Ancient Navigators Series
Today's post is not related to Patagonia, its creatures or the ancient peopling of America. It is about some strange discoveries that took place in the archipelago of Azores in the Mid Atlantic between 1520 and 1749. They are unusual because we have some tangible evidence and reports from different contemporary sources about a possible Punic or Phoenician presence in those islands.
Corvo Island
The island of Corvo is located in the Azores, 1.870 km (1160 mi) west of Portugal, and 3.230 km (2006 mi) east of Cape Cod, MassachuseTts, USA at 39°41'N 31°06'W. It has an area of only 17 km2 (6.6 sq mi.) and is the nortwesternmost island of the archipelago. See it in this Google map.
Its name (Corvo) is Portuguese for crow. They named it Sea Crow Island, after the cormorants that lived there. It was officially discovered by Diogo de Teive in 1452, but it had been known since the 14th century, it wasn't settled until 1580.
Like all the Azores islands, it is volcanic, an extinct volcano that rose from the depth of the Atlantic Ocean. Now its highest point is only 720 m above sea level (2,360 ft.).
It adopted different names over the years, originally it was known as Flores (flowers). In a Venetian map from the late 1300s it appers as "de Corvi Marini", in Ortelius' map (1608) is is the insula del Cueruo; the mariners called it ilha do marco (Island of the Mark, as a navigation mark or reference).
The Equestrian Statue
Damião de Góis (1502-1574), a Portuguese historian, diplomat, and humanist wrote a history about the Prince Dom Joam which was published in 1567. The book, in its Chapter IX, fol. 9 (read it online) mentions an equestrian statue that was discovered in Corvo Island when the Portuguese arrived there:
"At the top of this mountain, from the north-east, a large statue was found standing on a slab, representing a man on top of a bone(*) horse, and the man dressed in a rain cape, without hat, with one hand on the horse's mane, and the right arm stretched out, with all the fingers clutched except the second finger, known in Latin as the index, pointed towards the west. This image, made of one single piece of stone, was then sketched on the orders of King Manuel by his servant and draughtsman Duarte d'Armas. After seeing the drawing, the King sent a skilful man, born in the city of Oporto and well travelled in France and Italy, to the Island, equipped with tools to remove the antiquity. When he returned with it, the man told the King he had found the statue destroyed by a tempest that had occurred during winter. But the truth is that it was broken due to poor workmanship; and they brought pieces of it, namely: the head of a man and his right arm with the hand, and a leg, and the horses' head, a folded and raised foot, and part of a leg; everything remained a few days in the king's wardrobe, but what was done of these things, or where they ended up, I could not discover."
Below is an image of the text, note (*) it says "osso" which is bone, not stone (why?)
Duarte d'Armas was a draughtman and drew the plans of Castilian fortifications for King Manuel I, and lived between 1465 and the early 1500s, his master, the king lived between 1469 and 1521. This means that the statue was discovered sometime between 1480 and 1520.
The text continues as follows:
"Pero da Fonseca in the year of 1529 went to see it, and heard from the locals that in the rock, below where the statue used to be, were engraved some letters in the same stone of the rock; and because the place where this inscription was, was dangerous to reach, some men were sent down, well tied up with ropes, and imprinted the letters that were not yet erased by time in some wax that was taken for that effect; however, the letters moulded in the wax were already worn out, nearly shapeless, and for that reason, or maybe because the assistance only had knowledge of Latin letters, and even this one imperfectly, no one present at the scene managed to make sense of what the letters meant, nor what letters they were."
A second reference to the statue was written by Gaspar Frutuoso, a Portuguese priest, who was born in the Azores, in the Island of Saint Michael in 1522, and died in 1591. His manuscript dating from the late 1500s, can be read online here (Saudades da Terra, Vol. VI, Chap. 48, p. 154), which I quote below:
"Opposite these lowlands (as the locals say), on top, in the middle of this rock, was a point with a stone figure pointing northwest, where some say that from there appears the island they call Garça, directly to this wind, which can also be seen in the summer from Terceira Island, to its northern side, sometimes in the same northwest direction. And about this figure the locals say other things, many without foundation, as I have said at the beginning, but the most certain is, as I have already said, what the learned and curious chronicler Damião de Goes says about this islet, which sailors call Marco Island, because it (due to its high mountain range) is where they demarcate their destination when they come to seek any of the others, and that on the summit of this mountain, in the northwest, or at the base of this rock (as locals say), a stone statue was found, placed on a pillar, which was a man on top of a bone horse, dressed in a bed, without a cap, with one hand on the horse's leg and his right arm extended, and the fingers of his hand curled, except for the index finger, with which he pointed toward the opposite direction; and, because I have already mentioned the different opinions that existed about this image and what could be pointed out with what was made of it (sic), I will not say more at present, except that it is a very notable antiquity."
The interesting part of Frutuoso's text is the unknown island of Garça, perhaps Bermuda? The rest of the text quotes Damião de Góis' text.
André Thevet, André Thevet (1502?-1590), a French Franciscan priest and cosmographer to several French kings also had something to say about the Azores. He traveled widely and visited South America in 1555. Upon his return to France, he published his experiences in Les singularitez de la France Antarctique (1557), followed by his Cosmographie Universelle (1575). He was fond of telling tall stories and exaggerating events. It was he who reported the Succarath, a Patagonian monster, the tapir and the horned guanaco or pyrassouppi.
In his Cosmographie (Book XXIII, p 1022), in 1575 he wrote about finding Hebrew characters within a cave inscribed on two monuments in the main island of the Azores, São Miguel (Saint Michael). Below is the relevant text:
"Towards the northern part, on the shore of the sea, the first to discover it, digging against a rock, noticed a hole, ten feet high, and as much in width. After having made an opening, some people with torches ventured to enter inside, forty feet and six feet, without finding some large stones there: but no one found there, except two stone monuments, each of which was no less than twelve and a half feet long, and four and a half or so wide. Those who have seen the said monuments, built quite exquisitely, have told me that there is no appearance of writing or other mark of antiquity, except for the outline of two lines of color, which were around the said monuments, together with some Hebrew letters four fingers long, so ancient that with great difficulty one could read them: however, a Maranne, a native of Spain, son of Julius, a man versed in languages, painted them as I represent them to you: מחטסאל and were these letters at the top of said monuments and at the bottom these two other words מתרעאל טעלבין and the interpretation of which I furnish, giving pleasure to those who make profession of this language. And by this everyone can judge, that this Hebrew people lived not only in the land of Judah, but everywhere this great world. At the same time one day, a certain doctor wishing to philosophize, and to live the rarest things of Judah, accompanied by three of his learned men, entered this large cave, from which all four never left, and you cannot yet know with what kind of death they ended their days in this place."
These accounts were all written during the 1500s, and seem to suggest that sailors from the Middle East reached the Azores Islands. The equestrian statue with unknown symbols, and this cave with Hebrew letters is proof. Though lost.
Regarding the letters, they seem clearly Hebrew, as used nowadays. They are not Phoenician characters. The alphabet developed in Phoenicia spread rapidly among the neighboring Canaanite groups, including the Hebrews, who adopted them, but modified them too. The punic letters used by the Carthaginians were identical to the Phoenician ones, and different from the Hebrew.
The Hoard of Coins
The final piece of evidence came in 1778, when a Swedish coin collector and expert (a numismatist) named Johann Franz Podolyn (1739 - 1784) published an article in a scholarly periodical telling about a stash of coins he discovered in 1749, in the Azores. (Podolyn, J. (1778). Some Notes on the Voyages of the Ancients, Based on Several Carthaginian and Cyrenaican Coins Found in 1749 on One of the Azores Islands (link to Swedish text). The Goteborgske Wetenskap og Witterhets Samlingar, 1, 106.)
Podolyn tells us that in 1749, a westerly storm exposed the foundations of the ruins of a stone building on a beach on Corvo Island. A black earthenware vase, cracked, was found there. It contained many unknown coins that were taken to the local convent, probably the Franciscan St. Boaventura church in Santa Cruz das Flores.
Some of these coins found their way to Lisbon, and from there to Madrid, in Spain. Father Enrique Florez de Setién y Huidobro, a numismatist and historian of the Order of St. Augustin was the leading coin expert in the country. He received nine coins and described them: two Carthaginian gold coins, five Carthaginian copper coins, and two Cyrenaic copper coins. Father Florez handed them over to Podolyn, who visited Madrid in 1761. They were regular coins, and the only unusual thing about them was where they had been found.
Below is the full text of this article (my apologies for the crude translation from Swedish to English)
"Some Remarks on the Seafaring of the Ancients on the Occasion of Some Carthaginian and Cyrenaic Coins Found in 1749 on One of the Acorian Islands
BY JOHAN PODOLYN
In the month of November 1749, after a few days of a westerly storm which caused the sea to wash away part of the foundations of a ruined stone building standing on the shore at Sen Corvo, a strange black clay pot was discovered in which there was a quantity of coins which, together with the pot, were carried to a monastery from which the coins were divided among the inhabitants of the island. Some of these coins were sent to Lisbon and from there to PADRE FLOREZ in Madrid.
It is not known how many were in the stash or how many were sent to Lisbon, but those that came to Madrid were 9, namely 2 Carthaginians of Gold No. 1 and 2 Tab VI 5 ditto of Copper No. 3 4 5 6 and 7 2 Cyrenaics of the same metal No. 8 and 9.
PADRE FLOREZ gave me these coins during my stay in Madrid in 1761 and advised that the entire find did not consist of more varieties than these 9 and that these were selected as the best conferred. That the coins are partly Carthaginian and partly Cyrenaic, they are not particularly rare if I exclude the 2 in gold but the peculiarity is the place where they were found.
It is known that the Portuguese first discovered the Acorian Islands in the time of Alphonsus V, and there is no reason to believe that any of the people there would have buried these coins, since they must have come there with some Punic ship, but I therefore dare to say that this ship had been there. It could also have been driven there by the storm. Carthage and several cities in Mauritania, so many ships went beyond Gibraltar. Hanno's expedition to the western coast of Africa is known and some of these many ships must have been driven on Corvo by the constant frequent wind. FARIA in fine Portuguese history says that when the Portuguese first came there on land there was a statue of a horse with a rider pointing to the West with his right hand. This statue stood on a pedestal of stone, which was carved all over with unknown letters. This monument was destroyed, which was a great loss. A blind man was there because they thought it was a pagan idol. This statue strengthens my belief that these islands,were not only visited randomly and storm-driven by either Phoenicians or Carthaginians but also that they had some firm footing there, for it cannot be assumed that a ship, either for trade or expeditions, has such a monument on board, but rather it can be concluded that if one or more ships have arrived on one or more occasions, the people have found the land good and have built a community there and then continued communication with the Fatherland and have come to such a state that the aforementioned monument could be erected. It may also happen that the Carthaginians, whose diligence in trade and navigation is known from this island, made an expedition westward and that the statue's pointing westward had this expedition to the subject of storms, earthquakes and volcanoes that caused great damage on this island and could have also caused the exodus of the people, who in return for which they had taken the wave erected the statue. pointing to the West where they might have known of some other land. Several guesses and inferences can be made both with and without, but that these islands were visited by the ancients seems to be quite unlikely, but whether a fluke or deliberate intention was the cause is left unsaid."
Corvo is a small island, with sheer cliffs eroded from the ancient volcanic cone, they rise hundreds of meters above the ocean. The only accessible spot is on the southern tip of the island, where the only settlement and port of the island is located. Below are two views of the island, with the freshwater lake in the extinct volcano's crater.
I can understand a small naval base here despite the island's lack of natural harbors, it does have freshwater, a stash of coins is also possible, but I can't figure out why would they bring a valuable and heavy equestrian statue and place it somewhere on the summit of the extinct volcano. In fact, I haven't been able to find any images of a Carthaginian or Phoenician equestrian statue. Surely they made them, but they must have been scarce as none seem to have made it to our time.
Anyway, I thought the story was interesting, and may provide some evidence on the navigation skills of the ancient Phoenicians and Carthagininans, who went beyond Gibraltar into the Ocean. Perhaps they made it across, to America, but there is no proof of this.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©
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