Discover New Frontiers Trivia Quiz

Answer: Carthage

When Himilco and Hanno embarked on their voyages of discovery, the Phoenician colony of Carthage, in present-day Tunisia, was already one of the most important trading centres in the western Mediterranean. Himilco, who might have been a contemporary of Hanno, or have lived somewhat earlier, is known as the first explorer from the Mediterranean region to reach the northwestern shores of the European continent. He sailed along the Atlantic coast of Portugal, and reached northwestern France, seeking to trade for tin and other valuable metals. He may have also sailed further north, as hinted in the "Ora Maritima" by 4th-century AD Latin writer Festus Avienius, which quotes Himilco (whose original account is lost) three times. In one of these quotes, the isles of Albion (Britain) and Ierne (Ireland) are mentioned. In his voyage, Himilco followed the trade routes used by the Tartessians, a people who lived in present-day Andalusia, near the southern Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula.

Believed by some to have been a king, or at least a high-ranking member of Carthaginian society, Hanno the Navigator is a high-profile figure in the history of exploration - so much that he had a lunar impact crater named after him. As a Greek translation of the original account of his voyage ("periplus", meaning "circumnavigation") has survived, we know that Hanno sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar down the Atlantic coast of Africa with 60 ships. There he reached a large bay, (the Gulf of Guinea), which he named "Horn of the South". His expedition is believed to have reached at least as far as Senegal, possibly even Cameroon or Gabon: his description of a mountain spewing rivers of fire, the "Chariot of the Gods", might refer to Mount Cameroon, an active volcano. At the end of his journey, Hanno encountered a tribe of savage, hairy people called "Gorillai" in Greek - the original source for the name of the largest ape species.

The photo shows a detail of Abraham Ortelius's map, "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum" (printed in 1624), widely considered the first modern atlas.

Answer: the farthest North

Born in the Greek colony of Massalia (present-day Marseille, France) around 350 BC, Pytheas was probably the most famous explorer of antiquity. Though his original account (titled "On the Ocean") was lost, and only excerpts survive, quoted or paraphrased by later authors such as Strabo and Pliny the Elder, what remains is enough to document Pytheas' voyage to northwestern Europe, which brought him to the British Isles, and possibly even further north, to "the ends of the world". In Strabo's "Geographica", this land is called "Thoule", spelled "Tyle" by Pliny, and "Thule" by Virgil (who added the adjective "ultima", meaning "farthermost"). Described as being near the "frozen sea", Thule has been variously identified with Iceland (see Q. 5), Norway, the Shetland Islands, the Faroe Islands, and even Greenland.

The accounts of Pytheas' voyage contain a wealth of invaluable scientific information that would prove ground-breaking for those who followed in his footsteps - such as his description of drift ice and the midnight sun, and his observation of tides. Although he quite probably did not reach the Arctic Circle, he is believed to have discovered the Baltic Sea, reaching the mouth of the river Vistula, which formed the western border of the vast, unexplored lands of Scythia. Pytheas' account also contains the earliest written reference to Scotland, referred to by the name of Orcas (the source of the name of the Orkney Islands).

In the 16th-century Swedish map by Olaus Magnus known as "Carta marina" (a detail of which appears in the photo), "Tile" is shown surrounded by a sea monster, a whale and an orca, and located between the Orkney Islands and Iceland.

Answer: Silk Road

The origins of the Silk Road lie in the exploration of Central Asia commissioned by the Han dynasty in the 2nd century BC. In 138 BC, Zhang Qian, a military officer who served Emperor Wu, was dispatched as an imperial envoy to the Western Regions; the purpose of the mission was to form an alliance with the nomadic Yuezhi people against the Xiongnu, who at the time dominated most of Central Asia. Zhang's journey was very eventful, and brought him in contact with both the Yuezhi and the Xiongnu (who captured him twice). By the time he returned to China in 125 BC, only two of the party that had originally departed from the Han capital of Chang'an (present-day Xi'an) were left - Zhang and Ganfu, their Xiongnu guide. The detailed information that Zhang brought back about the civilizations that existed in the lands west of the Empire earned him a position as palace counsellor. A further two missions followed. Zhang brought back many products from the lands he had visited - such as alfalfa seeds, which grew into horse fodder.

Among the lands visited by Zhang Qian there was the Indo-Greek kingdom of Dayuan, located in the Ferghana Valley of Central Asia, famous for the high quality its horses, nicknamed "heavenly horses". Though he did not reach either of those lands, Zhang also reported about India ("Shendu") and Parthia ("Anxi"), a kingdom in present-day northern Iran. Following his expedition, commercial relations flourished between the Han Empire and the lands of Central and Western Asia, and many other missions were sent there.

The mural painting from the Mogao Caves, in the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu, depicts Zhang Qian's departure from Chang'an.

Answer: Niger

A native of the city of Gades (present-day Cádiz, Spain), proconsul Lucius Cornelius Balbus came from a family of naturalized foreigners of Punic origin. As someone with roots on the African continent, he spent much of his military and political life in Africa, and earned fame and fortune by defeating the Garamantes, an ancient Berber people based in present-day Libya, in 19 BC. According to Pliny the Elder's account in his "Natural History", after this remarkable military feat Balbus sent a small contingent of his legionaries to explore the "land of lions" south of the Hoggar Mountains, in central Sahara. Using ancient caravan roads through the desert, the expedition reached a large river - very likely the Niger - which they believed to be a tributary of the Nile. To support this claim, Roman coins and other artifacts have been found in northern Mali.

Balbus' expedition was the first Roman foray into sub-Saharan Africa. At least three others followed in the 1st century AD: the Paulinus expedition (41 AD) reached the river Daras (Senegal) in West Africa, the Flaccus expedition (50 AD) reached the "lake of hippopotamus and rhinoceros" (Lake Chad), and the Matiernus expedition (ca. 90 AD) may have reached even further south, to the territory of present-day Central African Republic.

The photo shows a detail from a 19th-century reconstruction of the Ravenna Cosmography (8th century AD), with the River Ger (Niger) visible at the bottom, south of the land of the Garamantes.

Answer: Iceland

Born in southern Norway, in the late 8th century, Naddodd (a distant relative of Erik the Red and Leif Eriksson) had left Norway to settle in the Faroe Islands - one of the first Norsemen to do so. In the medieval Icelandic manuscript known as "Landnámabók" ("Book of Settlements"), a detailed description of the settlement of Iceland by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries AD, Naddodd is mentioned as the one who discovered Iceland while sailing from Norway to the Faroe Islands. According to this account, a storm blew Naddodd's boat off course, so that he landed on the shore of a bay with mountains near the shore (identified as present-day Reyðarfjörður, in eastern Iceland). He climbed a mountain to look for signs of human activity, such as smoke rising from fireplaces, but found none. As it started to snow while he was heading back to his boat, he gave the unknown land the name of "Snowland".

A few years later, around 860, a Swede by the name of Gardar Svavarsson explored the coast of Iceland, realizing that the landmass was an island. He built a house in Húsavik, in northern Iceland, and spent a winter there. When he returned home in the spring, he praised the new land, encouraging people to settle there. The first permanent settler, however, was Ingólfr Arnarson, also from western Norway, who around 874 built a homestead in a location that he named Reykjavík, or "Bay of Smoke" - later to become the name of Iceland's capital, .

The painting by Norwegian artist Oscar Wergeland depicts Norsemen landing in Iceland in 872.

Answer: Mongols

Born in Umbria, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine was one of the followers of St Francis of Assisi, who founded the Franciscan order in 1209. When the Mongols invaded and conquered Eastern Europe (1237-1242), Giovanni held the office of provincial of the order in Germany, and was chosen by Pope Innocent IV to head the first formal Catholic mission to the Mongol Empire. At the time, Giovanni was 63 years old. The mission departed from Lyon in April 1245; almost a year later Giovanni was presented to Batu Khan, the conqueror of Eastern Europe, on the shores of the river Volga. Then the mission embarked on a grueling eastward journey to meet the Great Khan Güyük (like Batu, a grandson of Genghis Khan) near his capital of Karakorum in Mongolia.

Upon his return to Western Europe, Giovanni was amply rewarded for his services, but died only a few years later, in 1252. His "Ystoria Mangalorum" ("History of the Mongols") is the first attempt by an European to chronicle the history of the Mongols, the geography of their lands, and their customs and manners.

In 1253, during the Seventh Crusade, Flemish Franciscan missionary William of Rubruck was sent on a journey by King Louis IX of France. The intent of the mission was not only to convert the Mongols (at the time referred to as "Tatars") to Christianity, but also to gain their support for the Crusade. Departing from Acre in the Holy Land, he stopped at Constantinople, then crossed the Black Sea, and travelled through Central Asia following the route of his Franciscan predecessor. Like Giovanni, he met Batu near the Volga: the Khan refused conversion, but sent the ambassadors to the court of the Great Khan Möngke. William and his party took four months to cover a distance of 9,000 km (5,600 mi), reaching Karakorum at the end of the year. Received courteously by the powerful ruler, the European missionaries spent the first half of 1254 in the Khan's capital before returning to the Holy Land.

The detailed report presented by William to the French king upon his return is held as one of the masterpieces of medieval travel literature, especially remarkable for its scientific accuracy and dismissal of the legends and folk tales that other travellers' accounts took as literal truth. William also demonstrated that the Caspian Sea was an inland sea, and did not flow north into the Arctic Ocean, as was widely believed at the time.

The map in the photo shows the routes followed by Giovanni, William and Marco Polo in their travels.

Answer: Mali Empire

Most people in the West know little about the great kingdoms and empires that flourished in sub-Saharan Africa in the Middle Ages and later. The Mali Empire, founded in ca. 1235 by Sundiata Keita, was renowned for its wealth, as well as its profound cultural influence on the region. Its rulers were known by the title of "mansa", meaning "ruler" in the Mande language: the most famous of them was Mansa Musa (ca. 1312 - ca. 1337), often called one of the wealthiest people in history. Musa (which means "Moses" in Arabic) ascended the throne in the early years of the 14th century, in unclear circumstances. According to his own account (recorded by an Arab historian), his predecessor (believed to be Muhammad ibn Qu, though other sources report his name as Abu Bakr II) disappeared during the second of the expeditions he had launched to explore the Atlantic Ocean.

Only one of the 200 ships of the first expedition came back, describing a powerful "river" (probably the Canary Current) in the middle of the sea that swept away all the other ships. Disbelieving the account, the Mansa put together a fleet of 2,000 ships, and appointed Musa as his deputy to rule until his return - but was never heard from again. As there are no other accounts of this expedition, some historians believe that it was just an excuse used by Musa excuse to explain his unexpected rise to power. On the other hand, the possibility of such a voyage has been taken seriously by others, and has given rise to speculation concerning possible contacts between the Mali Empire and pre-Columbian America. However, no actual evidence of these contacts has ever been found - in spite of various claims about the presence of African canoes or other artifacts in the Caribbean region - and these theories are generally discredited as pseudohistory.

The three empires mentioned flourished in other parts of the African continent: the Kongo Kingdom in Central Africa, the Kingdom of Aksum in the Horn of Africa, and the Great Zimbabwe Empire in Southern Africa.

The image in the photo is a depiction of Mansa Musa (holding an imperial golden globe) in the late 14th-century map known as the Catalan Atlas.

Answer: Philippines

An Arabized Berber from Tangiers (Morocco), Ibn Battuta has been nicknamed "the Islamic Marco Polo" because of his detailed account of his travels, known as "The Rihla", which he dictated when he was nearing the end of his life, in the late 1360s. However, his travels were far more extensive than those of either Marco Polo or 15th-century Chinese admiral Zheng He (see Q. 9): over a period of about 30 years, Battuta travelled around 117,000 km (73,000 mi), visiting the coastal regions of East Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, India, Southeast Asia, China, North and West Africa, and the southern Iberian Peninsula.

The longest of his three journeys (1332-1347) took him to Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula; then, on his way to China, Battuta visited the state of Kaylukari in the land of Tawalisi - a mysterious location that has been identified with various places in Southeast Asia, but is most likely to refer to Pangasinan, a coastal province of the island of Luzon in the Philippines. There Battuta met Urduja, a beautiful warrior princess whose identity is as mysterious as that of the land she ruled. Though she is considered a national heroine in the Philippines, some scholars believe her to be a fictional character. Battuta's account of his visit to Tawalisi mentions a powerful fleet of junks, and the presence of elephants - which, however, do not occur in the Philippines, but rather in parts of neighbouring Indonesia.

Although they were home to thriving indigenous states (called "barangay") during the Middle Ages, the Philippines were first visited by Europeans in 1521. Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan claimed the islands for Spain, but was eventually killed by Lapulapu, a local chief who refused to pledge allegiance to the newcomers.

The image in the photo, dating from the late 16th century, shows a couple of native royals in pre-Hispanic Philippines.

Answer: Singapore

About 70 years before the celebrated treasure voyages of admiral Zheng He under the Ming Dynasty, a Chinese merchant and traveller named Wang Dayuan (also known by the courtesy name of Huanzhang) embarked on two long voyages that took him from the port city of Quanzhou to over 100 countries in the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, North and East Africa, and Southeast Asia. During the first of his voyages, which took place between 1330 and 1334, under the Yuan Dynasty, Wang is believed to have sailed south of Java, and reached the coast of northern Australia, near present-day Darwin - more than 300 years before European explorers discovered the continent. Wang's description of the land of "Manali" mentions extensive wetlands, oyster beds, and tall, dancing cranes - a possible reference to the Australian crane, or brolga, commonly found in the Northern Territory. Wang's second voyage. which took place between 1337 and 1339, led him to the Arabian Peninsula, the Mediterranean Sea, and North Africa.

As Wang was not a government official, but an independent traveller, there is no official historical record of his travels. However, he kept a detailed account of his travels, which was published 1n 1349 with the title "Daoyi Zhilüe" ("A Brief Account of Island Barbarians"). Most of the book (which, at the time of writing, has not yet been fully translated into English) is dedicated to Southeast Asia, especially the areas east of the Malay Peninsula - including the island of Singapore, then known as Temasek (Danmaxi in Chinese). Wang visited the island, and described it in detail, with the two hills of Long Ya Men (Dragon's Teeth Gate), and, behind them, another settlement called Banzu. Wang also remarked that the natives and the Chinese lived side to side - hinting at the presence of a "Chinatown" on the island.

The survey map in the photo, dating from 1825, shows the old lines of Singapore, with Fort Canning Hill - the likely location of Banzu - in the centre.

Answer: Vasco da Gama

Like Marco Polo, Niccolò de' Conti came from a family of Venetian merchants. His extensive travels through Asia happened in the first half of the 15th century - more or less at the same time and in much the same regions as Zheng He's seven treasure voyages. During his 25 years in that vast continent, he immersed himself in the culture of the Islamic world, and even converted to Islam (allegedly to save his life and that of his family). Niccolò left Venice in the late 1410s, and established himself in Damascus, where he learned Arabic. From the Middle East he reached India, then went on to visit Burma, Sumatra, Java, and Champa (now Vietnam). Deeply impressed by the wealth and culture of Southeast Asia, he observed that those countries were far ahead of Italy (where the Renaissance was already in full swing) in terms of civilization.

In 1444 Niccolò went back to Venice, where he spent the rest of his life as a respected merchant. Before settling back in his home town, he was ordered by Pope Eugene IV to narrate his travels to Florentine scholar Poggio Bracciolini, the Pope's secretary, as penance for his forced conversion to Islam. Niccolò's account, which was published both in the original Latin and in various translations, is considered one of the finest (and most influential) descriptions of the East produced in the 14th century.

Niccolò is also likely to have been the "trustworthy source" quoted by Venetian monk Fra Mauro, who around 1450 drew a map of the known world that is widely held as one of the earliest examples of modern cartography. Fra Mauro took many descriptions and location names directly from the report of de' Conti's travels. Furthermore, Niccolò's description of huge East Asian junks able to withstand the full force of a storm is almost certainly behind the detail of the map (shown in the photo) about the travels of a "junk from India" beyond the tip of Africa. The knowledge that it was possible to circumnavigate the African continent in order to get to India from Europe encouraged the efforts of Portuguese explorers, which culminated in Vasco da Gama's successful expedition (1497-1499). Niccolò's account was also a direct influence on the 1457 Genoese Map, which some believe was used by Christopher Columbus in his first voyage.