Brit-Am Historical Reports (4 August 2016, 29 Tammuz, 5776)
Contents:
1. Are the Croations Hittites?
Croatia and India by James Cooper
2. Did the Phoenicians Even Exist?
by Philippe Bohstrom
3. THE PHILISTINES: ARCH ENEMIES OF THE ANCIENT ISRAELITES WHO COUNTED GOLIATH AMONGST THEIR PEOPLE
By ALEXANDER ROBERTSON
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1. Are the Croations Hittites?
Croatia and India by James Cooper
http://www.sutrajournal.com/sanskrit-in-croatia-from-sarasvati-to-hrvati-by-james-cooper
Extracts:
For most of the Croatian people (or as they call themselves, Hrvati) when it comes to defining their origins and tracing their ancient roots they turn towards the land of Iran and Persia. According to academia the name Hrvat comes from Hrovat which comes from the Slavic Horvat which originates from the Indo/Slavic Harvat and which is ultimately traced to Persia and the name Harahvaiti.
It is an academic fact that the Kingdom of Mittani was ruled by Vedic Kings. ... So if the roots of Croatian civilization are intimately connected with Iran and Persia, and in particular Mittani and the Hittites, one should take into consideration the Vedic influence behind it all.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2. Did the Phoenicians Even Exist?
by Philippe Bohstrom
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.733940
Extracts:
The Phoenicians are famed for being master seamen who traded with the peoples around the Mediterranean, spreading their alphabet as they sailed. Yet although they established trade centers as far as Spain and North Africa and founded the city of Byblos, which gave its name to the most influential book ever published, surprisingly little is known about them. Even their name comes from Homer, who dubbed them "Phoenicians", meaning "purple men", a reference to the murex dye for which they were famed.
The Old Testament never actually mentions Phoenicians. The only reference to that name is in ancient Greek writings, and they were referring to merchants living in cities along the coast of modern-day Lebanon.
In other words, the "Phoenicians" mentioned by the ancient Greeks were part of what the biblical authors called "Canaanites", in terms of archaeology, religion and language. There was not much setting them apart from other Semitic cultures.
One of the reasons we know so little about them, is that they left behind almost no written records, only inscriptions (such as dedications at temples). A lot of them: Archaeologists have found more than 10,000 sanctuary inscriptions, but they are of little value, since they are all roughly the same. Their writings teach archaeologists a great deal of one particular kind of dedication to the gods, that's all.
Most of what is known of them springs from Hebrew, Roman and Greek authors, who missed no opportunity to belittle the Phoenicians' achievements.
The truth of the matter is, however, that the Greeks borrowed a great deal from them, especially in regard to seamanship.
In the centuries after 1000 BCE, after the collapse of the Bronze Age, the Greeks had become isolated, with little contact with the Near East. They lost their knowledge of the surrounding seas, as we learn from the legendary travels of much-suffering Odysseus.
One of the oldest surviving references to the Phoenicians is in fact from Homer. In the Odyssey, Phoenician merchants are busy in the Aegean, and Odysseus himself pretends to be a trader seeking profit (Hom. Odyssey 8.159-164).
That the Greeks were unwittingly aware of these cultural exchanges is reflected in the myth of Europa, a beautiful Phoenician princess whom Zeus seduced, disguised as a bull. When Europa came to pat
whom Zeus seduced, disguised as a bull. When Europa came to pat the beautiful animal and even dared to sit on its back, the "bull" rushed away over land and sea to Crete, were he resumed his godly guise and poured out his declarations of love. Europa later became the mother of King Minos.
The Phoenicians are credited by the Greeks with inventing merchant ships. In the bible, these vessels came to be known as the ships of Tarshish, Â "The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market: and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious in the midst of the seas " (Ezekiel 27:25).
So, evidently, the Phoenicians were master shipbuilders. They were renowned for the maneuverability and speed of their ships, due to the paradigm-changing Phoenician invention of the cutwater, which attaches to the ship's hull. These oceangoing ships could undertake 4,000-km long journeys from Phoenicia to Spain.
In fact, the Phoenicians had already become expert seamen hundreds of years before they made their entrance into the history of the Bible.
![[]](http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.733952.1469714685!/image/275996172.GIF_gen/derivatives/headline_1714x964/275996172.GIF)
Â
The Phoenicians gradually built a thriving merchant fleet. As their profits grew and their technology advanced, they constructed ever larger ships that could handle longer voyages.
After reaching Cyprus, Sardinia, and the Balearic Islands, the Phoenicians followed the North African coastline in a westerly direction until they reached Spain.
In many ways, the kingdoms that controlled the Eastern Mediterranean from the 9th century BCE until the time of Alexander the Great resembled later Greek poleis.
The city of Tyre - then, a city on an island with protected anchorages and access to mainland agriculture - can be seen as a blueprint for the colonies the Phoenicians established overseas, for instance the two in modern Spain, on the side of the Atlantic coast, and several more in France, Sicily, North Africa and more.
A naval action during the siege of Tyre in South Lebanon (350 BC).Â
When the Phoenicians built these settlements is of course also debated, but apparently, their expansion also goes back some 3000 years.
But the Phoenicians may not have been set on conquering the world, only on extracting money from it. They did so by establishing trading outposts that sat on major trading networks, such as Carthage. Thus they became the lords of the sea.
The Phoenicians traded salt, wine, dried fish, cedar, pine, metalwork, glass, embroidery, fine linen, and cloth dyed with the famous Tyrian purple. What did they receive in exchange?
Southern Spain proved to be the Mediterranean's richest source of silver and other valuable metals. Regarding Tyre, the principal port of the Phoenicians, the prophet Ezekiel said: 'You did business in Spain and took silver, iron, tin, and lead in payment for your abundant goods' (Ezekiel 27:12)
The origin of at least some of the metal was probably an area near the river Guadalquivir, not far from Cadiz, which seems to have a seemingly inexhaustible supply of these minerals. Today the region is known as Rio Tinto and ore is still being extracted to this day. Phoenician sarcophagus, thought to have been designed and paid for by a Phoenician merchant, and made in Greece with Egyptian influence.Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, Wikimedia Commons
Beyond the 'United Monarchy'
According to the bible, King Solomon of Israel exchanged goods with the Phoenician King Hiram in the 10th century BCE.
Interestingly, Hiram sends cedar timber from the western slopes of Lebanon, as well as craftsmen skilled in working with wood and stone (2 Samuel 5:11; 1 Chronicles 14:1) to make the Temple in Jerusalem. In return Israel sends wheat, barley, olive oil and wine (1 Kings 5:2-6; 2 Chronicles 2:3-10) They then formed joint business ventures to trade with the Arabian Peninsula, peoples around the Red Sea and the Hejaz (today Saudi Arabia), where they acquired exotic fragrances.
The archaeological data supports, if not all the details, the big picture painted in the bible.
In a 9th century BCE inscription, a Tyrian commander boasts about how his troops devastated Cyprus.
The Sidonians - who were also Phoenicians - were the best sailors in the fleet fielded by the Persian emperor Xerxes, in the famous Battle of Salamis, in 480 BCE. Xerxes himself even travelled in a Sidonian ship. In fact, most of the Persian fighting fleet consisted of Phoenician ships, manned by Phoenician crews. (The Persians lost to the Greeks anyway.)
King Sennacherib of Assyria ordered the construction of  'Mighty ships (after) the workmanship of their hand, they built dexterously, Tyrian, Sidonian and Cypriot sailors, captives of my hand, I ordered [to descend] the Tigris with them...' (ARAB.II.319).
As for their ships themselves, Xenophon (Oeconomicus VIII.14) quotes Ischomachus as saying, "I think that the best and most perfect arrangement of things I ever saw was when I went to look at the great Phoenician sailing vessel."
The Phoenicians considered their warships to be living creatures. They painted eyes on the side of the ships so they could guide the sailors through safe passageways.
The Roman writer Valerius Maximus mentions how Phoenicians consecrated newly built ships by rolling the hull over slaves or captives, so to avoid blood-letting while it was at sea.
In later times Sidonian ships performed peacetime patrols, to keep the Eastern Mediterranean clear of pirates, an activity with no doubt a long history.
Though they dispersed throughout the western Mediterranean, the Phoenicians remained united by their religious practices.
For centuries, Carthage sent a delegation to Tyre each year to sacrifice at the temple of the city-god Melqart. In Carthage itself, the chief deities were the divine couple Baal-Hammon, meaning 'Lord of the Brazier,' and Tanit, identified with Astarte.
 Figure of Ba'al with raised arm, 14th-12th century BC, found at ancient Ugarit (Ras Shamra site), a city at the far north of the Phoenician coast.Jastrow, Louvre, Wikimedia Commons
The most notorious characteristic of Phoenician religion was the practice of child sacrifice.
The area around the western Mediterranean (Carthage, Western Sicily, Southern Sardinia) is littered with burials of sacrificed children, but in truth, the practice was commonplace in the Phoenician cities all over the Levant.
Diodorus Siculus reports that in 310 B.C.E., during an attack on the city, the Carthaginians sacrificed over 200 children of noble birth to appease Baal-Hammon.
During excavations in Carthage, archaeologists discovered what came to be called the Tophet, after the Biblical expression used at 2Kings 23:10 and Jeremiah 7:31. Digs revealed multiple levels of urns containing the charred remains of animals (used as substitute sacrifices) and young children (1-2 months old), buried under stelae with votive inscriptions. It is estimated that the Tophet contains the remains of over 25,000 children who were sacrificed during just one 200-year period.
 Tophet funerary stelae, showing (below moon and sun) a symbol of Tanit, queen goddess of CarthageGiraud, Wikimedia Commons
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
3. THE PHILISTINES: ARCH ENEMIES OF THE ANCIENT ISRAELITES WHO COUNTED GOLIATH AMONGST THEIR PEOPLE
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3683674/The-Philistines-Cemetery-discovered-Israeli-city-remains-150-people-help-solve-biblical-mystery.html#ixzz4G4jWkW3A
By ALEXANDER ROBERTSON FOR MAILONLINE
Extracts:
The origins of this 'sea people' - a term also used to describe their Phoenician contemporaries - remain a mystery.
Their red-and-black pottery suggests they may have come from the Mycenaean civilisation of the Aegean.
'What is certain is that they were strangers in the Semitic region,' where their presence between 1200 and around 600 BC is evident on a thin coastal strip running from present-day Gaza to Tel Aviv, said Master.
Traders and seafarers, they spoke a language of Indo-European origin, did not practice circumcision and ate pork and dog, as proven by bones and marks found on them in the ruins of the other four Philistine cities: Gaza, Gath, Ashdod and Ekron.
The book of Samuel describes the capture by Philistine fighters of the Ark of the Covenant and the duel between their giant warrior Goliath felled by a stone from David's sling.
'In their teeth, we can see that they did not have an easy life,' she said. 'We see these lines that indicate a growth interruption as the teeth are forming. There were problems in childhood with either fever or malnutrition.'
'We also see from their bones that they were hard workers, they practised inbreeding and they used their teeth as tools, probably in the weaving industry,' she said softly, holding up a skull.
She said they were 'normal size' with no evidence of any Goliath-sized giants.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^