by Laura Rahme
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| Goddess Tanit, Carthage |
Modern day
Senegal is said to be inhabited by a sizable Lebanese community, the majority,
like my father and myself, being born there. These “African Lebanese” or
“Senegalese Lebanese”, as they like to call themselves, are primarily
entrepreneurs. They are deeply entrenched in Senegalese commerce and constitute
a strong monopoly.
The Lebanese
have been established in Senegal for decades. Their presence dates from even
before the Lebanese civil war of the mid-70s with some, like my grandfather, having
arrived in the early 1930s, while others erred there on migrant boats under the
misguided belief that they would be brought to America.
Regardless
of their arrival date and of the deep anchor into a country they call their
own, it would come as a surprise to most “Senegalese Lebanese”, to learn that
thousands of years ago, their Phoenician ancestors had, long before they did, endeavoured to establish trade in Senegal.
Between 500
and 480 BC, the naval commander and King of Carthage, Hanno, sailed through the
Pillars of Hercules (the Strait of Gibraltar), contouring the African coast anti-clockwise,
and is said to have reached the Senegal River. Hanno
recorded his journey on a tablet which he placed in a temple. His record, later
translated into Greek, depicted an expedition consisting of 30000 colonists and
60 ships.
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| Phoenician ship detail from 2nd-c. sarcophagus - Sidon, Lebanon |
Carthage-based
Phoenicians like Hanno originated from the land of Canaan which today
encompasses most of Lebanon, parts of Israel and Syria. What a remarkable coincidence
that like their modern day Lebanese counterparts, the Phoenicians would have
had an interest in exploring trade opportunities in Western Africa, with Hanno
navigating past Cape Verde, round the Gulf of Guinea and potentially as far as
Cameroon.
The
Phoenicians were merchants and ship builders who dominated the Mediterranean
Sea three thousand years ago. Their empire stretched from the city of Tyre in
modern day Lebanon, to Carthage in modern day Tunisia, and their colonies
included Cadiz in Spain, Cyprus, Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia. In their times, they were the uncontested
masters of the sea, trading as far as Cornwall in England. Their desire for
trade provided an incentive for exploration and this went hand in hand with
navigation.
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| Phoenician trade routes |
It is
acknowledged that the Phoenicians were the first Western civilization to have
developed the art of navigation at sea. Their navigation skills were aided by a
knowledge of astronomy - they are considered to be the first navigators to use
the Pole star. The Phoenicians had learned to sail on a cloudless night, using
the star, Polaris, as a reference for North. Polaris is a star in Ursa Minor,
the constellation of the Little Bear. In those days, other cultures began to
call this constellation “Phoenike” after the first mariners who employed it,
the Phoenicians.
Use of
Polaris allowed the Phoenicians to venture away from traditional routes that
generally hugged the coastline, without fearing they might become lost. They kept the North Star to their right (starboard),
when they wanted to sail West and to their left (port side), when they wanted
to sail East. Interestingly, the Phoenician word for East was Asu (sunrise) while for West, it was Ereb (sunset) - terms which have given us
Asia and Europe, respectively.
Along with
Polaris, the Phoenicians observed other stars, together with the sun and moon.
To aid in their observation of the sky, most of their Mediterranean navigation
took place between March and October, when weather conditions were more favorable.
The
Phoenicians could calculate how far south they were by looking at the height of
the midday sun or through the emergence of new stars and the disappearance of
others in the sky. They knew that the sun was lowest in the sky at the winter
solstice. They also knew that during equinoxes, the sun rose in the east and set
in the west more precisely than at other times.
The
Phoenicians of Carthage were highly dependent on sky observation for sea travel
and ultimately for their monopoly over Mediterranean commerce. This reliance is
best illustrated through their increasing worship of the Goddess Tanit.
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| Tanit stele, Carthage |
Tanit was Carthaginian
Sky Goddess who ruled over the Sun, Stars and Moon, while her consort Ba’al-Hammon
was the God of the Sky. Her origin may have been either local, or harked from
Ashtart (Astarte), the fertility Goddess of the Tyrian Phoenicians. Starting in the 5th century
however, Tanit became the chief deity of the city of Carthage - a patron
goddess and oracle. It is this oracle
quality in particular, an allusion to consulting the sky for making decisions,
which further underlines the Phoenicians’ reliance on astronomy for their
successful endeavours.
Today the
Lebanese merchants living in Senegal are no seafarers. In their daily business,
they need not gaze upon the stars nor do they worship astral deities like their
Phoenician ancestors once did. Still I can’t help but smile when I consider
that their inherent love of commercial exchange and their presence in Africa
remain strong.
References
- The Amazing Astronomers of Antiquity, Houston Museum of Natural Science
- The Science of Navigation from Dead Reckoning to GPS, Mark Denny, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012.
