Did Hanno the Navigator really think gorillas were people?

[grude]

Hanno the Navigator

At the terminus of Hanno’s voyage, the explorer found an island heavily populated with what were described as hirsute and savage people. Attempts to capture the males failed, but three of the females were taken. These were so ferocious that they were killed, and their skins preserved for transport home to Carthage. The skins were kept in the Temple of Tannit on Hanno’s return and, according to Pliny the Elder, survived until the Roman destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, some 350 years after Hanno’s expedition.[4] The interpreters travelling with Hanno called the people gorillae, and when European explorers first encountered gorillas in the 19th century, the apes were given this name on the assumption that they were the “people” Hanno described.

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.

:dubious: How accurate is this theory thought to be? I’ll admit it seems the most likely, but surely he would have thought monkey instead of hairy natives right?

[Mr.Milton]

Wikipedia on the Periplus that relates Hanno’s voyage:

“From everything we know about Carthaginian practice, the resolute determination to keep all knowledge of and access to the western markets from the Greeks, it is incredible that they would have allowed the publication of an accurate description of the voyage for all to read. What we have is an official version of the real report made by Hanno which conceals or falsifies vital information while at the same time gratifying the pride of the Carthaginians in their achievements. The very purpose of the voyage, the consolidation of the route to the gold market, is not even mentioned.”

Similarly, the Periplus of another Carthiginian explorer (Himlico?) who went north instead of south out of the straights of Hercules is made to appear as if the voyage to the northern French and southern British coasts was far more hazardous than it really was, with tales of sea monsters and so on.

The “gorillas” or whatever they were were reported as lining on an island in a lake in the middle of another island on a lake, which doesn’t quite ring true in and of itself. AFAIK, Gorillas don’t live on islands (in lakes or rivers or anything else) in any case.

There is also the possibility that exhibiting the skin of a gorilla or chimpanzee taken directly on a voyage or traded for indirectly and exhibited in the temple along with the appropriate supporting phony story would greatly help support the disinformation the Carthiginians were putting out to discourage competitors.

[Hector_St_Clare]

Gorillas are closer to people than to monkeys, at least taxonomically.

[grude]

@Hector_St_Clare

Gorillas are closer to people than to monkeys, at least taxonomically.

Yes but I can’t imagine someone encountering them for the first time thinking hairy humans, I think it would be more likely to think large monkey.

[bob_2]

The lake/island story sounds false, but an explorer who encountered a large hairy mammal with hands and feet that stood up like a human, might think them some species of unevolved human.

[mbh]

Another possibility: Hanno never saw them alive. He bought the skins from a trader, and repeated the trader’s tale (or made up his own).