Pillars of Hercules: some notes

Neaderthals may have been on Gibraltar as late as 25000BP. Did they arriver there while running from us.

There seems to be good evidence that Phoenicians had a presence there by ca 950 BC.

The Pillars of Hercules have been called Monte Hacho and Jabel Musa. The Romans were there and Arabs controlled it for centuries.

The Pillars might well be called gates or gate posts for there were times they kept the Atlantic from entering the Mediterranean basin and times they let those waters in. In fact Strabo tells us that Pindar called them the Gates of Gades.

Atlas, Romans said they heard, was the mountain that closed the that gate across the straights.


In one history Hercules, on the way to Erytheia island, violently opened those gates so that the Atlantic flooded the Mediterranean lowlands. Did Diodorus Socolus recount that history?

In the case of Gibraltar the Spaniards may have been rooked by Englishmen.

Please add something. Just a comment would be a pleasure to receive.