Ancient Explorers: Hanno, Himilco, and Pytheas
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
- Some 2000 years before the Age of Exploration, maritime traders of the Mediterranean had begun spreading their fleets further than ever before, making some of the first recorded journeys to the western coast of Africa, Britain, and the arctic circle. The voyages of Hanno, Himilco and Pytheas are history that deserves to be remembered.
This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As very few images of the actual event are available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.
You can purchase the bow tie worn in this episode at The Tie Bar:
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All events are portrayed in historical context and for educational purposes. No images or content are primarily intended to shock and disgust. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Non censuram.
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Script by JCG
#ancienthistory #thehistoryguy #exploration
I often wonder about the history that was recorded and then lost over time. Had there been a duplicate of the Library of Alexandria we would probably have some amazing discoveries that would show us what treasures were lost when the great library burned.
czcams.com/video/idmP_Kpjo2E/video.html
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel thanks!
The books from Alexandria' library weren't burned. There are evidences that they are hidden in Vatican.
I remember hearing Carl Sagan say if he could go back in time to any one place he would go to the library in Alexandria.
@@georgemalakasis What evidence? The scrolls in the library were burned probably by Julius Caesar in 48 BC, several hundred years before the Vatican was a thing.
For everything we know about ancient times, there are hundreds of more things yet to be discovered and thousands that we will never know.
so much people and their stories just disappeared as they never lived
Ancient Austronaut theorists says "Yes"!
That in a nutshell is why I became a history teacher and life long student! Between all the different civilizations and advancements and stories of adventure and battle I find it nearly impossible to ever feel bored
This Guy brings this and others back to life.
There was another great early explorer - Euthymenes of Massalia (early 6th century B.C.) who also explored the west coast of Africa.
I believe there was probably many other carthaginians and greeks who sailed and traded outside the Mediterranean ocean simply because there was money to be made but these voyages were never recorded or forgotten.
The History Guy never ceases to amaze us.
I agree
In great Ukraine tale amazed by history dude is true da.
You got a mouse in your pocket? Who's "us"?
@@nastybastardatlive "Us" is everybody that isn't them.
@@nastybastardatlive when referring to "us", he was referring to all of us that feel the same way he does. If you don't agree, than it wasn't meant for you. Kind disregard is how best to handle these situations. Especially considering most of us are here because we agree. Hence the amount if likes the comment has.
Thanks for another great episode! It's good that people are paying attention to Carthage now. They were just as interesting as the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.
Phoenician and Carthaginian civilization is extremely awesome, yes.
@@BenGrem917 We need a movie!
I am a proud monthly Patreon supporter of this channel because prior to this video my only reference point was from Spaceship Earth and, “Thank the Phoenicians”. Partner with me this year and grow this channel by picking up some merchandise or supporting THG on Patreon!
Thank you!
"To boldly go where no man has gone before ." - Captain James T. Kirk
"To boldly go where no one has gone before" Jean-Luc Picard. 😄
@@sandybarnes887 Yep, they changed it somewhere along the line to be gender neutral.
With no radio to call for help. These explorers were definitely on their own. Anything goes wrong, and there you are!
@@stevedietrich8936 bingo
James Tiberius Kirk
The loss of knowledge from the Library at Alexandria, such a tragedy. Lost knowledge is always so.
czcams.com/video/idmP_Kpjo2E/video.html
Outstanding history, that needs to be remembered. And taught in schools. ;-)
What they teach now in school is activism
@@kathyyoung1774 Oh, you are soooo right.
and things that aren't taught in school, and those that is omitted, hidden by the shools
Love your videos! Would you please do one on my Great Great Great Great Great Grandfather Lt. Col. Thomas Knowlton?
I believe mankind sailed around this globe well before we give them credit for. How early we may never know but we know that man is a very adventurous Individual and not afraid to explore the world. The history that wasn't written about is way more interesting than the history we know.
It was recently discovered through genetic tests that some of the southwestern Native Americans are part Ainu, the Aboriginal people of northern Japan. That means several thousand years ago an Ainu took a skin boat about 5,000 miles from Japan, and probably ( across some of the wildest seas in the world ) along the Alutian Islands, down the Northwest and California coasts, and then walked inland about 800 miles where he settled with the peoples there I would have liked to have known him.
Very amazing stories of ancient mariners. No GPS but just basic navigational skills.
Al stewart has a song 'Hanno the Navigator' on his 'Sparks of ancient light' album.
You beat me to it! I really enjoy that song.
I love having my mind jogged to remember pieces of history I'd forgotten OR learn new items for further research and learning.
Nice video, i was hoping you would mention:
1. c. 130 BC Eudoxus of Cyzicus exploring Indian Ocean for Ptolemy VIII of Egypt, discovered a shipwreck from Gadiz (Cadiz Spain), that must have come West to east around the Cape of Good Hope. He then tried to circumnavigate Africa E to W, results uncertain. He survived regardless.
Or 2. the Roman 3rd cent ship wreck found off Brazil, which Brazil navy re-buried and then made up a tale to discredit it to preserve their Potugese discoverer Cabral....national pride.
To give a little perspective, Mediterranean ships tend to have a low freeboard, suitable for sailing in the relatively benign conditions of that sea. Sailing beyond the Gibraltar Straits and into Atlantic conditions must have been very difficult and dangerous in such craft.
The one thing they did have was time. Coastal navigation is possible in craft that would seem unsuitable if you chose good weather and stay ashore when it is not.
At first, I also thought that sailing into the Atlantic would have been hazardous, but maybe there is an explanation. Going back in time to when these explorers where sailing, the weather would have been different. The world would have been cooler (closer in time to the last ice age), the ocean levels lower, less storms, less winds and a calmer ocean and seas. Maybe???
You got that right. Perhaps they built ships with a deeper keel and a higher freeboard. And while sticking to the coastline as much as possible is probably what they did, it is not always possible to do so.
Those guys were good sailors, and they had balls of iron.
thanks
In his book Ultima Thule, or, A Summer in Iceland, famed British explorer and linguist Sir Richard Burton, makes the case that Iceland was settled long before the ninth century. When Norsemen came ashore in the 7th century they found a colony of Irish monks, who told them they found a race of men already there when they came.
Astonishingly 2,000 years later, some still think the Earth is flat.
The Flat Earth Society is not made up of people who think the earth is flat. Nobody thinks that. We think that government scientists can’t be trusted. We want to check for ourselves because we know they are lying.
It is flat. Just watch the beginning of Monty Python's documentary The Meaning of Life! : )
Best way to describe it is that we live in a snow globe created by The Most High. Our Realm or our plan of existence is described as his foot stool in scripture.
back in the early 70s i actually dated a girl in high school whos parents named her earth, true story, and well.....yeah
@@moocowdad Lmao.
Might you do a segment on the Ainu who sailed from Northern Japan to California, and then walked inland to Arizona... About 6,000 years ago? What he must have seen! How I would like to have met him!
So, I know you can't comment to ALL of the posts, but I am a subscriber, and listen almost daily to the current or past episodes. I have made several suggestions for future episodes, and even if you don't like them, it would be good to know that. My current suggestion is to look at Julian of Norwich. She was a contemplative in the 1300's during the time of the Black Plague and was one of only a handful of women who were aesthetics, and the first woman to ever be published and we are still reading and learning from her today. BTW the other recommendations I posted were for Thomas Francis Meagher, who led an incredible life from Ireland to Australia as a convict and ended up as an American Statesman, and Grace O'Malley a 16th century Irish pirate who had many adventures, and some of them really even happened. It is perfectly fine if none of these folks strike your fancy, but please respond or change your exit mantra
We appreciate all viewer topic suggestions! But we get so many that we cannot guarantee what will be made into and episode or when. The best was to send a topic suggestion is to email Suggestions@TheHistoryGuy.net
Thank you for the amazing video on a history that needs to be remembered these ancent voyages are important to remember
I've always dream of an undiscovered Carthaginian civilization in south America , descending of Hano's expeditions hehe. Thanks for sharing!
I don't know why we're all so amazed & enthralled; after all- the man has thousands and thousands of years things the draw from!😉
Which man?
Those three are new to me.
Me too, I love this guy
@@dkwilliams9819 he is cool. 😀👍
This is the earliest I've ever been in comment number 74 only 2 hours after you uploaded it it's crazy how special I feel even though you could be anywhere in the world from the Philippines to Denmark God bless CZcams
They also came to America. There are thousands of copper mines near Lake Superior that date to 1800 BC.
Likely not mined by peoples from the Mediterranean. Native Americans have mined various metals and quarried stone in that region for at least the last 5000 years.
They find metal tools left in the mines. Nothing like what Native Americans used.
You always teach me something new.....thanks .....happy holidays
Human nature is to seek the unknown! Truer words were ever spoken.
Thanks! I had never even heard of Pytheas.
I'm a bit confused on Pytheas' journey north. "Pythe s adds that the land had no sunlight in mid-summer, implying that it would be within the Arctic circle." I thought the Arctic was the land of the MIDNIGHT sun, or that the sun never went down in the summer.
We know what he meant.
I don't know how you do it. You always find the greatest stories, of which I have never before heard. Good show, Sir!
Everybody praised explorers like Columbus for their journeys. Yet, The Mediterranean civilizations have been doing this long before the age of discovery began.
I think an important point about the 'Age of Discovery' that differentiates it from the earlier explorers is the initial motivations for doing it.
The Portuguese and Spanish already knew where they wanted to go, and so it was a completely mercantile decision to get around what was essentially a continent sized beseigment blocking trade to the Far East.
So far from curiosity driven 'discovery' or the search for potentially new trading opportunities, the Europeans were trying to reestablish preexisting links as a response to externally applied pressure, causing the Europeans to be popped out onto the unknown oceans like an orange pip squeezed between a finger and thumb.
If that pressure hadn't been there, it may well have taken many more years before Africa was circumnavigated or the Americas found and permanently settled by people of the 'Old World'.
And the Phoenicians, Chinese, Norse, Egyptian, and all the rest,
They were all brave and taking huge chances
Outstanding vid. One might mention the forensic detection of tobacco and cocaine in the mummies of Egyptian pharaohs. If these findings are accurate, then there were trade routes between the Americas and Dynastic Egypt 3,500 years ago. It wouldn't surprise me. We're very enterprising critters. I myself own a Roman coin that was said to have been found in an Indian mound in central Illinois. The mound dated to about 600-800 C.E.
This was my favorite of your work! Thank you.
Would love to hear about other ancient explorers from outside of Europe too!
Thank you!
Never heard of these explorers. Thanks for the forgotten history.
Fascinating. Thank you for making this video.
I think my history teacher covered this I know I've heard it before but always good to rediscover.
One thing to keep in mind about these guys was - they were the ones who _wrote_ about what they did. How many others did similar things - but didn't bother to write it down - or if they did - it was lost?
.
Amazing. One of my favorite episodes
Great video History Guy! Ever since I was a small kid, I've always been enthralled with stories of exploration. I hope to live to see when humans trek across across the surface of Mars. Oh, I know we can see and learn plenty from our robotic explorers in such places, but nothing beats first-person experience!
Thank you for sharing this with me ! Take care , stay safe and healthy with whatever you maybe doing next ! Please have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ! Doing well here in Kansas .
I was fortunate to have sailed most of the world's seas and oceans with the US Navy
Join da navy. Yavn ad noij
Enterprise, Roosevelt and Truman
Thank you for serving my country
@@a3skywarrior929 Semmes, Cape Cod, Kinkaid, Whidbey Island and Wasp.
Cool.... Fair winds and following seas!
I never learned this in school. This is absolutely fascinating to me. Thank you so much!
In the Florida of the Inca, it is said that de Soto's men, in the 1540's
found a tribe perhaps near where Star City, Arkansas is today.
The name of their town was Anno, I believe, and the
people exhibited some of the characteristics of the Phoenicians,
being friendly, aiding in building ships, providing supplies.
(The copper trade from the Great Lakes region reached that far south.)
Not surprisingly, the other tribes tended to be war-like
and pursued the Spaniards in color coordinated canoes
as they fled down the Mississippi River.
Thank you Playboy for such an entertaining peek into History !
Future 8th wonder of the world will be the amount of history the history guy can compress into 15 minutes. Keep this pace up and one day u just might run out of history....
..........😅
Nevermind, I forgot what I was gonna say
.............. oh well, I guess that deserved to be forgotten . Or would forgetted be more accurate here,.............. I cant remember 🤪
Greatest Explorer of all time Bilbo Baggins.
Thank you.
Thanks for all your posts. I love history and truly enjoy the wide range of history you gift us - worth remembering.
Thank you, History Guy, as always! Another great history lesson!
I may have missed it but if you haven’t already you should do an episode about Yi Sun-Sin the Korean admiral who led one of the most impressive naval defenses against the invading Japanese forces. I think the Japanese fleet at 333 ships and he had 13. If I remember correctly he never lost a battle and even his final battle where he was killed he had an amazing quote that were his last words and amazing summed up his genius
Lance, perhaps you could investigate the Natchez civilization in modern Louisiana and Mississippi. There are some who believe these people were a colony of Phoenicians that settled the delta area around the time that Solomon was building the Temple in Jerusalem.
Couldn't help but notice "Oualidia" on the map of Morocco - came as a surprise as it is such a small town which I had the great fortune of visiting in September 2019. A Dutch ancestor was appointed admiral of the port in 1634 and I thought that seeing his residence and ruins of the kasbah was going back in time. Did not know there was anything there that predated that time period. Looks like I'll have to make a return trip.
Always a great way to start the day with The History Guy . Thanks for the continuously incredible content .
Outstanding and very informative video.
From my earliest memories I have always been fascinated by history and have read everything I could get my hands on, but I have never heard of these explorers before. FASCINATING!
I took notes and am intrigued. I look forward to researching this and reading more.
According to chinese chronicles, Emperor Huan of Han received a delegation from the Roman Empire in 166 AD. However, contemporary roman chronicles don't mention this diplomatic mission; therefore it is unlikely, that Emperor Marcus Aurelius knew about this journey. According to the historian Lionel Casson, it's more likely that these romans were just merchants who pretended to be an offfcial delegation in order to gain direct access to the silk trade. Nevertheless, this is an astonishing journey as well.
Roman trade with India (via the Red Sea) was much more frequent than many people believe. There is evidence for several hundred merchant ships (!) travelling to India and back to the egyptian ports on the Red Sea every year. The Romans even produced a map of India, the "tabula peutingeriana", which shows that they knew the river Ganges as well as Ceylon/Sri Lanka (known as "isola taprobane"). There is also evidence for the existence of several small communites of roman merchants on the southwest coast of India. The map even shows a temple of the deified Augustus near Muziris (near modern day Kodungallur in Kerala).
"All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by." - Captain James T. Kirk (not sure who he was quoting)
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54932/sea-fever-56d235e0d871e
@@sandybarnes887 thank you
@@jessiejones6633 you are very welcome. I'm glad I could help. It's a pretty poem.
John Masefield
That's from the poem "Sea Fever" by John Masefield. It was my dad's favorite poem. He learned it in high school.
I love learning from you. thank you
We always assume that those who lived before us weren't capable of much, yet we constantly find out that they accomplished a lot more than we gave them credit for. We are also pushing the timelines back for ancient civilizations. For example,, back in the seventies there was little evidence for Pre-Clovis peoples, but now there is much more. We used to think that the Egyptians, the Indus Valley, or the Mesopotamians were the oldest but now we know of the Jiahu and the people who built Gobleki Tepi and their much older civilizations. I can't wait to see what we find in the next fifty years!!
11:50,... I'm pretty sure that's Bill Clinton sailing that boat....
He was sailing to an island owned by Epstein, ruler of the Kingdom of Pedophelia.
The king known to history for not killing himself.
Or Tony Spilotro
So he went down on the sea in ships?
Creepy
Ha...
I never realized they ventured so far north. 🙂
I love your Christmas bow tie, THG! 🎄💜
Imagine the sheer bravery that making those voyages into the unknown in such primitive vessels must have taken...
I just saw another video about this about a month ago. Very good job as always.
Wow! Thanks for another great video.
The trade in tin, etc. brings up the flourishing civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean and it's subsequent collapse. That would make an interesting video.
Ty for all your lessons. 😇
Very nice overview! Pytheas almost certainly left Masillia and went via established Gaulish trade routes overland to the Bay of Biscay. They had a vague knowledge of the geography, that they lived on land between the Mediterranean, the Western Sea and the Northern Sea. The route up the Rhone and then NW was likely known of by the Massaliotes, though probably not personally experienced by any of them.
Excellent! Great episode
To my knowledge, "thule" means north. I remember coming across that info years ago.
Actually, it does not. The origin of this word is unknown. Perhaps it is a native word adapted to Latin use.
I don’t know if you are a fan of Al Stewart. He’s a rock historian, for lack of a better description, most of whose songs are historically based. He has a song called Hanno the Navagator. One of my favorites.
Please tell me more about this bronze age description of trade in the Senegal region a thousand years before Hanno. I can't find anything about that.
Would you consider doing a video on Frank Scott, the first enlisted service member to be killed in an aviation crash and, subsequently, having a U.S. military air field named after him; today known as "Scott Air Force Base" in Illinois?
The Engineers - Technicians Eupalinos, Sostratos, Heron, Zosimos, Kallinikos, manufactured topographic instruments for trigonometric surveying, automatic mechanisms and instruments.Explorers Skylax, Pytheas, Eudoxus, Strabo, Pausanias, Cosmas Indikopleistis, Hecataeus, had mapped the entire surface of the planet.
and Euhemerus (/juːˈhiːmərəs, -hɛm-/; also spelled Euemeros or Evemerus; Ancient Greek: Εὐήμερος
And there may have been even earlier european seafaring explorers. On the Azores there have been found what appears to be hypogeum, monoliths and wheel ruts that predate the official discovery by as much as 2000 years, if not more. There have been pottery discovered that carbon-14 date to more than 2500 years ago. The Azores are a fair bit out into the Atlantic ocean, so it is a larger feat to sail there than to sail along the coast line. The phoenicians are suspected, but some aspects of the structures there share more with the neolithic cultures of Malta, Sardinia, Corsica etc.
ideas for future videos..watching the video about the japanese escape attempt down other made me think about 3 others in europe durning ww 2. the wooden horse escape which like the great escape took place at stalag 3 (different compound though) both the book and movie were mainly fictional versions of the escape and the author of the book "the wooden horse" was one of the three guys who escaped. the other two were done in board daylight and are mentioned in the book version of the great escape. 20 pows dressed as german soldgers marched out the front gate. the other was where two pows actually noticing a blind spot in the guard towers cut through the fence in board daylight .
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandino_and_Ugolino_Vivaldi
Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi were connected with the first known expedition in search of an ocean way from Europe to India (Cape Route). Ugolino, with his brother Guido or Vandino Vivaldo, was in command of this expedition of two galleys, which he had organized in conjunction with Tedisio Doria, and which left Genoa in May 1291 with the purpose of going to India "by the Ocean Sea" and bringing back useful things for trade. Planned primarily for commerce, the enterprise also aimed at proselytism. Two Franciscan friars accompanied Ugolino. The galleys were well armed and sailed down the Morocco coast to a place called Gozora (Cape Nun), in 28º 47' N., after which nothing more was heard of them. The expedition of the Vivaldi brothers was one of the first recorded voyages that sailed out from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic since the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD
Three interesting lives in the field of Medicine: Howard Taylor Ricketts, Alexandre Yersin, and Wu Lien-Teh, from the heroic age of pathology. Ricketts has an entire order and family of microorganisms named after him -- a distinct earned the hard way. Yersin has streets and parks named after him in Vietnam. Wu establish hospitals and medical education institutes throughout the Far East and earned fame quelling the Manchurian Pneumonic Plague outbreak of 1910.
There was so much tin in England in medieval times and especially in West England. The Welsh are more related to peoples in North Spain and France. Never put that together but it makes sense as far as being a reason for the move.
Another great vid THG
👍🏿
ty sir
Fascinating.
Thyle was six days' sail north of Britain and two days south of the frozen sea.
Funny how they still can’t find where they got the tin. I truly believe ancient people were way better connected than we think as in South America and Africa could have been in contact. The islands, currents, and winds could get you both ways
It took hundreds of years for historians to admit that vikings came to North America long before Columbus discovered the West Indies.
This is another excellent video, but I think the Pythias should be pronounced as Pith-e-us.
It should be noted that this portion of the historical timeline, is while underreported, a continuation of the knowledge from the end of the Bronze Age interregnum circa 1177BCE. It is most likely that the Phoenicians and the trade routes were holdover from the city of Ugarit, as there would have been refugees fleeing the city during the invasion of the Sea Peoples. That trade routes and colonies were set up on 5he eastern Iberian shores, they would have reestablished the Tin trading centers previously known as Levante with Saguntum and Carthage Nova . While there is evidence of Tin from Cornwall, in the shipwrecks off Cyprus, most of the Tin would have originated in Iberia until the Urnfield incursion.
There is evidence of possible contact between Carthage and Amazonia as an iron axe of what seems to be of Carthaginian design has been found in the Amazon river and there is also the “ Bay of Jars “ that are purported to be “Roman Amphora”. In the Amazon delta. Most exploration of coastal locations would be due to the prevailing winds and tides. Although usually depicted as manpowered triremes, ancient mariners were competent in of the use of a Sail as well. While also not well reported by any ship log, any mariner would become aware of when the tides and winds changed to create easier journeys. (Most important for trade) Such changes become more evident at the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn and would have become the basis for such delineations.
Within the social context of the time, such trade most likely either ignored or purposefully embargoed the previous trade routes from the late Bronze Age, thereby creating a wealth disparity that both Italy and Greece had shared a portion. Such embargoes would have caused animosity especially with the rising Roman State and would possibly be the the basis for the “ might makes right” symbolism of the Roman .Fache, the tied bundle of sticks indicating their military power. They leading to the wars between Rome and Carthage..
It is said that the Phoenician mined copper in Michigan as found in archaeological digs in Africa:)
The Phoenicians were not Europeans. Another interesting expedition was made during the reign of Augustus by Tiberius (I do not know if he personally led the expedition). It was probably some sort of intelligence operation to ascertain whether the Cimbrii would be able to join forces with the other Germanic tribes when Germania was to be colonised by Rome. The Cimbrian peninsula being Jutland they sailed around Skagen and down Kattegat (not known by that name for a long time, the name is Dutch). They went ashore and talked to the inhabitans of Jutland (and that was not the name at the time). They would pose no threat to Rome. 3 large islands are mentioned, probably Fyn, Sjælland and Skåne (not an island but ....). A few places are named but cannot be identified (Raunonia I think). The coast have got eroded a lot in those 2000 years.
It turned out that the other Germanic tribes would do nicely without the Cimbrii that the Romans feared so much.
Things get lost in translation... wonder how conversing with the various peoples took place
At spear point would be my guess.
person1 Mmmm that looks tasty
perso2 Mmmm that looks shiny
both exchange their bags and if nobody drops dead in the next minute they're buddies.
Google Translate. :-)
@Peter Rogan thanks for sharing your knowledge. Had channel shut down. When I questioned... upon further review... obviously things are getting lost in the translation even now. I've been ALL over & paying attention to tone of voice & body language have kept me alive several times. Obviously not something google can utilize. Maybe it was my " no man is an island however ifn you lash alot of bodies together they make a pretty good raft" comment ???
Great video.
Apparently, a decent proportion of the copper, that, with tin from Cornwall, went to make the bronze of the Age, came from the huge copper mine at The Great Orm in North Wales.
I’ve read there may have been expeditions from Europe to West Africa and then westward to what we now call South America. When I was in Panama for several years I heard talks from local scholars that stated in northern South America there had been one or more tribes of “Africans” (very dark skinned individuals) whose language included words that appeared to be of Latin origins. By chance are you acquainted with these stories? It would be interesting to hear what you have to say on the matter if you do have any information.
Herodotus also describes another, failed attempt to circumnavigate Africa by a Persian called Sataspes in the 5th century BC. Sataspes was condemned to death for kidnap and rape, but was released on the condition that he undertake a voyage of discovery around Africa. He was supposed to sail West from Persia and return via the Arabian gulf, or not at all. He claimed to have reached southern Africa and encountered "small people who wore clothes made of palm leaves" who ran away when he approached (probably a wise move). However, he gave up after that, claiming that his ship couldn't go any further, and returned to Persia. Having failed his mission, Xerxes had him impaled for his earlier crimes.
Thank you, never knew about that but at the same time it really doesn't come as a surprise. There are 2 traits that make humans unique among all the species of Earth. We are curious and also we are restless, and that is how humans have come to inhabit every corner of the globe. It is those 2 qualities that will one day enable us to travel to the stars! (if we don't blow ourselves up first)
There's a version of Hanno the Navigator in the outstanding scifi novel The Boat Of A Million Years by Poul Anderson. Highly recommended for anyone who likes both history and scifi.
Topic suggestion: the history of birthday cakes... Perhaps even how we got to know the American birthday cake
Great stuff. Love these videos.