Carthies in the new world?

[Aemilius Paulus]

Doesn't yet speak of ocean-crossing level of shipbuilding and navigational chutzpah, though obviously an even more salient issue is why they'd have sent an expedition into that featureless desert of open water in the first place...

Right again. I read that even Phoenicians were deathly afraid of the wide expanses of the Atlantic, and their coast-hugging was nowhere more apparent than in their Western African voyages.

The "blown astray by storm" theory might work, though I've my doubts about period Mediterranean ships' ability to withstand Atlantic storms - and there's also the obvious question of how they'd then get back...

Alto ugh I do not agree with the theory either, taking your stance on this issue, I do have to point out that storms are too unpredictable and varied to accurately assess the chances of a ship surviving it. There are simply too many factors and variables here.



As for the getting back part, there is nothing like desperation they say... Now, the main problem here is that the marooned Phoenicians would have no idea about the local winds and currents, much less the distance of water required to cover, as it is assumed that the deviation due to a storm was not accurately assesses....

Well, that is why I discount the hypothesis that Phoenicans could have made the voyage in the first place. This still, however, does not discount the possibility of Phoenicians wrecking or being trapped forever in the Americas. Which may still be possible, although, once again, I doubt it.


All this said, a brief glance at a globe(not just a map), will show the folly of such hypotheses, as the smallest distance between the Old and New Worlds is between Liberia and the triangular outer tip of Brazil. Phoenicians were not known to frequent Liberia, AFAIK. Hanno did it, and he was immortalised for it (although it is most likely he reached Cameroon, as testamented by his account of a volcano, the nearest ones which exists in Cameroon).