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Gibraltar - The Pillars of Hercules


pillars of hercules

Guarding the entrance to the Atlantic Ocean to north and south are two mountains, the Rock of Gibraltar at 426 metres to the north and the much higher Jebel Musa at 851 metres in Morocco to the south. At this point the Straits are just 14 kilometres wide and, even today, a hazardous place to be due to the strong currents. The Atlantic Ocean is one metre higher than the Mediterranean due to the Med evaporating faster than it can be refilled from rivers. There is a constant stream of water from west to east as the Atlantic tries to top up the Mediterranean. Then navigators have to cope with the tidal streams that also flow west to east and east to west and the wind that, for the majority of the year is funnelled between the land masses and blows west to east, a wind known as the Poniente, or east to west, the Levante. Just west of Gibraltar is Tarifa, reputed to be the windiest place in Europe.

Nobody knows who invented the first boat, or where it was invented. Circumstantial evidence indicates the Australian aborigines crossed from Bali to Lombok about 50,000 years ago but the oldest boat, a log canoe, was found in Holland. It is dated to about 8000 BC. A boat of this nature however would not have been very safe on the Mediterranean Sea. A 7000 year old seagoing boat made from reeds and tar has been found at Kuwait and was probably paddled in the coastal waters of the Persian Gulf. The Mesopotamians and Egyptians started to experiment with sails about 3000 BC and rapidly developed larger sea going vessels the designs of which were copied by the Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, Persians and Greeks. Certainly by 2500 BC the Phoenicians were using seagoing vessels with keels and sails to trade between Egypt and the civilisations at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Over the next thousand years they expanded their trading area throughout the Mediterranean as far as the Gibraltar Strait. There they were confronted by the Straits.

Stories of the horrific seas, fiendish weather and devilish serpents, probably the concentration of whales, to be found in the Straits were brought back to the east by these early maritime explorers who actually managed to pass through them to establish trading posts at Gades (Cádiz) about 850 BC and further north along the Atlantic coast of Portugal and even as far as Cornwall in the UK. The tales were an obvious warning to rival traders not to pass through the Strait and interrupt their trade with the Tartessians in Spain and the Celts in Portugal and Britain.

Around 600 BC an ancient Greek poet called Peisander wrote of the twelve labours of the Greek mythical hero Hercules. The tenth task was to steal the cattle of the giant Geryon who lived on an island called Erytheia in the mythical Hesperides in the far west of the Mediterranean. The more literal Greeks interpreted Hesperides as being the land of the Tartessus in the area of present day Huelva and Cádiz. Another Greek poet, one hundred years after Peisander, called the westernmost point of Hercules' journey, 'the gates of Gades', probably a reference to the Phoenician trading post at present day Cádiz. The tales initiated a cult following. Young men set off to emulate Hercules and, incidentally, become competitors for the trade west of the Straits, probably the desired result of the author.

It was not until the Greek philosopher Plato wrote of Atlantis around 400 BC that the term 'Pillars of Hercules' was first mentioned. He placed Atlantis to the west of the pillars but even so their exact geographical position had not been clearly determined.

It was not until the Romans adapted the original Greek poem by Peisander did the pillars become fixed. According to Roman mythology, during his journey, Hercules had to cross the Atlas Mountains. Rather than climb them Hercules stamped his foot creating the Straits and a passageway between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. They then fixed the two pillars as Calpe (Gibraltar) and Mons Abila (present day Monte Hacho, a rather insignificant hill overlooking Ceuta). Later scholars decided that the much more imposing Jebel Musa was more likely to be the southern pillar. The argument continues to this day.

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