phoenicians established an important
dye manufacturing plant using a marine
gastropod found in the local
Atlantic Ocean waters. Hanno encountered various
indigenous peoples on his journey and met with a variety of welcomes.
On the
island which formed the terminus of his
voyage the
explorer found it heavily populated with what were described as
hirsute and
savage people. Attempts to capture the males failed, but three of the females were taken. These were so vicious they were killed, and their skins preserved for transport home to Carthage. The interpreters called them
gorillas, which has provided the
etymology for the
species name.
Periplus account
The primary source for the account of Hanno's expedition is a Greek translation, titled
Periplus, of a tablet Hanno is reported to have hung up on his return to Carthage in the temple of
Ba'al Hammon whom Greek writers identified with
Chronus (also known as Chronos). The full title translated from Greek is
The Voyage of Hanno, commander of the Carthaginians, round the parts of Libya beyond the Pillars of Heracles, which he deposited in the Temple of Chronos. This was known to
Pliny the Elder and
Arrian, who mentions it at the end of his
Anabasis of Alexander VIII (Indica):
» "Moreover, Hanno the Libyan started out from
Carthage and passed the
Pillars of Heracles and sailed into the outer Ocean, with Libya on his port side, and he sailed on towards the east, five-and-thirty days all told. But when at last he turned southward, he fell in with every sort of difficulty, want of water, blazing heat, and fiery streams running into the sea."
This account's factual dependability has been both questioned and defended (see link). Both Harden and Warmington quote this account in English translation. Warminton suggests that difficulties in reconciling the account's specific details with present geographical understanding are consistent with classical reports of Carthaginian determination to maintain sole control of trade into the Atlantic.
» "This report was the object of criticism by some ancient writers, including the
Pliny the Elder, and in modern times a whole literature of scholarship has grown up around it. The account is incoherent and at times certainly incorrect, and attempts to identify the various places mentioned on the basis of the sailing directions and distances almost all fail. Some
scholars resort to textual emendations, justified in some cases; but it's probable that what we've before us is a report deliberately edited so that the places couldn't be identified by the competitors of Carthage. From everything we know about Carthaginian practice, the resolute determination to keep all knowledge of and access to the western markets from the Greeks, it's incredible that they'd have allowed the publication of an accurate description of the voyage for all to read. What we've is an official version of the real report made by Hanno which conceals or falsifies vital information while at the same time gratifying the pride of the Carthaginians in their achievements. The very purpose of the voyage, the consolidation of the route to the gold market, isn't even mentioned."
Modern analysis of Hanno's route
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.
Harden states there's general consensus that the
expedition reached at least as far as
Senegal. There seems some agreement that he could have reached
Gambia. However, Harden mentions lack of agreement as to precisely where to locate the furthest limit of Hanno's explorations:
Sierra Leone,
Cameroon,
Gabon. He notes the description of the
Cameroon Mountain, a 13,370 foot
volcano, more closely matches Hanno's description than Guinea's 2910 foot Mt. Kakulima. Warmington prefers Mount Kakulima, considering
Mount Cameroon too distant.
The controversial amateur
epigrapher Barry Fell claimed that Hanno had crossed the
Atlantic Ocean and explored
North America (see:
Bourne Stone).
Earlier Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa
Herodotus recorded a
circumnavigation of "
Libya", by an expedition of Phoenicians sent out by "the
Egyptian king"
Necho II (606-593
BC), one of two seventh-century kings of the
26th Saite Dynasty » "with orders to sail west about and return to Egypt and the Mediterranean by way of the Straits of Gibraltar. The Phoenicians sailed from the
Arabian gulf (Red Sea) into the
southern ocean, and every autumn put in at some convenient spot on the Libyan coast, sowed a patch of ground, and waited for next year's harvest..."
Herodotus himself discounted this story on account of the assertion that the Phoenicians had the sun to the north of them as they passed along the southern part of the continent. As Harden comments, this very claim has most modern scholars accepting that Phoenicians did circumnavigate Africa. In modern times a Phoenician sailing vessel was found in the area of the "Cape Flats" found off the South African city of Capetown.
In fiction
The
Science Fiction book
The Boat of a Million Years by
Poul Anderson depicts the wide-ranging adventures of several secret
immortals (for example they never grow old, though they could be killed). A central protagonist is a Phoenician/Carthaginian named Hanno.
In the book, this Hanno is never conclusively identified with the Hanno the Navigator in the
Periplus. At some point Hanno refers to him as his "namesake", but in the context of the book, where the fictional Hanno is secretly immortal and where he's often deliberately ambiguous and evasive about his past, this isn't conclusive to identify him as a different Hanno. The character does mention starting off in the earlier Phoenician expedition sent to circumnavigate Africa via
Egypt as described by
Herodotus, but leaving it soon after the expedition set off, never learning of its true fate.
Further Information
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