The oldest reference to "pygmies" dates back to 2276 B.C when Pharaoh Pepi II described seeing a "dancing dwarf of the god from the land of spirits", in a letter to a slave trade expedition leader. In the Iliad, Homer described the "pygmies" as dark skinned men in warfare with cranes. They were as tall as a "pygme" which meant that they measured the length of an elbow to a knuckle, or about one and a half feet long. About three centuries later (500 B.C), the Greek Herodotus reported that an explorer had seen, while travelling along the West African Coast, "dwarfish people, who used clothing made from the palm tree".