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I thought that the MWP ended around 1250 and the little ice age began around 1300, which is roughly when the Vikings abandoned Greenland, no? After 100 years of mini-ice age, it's hard to argue that the routes would have been clear in either the Arctic or Antarctic polar regions.

The Chinese were out and about in the 1420s, no?

So the timing is off by more than 100 years.

If memory serves Herodotus did not say outright that the Phoenicians had circumnavigated Africa. I think he said he didn't belive it, which is why I used the word "suggest." And you are 100% correct on the comment about the Sun on the right, which really suggests that they had done it.

I always thought the African circumnavigation was supposed to have been around 600BC in a clockwise direction. Do you have a reference on that for me? I would love to read more about it. Hanno's mega-road trip was around 450BC if memory serves, and was counterclockwise down to Sierra Leone or so. Did he get any further than that?

jas3

The Chinese were out and about in the 1420s, no? So the timing is off by more than 100 years.

There's plenty in the map to indicate that it was copied from a number of different sources (including non-Chinese sources), so the dating isn't of much concern. :') The Scandinavians really got around when the Arctic was navigable part of the year, at least according to family records of an online buddy.

If memory serves Herodotus did not say outright that the Phoenicians had circumnavigated Africa. I think he said he didn't belive it, which is why I used the word "suggest." And you are 100% correct on the comment about the Sun on the right, which really suggests that they had done it.

He didn't believe the detail about the Sun, but stated the rest of the information as real. Another interesting detail (which is from a different section, if mem serves) is that southern limits to sailing are determined by "shoals", which is suggestive of the frozen seas and floating ice (depending on the time of the year). Herodotus also didn't believe the actual source of the out-of-season Nile flood, calling it the least likely of the three explanations he heard while in Egypt, but reproduced it anyway with his disclaimer.

I always thought the African circumnavigation was supposed to have been around 600BC in a clockwise direction. Do you have a reference on that for me? I would love to read more about it. Hanno's mega-road trip was around 450BC if memory serves, and was counterclockwise down to Sierra Leone or so. Did he get any further than that?

The story in Herodotus is circa 600 BC; the Phoenician pottery at Mogador is at least somewhat older than that, and The Periplus of Hanno describes an expedition that must have antedated the Mogador pottery by a little. That account describes a volcanic eruption before reaching the southern limit of the trip, and that volcano must have been Mount Cameroon.

Hanno was a common name among the Phoenicians and Carthaginians. Another online buddy once posted to me that they didn't have a whole lot of imagination when it came to personal names and family names. :')

I suspect that the circumnavigation of Africa postdates the Hanno jaunt by at least a few years. I also suspect that the reason the Phoenicians were hired for the job by the Pharaoh is that they were already in the Red Sea, involved in trade, and perhaps fishing. While they may have reached the Red Sea via much earlier friendly relations between Tyre and the Kingdom of Israel (Solomon was Hiram's son in law, or something like that), it just seems more likely to me that either they were already there.

In seeking for a specific name for the "Engé-ena," however, Dr. Savage wisely avoided the much misused "Pongo"; but finding in the ancient Periplus of Hanno the word "Gorilla" applied to certain hairy savage people, discovered by the Carthaginian voyager in an island on the African coast, he attached the specific name "Gorilla" to his new ape, whence arises its present well-known appellation. But Dr. Savage, more cautious than some of his successors, by no means identifies his ape with Hanno's "wild men." He merely says that the latter were "probably one of the species of the Orang;" and I quite agree with M. Brulle, that there is no grounds for identifying the modern "Gorilla" with that of the Carthaginian admiral. [http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE7/NatHis.html]

The Periplus provided the modern name of the gorilla, which was discovered (Europeanly speaking) in the 1850s I think.

Was Cameroon active 400 BC? Quite possibly, but I'm not aware of any radiometric dating of coastal flows that could answer the question. I think it is very likely. If this event occurred along the west african coast, there is only one other possibility: it could have come from the volcanic offshore islands such as Sao Tome. [http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/frequent_questions/grp7/africa/question825.html]

However...

In describing a volcanic eruption from a high mountain towering over the sea Hanno mentions such details as sulphuric fumes and streams of lava. The only volcanic area in West Africa is represented by Mount Cameroon, which is still active today... The natives call it Mongana-Loba, “Mountain of the Gods,” which well agrees with the Greek Theon Ochema, “Chariot of the Gods,” of our text. [http://www.metrum.org/mapping/hanno.htm]