An Academic Journey to a New World, Part III

Part I Part II Part IV Part V

The Old World-New World trade seems to have reached its zenith in the eastern Mediterranean around the time of the Israelite king Solomon, but by necessity would have declined after the fall of Phoenicia to first Assyrian, then Babylonian, and finally Macedonian armies. However, the Phoenician colony city of Carthage seems to have continued its trade with the New World for a little while after the fall of its motherland. In fact, there is significant evidence that Carthage ran a flourishing trade system in both North and South America, a system that incorporated natives and probably ran similarly to the trade empire operated by the French that would antedate them by two millennia.

There is much direct evidence for this. The official coins minted by the Carthaginian Senate from the years 350-320 BC have a representation of a map of their known world. Central position on the map is, of course, Carthage, with Italy to the north, Mesopotamia on the far right, a little circle in the place where Britain should be, and a blob of landmass past Spain unexplainable by modern views. (15) Plenty of these Carthaginian coins have been found in the Canary Islands and the Azores, as well as in several states of the United States of America; and coins from Rome, Greece, and Judea have also been found. Most of them have been found outside of the context of archaeological digs, leading these finds to be dismissed by archaeologists as hoaxes or merely the discovery of coins dropped by modern-day numismatists. However, the odds of someone finding a dropped Old World coin in the middle of nowhere would be slim to none-if dropped coins were to be found, it'd be in the middle of cities, most predominantly on university campuses that possessed an archaeology department. However, this is not the case-not only that, but no Old World coins have been discovered on the West Coast (except for Chinese coins) (16), and the coins are concentrated in Eastern and Southern states. (17)

On top of all that, there actually has been an ancient Old World coin discovered in an archaeological dig. A Roman coin was found at the Great Gully site of an Upper Cayuga Haudenosaunee village, during excavations carried out by Harrison Follett and George Selden. The coin, commemorating the reign of Imperator Antoninus Pius, was minted about A.D. 165. (18) Epstein comments on the likelihood of missionaries giving the coin to Haudenosaunee in trade, but a Roman coin would have been worthless at that time as a trade item. Inflation had crept in to the point where Roman coins were nearly worthless hunks of bronze, and the Iroquois already had access to all the bronze they needed. As the coin would not have been accepted as legal tender in any French, British or Dutch trading post in the area, it would have been doubly worthless to the Haudenosaunee. However, if Old World traders had been operating in Haudenosaunee territory around the time of the coin's minting, the coin would have held value and thus would be useful for trade. However, this would mean that somehow, the Romans would have maintained a trade link with the Americas after the fall of Carthage, which is unlikely as there would have been records of this surviving to the modern day. More feasible is that Roman explorers or political refugees stumbled upon the North American mainland by accident, using whatever Carthaginian records were left in Alexandria as a guide.

Many Punic stellae were found on America's East Coast as well, with statements such as "This monument placed by Hanno, do not deface." (19) But the most important stellae discovered in America is by far the Paraiba Stone, a stellae discovered in 1872 but since lost to modern scholarship. Etchings were made of it, with text that read:

"We are Sidonian Canaanites from the city of the Merchant King. We were cast up on this distant island, a land of mountains. We sacrificed a youth to the celestial gods and goddesses in the nineteenth year of our mighty King Hiram and embarked from Ezion-geber into the Red Sea. We voyaged with ten ships and were at sea together for two years around Africa. Then we were separated by the hand of Baal and were no longer with our companions. So we have come here, twelve men and three women, into "Island of Iron." Am I, the Admiral, a man who would flee? Nay! May the celestial gods and goddesses favor us well!" (20)

This would have most likely been a part of the fleet commissioned by Pharaoh Necho to circumnavigate the African continent, as it seems they were blown off course and had no knowledge as of yet of the land of Brazil. (3) Indeed, the record fits the known facts-a journey around the Cape of Africa would have required two years for Phoenician sailors who weren't familiar yet with the waters of southern Africa, but the remaining distance after reaching the Ivory Coast area of Africa across from Brazil would have only taken a year, with most of the remaining sailing being in familiar waters.

Even more conclusive is the text by the classical author Diodorus of Sicily, who describes in detail the geographic knowledge of America possessed by the Carthaginians. (21) His texts read:

"For there lies out in the deep off Libya an island of considerable size, and situated as it is in the ocean it is distant from Libya a voyage of a number of days to the west... and the inhabitants, being well supplied with this game at their feasts, lack of nothing which pertains to luxury and extravagance; for in fact the sea which washes the shore of the island contains a multitude of fish, since the character of the ocean is such that it abounds throughout its extent with fish of every variety."

The fishing grounds of the North American continent are well-known even today, after centuries of overfishing-they would have been absolutely abundant in those days. Diodorus continues;

"In ancient times this island remained undiscovered because of its distance from the entire inhabited world, but it was discovered at a later period for the following reason. ...And since their ventures turned out according to their expectations, they amassed great wealth and essayed to voyage beyond the Pillars of Heracles into the sea which men call the ocean. ...The Phoenicians, then, while exploring the coast outside the Pillars for the reasons we have stated and while sailing along the shore of Libya, were driven by strong winds a great distance out into the ocean. And after being storm-tossed for many days they were carried ashore on the island we mentioned above, and when they had observed its felicity and nature they caused it to be known to all men."

Continue on to Part IV