An Academic Journey to a New World, Part IV

Part I Part II Part III Part V

The strong winds mentioned above would be easily explained by the Gulf Stream currents, which were exploited at a later date by Thor Heyerdahl when he crossed the Atlantic along that same route in a papyrus reed boat. (22) A problem is the additional statement "and when they had observed its felicity and nature they caused it to be known to all men," but that could be explained by the Carthaginians making known their discovery of the new land but not revealing how they got there, which would be consistent with later texts describing their Pillars of Hercules policy. The meat of the relevant text by Diodorus concludes:

"Consequently the Tyrrhenians, at the time when they were masters of the sea, purposed to dispatch a colony to it, but the Carthaginians prevented their doing so, partly out of concern lest many inhabitants of Carthage should remove there because of the excellence of the island, and partly in order to have ready in it a place in which to seek refuge against an incalculable turn of fortune, in case some total disaster should overtake Carthage. For it was their thought that, since they were masters of the sea, they would thus be able to move, households and all, to an island which was unknown to their Conquerors."

So this illustrates approximately when the discovery was-after the founding of Carthage but before the fall of Tyre, probably during a period of close ties between the two cities. Most likely, it therefore happened in the beginning years of the city of Carthage, circa 1200-700 BC. (23)

Another indicator of Carthage's concern over the protection of their American trade secret was some of the provisions of their early, pre-Punic War treaties with Rome as well as their actions against the Greeks. Roman sailors were forbidden to sail west of the town of Mastia in Spain without permission from the Carthaginian Senate and a representative of said body on board (24), and Greek sailors from Massilia were pushed away from the area in a war and kept out by the treaty that ended that war. (25) The main trade routes from Carthage to Gades (modern-day Cadiz) were patrolled, and the patrols were strengthened to enforce the terms of these treaties.

There is also significant evidence for this contact in the New World itself. In 1889, a Semitic inscription was found in a burial mound in Bat Creek, Tennessee. (26) The inscription has the letters "LYHWD", meaning "for Judea", inscribed on them. As Judean sailors wouldn't have had the wherewithal to attempt to sail to America on their own, it's likely that Tyrian sailors in the service of Judea made the inscription; it would be something akin to Christopher Columbus, a Genovese sailor in the service of Spain, claiming the New World for Spain. It's also possible but less likely that Judean traders or settlers were carried to the New World in Carthaginian boats after the fall of their homeland to the Babylonians. (27) The inscription would also have, by necessity, to been made after the reign of Rehoboam, when the kingdom of Israel split into the rival kingdoms of Israel and Judea, as otherwise it would have been carved "LYSRL", or "for Israel."

Another stone was found in November 1860 near Newark, Ohio (28), inscribed with the Ten Commandments and a representation of Moses. Its most likely function was as an arm phylactery, or in other words a container, worn on the arm by observant Jews, holding a scroll of the Torah as a reminder of their faith. Once again, it is highly possible that some Jews did come to the New World with the Tyrians who traded for them, and thus possible that they left these artifacts behind on accident. It's also likely that these religious items were used in trade, much as medals of American Presidents and British royalty were used for trade goods with Native Americans in later eras. In any case, the scope of indirect Jewish trade with North America was probably small, given the relative sparseness of an archaeological record. Most trade would have been done, as postulated above, with the gold- and timber-rich South American continent which was closer to Africa in any case.

There is also some circumstantial evidence of pre-Columbian contact between the Old and New Worlds. The Mexica worshipped gods like Quetzalcoatl, said to be a light-skinned traveler associated with the direction of the morning star. They mistook Hernando Cortez for Quetzalcoatl when he conquered them in the 1500s, but it's possible that, via the Carthaginians, light-skinned travelers may have visited the region in times past, giving occasion for the myth in the first place.

Overall, it appears from the evidence that Carthage traded in North and South America along the course of navigable rivers. When Carthage fell after the Third Punic War, all contact with the New World was seemingly lost, with traders either blending in with Native American peoples or returning home in disgrace. Rome burned the city of Carthage after the Third Punic War, giving away her massive libraries to their Numidian allies in exchange for their aid. From Numidia, those books were either lost or destroyed, but in any case they were rendered unavailable to modern scholarship yet could have been very illuminating on this subject. Another possible repository of the information they contained, the Library of Alexandria, was burned by Julius Caesar and then later by the Muslims, so any copies of Carthage's books made there would likewise have been lost. But some evidence of trade remains-and it was a trade that appears to have been mutually beneficial to both people. If Europe had had knowledge of that model of interaction available to them when they began their colonization, it's quite possible that they could have avoided the horrific devastations they visited upon Native American peoples.


Continue on to Part V