Did Egyptians circumnavigate Africa in three years during Nekau's reign?

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While researching for this question, I found more details about what could be this (possible) adventure. Necho II hired a fleet of Phoenicians, who supposedly sailed from the Red Sea around Africa back to the mouth of the Nile in in three years.

The voyage was related by Herodotus as a complete circumnavigation of Africa in his History:

According to Herodotus, Necho II ordered a Phoenician-crewed fleet to leave Egypt from the east by way of the Gulf of Suez and to return via the Straits of Gibraltar at the Mediterranean's western mouth. Hence, he expected this expedition to navigate around Africa counterclockwise [sic, actually this was clockwise]. This would be a long journey, in which the crew would help support themselves by establishing temporary settlements on land where they would cultivate crops during the voyage.

According to the story, after two full years the fleet eventually rounded the Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gilbraltar), and returned to Egypt during the course of the third year.

Besides Herodotus story, there is no evidence if this travel. According to Egyptologist Alan B. Lloyd, the voyage was quite unlikely, since:

Given the context of Egyptian thought, economic life, and military interests, it is impossible for one to imagine what stimulus could have motivated Necho in such a scheme and if we cannot provide a reason which is sound within Egyptian terms of reference, then we have good reason to doubt the historicity of the entire episode.

This site has a possible reconstruction of the voyage. Another discussion is this reddit thread, where the answerer mention Ciaran Branigan as a supporter of the actual existence of this travel, while being skeptical about the voyage due to the same reasons Alan Lloyd did, and the fact "Ptolemy's account of the world which contained all of the Western knowledge of geography from c. 150 AD, considered Africa as an endless Southern land mass", impossible to circumnavigate, in contradiction with this supposed journey.

However, these sources did not mention where comes the name "Hamon". But they mention a Carthaginian navigator, Hanno, who did another travel to Africa, now starting from the West, sailing to Gibraltar. According to Pliny the Elder, Hanno actually managed to circumnavigate Africa, but modern accounts consider they only got to the West African coast, in some point between Senegal or Gabon; the supposed primary source for this journey (a tablet which was later translated to Greek) ended with "For we did not sail any further, because our provisions were running short". It should be noted that the tablet was deposited in the temple of Baal Hammon, also know as Hamon, the chief god of Carthage. So, it's possible that the book confounded these two travels (since this last one was not related with the Egyptians).

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The strongest evidence that this voyage really happened is the sentence in Herodotes:

For my part I do not believe them, but perhaps others may-that in sailing round Lybia they HAD THE SUN UPON THEIR RIGHT HAND.

If the story is invented why anyone would invent such a weird detail? As we see, this was weird for an educated Greek in 5th century. Only later it became clear that when traveling around Africa (East to West) one will indeed see the Sun on the North (that is on ones right hand).

Upvote:13

This story depends entirely on Herodotus 4,42. The passage in question reads:

I wonder, then, at those who have mapped out and divided the world into Libya, Asia, and Europe; for the difference between them is great, seeing that in length Europe stretches along both the others together, and it appears to me to be wider beyond all comparison.[2] For Libya shows clearly that it is bounded by the sea, except where it borders on Asia. Necos king of Egypt first discovered this and made it known. When he had abandoned digging the canal which leads from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf, he sent Phoenicians in ships, instructing them to sail on their return voyage past the Pillars of Heracles until they came into the northern sea and so to Egypt. [3] So the Phoenicians set out from the Red Sea and sailed the southern sea; whenever autumn came they would put in and plant the land in whatever part of Libya they had reached, and there await the harvest; [4] then, having gathered the crop, they sailed on, so that after two years had passed, it was in the third that they rounded the pillars of Heracles and came to Egypt. There they said (what some may believe, though I do not) that in sailing around Libya they had the sun on their right hand.

As you can see, the Father of History was himself not certain about the truthfulness of the story.

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