Voyage of the Periplus

Hanno the Navigator · 500 BCE – 470 BCE · Earth

Plant colonies and trading posts along the Atlantic coast of Africa.

Historical context

Carthage was the greatest maritime power of the western Mediterranean, planting colonies along its trade routes. Hanno's voyage pushed that expansion beyond the Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic.

The voyage, step by step

1. Sailing from Carthage

   500 BCE

   A fleet of sixty ships carrying colonists and supplies leaves Carthage and passes the Pillars of Hercules.

2. Colonies on the Atlantic coast

   495 BCE

   Trading posts are planted along the Moroccan shore, the first written record of the region.

3. The island of Cerne

   485 BCE

   Hanno reaches an island he names Cerne and hears of the coast beyond.

4. To the edge of the known world

   470 BCE

   The fleet follows the coast as far as the crews dare before turning back.

Outcome

Founded posts as far as the island of Cerne and reported the coast beyond.

Hanno the Navigator

Carthaginian admiral who led a colonising fleet down the Atlantic coast of Africa and left the earliest surviving first-hand account of the region.

Read on Wikipedia

Sources

• Hanno the Navigator — Wikipedia
• Europe Between the Oceans: 9000 BC – AD 1000Barry Cunliffe · Yale University Press · 2008

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