The relation of Hanno's voyage is a fine fragment of antiquity. - Montesquieu Welcome to Hanno's Periplus On the Web , a directory of pages about the explorer Hanno of Carthage and his African expedition. This site was created in April, 2000, and was originally separate from the other "Small Classical Sites." New entries are marked . Email feedback to [email protected]. Submissions, comments and corrections encouraged. Tim Spalding Brookline, MA (USA)  All material © 2000-2004 Tim Spalding.

Translations | Discussions | Academic | Literary Echoes | Nationalists and Nuts | Other | General Discovery Links

Translations

Translation of the Periplus by Jona Lendering together with much commentary . The most comprehensive site online.

Web Archive: Phoenicia.com's translation of the Periplus (unknown author) and material on other Carthaginian seamen. Researched by Salim George Khalaf.

Web Archive: The Voyage of Hanno from "The Phoenicians" by Donald Harden (1962). Page belongs to a somewhat nationalistic History of La Palma (Canaries).

Web Archive: Translation of Periplus (Schoff's). Unadorned. Has something to do with Ezra Pound.

Another translation, this time by A. H. L. Heeren ("Historical researches into the Politics, Intercourse and Trade of the Cathaginians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians," 1832). See also notes. Page belongs to web readings for a course by Leo M. Pappas.

Arrian's "Indica" closes with some comments on Hanno.

Discussions

Web Archive: "Setting the Stage for Columbus" by Lionel Casson in "Archaeology" (May/June 1990, pp. 50-55). Engaging and highly-detailed of Punic and Portuguese activity, including discussion of Hanno and the controversy over Roman knowledge of the Canaries and Azores. See also this article. Casson's article is also available here.

Phoenicia.com on "Ethnic Origin, Language and Literature" with remarks on the Periplus and other fragments of Carthaginian literature.

Web Archive: Brief blurb on Hanno with map from the Mariners' Museum (Newport News, Virginia).

Web Archive: "Imagining Atlantis," by Richard Ellis. Excerpted by the Denver Post.

Web Archive: Encarta (Microsoft encylopedia). Short article, but somehow they know the exact years he lived...

Academic

"The Ape in the Stateroom" by Kenneth A. R. Kennedy and John C. Whittaker, Laboratory Primate Newsletter v 27.1 (1988). Contains comments the naming of the gorilla, and 19th c. fascination with the species.

Nautical bibliographies, including eight items on Hanno. Courtesy Texas A&M.

Web Archive: Checklist of Greek geographic texts and editions (Neel Smith).

Web Archive: Nautical Archaeology: Prehistory and Ancient Mediterranean. Enormous bibliography by J.S. Illsley.

Web Archive: Comprehensive bibliography of classical seafaring from George Bass, Texas A&M/INA.

"The Circumnavigation of Africa" by Ciaran Branigan (Classics Ireland, 1994 v1). Short, scholarly summary of the evidence on Hanno and other ancient contenders.

Discussion of the fires seen by Hanno and African interaction with and attitudes toward nature. From the dissertation "African Theology and Social Change: an Anthropological approach," by Ian Ritchie (1993)

Literary Echoes

I. P. Corey's "Ancient Fragments" (incl. Hanno) reprint for sale. Texts and translations. Non-scholarly, but a funny-great collection of obscure stuff nonetheless.

Edgar Allen Poe makes caustic comments about the Periplus' "islands within lakes, within islands within lakes" in an attack on Bulwer.

Montesquieu comments favorably on Hanno's style and believability; from Spirit of the Laws, book 21. Also available in French.

Emerson, "Walden," chapter 16, refers to it somewhat romantically. See the commentary on this passage by Ann Woodlief.

Oscar Wilde, "The Decay of Lying," a 1905 play, has a passage on the virtues of lying and a list of prominent liars.

"How Ancient Authors Report, the New-World, Now called America, was discovered" by Cpt. John Smith (1622). Smith reports than the "Spanyards" say Hanno was the first to cross the atlantic and Columbus the second.

"A Narrative of the Negro" by Leila Amos Pendleton (1912). A "family history" for black youth by a black schoolteacher. Brief comments on Hanno show a subtle difference in perspective from many white authors.

Web Archive: "Rare and Commonly Unknown Books." Amusing wish-list of lost or never-written books from antiquity, including a "learned commentary" on Hanno. From Thomas Browne's "Museum Clausum"

Other

Correspondence about whether Mt. Cameroon was active c. 400 BC , and therefore could be identified as the "Theon Ochema" of Hanno.

Details on the naming of the "gorilla" from the T. H. Huxley's "On the Natural History of the Man-Like Apes" (1863).

Nationalists and Nuts

Web Archive: The Fundamental and Reform Principles of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party mention Hanno as the first man to circumnavigate Africa.

The Voyage of Hanno. Detailed argument that the Periplus "provides data that are precise and permit a detailed reconstruction of Hanno's voyage." From the extensive "Historical Metrology: The Forgotten Science" by Livio C. Stecchini. Be warned, the author also believes that the Gospels were based on a lost play of Seneca!

Web Archive: "Did the Phoenicians Discover America?" by Michel N. Laham, M.D.

Web Archive: Was America a Phoenician Colony? Inquiring minds want to know.

General Discovery Links

Discoverers Web. Very comprehensive site by Andre Engels.