Admiral Hanno & Queen/Pharaoh Hatshepsut

The North African civilisation of Carthage was much engaged in exploration. There are accounts of Carthaginian exploration in the sixth or fifth centuries BC. Hanno, one of their admirals, commanded sixty ships that carried 30,000 people along the north and west coast of Africa. The large numbers of people were transported to establish new colonies and the last of them were landed at Morocco as far south as Arguin. Hanno and the others continued their journey around the west coast of Africa and sailed past the Senegal River, noting that it abounded in crocodiles and hippopotami. There they encountered people but, as the document records it: “They drove us away by throwing stones at us”. The expedition sailed on passing forests of odoriferous trees. Furthermore, they witnessed the locals clearing the forests using slash and burn techniques. At night, they overheard local music of pipes, cymbals, drums and shouts. Elsewhere, they saw a volcano. Finally, they encountered gorillas. They returned when their provisions failed them.

Hatshepsut was the next great woman of the Negro Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty, after Ahmose-Nefertari. In September 1650 BC Thutmose I, her father, elevated her to the position of co-regent. Following this in 1628 BC she became the Great Royal Wife of Thutmose II. In 1615 BC she ruled as Queen-Regent for Thutmose III but later deposed him. She proclaimed herself pharaoh in his place and took the religious titles the “female Horus” and the “daughter of Ra”. She was deeply religious and did much to undermine the veneration of Set, the deity promoted by the Hyksos and identified as their deity Ba’al. Her leading statesmen, both of humble origins, Senenmut and Hapuseneb, oversaw her building activities. She also appointed Asians to powerful positions within the administration, the first pharaoh to do so. At Karnak she erected two giant obelisks that rose to almost 100 feet: “To make the obelisks still more conspicuous [says J. A. Rogers], she had their tops encased in electrum, a metal costlier than gold. (Electrum was a composition of silver and gold. Silver being rather rarer in Egypt, it was more precious.) In the bright sunlight of that rainless land the obelisks shone like glittering peaks. Their brilliancy, in the queen’s own words, lit up the two lands of Egypt.”

In Deir-el-Bahri, she built her celebrated rock-hewn temple dedicated to Amen, Anubis and Hathor. In this temple are records of her famous maritime voyage to Punt (i.e. Somalia). In that land, the Egyptians bought incense, animals, animal skins, gum, gold, ivory and ebony. To pay for it, they brought weapons, jewellery and wares. On the cultural front, great lyric poetry was composed during her period.