The Mountains of the Moon or Montes Lunae was a mountain range in central Africa that was long believed to be the source of the White Nile. The ancient world had long been curious as to the source of the Nile, especially Ancient Greek geographers. A number of expeditions down the Nile failed to find the source. The most general definition of mountain range is a group of mountains bordered by lowlands. ... Africa is the worlds second-largest continent and second most populous after Asia. ... The White Nile is a river of Africa, one of the two main tributaries of the Nile, the other being the Blue Nile. ... The Nile in Egypt Length 6 695 km Elevation of the source 1 134 m Average discharge 2 830 m³/s Area watershed 3 400 000 km² Origin  Africa Mouth  the Mediterranean Basin countries Uganda - Sudan - Egypt The Nile (Arabic: النيل an-nÄ«l), in Africa, is one of the two... Ancient Greece is the term used to describe the Greek-speaking world in ancient times. ... A geographer is a scientist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earths physical environment and human habitat. ...

Eventually a merchant named Diogenes reported that he has traveled inland from Rhapta in East Africa for twenty-five days and had found the source of Nile. He reported it flowed from a group of massive mountains into a series of large lakes. He reported the natives called this range the Mountains of the Moon because of their snowcapped whiteness. Rhapta was a marketplace on the coast of eastern Africa, which first rose to prominence in the first century CE. Its location has not yet been firmly identified, although there are a number of plausible candidate sites. ... East Africa is a region generally considered to include: Djibouti Eritrea Ethiopia Kenya Somalia Tanzania Uganda [[Image:Example. ...

These reports were taken as true by Ptolemy and other Greek and Roman geographers. Late Arab geographers, despite having far more knowledge of Africa, also accepted the report. Claudius Ptolemaeus, given contemporary German styling, in a 16th century engraved book frontispiece . Claudius Ptolemaeus (Greek: Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος; ca. ... The Arabs (Arabic: عرب ʻarab) are an originally Arabian ethnicity widespread in the Middle East and North Africa. ...

It was not until the nineteenth century when Europeans resumed the search for the source of the Nile. James Bruce and John Speke in 1862 found that the source was not primarily in the mountains but rather in the Great Lakes. Henry Morton Stanley finally found the mist surrounded mountains in 1889. Today known as the Ruwenzori Range the peaks are the source of some of the Nile's waters, but only a small fraction. See also James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin. ... John Hanning Speke (May 4, 1827-September 15, 1864) was an officer in the British Indian army, who made three voyages of exploration to Africa. ... 1862 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... The Great Lakes of Africa are a series of lakes in and around the Great Rift Valley. ... Henry Morton Stanley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... 1889 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... The Ruwenzori Range is a small mountain range of central Africa, often referred to as Mt. ...

Many modern scholars doubt that these were the Mountains of the Moon described by Diogenes, some holding that his reports were wholly fabricated. G.W.B Huntingford suggested in 1940 that the Mountain of the Moon should be identified with Mount Kilimanjaro, and "was subsequently ridiculed in J. Olver Thompson's History of Ancient Geography published in 1948"; Huntingford later noted that he was not alone in this theory, citing Sir Harry Johnston in 1911 and Dr. Gervase Mathew later in 1963 having made the same identification ¹. O. G. S. Crawford identified this range with the Mount Abuna Yosef area in central Ethiopia. Kilimanjaro is a mountain in northeastern Tanzania. ... Osbert Guy Stanhope Crawford (1886 - November 28, 1957) was a pioneer in the use of aerial photographs for deepening archaelogical understanding of the landscape. ...

In film

• Mountains of the Moon (1990) (starring Patrick Bergin as Sir Richard Francis Burton) related the story of the Burton-Speke controversy. IMDB entry.

Richard Burton, portrait by Frederic Leighton, National Portrait Gallery, London Sir Richard Francis Burton (March 19, 1821 - October 19, 1890), British consul, explorer, translator, and Orientalist, was born at Barham House, Hertfordshire, England. ...

Notes

1. G.W.B Huntingford, Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, p. 175 (London: the Hakluyt Society, 1980).