Current Events > I just realized that most of the world didn't know about gorillas until the 18

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hundreds.

Until the 1800s the only humans that knew about gorillas were some African tribes that lived near gorilla territory. Imagine if the Romans had known about Gorillas. Picture Gorillas being used in gladiator battles. I'm sure the greatest warriors would be made to fight them. It would have looked insane I bet to see a Roman gladiator fighting a gorilla

We would be in Planet of the Apes timeline because those Gorillas would have killed the Romans

---

CM_Ponch posted...

We would be in Planet of the Apes timeline because those Gorillas would have killed the Romans

---

The Romans did know about gorillas, thanks to the translated account of the Carthaginian explorer Hanno:

In its inmost recess was an island similar to that formerly described, which contained in like manner a lake with another island, inhabited by a rude description of people. The females were much more numerous than the males, and had rough skins: our interpreters called them Gorillae. We pursued but could take none of the males; they all escaped to the top of precipices, which they mounted with ease, and threw down stones; we took three of the females, but they made such violent struggles, biting and tearing their captors, that we killed them, and stripped off the skins, which we carried to Carthage: being out of provisions we could go no further.

Still an interesting thought though. And they certainly didnt know much about them or understand them, as you can tell from the description.

---

I only found out about the Gorillaz like seven years ago, nobody's perfect.

---

Shablagoo posted...

The Romans did know about gorillas, thanks to the translated account of the Carthaginian explorer Hanno:

Still an interesting thought though. And they certainly didnt know much about them or understand them, as you can tell from the description.

I saw mention of that on the gorilla wikipedia page but my interpretation was that we are not certain they are talking about what we call gorillas today. that maybe they were, but it's not really known 1 way or the other because the skins got destroyed when Carthage was destroyed by Rome. but maybe. if it IS true, it's a pretty crazy event to picture. ancient Carthaginians attacking a family of wild gorillas

Imagine all the places people don't go nowadays, and what lives there

---

there's nothing about this on rillapedia

---

viewmaster_pi posted...

there's nothing about this on rillapedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla

Etymology
See also: Hanno the Navigator Gorillai

The word "gorilla" comes from the history of Hanno the Navigator, (c. 500 BC) a Carthaginian explorer on an expedition to the west African coast to the area that later became Sierra Leone.[2][3] Members of the expedition encountered "savage people, the greater part of whom were women, whose bodies were hairy, and whom our interpreters called Gorillae".[4][5] It is unknown whether what the explorers encountered were what we now call gorillas, another species of ape or monkeys, or humans.[6] Skins of gorillai women, brought back by Hanno, are reputed to have been kept at Carthage until Rome destroyed the city 350 years later at the end of the Punic Wars, 146 BC.

The American physician and missionary Thomas Staughton Savage and naturalist Jeffries Wyman first described the western gorilla (they called it Troglodytes gorilla) in 1847 from specimens obtained in Liberia.[7] The name was derived from Ancient Greek (gorillai) 'tribe of hairy women',[8] described by Hanno.

basically we can't really confirm this story in modern times. thanks to the Romans razing everything in Carthage to the ground. the skins, if they existed, were destroyed in the chaos.

Do you think no one visited Africa until the 1800s?

---

Zikten posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorilla

basically we can't really confirm this story in modern times. thanks to the Romans razing everything in Carthage to the ground. the skins, if they existed, were destroyed in the chaos.

i'm joking, i just thought 'rillapedia', an all-gorilla-run wiki sounded funny

---

Had we never discovered gorillas, Harambe would be frolicking in the African forests with a family and thriving career

We are the virus

---

billcom6 posted...

Do you think no one visited Africa until the 1800s?

until the 1800's, not much of anyone other than those who already lived there, ever ventured into the interior of the continent. there were cities in North Africa, but most of the continent was still primitive and wild. there were people but they weren't doing much contact with the rest of the world

^ where did you hear that?

it seems Rome was doing trade and business around Africa.

https://www.ancient.eu/article/1199/the-roman-empire-in-west-africa/

the article is kinda long, but here's an excerpt from the beginning:

Classical Greek and Roman writers refer to all of Sudanic and Sub-Saharan Africa as 'Aethiopia', while the term 'Africa' originally referred only to the Maghreb region on the northwestern coast of the continent. Most Aethiopians in the Roman Empire likely came from East Africa through Egypt and Nubia but new evidence has also highlighted the role of trade and military interactions between West Africa and the Roman Empire.

---

well that's news to me. why did they call it the "dark heart of africa" then? I always thought it wasn't until closer to modern times that civilization was exploring inner africa

it's a racist framing of history and development.

it was to infer that black Africans were ignorant and primitive just because their level of development didn't match that of Europeans, even though they had civilizations of their own.

---