Yeah yeah I know, but i like to think my topic is different

I'm sure plenty of people tried and we just don't know about it because they died of dehydration.

Literally the only thing harder to cross than the Sahara is the Gobi, and that's because the Gobi has metals in the nearby mountains that fuck with compasses.

As for "why didn't they just try sailing around", look at the map. The sea route from Gibraltar to the green part of Africa is over half the length of the Mediterranean.

They came in contact with black people who were completely at aware of the environment around them and thus had a home advantage.

Macrobians, Garamante, Chretes, Troglydytes, etc...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romans_in_Sub-Saharan_Africa

There was some Carthaginian guy named Hanno the Navigator who sailed around 500 BC. He found a group of people who he described as exceptionally hairy and savage. It is generally agreed now that he probably encountered Gorillas.

>He found a group of people who he described as exceptionally hairy and savage.
Are we sure he left Spain?

>and savage
I assume he means primitive because gorillas are far more gentle and passive than most primates.

Well, he tried to capture them and bring them back, so it kind of makes sense they'd get really pissed.

Here's the actual quote, translated into English:

>In its inmost recess was an island similar to that formerly described, which contained in like manner a lake with another island, inhabited by a rude description of people. The females were much more numerous than the males, and had rough skins: our interpreters called them Gorillae. We pursued but could take none of the males; they all escaped to the top of precipices, which they mounted with ease, and threw down stones; we took three of the females, but they made such violent struggles, biting and tearing their captors, that we killed them, and stripped off the skins, which we carried to Carthage: being out of provisions we could go no further.

The desert was literally impassible, yes the Taureg travel across it and will act as middlemen but this bumps up the cost of doing business to the point where it's not worth it.

In Nubia, if you keep going up-river, you soon reach jungle inhabited by literal cannibals and infested with all the lethal diseases typical of jungles, it wasn't until the Victorian era that it was possible.

That only leaves doing it by boat, but the Mediterranean is essentially a very large lake, it doesn't have anything like the rough weather common to the Atlantic, and Mediterranean naval technology stopped at the galley, a type of ship perfect for the smooth, flat Med but of limited use on the Atlantic. Yes, Hanno the Navigator managed it, but even for Carthage that was a one-off, the route was far too difficult to use for trade. This is why it took northern European ship technology, ie the carrack and it's derivations, to open up the "direct" trade with East Africa.

Also spoiler East Africa has nothing much of value, yes gold and ivory but nothing really useful that would give early traders a big advantage, like the Columbian Exchange.

It was likely monkeys because 1. Gorillas don't have any observation of being rock throwers and 2. They just aren't found in the coastal regions and there is no oral history or archeological evidence to back it up.

Plus considering the heights of men back then, they would've mentioned how fucking massive the gorillas were.

Exactly. Spanish called Aztecs "quite tall" and Aztec men were like 5'6"-5'8"

Maybe they were bonobos. They act like humans sorta in terms of family units but are also an incredibly warlike species.

Cannibals aren't found anywhere in Africa outside of ritual contexts.

It wasn't like Maori or Fijians who ate people as a matter of circumstance and it's not recorded amongst Nilotics or Omotics at all.

Probably who knows, could be an extinct app because I'm pretty sure it was implied they could swim.

Chimps would be more likely than bonobos. Chimps are coastal, bonobos live inland.

Chimps are far less likely to be mistaken for really hairy humans though

They basically look the same...

>Was the Sahara truly that impassible of a barrier for exploration?
Yes, until they got camels from the middle east.

>Cannibals aren't found anywhere in Africa outside of ritual contexts.

What are you talking about, cannibalism was absolutely rampant and culturally accepted throughout equatorial Africa. Early explorers record "meat markets" were the natives would sell slaves for the express purpose of being eaten, and there are many accounts of tribes waging war out of hunger.

> it's not recorded amongst Nilotics or Omotics at all.

You are an absolute retard. Read a book you cripple.

The history of cannibalism in Africa is historically rooted in the ritualized norms of sacrifice for religious purpose.

The idea of cannibalism is linked with supposed savagery but that is something noted for many peoples. All sorts were called cannibalism to show their "uncivilized" qualities but that is not shown archeologically in the Nile River valley.

The burden of proof is on you to show archeological evidence of cannibalism in the Nile sense you were the one who stated it originally.

Telling me to read a book implies my views don't come from study or education.

>Nearly all the tribes in the Congo Basin either are or have been cannibals; and among some of them the practice is on the increase. Races who until lately do not seem to have been cannibals, though situated in a country surrounded by cannibal races, have, from increased intercourse with their neighbours, learned to eat human flesh.
>Soon after the Station of Equator was established, the residents discovered that a wholesale human traffic was being carried on by the natives of the district between this station and Lake M’Zumba. The captains of the steamers have often assured me that whenever they try to buy goats from the natives, slaves are demanded in exchange; the natives often come aboard with tusks of ivory with the intention of buying a slave, complaining that meat is now scarce in their neighbourhood.
>There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that they prefer human flesh to any other. During all the time I lived among cannibal races I never came across a single case of their eating any kind of flesh raw; they invariably either boil, roast or smoke it. This custom of smoking flesh to make it keep would have been very useful to us, as we were often without meat for long periods. We could, however, never buy smoked meat in the markets, it being impossible to be sure that it was not human flesh.
>The preference of different tribes for various parts of the human body is interesting. Some cut long steaks from the flesh of the thighs, legs or arms; others prefer the hands and feet; and though the great majority do not eat the head, I have come across more than one tribe which prefers this to any other part. Almost all use some part of the intestines on account of the fat they contain.

>A young Basongo chief came to our Commandant while at dinner in his tent and asked for the loan of his knife, which, without thinking, the Commandant gave him. He immediately disappeared behind the tent and cut the throat of a little slave-girl belonging to him, and was in the act of cooking her when one of our soldiers saw him. This cannibal was immediately put in irons, but almost immediately after his liberation he was brought in by some of our soldiers who said he was eating children in and about our cantonment. He had a bag slung round his neck which, on examining it, we found contained an arm and leg of a young child.
>A man with his eyes open has no difficulty in knowing, from the horrible remains he is obliged to pass on his way, what people have preceded him, on the road or battlefield – with this difference: that on a battlefield he will find those parts left to the jackals which the human wolves have not found to their taste; whereas on the road, by the smouldering camp fires, are the whitening bones, cracked and broken, which form the relics of these disgusting banquets. What struck me most, during my expeditions throughout the country, was the number of partially cut-up bodies I found. Some of them were minus the hands and feet, and some with steaks cut from the thighs or elsewhere; others had the entrails or head removed. Neither old nor young, women or children, are exempt from serving as food for their conquerors or neighbours.
>Sidney Langford Hinde (former captain of the Congo Free State Force), The Fall of the Congo Arabs, Methuen, 1897.

>Telling me to read a book implies my views don't come from study or education.

Claiming there is no record of it proves that you don't know anything about the subject, hence "read a book". Whoever """taught""" you this stuff did a terrible job.

>The Bambala, these missionaries found, regarded as special delicacies human flesh that had been buried for some days; also a large, thick, white beetle grub found in palm trees... and human blood boiled with manioc flour. The women of the tribe were forbidden to touch human flesh, but had found many ways of circumventing the tabu, and were particularly addicted to human flesh, extracted from graves and in an advanced state of decomposition.
>Garry Hogg, Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice, p. 114.

This completely ignores the mutualistic relationships between farmer Bantu and Nilo-Saharan Central Africans with Hunter caste pygmy nations.

If cannibalism were in fact the source of protein for equatorial Africans the need for bushmeat would be non-existent.

It's cultural myth making to take these accounts as anything other than shows of force to prescribe colonization to "civilize" said people especially given the context of the Belgian Arab wars in the region meting out control of key ivory trade regions.

>HURR

Like I said, read a book. Your total ignorance is embarrassing.

I have read books and studies and essays on the economy of protein in Central Africa and it's centered not around cannibalism but the mutualist exchange between farmers and hunters. Not cannibals.

Then here's an idea, idiot, try reading a book specifically about cannibalism and not one about something else. Fucking imbecile.

>What exactly kept the Mediterranean peoples back in the day from going further south in exploration?

Sand, lots of it.

It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.

Books that references 19th century "Heart of Africa" mythos that was used for the the "civilizing" missions that culminated in the Berlin Conference?

Nah, I focus in archeological and anthropological books and not propaganda with imperalist agendas

>why trust the accounts written by eye witnesses when we can rely on my opinions?

Yeah whatever you say dope.

they went kind of far along the east coast and nile river. if that counts at all. i know this question supposes a people moving down south from the very northern tip of the african continent. but historically, the ancients explored pretty far down south to a degree. that degree being trade, but they may at least have been able to conceive a notion of other groups living further south of africa.

Because those supposed witnesses were sensationalist and biased as fuck.

They probably did try at least once, and it failed miserably and then they never did it again because it was deemed dangerous and not worth the risk.

In the case of Nubia and Sudan, the Sudd Swamps formed a great pre-modern barrier for expansion. It stopped the Romans and it stopped the Arabs.

Are you retarded?

Have you ever read the spanish records of the Americas and the amount of propaganda bullshit that the conquistadors tried to push for the metropoli? Literally the historians were not allowed to send a lot of their writings, they had to store them on foreign dutch ships and hope they reach someone who can publiah them.

Even if you go to sub-saharan, what would you do there? It's all just jungles, bushes, and savannah. The reason why the Arabs in the middle-ages and the Portuguese in the early modern period started exploring and doing missionary/spreading their faith in sub-saharan africa was because of rumors of immense deposits in gold. The Arabs went there far earlier and that is why a lot of the coast of E.Africa is Islamic. The Portuguese on the other hand could only go around the area of the horn of Africa and do deals with the ethiopians to fuck with the Ottomans/Mamluks.

They feered the zebra warriors

But Phoenicians and other Mediterraneans already knew about monkeys from Egypt, North Africa, Spain, etc, maybe there were even in the Levant

The black warrior

perhaps they feared the black warrior?

This post made me feel

How quickly did the desertification of north africa occur?

>Even if you go to sub-saharan, what would you do there? It's all just jungles, bushes, and savannah.

Most of the coastline of the Mediterranean wasn't built up dramatically so that's not exceptional

>The reason why the Arabs in the middle-ages and the Portuguese in the early modern period started exploring and doing missionary/spreading their faith in sub-saharan africa was because of rumors of immense deposits in gold.

It wasn't random lolligagging both Arabs and Portuguese had older accounts and even maps of these places and kingdoms and regions.

Especially considering "Arab" is a cultural term, North Africans of all colors were aware of one another, even pre-camel at 1 CE.

>The Arabs went there far earlier and that is why a lot of the coast of E.Africa is Islamic.

Islam came to East Africa supposedly from a half black persian prince who first migrated to Mogadishu and later founded Kilwa.

The "Arabs" came long after the narrative of Persian influence with the Omani only coming into power after the destruction of the coast by the Portuguese.

>The Portuguese on the other hand could only go around the area of the horn of Africa and do deals with the ethiopians to fuck with the Ottomans/Mamluks.

The Portuguese made long and long standing partnerships on the West Central and Southeast Coasts and it was west and Central African trade missions being a success along with new world exploration that that circumnavigated the Cape of Good Hope.

>most of The coast of The Mediterranean wasn't built up

What?

According to Herodotus, they traded with people somewhere along the west coast of Africa
>The Carthaginians tell us that they trade with a race of men who live in a part of Libya beyond the Pillars of Herakles. On reaching this country, they unload their goods, arrange them tidily along the beach, and then, returning to their boats, raise a smoke. Seeing the smoke, the natives come down to the beach, place on the ground a certain quantity of gold in exchange for the goods, and go off again to a distance. The Carthaginians then come ashore and take a look at the gold; and if they think it presents a fair price for their wares, they collect it and go away; if, on the other hand, it seems too little, they go back aboard and wait, and the natives come and add to the gold until they are satisfied. There is perfect honesty on both sides; the Carthaginians never touch the gold until it equals in value what they have offered for sale, and the natives never touch the goods until the gold has been taken away.

>according to Herodotus

Lol...

Like sailors just seeing coast line with some Herders or farmers or even just scrub and forest wasn't exceptional anywhere.

In france maybe

Not that user

Normally I eye roll at people claiming European invasion into Africa at some ancient time and apparently there are some PHONECIAN STRONG types online claiming that he circumnavigated Africa and Phonecians brought civilization to the continent

But Hanno was real, I accept he went to maybe the Bight.

Anyways have an artists interpretation of Periplus of Hanno from some article on the topic.

>hurrrr durrrr
>What exactly kept the European peoples back in the day from going further west in exploration? It seemed like once you got to around the area of Greenland, everyone just went "yeah we're done" and stopped there. Was the Atlantic Ocean truly that impassible of a barrier for exploration?

If that's supposed to be West Africa that's really far fetched, yes they had rudimentary agriculture but I doubt they built anything like that

>tfw you encounter a new people, but they're savages so you capture their women, but they're too fierce to rape so you skin them and call it a day

History would be a little more amazing if they had founded a colony in senegal.
Imagine the consequences.