THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON

“... the Barbarian Bay, which near the shallow sea is called Breve, from the Rhaptum
promontory even to the Prasum promontory and the unknown land. Around this bay the
Aethiopian Anthropophagi dwell, and from these toward the west are the Mountains of
the Moon, from which the lakes of the Nile receive snow water…” 1

Ptolemy locates the source of the Nile at the Mountains of the Moon. The designation is
assumed to be Arab in origin and that Ptolemy is therefore invoking more ancient Arab
sources. Several maps, including Athanasius Kircher’s of 1665, place the Mountains of
the Moon in the territory of Sofala and in the vicinity of the Zambezi River. This is
consistent with al-Mas’udi’s assertion that the Nile extends into Sofala. “The land of the
Zanj begins with a branch (of the Nile) which leaves the upper Nile and continues to the
land of Sofala and the Waqwaq.” Mas’udi further states that the Nile “branches out into
a gulf which falls into Bahr az Zanj, the sea where the island of Qanbalu is found.” 2

What is apparent here, assuming that Mas’udi is not suggesting that the source of the
Nile is the Indian Ocean, is a rudimentary knowledge of the Great Rift Valley. This
contains a series of great lakes that lie in the valley and extend from central Africa down
to Lake Nyasa in south-eastern Africa. A tributary from this lake joins with the Zambezi
shortly before the river empties into the ocean.

Both the Nile and the Zambezi are comparable in that they both offer access, including
navigable shipping routes, into the interior of the continent. The Zambezi is
immeasurably larger than any other river on the east coast of Africa and is navigable for
hundreds of miles into the interior.
Kircher would have had access to the Mas’udi text as well as other Arab geographic
texts including al-Idrisi’s famous map, the Tabula Rogeriana of 1154. These would
therefore have influenced the concepts behind Kircher’s map. Although contemporary
science places the source of the Nile at Lake Victoria there are rivers that feed into Lake
Victoria and Lake Albert from the south. These extend the water catchment area of Lake
Victoria and Lake Albert, and therefore the Nile, deeper into the interior of Africa.

The deep fissure running through Africa, the Great Rift Valley, is evidence of prehistoric
geographic ruptures that would have been obvious to those traders that traversed their
path towards the Nile corridor. It is apparent that an underground network of reservoirs
was imagined that traced this geographic fault line. These underground water reservoirs
were proposed by Pliny thus giving an occult symbolism to Kircher’s map.
“Timaeus the mathematician has alleged a reason of an occult nature: he says that the
source of the river (Nile) is known by the name Phiala, and that the stream buries itself
in channels underground, where it sends forth vapours generated by the heat among
the steaming rocks amid which it conceals itself; but that, during the days of the
inundation, in consequence of the sun approaching nearer to the earth, the waters are
drawn forth by the influence of his heat, and on being thus exposed to the air, overflow;
after which, in order that it may not be utterly dried up, the stream hides itself once
more.”3

This occult alchemy coexists with the burgeoning development of science seen in
Masudi’s text which indicates an emerging awareness of the Great Rift Valley. Tracing
the path of this maximalist Nile from Lake Nyasa through Lake Tanganyika, Lake
Edward and Lake Albert, with Lake Victoria offset to this continuous line of lakes, allows
it to extend from Lake Nyasa deep in southeast Africa through to the Nile delta.
Both Madagascar and the Comoros were named by the Arabs as the ‘Islands of the
Moon’ (qumr derived from qamar meaning moon). The name appears in Idrisi’s map,
the Tabula Rogeriana replacing the title Qanbalu which eventually disappeared into the
recesses of history.

It is noticeable that Madagascar, as an Island of the Moon, faces the Mozambique coast
which here forms a great crescent-shaped bay with Sofala (the town) centred in the
middle of the crescent. The Comoros, also as Islands of the Moon, guard the entrance
into this crescent. There are many crescent-shaped bays around the world but this one
is exceptional through being framed by Madagascar creating an occult pictorial image.

Into this bay exits the Zambezi with its huge delta and gold trade into the interior of
Sofala. A tributary of the Zambezi branches off the main river and joins up with the
southern end of Lake Nyasa. The Zambezi then cuts through an escarpment which from
the river appears to be distant mountains. It also cuts through gorges with mountainous
outcrops on either side.

Close to this path is Mount Darwin, renamed from Mount Fura, which the Arabs equated
with the biblical myth of Solomon’s gold mines. This myth was stated by the Arabs and
spread by the Portuguese centuries before the British arrived. It remains an
unsupported myth but influenced perceptions of Sofala at the time when Kircher was
devising the map. Milton in ‘Paradise Lost,’ drawing on these myths, associates Sofala
with the biblical Ophir. “And Sofala, thought Ophir, to the realm…”

There is a geographic reality, which overrides the scarcity of archaeological evidence, of

significant gold deposits in the region of Mount Darwin. This was originally Mount Fura
that is purported to be the fabled biblical Ophir, according to the Arab traders. Thus
when Kircher’s map highlights the region of Sofala this would, at the time of the map’s
publishing, be equated with a gold rush that reached back into biblical antiquity.
Close to the area of the Zambezi where the branch departs to join with Lake Nyasa, on
the other side of the Zambezi, rise the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe. These run
parallel to the coastal plane of Sofala and therefore reinforce the crescent shape of the
coast. In the present time there is a gold rush taking place in the Chimanimani
Mountains of this region proving that the presence of gold fever still envelops these
mountains.

Within the same range of mountains as this gold-laden mountain is the mountainous
area termed Inyanga. These mountains are the site of an extraordinary, and as yet not
satisfactorily explained, series of ancient terraces reaching from the valley almost to the
peak of Mount Ziwa.

“This extensive area of stone walls, forts, pit dwellings and terraces is part of a huge
complex of ruins and agricultural terracing which extends over a vast area in the
mountainous eastern region of Inyanga… The ruins are situated below the western
slope of the 5,700 foot Mount Ziwa, and are a landmark conspicuously higher than any
other in the immediate vicinity. The inaccessible upper cliff of the mountain has
necessarily been left untouched, but the lofty peak to the north of it is walled to within a
few feet of its summit, as are all the minor hills in the area. Generally, a series of walled
terraces rise one after the other in concentric lines a few feet apart until the summit is
reached, where the stone walled pits and elliptical dwellings of the ancient inhabitants
are found.”4

The terraces of Inyanga are situated above the malarial coastal plain thus creating a
zone of habitation that was sustainable for non-indigenous humans. Mas’udi
emphasizes the importance of the presence of the Waqwaq in Sofala.

“Only the Zendjs cross the arm (of the Nile) that splits from the upper Nile, and throws
itself in the sea that wears the name of these people, they fix themselves on the
beaches, and extend their home up to Sofala, which is the limit of their land. Their
country goes down as far as the country of Sofala and the Waqwaq. There is the
furthest limit for the voyages from Oman and Siraf on the Sea of the Zanj. In the same
way that the sea of China ends with the land of Sirla (Japan) the sea of Zanj ends with
the land of Sofala and the Waqwaq, which produces gold and many other wonderful
things.”5

The use of the term Waqwaq (or Wakwak) is now taken to refer to the Indonesian
migration to Madagascar and the Comoros. During the last century the various theories
on the Zimbabwean ruins tended to interpret this name as referring to the Khoisan, the
original inhabitants prior to the Bantu migration from the north. Thus the explicit
references to the Waqwaq were essentially discounted.

The language of Madagascar can be traced to its Austronesian (Indonesian) roots,

specifically with an origin in Borneo. Sumatra and Java drove the seaborne migration to
Madagascar and evidently, according to Mas’udi, the territory of Sofala. All these
Austronesian entities were subsumed during this critical period into the gold-trading
Sumatran empire of Srivijaya.

The current orthodoxy is to locate Qanbalu off the coast of Tanzania, either Pemba
Island or Zanzibar. In the text of Mas’udi these proposed locations are absolutely ruled
out. He states that Qanbalu is one or two days’ journey from the mainland whereas
Pemba Island and Zanzibar lie just thirty miles offshore. The only islands that are
consistent with Mas’udi’s description are the Comoros or Madagascar. “One of these
islands, placed one or two days’ journey from the coast, has inhabitants who are
Muslims who provide the royal family. This is the Qanbalu about which we have written
elsewhere in this book.”6

Another writer, al-Idrisi, confirms the presence of the Austronesians, Indians and
Chinese in Jabasta, a town in the territory of Sofala. He specifically mentions the empire
of Srivijaya which traded gold and ivory to the Indonesian islands, China and India. “In
the first case you have the people of India, Sind, China and the coasts… Also people
from Qumr (Madagascar) and merchants of the land of the Mihraj (ruler of the Sumatran
empire of Srivijaya) are well received (in Jabasta of Sofala) and carry on trade there.” 7

Idrisi states that Indians were living at a town in Sofala called Sayuna thus establishing
evidence of trade and settlement from India at his time of writing in 1150. Sayuna was
probably positioned at the mouth of the Zambezi judging by the description of the
access gained by ships. “Sayuna is medium in size and its inhabitants are a collection
of Hind, Zanj and others. The town is situated on an estuary / gulf into which the ships
of the voyagers can enter.”8

There is an extensive description of the trade in iron between Sofala and India. From
this description it is possible that metallurgy was introduced into the region from India
which had the most advanced steel-making technology at this time. The malleability of
the iron from Sofala made it a tradable asset and was used in the famous swords of
India. It is Indian steel that gained fame as Damascus steel indicating a trading network
for steel that flourished between Sofala, India and the Arab and Indonesian shipping
routes.

“... of this metal (iron) there are numerous mines in the mountains of Sofala. People of
the Zabag come hither for iron, which they carry to the continent and islands of India
where they sell it for good money, because it is an object of big trade and it has a huge
market in India. For although there is good quality iron in the islands and mines of that
country, it does not equal the iron of Sofala for its quality and its malleability. The Indians
are masters in the arts of making it. They prepare and mix the substances so that
through fusion one gets the soft steel normally called India steel. They have factories
that make the best swords in the world.” 9

These Arab accounts would inevitably have been partly sourced from traders in metals
and ivory, with penetration of the African interior limited to navigable rivers such as the
Zambezi. The coincidence that this river was positioned near a major gold-producing
region means that the legendary source of the Nile was equated with the legends of an
African El Dorado.

This fabled gold source would not have been unnoticed by Kircher. The presence of
gold, in legendary quantities, was rumoured to reside in the mountains of the Sofala
region. By imagining a network of undergold reservoirs the source of the Nile could be
extended to the golden kingdom of Sofala from where there is evidence that the Arab
geographers had placed the Mountains of the Moon.

The first reference to the Mountains of the Moon is by Ptolemy but it is evident that he
was drawing on more ancient sources. They are positioned alongside a bay, shaped like
a crescent, in the Mozambique channel facing Madagascar. This sea is much shallower
than the Indian Ocean on the rest of the east African coast and it is the shallow nature
of this sea that is an important geographic marker in locating these mountains. Ptolemy
states that Mountains of the Moon are positioned west of “the shallow sea.”

“... the Barbarian Bay, which is near the shallow sea is called Breve, from the Rhaptum
promontory even to the Prasum promontory and the unknown land. Around this bay the
Aethiopian Anthropophagi dwell, and from these toward the west are the Mountains of
the Moon, from which the lakes of the Nile receive snow water…” 10

The Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe have been known to have had snow in the
historical past with Mount Nyangani recording snow as recently as 1935. In some
interpretations ‘sufala’ literally means ‘shoal-water,’ this being consistent with Sofala’s
position on the shallow sea of the Mozambique Channel.

According to Idrisi “Cordana, the author of ‘kitab ‘l-khizana,’ says that the Nile from the
source till the delta at the Mediterranean is 5,634 miles.” 11 Although the distance is
obviously unreliable, the sheer magnitude of the distance quoted for the source to the
delta indicates that the source is imagined deep in the interior of southern Africa. Lake
Victoria is far too close to the Nile Delta to justify a distance of this magnitude.
The existence of two continental bulges, defined by Ptolemy as promontories, on the
east coast of Africa would have been essential knowledge for sailing ships determining
whether to tack southeast or southwest. A logical reading of Ptolemy’s text would place
the Prasum promontory in southern Mozambique.

“Aethiopia (Africa)... extends from the Great bay of the Outer sea (coast of Somalia,
Kenya, Tanzania) to Rhapton promontory (northern Mozambique / Cape Delgado) even
to the Prasum promontory (southern Mozambique / Inhambane) and the unknown land
… Near this is an island toward the east, the name of which is Menuthias…” 12

Therefore an analysis of Ptolemy’s text, if compared to a contemporary map of Africa,

would identify these two continental bulges on the east coast of Africa as the two named
promontories, Rhaptum and Prasum. The first promontory incorporating Cape Delgado
can be identified as the Rhaptum promontory and the second promontory incorporating
Inhambane can be identified as the Prasum promontory.

Current archaeological speculation locates the town of Rhapta in Tanzania (near

Zanzibar) but the minor headland in this location can not be compared to the huge
bulge now named Cape Delgado. Rather the promontory can be seen to curve
eastwards from the proposed Rhapta site incorporating the cape before curving
westwards again before bulging out again in southern Mozambique.
The interpretation of the term ‘promontory’ in this context is supported by the French
‘Ancienne Ethiopie’ map which calls the Cape of Good Hope the ‘Keras Promontoire.’ A
small and insignificant headland near Zanzibar is not then worthy of being described as
the Rhaptum promontory as it is by the prevailing orthodoxy. This orthodoxy holds that
the tiny, in the context of the entire African coast, headland near Zanzibar is the
Rhaptum promontory and Cape Delgado is seen as the Prasum promontory.

Ancient ruins discovered in coastal Tanzania or on islands off the Tanzanian coast prove
nothing in this regard since this was the major trade route from East Africa to Arabia, the
Persian Gulf and India. Ruins of a town like Rhapta, as the furthest point of trade on the
edge of the unknown land are more likely to have disappeared being of timber and other
perishable materials.

Identification of Ptolemy’s two promontories is supported by the location of Madagascar

which is close to both promontories. “Near this is an island toward the east, the name of
which is Menuthias.” There is an area of relatively shallow sea between Madagascar
and the Mozambique coast which is now named the Mozambique Channel. It
corresponds to the “shallow sea” in Ptolemy’s account.

“... toward the east by the Barbaricus bay, which near the shallow sea is called Breve,
from the Rhaptum promontory even to the Prasum promontory and the unknown land.” 13

The significance of Ptolemy’s description of the east African coast is that it proves that
ancient traders had penetrated down the coast as far as the Prasum promontory in
southern Mozambique. They therefore had access to all the regions of the Mozambique
coast from which gold was historically traded. The ‘Geographia’ incorporated the work of
Marinus of Tyre, the Phoenician mariner, whose writing has been lost but survives
through Ptolemy.

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea confirms this ancient penetration by identifying a
large island that can only be Madagascar. It understates the distance between
Madagascar and the mainland by a factor of ten times. The statistic ("three hundred
stadia from the mainland") is likely to be corrupt or a wildly incorrect guess as there are
no relevant islands, except Madagascar, that are large enough to contain rivers with
crocodiles that lie off the coast of Africa.

"... the island Menuthias, about three hundred stadia from the mainland, low and
wooded, in which there are rivers and many kinds of birds and the mountain-tortoise.
There are no wild beasts except the crocodiles..."

Proponents of the Pemba Island / Zanzibar theory posit the scarcely credible
explanation that the Periplus has mistaken monitor lizards for crocodiles. All the
evidence, apart from the distance to the coast, suggests that the island is Madagascar.

“The second entry is Menuthias, an island characterised by rivers with crocodiles, and
by an extensive ‘catch’ of sea turtles by means of baskets at the river-mouths. In the
whole of East Africa no island answers to this description except Madagascar. Zanzibar
is quite beside the mark; there one finds neither rivers, nor crocodiles, nor turtles.” 14

A mere century later Ptolemy confirms that Menuthias is Madagascar. In the ‘Ancienne
Ethiopie’ map the interior (contemporary Zimbabwean) territory beyond the south-
eastern coast is defined as Agysamba (Agisymba). The legendary location of Agisymba
has been the source of controversy since Ptolemy located the territory at the
southernmost limit of his world. “... next to the unknown land of Aethiopia is a region of
wide expanse called Agisymba.” The map shows the Mountains of the Moon in
Agisymba (or Agysamba).

Collating this information reveals the potential location for Rhapta. Obviously Rhapta
must have been located on the Rhapta promontory and the Periplus states that it was
situated on a river. The name is derived from the ‘sewn’ together boats used by the
inhabitants. This river must have had access to the interior to justify its reputation as a
trading hub or entrepot. Rhapta was situated beyond the fiery ‘Pyraloi, a name that
survives into English as signifying fire such as ‘funeral pyre.’
These islands can only be the volcanic Comoros. The Periplus states that they are
situated at the entrance to the canal which can be taken to mean the Mozambique
Channel. They are also in the vicinity of Menuthias or Madagascar. It is extraordinary
that the prevailing orthodoxy of locating Rhapta in Tanzania can be so obviously
mistaken.

“On the African side of the Indian Ocean there is only one group of islands to which the
term Fire-islands applies; that is the volcanic Comoro group, whose most important
volcano on Angasija (8,660 feet) is active to this day. The islands of the Pyraloi are,
therefore, the Comoros. They take us to the ‘Channel’ mentioned in the ‘Periplus,’ the
Mozambique Channel, at whose entry they are situated. And from her the voyage leads,
as we have seen, to Menuthias (Madagascar), to Rhapta (Quelimane).” 15

Quelimane is on the Rhaptum promontory and on a river that connects to the Zambezi.
The location of Rhapta as Quelimane is too specific as it could have been situated
anywhere on the Zambezi delta, a vast and shifting landscape with canals that have
been used and silted up over millennia. An interesting description of such an emporium
is provided by an early Portuguese writer which gives a sense of a town potentially
similar to Rhapta, situated on a river at the edge of the known world.

“Leaving Sofala for Mozambich (Mozambique Island), at forty leagues from it, there is a
very large river, which is called the Zuama (Zambezi); and it is said that it goes towards
Benamatapa, and it extends more than 160 leagues. In the mouth of this river there is a
town of the Moors, which has a king, and it is called Mongalo. Much gold comes from
Benamatapa to this town of the Moors, by this river, which makes another branch which
falls at Angos (this could be a reference to Quelimane in the region of Angos/Angoche),
where the Moors make use of boats, which are boats hollowed out from a single trunk,
to bring the cloths and other merchandise from Angos, and to transport much gold and
ivory.”16

There is a consistency here in the description of the boats hollowed out from a single
trunk to the canoes described in the Periplus. "In this place there are sewed boats, and
canoes hollowed from single logs, which they use for fishing and catching tortoise."

From 2004 reports emerged of a gold rush in the Chimanimani mountains that form part
of the Eastern Highlands that straddle the eastern Zimbabwean border with
Mozambique. By 2006 it was estimated that at least ten thousand miners from both
countries had joined in the gold rush with miners, even with these large numbers,
gaining five grams of gold a day.
A recurrence of a gold rush in this region is a sign of occurrences in the ancient past.
This continuity of history suggests that ancient traders travelled to this region to source
gold. Many would have known that beyond the coastal plain rose the mountainous
plateau which contained gold bearing rocks. Rivers running the mountainous plateau
onto the coastal plain (the contemporary Manica province of Mozambique) contained
alluvial gold.

If there is any truth to the Diogenes myth then it is likely that he traced a path from
Rhapta on the Zambezi Delta to the Mountains of the Moon rising from the coastal plain.
Heading north, within relative geographic proximity, is Lake Nyasa which as the most
southerly of the great lakes of the Great Rift Valley would naturally have been seen as a
source of the Nile. A second large lake, Lake Tanganyika, extends north following the
path towards the Nile. These large lakes are joined by a further series of lakes along the
fissure of the Great Rift Valley almost to the real scientific source of the Nile.

An ancient trade route tracked the path of the lakes that are strung along the Great Rift
Valley. There was a belief in a universal river that encircled the world. Pausanias refers
to an ancient myth that the Euphrates was connected to a river system that originated in
east Africa (termed Ethiopia in its ancient sense as the entirety of east Africa down to its
farthest southern extent). He states that the river rises “beyond Aethiopia” meaning that
it has a source deep in south east Africa. “... there is a story that the Nile itself is the
Euphrates, which disappears into a marsh, rises again beyond Aethiopia and becomes
the Nile.”17

In the biblical Garden of Eden the universal river that watered the garden was divided
into four parts as it spread out around the world. The four rivers are named in Genesis
as the Pison, Gihon, Tigris and Euphrates. “And a river went out of Eden to water the
garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the
first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of
the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of
Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.”18

The first two rivers, Pison and Gihon, have an identification with Africa. Gihon is related
to Africa by running through Ethiopia or the land of Kush. Josephus identifies this river
with the Nile. “...and Geon runs through Egypt, and denotes what arises from the East:
which the Greeks call Nile.”19

There is therefore a consistent reference from many ancient writers that the Nile
originates deep in the interior of southern Africa and that there was an underground
network of reservoirs, as depicted by Kicher, that connected the various river systems to
each other. The source of the Nile is therefore imagined in the southern extremities of
the known African continent. Setting aside the current pedantic scientific focus on Lake
Victoria it is evident that the ancient focus would have been much further south. From
this source legend dictated that the Mountains of the Moon were located.

The very name of Inyanga, the mountainous region that forms part of the Eastern
Highlands, preserves a relationship to the Mountains of the Moon. Inyanga literally
means the moon. All the relevant African languages of this region have inyanga
meaning the moon and thus the name of these mountains has been preserved from its
ancient origins.

Ptolemy’s longitude and latitude statistics are often wildly inaccurate. A thousand years
later Idrisi specified the location of the Mountains of the Moon as being sixteen degrees
south of the equinox presumably in reference to the ‘equinoctial’ (at or near the
equator). It is believed that Ptolemy had drawn on Arab accounts for the existence of
the Mountains of the Moon and this gives Idrisi an additional credibility. The passage of
time since Ptolemy also allows Idrisi a far more accurate calculation.

“The source of those two branches of the Nile is in the Mountains of the Moon, which
starts at 16 degrees from the equinox.” 20
Mount Darwin, rising from the northern plateau of Zimbabwe and relatively close to the
Zambezi, is located approximately 16 degrees south of the equator. It is situated in a
region rich in gold with evidence of numerous old gold workings. This mountain is the
ancient Mount Fura of Arab legend.

Thus the ancient knowledge of Africa stretches from the Nile delta on the Mediterranean
through the central spine of Africa, the Great Rift Valley, towards the Zambezi Delta on
the Indian Ocean and the potential location of Rhapta, the last emporium on the edge of
the known world. This emporium is in geographic proximity to the fabled Mountains of
the Moon that rise above the crescent-shaped coastal plain of Sofala.

1. Ptolemy - Geography
2. al-Mas'udi - Meadows of Gold
3. Pliny - Natural History 5.10.55-57
4. Gayre - The Origin of the Zimbabwean Civilization
5. al-Mas'udi - Meadows of Gold
6. Ibid.
7. al-Idrisi - Kitab Ruyar
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ptolemy - Geography
11. al-Idrisi - Kitab Ruyar
12. Ptolemy - Geography
13. Ibid.
14. Carl Peters - The Eldorado of the Ancients
15. Ibid.
16. Duarte Barbosa - Description of the coast of East Africa
17. Pausanias - Description of Greece 2.5
18. Genesis 2:10-14
19. Josephus - Antiquities of the Jews 1
20. al-Idrisi - Kitab Ruyar