Africa is circumnavigated
Phoenician sailors sent by an Egyptian pharaoh sail round the continent — probably.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 3 years
- Known to
- ± 20 years
- Era
- Iron Age, Holocene
Herodotus reports that around 600 BCE Necho II sent a Phoenician crew south from the Red Sea, who sailed for three years, stopping to sow and harvest grain, and returned through the Pillars of Hercules. He adds that they claimed the sun was on their right hand — to the north — which he disbelieves. That detail is exactly what would happen below the equator and is almost impossible to invent, which is the strongest argument that the voyage was real.