Early African explorers: Eudoxus of Cyzicus

Although inhabited by flourishing civilizations for thousands of years, Africa remained a vast and un-navigable continent for thousands of years to the ancient peoples of the Mediterranean. The first recorded foray along the coast of the continent was the expedition of Queen Hatshepsut to the 'land of Punt', probably located in southern Eritrea or modern-day Somaliland, about 1450 BCE; which is known from reliefs at Hatshepsut's temples and from a contemporary depiction of a secretary bird, a species which roams only in the Horn of Africa and not elsewhere. Her expedition followed the footsteps of earlier contacts, dating back to Pharoah Khufu (26th century BCE), the pyramid-builder who imported gold from the land. 

The next major ambitious journey was made by Hanno the Navigator in the late 6th century BCE, a Carthaginian sailor who may have reached as far as the coast of Equatorial Guinea, and somewhere along the way captured a hairy tribe of 'Gorillai'; which is were we get the name gorilla from. However, due to supply issues they would only go as far as their water and food would last, and so no adventurer from antiquity ever achieved a full circumnavigation. Or did they?

Speculative map of the second and third voyages of Eudoxus of Cyzisus. Credit: http://crossingtheoceansea.com/OceanSeaPages/OS-25-Ancient-Text-Resurface.html

The astronomer Poseidonus, paraphrased by Strabo in his Geography, claims that a navigator called Eudoxus of Cyzicus, in the early 1st century BCE, was tasked by the Ptolemaic ruler Ptolemy VIII Physcon (the Fat) to explore the coastal routes that led to India, after receiving the advice of a shipwrecked Indian sailor. Accompanied by the merchant Hippalus, he ventured on two voyages to India and discovered a safe route from the Red Sea port of Eudaemon (Aden) to the coast of Sri Lanka, ancient Tamilakam, which enabled later trade between the Graeco-Roman and Indian economic worlds. 

On the way back from his second voyage, however, monsoon winds forced him to redirect along the coast of East Africa, where he stumbled upon a 'Phoenician' looking ship, which, after consulting the native population, he concluded as being from Gades (Cadiz). Since those kinds of ships were not accustomed to sail across the Mediterranean, and could not have crossed the Sinai due to the silting up of the old Pharonic canals, Eudoxus believed that the ship had circumnavigated Africa, sailing around the continent and beaching after it had come from the south. Although Eudoxus eventually turned back to the Red Sea, Poseidonus continues by claiming that, inspired by this, he later arrived at the ancient port of Gades, presumably to learn about the secret of circumnavigating the great continent. What happened next was a mystery; he left Gades and was never seen again. Strabo interjects, doubting that he accomplished his task, while Pliny thought that Eudoxus succeeded in sailing from cape to cape. 

Can archaeology answer this puzzle? Eudoxus' account before his disappearance seems credible enough. A Graeco-Roman presence in eastern Africa is evident on the southern coasts of Tanzania, particularly on Mafia Island and the mouth of the Rufiji river on the mainland. A few scholars have connected this to the semi-mythical port of Rhapta, the southernmost port of 'Azania', a loosely-defined region south of the Arabian peninsula, which was near the rivers snaking from the legendary 'Mountains of the Moon'. Rhapta was two days' sail from another port town, Menouthias, which has been identified with Pemba Island also in Tanzania. From numismatic finds it is probable that sub-Saharan Africans travelled to and lived in the Mediterranean as early as the 6th century BCE, possibly recruited as mercenaries by the Persians after their conquest of Egypt, or beforehand, looking to trade with the Greeks and Phoenicians at the multicultural Egyptian entrepot of Naukratis. 

Electrum hekte from Phocis in Ionia, featuring a male head with sub-Saharan African features. 

Poseidonus' mention that Eudoxus was able to consult with the locals, furthermore, either suggests that he knew the local language (either a Bantu or south-Semitic dialect), they knew ancient Greek, or that they operated using a common lingua franca, possibly a combination of Greek, Indian and Semitic trade jargon. It is worth mentioning (a thread I will develop upon in another post) that Necho II, the Egyptian pharaoh at the start of the 6th century BCE, was also credited with circumnavigating the continent with the help of Phoenician sailors. If that holds any truth to it, a Gades-style ship could well have been moored on the African coast as Poseidonus suggests, having sailed around the continent.  

While archaeologically a circumnavigation of the continent would be invisible - if Eudoxus made landfall for supplies or ship repair, any wood or cargo left behind would have quickly decomposed - both archaeological and literary evidence hints at a belief that it was feasible, and that it had been achieved before. There is the possibility that one of the sailors may have died during the voyage, of starvation, thirst, heatstroke or disease, and were subsequently buried on the coast or on a promontory, as a warning to future navigators. However, the humid environment and climatic extremes along much of the equatorial African coast would have made any skeletal remains impossible to identify. 

References:

Chami, F. A. (1999). Roman Beads from the Rufiji Delta, Tanzania: First Incontrovertible Archaeological Link with the Periplus. Current Anthropology, 40(2), 237–242. https://doi.org/10.1086/200009

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