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pytheas

The Phoenicians established colonies at the Pillars of Hercules, the western outlet of the Mediterranean, allowing them to control trade up & down the Atlantic coasts of Europe & Africa. One of the most prized resources was the tin found in the British Isles, especially Cornwall. The Phoenicians established colonies at the Pillars of Hercules, the western outlet of the Mediterranean, allowing them to control trade up & down the Atlantic coasts of Europe & Africa. One of the most prized resources was the tin found in the British Isles, especially Cornwall. Phoenicians traders made their way here trading coins for tin & other goods, possibly setting up a trading post on the island of Thanet (Tanit, a Punic goddess) in Kent.

However, Pytheas, a Greek from Massalia managed to run the blockade & sail up to the almost mythic Britain. Pytheas witnessed the tin trade in Britain & claimed the Briton’s took their tin to the island of Ictis where foreign merchants purchased it & transported it to Gaul & beyond. Pytheas remarked the locals were friendly thanks to frequent contact with these merchants.

Its alleged Pytheas circumnavigated Britain & claimed the northeastern point was named Orcas by the native Britons, modern Orkney. Pytheas also remarked that the natives fought on chariots which he compared to the Greeks of the Trojan War.

Pytheas sailed to Thule, modern Norway, where he described mead, the midnight Sun, & massive fields of drift ice which prevented his exploration further north. This ocean of fog, ice, & slush under the constant, weak light of the Arctic Sun marked the world’s edge for Pytheas.

Pytheas then turned East into the Baltic. Pytheas stopped at the mouth of Vistula River in modern Poland & met the Goths who had migrated from Scandinavia. He wrote on the plentiful amber found there & turned back, unable to safely travel through Scythian lands.

Pytheas’s expedition enlightened the Greeks of the frozen reaches of the North Atlantic & the regions which tin & amber came from, not only gaining valuable knowledge of opaque trade routes, but sparking the imagination regarding these icy, mist-clung lands dredged from myth.