Comercio no presencial de oro y escalas en islas de fenicios y cartagineses en la costa atlántica norteafricana.

Abstract

According to Herodotus, ca. 450-430 BC, Carthaginian voyages were made in the Atlantic Sea after the Periplus of Pharaoh Necho II (610-595 BC), during the 6th and 5th century BC. Moreover, Heraclides of Pontus reports that a Magon performed an African Atlantic voyage during the tyranny of Gelo (491-478 BC). These Carthaginian Atlantic voyages access to the silent trade of gold, essential for the payment of the Carthaginian army, composed of mercenaries from Iberia, Gaul and Italy, as the army which attacked Sicily in 480 BC. Gold dust had to be transported to a predetermined point of the coast, which required that gold was available when boats arrived and imposed minimal contacts regularly, at least once a year and around the summer, the best period for sailing. Transport to the coast was made in light chariots by the Ethiopian Pharusians, located in the Periplus of Polybius before Ethiopian Daratites and Draa River, so we must search the place of exchange in rivers as Tamri, Sous, Massa or Assaka. The best two sites were the peninsula or the small island of the Devil’s Rock Beach, next to Tamraght, and the fountain of Agadir. In the last quarter of the 6th century BC, ca. 525-510 BC, there was the abandonment of regular attendance to the former island of Mogador, transformed in a peninsula, and simultaneously Buenavista (Lanzarote) was occupied for the first time at ca. 536-520 BC, and presumably also the island of Fuerteventura. In this semi-desert African coast, with water and food shortages, the Geryoneis of Stesichorus of Himera (ca 600-550 BC) mention an island with «solid gold mansions» and Peri apistôn of Palaephatus, ca. 350-325 BC, links the Atlantic gold trading with three islands, the two largest separated by a strait, like the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. These calls led to the discovery of Gran Canaria, just a day at sea, an island rich in rivers, fountains and vegetation, excellent for a permanent settlement. It is possible that it was the island mentioned in Perì thaumasíōn akousmátōn of Pseudo-Aristotle, ca. 310-250 BC, reporting the settlement of Carthaginians in an Atlantic island.