tire tribes of people migrated from the north, the east, and
the south into Mesopotamia in the hope of fi nding a place
to settle where they could prosper as the Mesopotamian
city-states did. Skilled artisans could leave their homes and
follow the trade routes, hoping to fi nd a place where their
handiwork would be rewarded. For example, Jewish metal-
workers, beginning in the 500s b.c.e., searched the Near East
and perhaps beyond to fi nd work. Jewish metalworkers were
especially valued and found new homes from Egypt to as far
east as Iran. Th eir search for employment had begun in 586
b.c.e., when the Babylonian Empire had deported the people
of Judah to Mesopotamia. Aft er Persia’s Cyrus the Great (r.
558–529 b.c.e.) conquered Babylon in 539 b.c.e., he told the
Jews that they could return to Judah, but many remained in
their new homes in distant lands, where they prospered.
Governments of the ancient Near East were oft en torn
between a desire to keep their populations focused on their
homes and on their duties to the government and a desire to
know what opportunities lay beyond their territories. Th eirs
was a dangerous world, with wars for seizing loot, conquering
territory, and achieving glory resulting in destroyed cities and
enslaved peoples. By t he t i me of Sa rgon I, ex plori ng u n k now n
lands was becoming a necessity for survival. Governments
would send explorers to travel into unfamiliar territories to
learn about customs, trade, and other governments. Nomadic
peoples oft en explored in order to fi nd places to settle within
the territory of a nation, as the Kassites did in the late 1700s
b.c.e., when they moved into Babylon’s lands.
Th e most impressive feat of government-sponsored ex-
ploration may have occurred in about 600 b.c.e. Over the cen-
turies Egyptian governments had sent expeditions into the
Sinai and south into sub-Saharan Africa to seek sources of
geological deposits of metal, especially gold, and to discover
sources for trade goods valued in Egypt. In about 600 b.c.e.
the Egyptian pharaoh Necho II (r. 610–595 b.c.e.) commis-
sioned the Phoenicians to send an expedition to discover how
big Africa actually was. Th e explorers sailed south through
the Red Sea, past Punt on the east coast of Africa, and then
disappeared. Th ree years later they sailed east through the
Strait of Gibraltar, having circumnavigated Africa.
Th e Phoenicians were great explorers. In the 2000s b.c.e.
people in the northern Levant began trading with the rest of
the Near East and Egypt. From 1100 to 800 b.c.e. the Phoeni-
cians of the northern Levant established trading posts fi rst
on Cyprus, then on Crete, and then in southern Greece and
the northern Aegean, yet most Phoenician trade was by land.
In the 1100s b.c.e. the Phoenicians sailed westward, trying
to fi nd new opportunities for trade. Th ey even sailed out of
the Mediterranean to Cornwall in Britain and south along
the west coast of Africa, where they established trading colo-
nies. On the south coast of the Iberian Peninsula, now Por-
tugal and Spain, they found sources of tin and silver. On the
northern coast of Africa, Phoenician explorers found a good
harbor, and between 814 and 714 b.c.e. they founded the city
of Carthage there.
Another group of impressive seagoing explorers was
the Arabs. Th ey lived mostly on the Arabian Peninsula.
Th ey became the great middlemen of southern Asia and ex-
plored along the coast of Africa, establishing trade relations
with eastern Africa. Th ey also ventured eastward, reaching
southern India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in the 500s b.c.e.
When the Roman Empire wanted to explore southern AsiaThe ancient Phoenicians sailed to Cornwall in Britain,
to the Azores, to the Canary Islands, and even around
the western hump of Africa into the Gulf of Guinea,
where they found crocodiles and gorillas. In the 900s
B.C.E. they sailed three times a year to the mysteri-
ous Ophir for King Solomon of Israel, bringing home
exotic treasures, notably peacocks, suggesting that
Ophir may have been in India. Yet one voyage stands
out in ancient records: the one that circumnavigated
Africa in about 600 B.C.E.
The Phoenicians were very experienced in voyages
of discovery by the time Necho II of Egypt commis-
sioned them to discover the full ex tent of Africa. They
built ships of wood, usually cut from their extensive
cedar forests. Some were large 100-foot-long cargo
ships with a length-to-width ratio of 2.5 to 1. Oth-
ers were sleek and swift. Both types of ships could
sail the oceans, usually staying close to coastlines. It
was probably in a sleek, swift ship that the Phoeni-
cians sailed south in the Red Sea to start their great
voyage.
The Phoenician explorers brought seeds with
them, probably knowing from past experience that
the seeds might be needed. When autumn came, they
went ashore and planted crops. After harvesting the
crops, they continued onward. They planted and har-
vested each year of their voyage. The Greek historian
Herodotus recorded that the voyagers said that when
they sailed westward around the southern end of Af-
rica, the sun was to their right, meaning to the north.
Living north of the equator, as the people of the Med-
iterranean did, meant that the sun crossed the sky to
the south; from south of the equator, the sun would
appear to cross to the north. The way for the Phoeni-
cian explorers to have noticed this phenomenon was
to have sailed, as they claimed, south past the equa-
tor and then westward around the southern tip of the
continent, when the sun would be to the north, on
their right. It took them three years to circumnavigate
Africa and enter the Mediterranean from the west
and sail to Egypt.FABULOUS VOYAGES OF THE
PHOENICIANSexploration: The Middle East 439