A Carthaginian expedition to explore the west coast of Africa is launched, according to Herodotus, probably between 500 and 480, carrying thirty thousand men and women in sixty ships.
Carthage has dispatched Hanno, called the Navigator, to explore and colonize the northwestern coast of Africa.
He sails through the straits of Gibraltar, founds or repopulates seven colonies along the African coast of Morocco, and explores significantly farther along the Atlantic coast of the continent.
Hogan cites the visit of Hanno to Mogador, where the Phoenicians establish an important dye manufacturing plant using a marine gastropod found in the local Atlantic Ocean waters.
The core mission probably included the intent to found Carthaginian (or in the older parlance Libyophoenician) towns as well as the consolidation of the route to the gold market.
