Ancient Britain

Shalom Yair

 

Re: Britain and the Phoenicians.

 

"The fact that tin trade existed is too well attested to need proof. Herodotus as early as 445 BC speaks of the British Isles as the Tin Islands or Cassiterides."

Yes, Herodotus mentions the Cassiterides, but the identification of these islands has remained a mystery. Some early writers identified the Cassiterides as the Channel Islands or possibly even the Scilly Isles with Strabo differentiating between the Cassiterides and Britain as two separate places. (2.5.15 and 2.5.30) Strabo even tells us that the Cassiterides comprised ten islands. (3.5.11)

"Pytheas (352-323 BC) mentions the tin trade, as does also Polybius (circa 160)."

Time and again, academics fall back on Pytheas. Do I need to point out that the works of Pytheas have not actually survived? I can find absolutely no reference by any of the later writers to Pytheas ever making mention of the tin trade in Britain! Polybius mentions Britain and likewise makes absolutely no reference to any tin trade from this island. In fact, he could not glean any information about this island from the people in Gaul simply because the Britons had only recently arrived in Britain. Polybius is the first person to have actually used the name Britaniké. (If you can recall, I recently pointed out that the academic teaching that Pretaniké was the oldest name for Britain is an academic invention. It is a lie which dates back to the 16th century. George Buchanan (1506-1582) even recorded the controversy at that time between certain people who were pressing the argument, fighting tooth and nail to promote the idea that Pretaniké was the oldest name for Britain - see History of Scotland Vol.1, pp.2-3  [https://archive.org/stream/historyofscotla01buch#page/2/mode/2up], George Buchanan (1506-1582), translated  by James Aikman, Glasgow 1827. See also p.7 [https://archive.org/stream/historyofscotla01buch#page/6/mode/2up] and p.6, fn. * [https://archive.org/stream/historyofscotla01buch#page/6/mode/1up]

It is clearly a case of he who shouts loudest is heard the most!)

 

"Lord Avebury and Sir John Evans held the opinion that the trade existed as early as 1500 BC..."

 

These are presumably the same people who are arguing that Stonehenge was built a few thousand years before the Belgae who built the monument actually arrived.

 

The Tri-Novantae/Trinobantes, who are one of the first settlers recorded as being in Britain, are a breakaway group who are related to the Namnetae of Brittany, the people who built Nantes. (Notice how Namnetae becomes Nantes.) The Numantians who settled on the river Duoro in northern Spain were another sub-group of these Namnetae. Pliny called them Pelendones, this being a variant spelling of Blanda, the city from whence the Numantians/Novantae/Namnetae came. These Pelendones appear to have become the Durotriges (inhabitants of Duoro) who later settled in Dorset. 

 

The Novantae who settled in southern Scotland were called Nouantae by Ptolemy. (Note how Novantae has become Nouantae.) The interchange of the 'm', 'v' and 'b', especially in the Gaelic, Bretonic, Persian, Scythian and Assyrian languages is well-attested. The Assyrian word for Greece, for example, is Iaman. Compare with the Hebrew Yavan. Amul-Marduk, son of Nebuchadnezzar II, is likewise called Evilmerodach in the Bible. Consider also that Merodach-baladan in Isa. 39:1 appears 2 Kings 20:12 as Berodach-baladan.

 

If you take a look at http://www.lexilogos.com/breton_noms_lieux.htm, you will see a lot of examples of how the French letter 'm' becomes a 'v' in the Bretonic language. The Trinobantes split into three tribes, providing Geoffrey of Monmouth with his contrived story of Brutus and his three sons. The Trinbonates of Essex (Locrin), the Novantae of southern Scotland (Albanacht) and the Silures of Wales (Camber). All three were descended from the Numantini of southern Italy. The Silures even named themselves after the river Silaro, and named their city Bullaeum after the river Baletum in Italy. (Edmund McClure even identifies Bullaeum with Builth Wells, a city which is recorded both as Buell and Byllt in ancient records. See British Place Names in their Historical Setting p.29 [https://archive.org/stream/britishplacename00mccluoft#page/29/mode/1up/search/bullaeum], Edmund McClure, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, Brighton and New York 1910.) Baletum itself is a variant spelling of Blanda.

 

Note also that the river Thames, which was called Tamesa by Ptolemy, Tamesis by Julius Caesar and is even today called Tamise by the French is merely a variant spelling of Tempsa in Italy, a place called Temese or Temesa or Tamassus by the Greeks.

 

Bede tells us that the Britons were the first to settle in this land. (Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People Book 1, Chapter 1, Judith McClure and Roger Collins, Oxford University Press, 1999.) The Silures arrived in Wales sometime after the invasion of Julius Caesar. The Ordovices who settled in northern Wales are recorded as arriving during the time of Julius Caesar. There is therefore no justification for pushing back dates to some ridiculously early period just to satisfy the archaeologists assumptions and interpretations. The tin mines in Cornwall can date no earlier than the beginning of the second century BCE at the very earliest. At the beginning of the second century BCE, these British tribes were still in southern Italy.

 

NB: More than 50% (!!!) of barrows dating to the Neolithic Period (3000 - 1500 BCE) contain objects dating to the time of the Roman emperors. Instead of challenging the accepted dates, archaeologists are arguing that the graves were reopened and were being reused during the Roman Period! (Ancient Landscapes and the Dead: The Reuse of Prehistoric and Roman Monuments as Early Anglo-Saxon Burial Sites, Howard Williams, Medieval Archaeology Vol. 41 (1997) pp.1-31.)

I trust that this information is of assistance to you.

 

Regards,

Steve