European Exploration of Africa - Early Historical Exploration of Africa

Early Historical Exploration of Africa

Further information: North Africa during the Classical Period

Africa is named for the Afri people who settled in the area of current-day Tunisia. The Africa Province of the Roman Empire spanned the Mediterranean coast of what is now Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. The parts of North Africa north of the Sahara were well known in antiquity. Prior to the 2nd century BC, however, Greek geographers were unaware that the land mass then known as Libya expanded south of the Sahara, assuming that the desert bounded on the outer Ocean. Indeed, Alexander the Great, according to Plutarchus' Lives, considered sailing from the mouths of the Indus back to Macedonia passing south of Africa as a shortcut compared to the land route. Even Eratosthenes around 200 BC still assumed an extent of the landmass no further south than the Horn of Africa. It was only in Ptolemy's world map (2nd century AD) that the realization that the southward extent of Africa was not in fact known at the time was made explicit.

As for early exploration of Sub-Saharan Africa, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus describes how the Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II sent out an expedition manned by Phoenician sailors about 600 BC which in three years circumnavigated Africa. They sailed south, rounded the Cape heading west, made their way north to the Mediterranean and then returned home. He states that they paused each year to sow and harvest grain. They reported that as they sailed around the southern end of the continent they had the sun to their north, which Herodotus found unbelievable. The Egyptologist Alan Lloyd suggests that the Greeks at this time understood that anyone going south far enough and then turning west would have the sun on their right but found it unbelievable that Africa reached so far south. He suggests that "It is extremely unlikely that an Egyptian king would, or could, have acted as Necho is depicted as doing" and that the story might have been triggered by the failure of Sataspes attempt to circumnavigate Africa under Xerxes the Great.

The Phoenicians explored North Africa, establishing a number of colonies, the most prominent of which was Carthage. Carthage itself conducted exploration of West Africa. Donald Harden describes the journey of Hanno the Navigator which Harden dates to c. 425 BC and even quotes in translation the surviving Greek account (about two pages long) of this expedition. There is some uncertainty as to how far precisely Hanno reached, "Some taking Hanno to the Cameroons, or even Gabon, while others say he stopped at Sierre Leone.". In 146 BC the Romans had conquered the African coasts, part of Numidia and Mauretania and started to explore that land. It was later subdivided into Mauretania Tingitana, Mauretania Caesariensis, Numidia, and Africa Proconsularis also known as Vetus or Africa Nova. They remained a part of Roman Empire until the 5th century AD.