Navigation and Seafaring
For the establishment of commercial supremacy,
an essential constituent was the Phoenician skill in navigation and seafaring.
The Phoenicians are credited with the discovery and use of Polaris
(the Pole Star). Fearless and patient navigators, they ventured into regions where
no one else dared to go, and always, with an eye to their monopoly, they
carefully guarded the secrets of their trade routes and discoveries and
their knowledge of winds and currents. Pharaoh Necho II (610-595 BC) organized
the Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa (Herodotus, iv, 42). Hanno, a Carthaginian, led
another in the mid-5th century. The Carthaginians seem to have reached the
island of Corvo in the Azores; and Britain.
Some archeologists suggest that
the Phoenicians may have reached America before the Vikings and/or
Columbus? The hypothesis is based on inscriptions found in the Americas
(including Brazil)
and seemed to represent a Phoenician script. However, others find the hypothesis
unfounded.