Research Sources from Brit-Am Now nos. 626-650
Contents:
1. KRONOS, SATURN AND THE TITANS.
2. English-Hebrew Analogies
3. Who Really Accepted Jews During WW2
4. Ancient Middle East Links to Britain
5. Ancient trade (minerals, etc) with the British Isles
6. Phoenicians in the West as Proxies of the Assyrians
7. Phoenician type script and the Khazars.
8. Ancient Tin Supplies from the Iberian Peninsula and from Britain
9. Tin and Bronze From Cornwall
10. Gold and Silver in Ancient Ireland, Celtic Enamel
11. Gold in Bronze Age Ireland
12. Welsh Daffodils and the Phoenicians?
13. Tracy Wright: Scottish Heritage of Southerners
14. Phoenicians Brought Leeks to Wales
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1. KRONOS, SATURN AND THE TITANS.
"Brit-Am Now"-626
#5. KRONOS, SATURN AND THE TITANS.
http://www.britam.org/now/626Now.html
Extracts:
"When the LORD your God will cut off the nations from before you, whither you go to possess them, and you succeed them, and dwell in the land.
"Take heed to yourself that you be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before you; and that you inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so I will do likewise (Deuteronomy 12:29-30).
The Greeks (and after them, the Romans) said that Uranus was the first god. Uranus begat the Titans from his wife Thera (i. e. earth). Amongst the Titans was Saturn also known as Kronos and Typhon. Kronos was considered to be the same as the Caananite god "Baal Zephon". The Egyptians identified Baal Zephon (i.e. Kronos) with Seth who figured in their own mythology often as representative of the Hyksos or Israelites. Saturn (i.e. Kronos) deposed Uranus and became king of the gods in his place. Saturn, in his turn, was also deposed by his son, Jupiter called Jove by the Romans. Jupiter expelled Saturn (from the east) who went to Italy and after a sojourn there continued to Britain where he and the Titans established a kingdom and lived happily ever after.
Sanchuniathon was a Phoenician writer believed to have lived ca.600 b.c.e. and is known to us due to his being quoted by other authors who came later. Philo of Alexandria (in Egypt) in about 54 b.c.e. quoted Sanchuniathon as saying:
"Kronos, whom the Egyptians call Thouth, excelled in wisdom among the Phoenicians ...Kronos then, whom the Phoenicians call ISRAEL, who was king of the country and subsequently after his decease was deified as the star Saturn had an only begotten son ..called Jehud...he arrayed his son ...in royal apparel and sacrificed him".
In the Bible (Genesis ch.22) it is related how Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac who in terms of the Biblical promise was considered his ONLY SON. At the last minute an angel appeared to Abraham and prevented him from putting his son to death. The Phoenicians were heavily influenced by the Israelites and often amalgamated Israelite traditions to their own pagan ones. From the above quotation from Sanchuniathon one can see that Kronos-Saturn was identifiable (in their eyes) as Israel; other pagan sources tried to equate the God of Israel with Kronos. They also identified the Canaanite Phoenician god Baal with Saturn ( Kronos) and Baal amongst the Israelites was sometimes confused with their own God. "Baal" in Hebrew literally means "Lord" or "Master" and after acquiring pagan idolatrous connotations the term became anathema to the Israelites. Originally the appellation may have had a legitimate applicability and names bearing the root "baal" may not necessarily reflect idolatrous influences.
Saturn was called Baal Zephon (the two names "Saturn" and "Zephon" both mean "hidden one" in Hebrew) which the Greeks rendered as Typhon. It was also said that Kronos (i.e. Saturn) fled to the west and eventually to Britain. Other traditions also located the Titans and Saturn in the west. One version said that the Titans had been thrown into Tartarus meaning an underground region located (said Homer) in the Atlantic Ocean. Strabo understood Homer as connecting Tartarus with the vicinity of Tartessus (i.e. Tarshish on the Spanish Atlantic coast) and the west.
"Cronus..and all the defeated Titans, except Atlas, were banished to a British island in the farthest west (or some say confined in Tartarus..." Robert Graves
Saturn (Typhon) according to Classical Mythology had been exiled together with his brothers, the Titans. A source used by Plutarch (Isolde and Osira 31, no.259) says that the Titan, Typhon, fathered "Hierosolymus" [i.e. Jerusalem] and "Iudaeus" meaning Judah:
The name "Kronos" derives from the Hebrew "Keren" meaning "horn " in Hebrew. Similarly a horned god of the British Celts was known as "Cernunnos".
The same root "sater" (to hide) as that found in the name Saturn was also employed by the Prophet Isaiah in connection with Israel:
"Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself [Hebrew:"miStaTeR" derived from the verb-root STR which is also the root of Saturn without the vowels], O God of Israel, the Saviour" (Isaiah 45;15).
Isaiah continues:
"They shall be ashamed, and also confounded, all of them: they shall go to confusion together that are makers of idols" (Isaiah 45;16).
Pagan religions (especially those of the Northern Israelites) took Hebrew Biblical concepts and confused them with idolatrous ones. The God of Israel was in some cases identified with pagan idols or represented in idolatrous fashion.
This was forbidden but happened:
Whatever the forces of idolatry seemed to offer was only at the very best a weak reflection of the One God who is directly reachable by those who acknowledge him. This truth will ultimately be clear to all and all those who took another path will be confounded.
"If your heart turn away, so that you will not hear, but shall be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them.
"I denounce unto you this day, that you shall surely perish, and you shall not prolong your days upon the land which you are passing over the Jordan to go to possess it.
(Deuteronomy 30;17-18).
The Lost Tribes of Israel were exiled because they worshipped other gods (2-Kings 17;7 22), they confused Baal with the God of Israel (Hosea 2;16). This confusion was transmitted to foreigners who identified Baal (i.e. Typhon= Kronos= Saturn) with the god or progenitor of Israel. The foreigners also equated him with the god or progenitor of the western Celts especially those of the British Isles. The pagans believed that Kronos and his followers (i.e. the ancient Israelites) had been deposed from the east and had gone to Britain and the west. Bel (i.e. Baal) and Cernunnos (i.e. Kronos), or Bel in the guise of Cernunnos, were worshipped in the British Isles. The Jews and the western Celts did have a common ancestry and once worshipped the same God. The identification of the Western Celts with Israel is proven by the Bible and through history
and so these facts are echoed in Mythology.
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2. English-Hebrew Analogies
"Brit-Am Now"-627
#4. Some English Words from Shmuel James
http://www.britam.org/now/627Now.html
Skip from the Hebrew KoPHets which words when transliterated into Hebrew use the same letters
though in a different order.
Abash (cf. Bashful) means shame from the Hebrew "Baish" also meaning shame.
The Dictionaries however will tell you that the English words come from the French "abaissment"
meaning "bring low". Which of these two alternative suggested origins appears the most logical?
Deem from the Hebrew "Dune" meaning judgement, consider. In Hebrew dialects "m" and "n" often
get switched around.
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3. Who Really Accepted Jews During WW2
"Brit-Am Now"-627
#6. Acceptance of Jewish Refugees During the Holocaust Years
http://www.britam.org/now/627Now.html
For the record:
During the twelve years of Nazi terror, from 1933 to 1945, the United Kingdom opened its
doors to 70,000, and allowed another 125,000 into British-administered Palestine. Other states, with long histories of immigration, did even
less. Argentina took 50,000, Brazil 27,000, and Australia 15,000.
Some Latin American states, where life-granting visas were bought and sold like any other commodity, admitted but the trickle of Jews who
could pay for their salvation.
The two North American democracies, the United States took 200,000 Jews, including the select of European intellectual, cultural and scientific life.
As for Canada:
between 1933 and 1945 Canada found room within her borders for fewer than 5,000 Jews after the war until the founding of Israel in 1948,
she admitted but 8,000 more.
[Canada however did later try to help the State of Israel by absorbing a large number of Palestinian "refugees"].
The Republic of Ireland in WW11 [allegedly, it could be an Urban Myth] took in about about 7 Jewish dentists of which there was a shortage and that is all as far as we know. [Ireland however helped Germany and Austria out of an embarrassing situation by accepting certain Catholic priests etc who were descended from Jews.]
During the War Spain took in 6000 Jewish refugees but considered at one stage turning them over to Germany. A a threat from Churchill to invade Spain made them decide otherwise.
France before the war was relatively generous.
Relative to its population Britain was the best and the USA in second place..
It may not have been enough but it was better than anybody else.
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4. Ancient Middle East Links to Britain
4. Question: What archaeological evidence do we have linking Ancient Israel with the west?
http://www.britam.org/Questions/QuesArchaeology.html#Ancient
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5. Ancient trade (minerals, etc) with the British Isles
"Brit-Am Now"-632
4. Arthur & Rosalind Eedle: "THE TIN ISLANDS"
http://www.britam.org/now/632Now.html
THE TIN ISLANDS
Arthur & Rosalind Eedle
http://www.oxleigh.freeserve.co.uk/pt77.htm
Extracts:
Pliny (Nat. Hist. book xxxiv. Ch.47): "It (tin) is extracted with great labour in Spain and throughout all the Gallic provinces, but in Britannia it is found in the upper stratum of the earth in such abundance , that a law has been spontaneously made prohibiting anyone from working more than a certain quantity of it."
Elsewhere, Pliny mentions that a Greek named "Midacritus (the Greek name for Melkarth, about 600 B.C.) was the first who brought tin from the island called Cassiteris."(Nat.Hist. 7.197)
Now hear what Diodorus Siculus had to say about the British tin mining industry-
"Above Lusitania (a Roman province roughly equivalent to modern Portugal) there is much of this tin metal, that is, in the islands lying in the ocean over against Iberia, (the peninsula dividing Spain from Portugal by the Pyrenees) which are therefore called Cassiterides; and much of it likewise is transported out of Britain into Gaul, the opposite continent, which the merchants carry on horseback through the heart of Celtica to Massilia (Marseilles) and the city called Narbo (Narbonne)." (D.Sic.Book V.2)
The island he called Ictis is none other than St.Michael's Mount, just offshore to Marazion in Cornwall, and exactly fits Diodorus's description. In 1969, in the little harbour of the island, skin divers found a stone bowl with a handle, which was subsequently identified by the British Museum as Phoenician, - and dating as far back as 1500 B.C. When visiting Truro recently, we were able to see the massive H-shaped tin ingot that was dredged from the St Mawes harbour in 1812, weighing 158 pounds. The shape indicated that they were designed to be carried one on each side of a horse for transportation, as mentioned above.
Solinus (3rd Century A.D.) writing in his "Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium" states that the Tin Islands were "severed from the coast of Damnonii by a rough narrow sea." The Damnonii were the inhabitants of Devon and Cornwall. Hence Solinus seems to be referring to the Scilly Isles. Again he refers to them as follows:- "Oft the Tartessians through the well-known seas would sail for Traffic to the Oestrymnides, and Carthaginians too . . ."
And so we gather snippets of information from the past. Now we must record what the Greek geographer Strabo (B.C.63 - A.D.24) (who obtained his information concerning the location of the Cassiterides from Poseidonius,) wrote concerning the traders -
"The Cassiterides are ten in number, (was he referring to the Scilly Isles?) and lie near each other in the ocean toward the north from the haven of the Artabri (Corunna, as mentioned above.). One of them is desert, but the others are inhabited by men in black cloaks, clad in tunics reaching to the feet, girt about the breast, and walking with staves, thus resembling the furies we see in tragic representations. They subsist by their cattle, leading for the most part a wandering life. Of the metals, they have tin and lead, which, with skins, they barter with the merchants for earthenware, salt, and brasen vessels. Anciently the Phoenicians alone, from Gades (Cadiz), engrossed this market, hiding the navigation from all others. When the Romans followed a certain shipmaster, that they might discover the market, the jealous shipmaster willfully stranded his vessel on a shoal, misleading those who were tracking him, to the same destruction. Escaping from the shipwreck by means of a fragment of the ship, he was indemnified for his losses out of the public treasury. The Romans, nevertheless, by frequent efforts discovered the passage; and as soon as Publius (Licinius) Crassus, passing over to them, (about B.C. 95) perceived that the metals were dug out at a little depth, and that the men were peaceably disposed, he declared it to those who already wished to traffic in this sea for profit, although the passage was longer than that to Britain. (i.e. the Cassiterides were further removed from the coast of Spain than the rest of the southern coasts of Britain.) Thus far concerning Iberia and the adjacent islands." (Strabo. iii., v., 11)
This Phoenician ploy, we are told elsewhere, worked satisfactorily until B.C. 450, when the Carthaginian General Hamilcar sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar and northwards, thereby discovering Cornwall. With such scanty evidence, it is perhaps best to speak of the Cassiterides being TWICE discovered, with a space of 350 years between. The account of Hamilcar may be found in the writings of Rufus Festus Avienus, entitled "Ora Maritima", from which comes the following extract -
"Where the ocean flood presses in, and spreads wide the Mediterranean waters, lies the Atlantic Bay; here stands Gadira, of old Tartessus, here the Pillars of Hercules, Abyla . . . (here the record is missing). . Here rises the head of the promontory, in olden times named Oestrymnon, and below, the like-named bay and isles; wide they stretch, and are rich in metals, tin and lead. There a numerous race of men dwell, endowed with spirit, and no slight industry, busied in all the cares of trade alone. They navigate the sea on their barks, built not of pines or oak, but wondrous made of skins and leather. Two days' long is the voyage thence to the Holy Island, once so called, the dwelling of the Hibernian race (Ireland); at hand lies the Isle of Albion (mainland Britain). Of yore the trading voyages from Tartessus (Possibly the Biblical Tarshish) reached to the Oestrymnides; but the Carthaginians and their colonies near the Pillars of Hercules (The Straits of Gibraltar) navigated in this sea, which Hamilcar (or Himilco) by his own account, was upon during four months." (Extracted from A.H.L.Heeren's African Nations, 1832, Vol.i.pp.503-504)
...Dionysius of Alexandria, a Roman Catholic Bishop and theologian of the 3rd century [CE]. Only fragments of his writings remain.
"Against the sacred Cape [Ortegal, Spain] great Europe's head,
Th' Hesperides along the ocean spread;
Whose wealthy hills with mines of tin abound,
And stout Iberians till the fertile ground."
[Note: he refers to Britain as "Th' Hesperides" and its inhabitants as "Iberians"]
In times long gone by Cornwall was literally riddled with mines. The remains of their shafts are still in evidence, and care must be taken in certain areas not to fall into these when hiking. For example, the ancient Ding Dong mine, which we visited recently, still has a deep shaft now covered over with an iron grating.
...traditions still linger with considerable strength about Joseph's involvement. The miners have always sung songs during their work underground, and the refrain has always been, "Joseph was a tin miner. Joseph was in the tin trade."
...Even in the Cornish language there are clear references to the ancient Jewish presence and trade in Cornwall. One still hears about "Jews Houses" (ancient smelting places for tin,) "Jews Pieces" (very ancient blocks of tin, "Jews Works" (very ancient stream works, which were sometimes called Attal Sarazin, or "the leavings of the Saracens",) and even "Jews Fish" (referring to the Halibut, their favourite in Cornish diet.) One remembers names like Marazion, (or Markesew) meaning "Market Jew", the ancient trading town opposite St Michael's Mount (Ictis), and Market Jew Street in the centre of Penzance.
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6. Phoenicians in the West as Proxies of the Assyrians
"Brit-Am Now"-632
7. Quotation Concerning Spain and the Phoenicians
http://www.britam.org/now/632Now.html
"During the 8th and 7th centuries [i.e. 700s and 600s BCE], the Phoenicians radically transformed the economy of Southern Spain through Gadir (Cadiz) and an extensive series of other colonies, extracting enough silver to leave 20 million tons of silver slag on the countryside (Frankenstein 1979). Copper, gold, lead, and other metals useful as currency were also exported (Aubet 2002). By-products of this extractive industry included environmental degradation, deforestation, and stratification within the local Iberian society. The Spanish hinterland was incorporated into the Phoenician extractive economy and was reorganized toward intensive mining and smelting of silver ore for export on Phoenician ships."
"The Western semiperipheral states-- Phoenician cities, the Philistine Pentapolis and some Arab tribes entering the Assyrian world-empire at the moment of the 7th century crisis�become semiperipheral agents, valued by the Assyrians for their ability to solve the core problem of securing status goods and precious metals to use as hard currency."
Mitch Allen, "POWER IS IN THE DETAILS. Administrative Technology and the Growth of Ancient Near Eastern Cores", USA, 2002.
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7. Phoenician type script and the Khazars.
"Brit-Am Now"-634
http://www.britam.org/now/634Now.html
#1. Phoenician type script via Khazars influenced early Hungarian writing?
The URLs below were brought to our attention by Joan Griffith
http://users.tpg.com.au/etr/rovas/clu/clues.html
http://users.tpg.com.au/etr/rovas/inf/rovasE.html
http://users.tpg.com.au/etr/rovas/marsigli.html
I have not read the accompanying articles all the way through
but they seem to be saying that an ancient script used by the
ancestors of the Hungarians in the Ukrainian area (before they migrated
to Hungary) used a script of their own which was heavily influenced by
the Phoenician (Ancient Hebrew) alphabet. They suggest that this alphabet
reached them through contact with the Khazars who once ruled over that area.
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8. Ancient Tin Supplies from the Iberian Peninsula and from Britain
"Brit-Am Now"-634
http://www.britam.org/now/634Now.html
#2. Ancient Tin Supplies from the Iberian Peninsula and from Britain
The note below brings isotopic evidence indicating that the tin used in the Ancient Middle East
came from either the Iberian Peninsula or from Britain.
"ABSENT VOICES: THE STORY OF WRITING SYSTEMS IN THE WEST"
Rochelle Altman (New Castle, DE : Oak Knoll Press 2004)
Amongst other matters the authoress claims that a colony of Phoenician descent in Britain
influenced the form of scripts used all the way through to Anglo-Saxon times. This may sound far-fetched but the writer is a known authority in her field and she presents an impressive and detailed argument.
What concerns us at present is the presence of Phoenicians in Britain and the mining of tin
and here too Rochelle Altman has something to say:
p.58
"bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, and major tin deposits are rare. A small deposit, perhaps in Anatolia, was probably the original source for tin at the beginning of the Bronze Age around 3800-3400 BCE. As the wielders of bronze weapons had a decided edge over their opponents it was only natural that people should search for tin deposits. A small tin lode showed up in Sardinia. A good size deposit of high-grade ore was found on the Iberian Peninsula. This too, was an insufficient supply for the demand. The only major deposit of high grade ore in the west of the Eurasian continent was the one in Cornwall. Whoever controlled the Cornish and Iberian [Spanish and Portuguese]
tin mines held a near monopoly on an essential ore. Cornish tin was used for bronze and Cornish tin is what permitted the Bronze Age to continue and to spread. The bronze weapons, helmets, shields, and vessels of the ancient Near East, as well as the bronze statues of Classical Greece, used Cornish tin.10"
p.278 "10. At least four isotopic studies have been done on tin. Three of these studies came to the conclusion that tin isotopes can be distinguished as to place of origin. One study cautiously stated that, while it can be difficult to distinguish the isotopic profiles of Iberian and Cornish tin, the profiles of tin from Eastern sources do not coincide with either. Another study, the English one is currently under dispute.
"Modern extraction techniques permit relatively low grade ore to be processed; the Iberian deposit on the coast of Portugal is once again in operation. The Cornish tin deposit however was very big; it finally was depleted during the 19 century CE. For nearly 4500 years, whoever held Cornwall, held a near monopoly on an essential ore."
Rochelle Altman is saying that as far as science can at present determine the tin used in the Ancient Near East came mostly from either the Iberian Peninsula or Cornwall and that Cornwall had the greater supply, which was better in quality, and more easier to extract.
It should also be pointed out that the Iberian source was in the Northwest, in Galatia (according to Strabo), and depended on sea transportation for its distribution. The British Isles can almost been be seen from Galatia. Whoever sailed to one area in search of tin would almost certainly have been aware of the other.
Altman says that at first the monopoly on tin from both the Iberian Peninsula and Cornwall (Britain) was held by:
<<Iberians from the coastal area to the North and west of the Tagus River in what is today Portugal. The architecture of the stone "Beehive" houses found in Ireland resemble the distinctive architecture of those found at Vianno de Castelio and Citaia and are presumed to have been carried to Ireland by these sea-traders>>.
The area mentioned in Portugal was within the domain of Tartessos. This monopoly in both the Iberian Peninsula and in Cornwall was taken over by the Phoenicians.
Altman says that the Phoenicians took over around 1500 BCE.
Others would say that it was possibly as much as ca.500 or even more years later but whatever the case the Phoenicians did take control and their greatly increased intensified production rates were mostly felt in the Neo-Assyrian era.
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9. Tin and Bronze From Cornwall
"Brit-Am Now"-634
http://www.britam.org/now/634Now.html
#3. Tin and Bronze From Cornwall
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba56/ba56feat.html
http://www.webmesh.co.uk/nice/arcnews.htm
Different ore sources have distinctive lead isotope ratios which can be used to provenance archaeological artefacts, and the Castell Coch artefacts were highly unusual in having very high lead isotope ratios of a sort that can only occur when uranium is present within the ore. Further analysis of the ratios provided the geological age of the deposit which allowed us to pinpoint the source of the ore even more accurately. Taken together, the data showed that these particular artefacts were made from copper ore that could only have come from one place in north-western Europe - Cornwall.
The Cornish provenance of the Castell Coch hoard and other non-Irish tools and weapons leads us directly to the pioneers of bronze, because it confirms that a mining tradition was established in Cornwall at the time of the invention of bronze, in an area that contains one of the richest tin fields in the world. Along with Afghanistan, Cornwall is one of only two possible major sources of the tin used in bronze throughout Europe after about 2000 BC. No prehistoric mines have yet been found in Cornwall but this is hardly surprising: the landscape has been eaten away by coastal erosion and turned upside down by the vast scale of the post-medieval tin industry. All prehistoric evidence may have been destroyed.
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10. Gold and Silver in Ancient Ireland, Celtic Enamel
"Brit-Am Now"-636
#4. Gold and Silver in Ancient Ireland??
http://www.britam.org/now/636Now.html
Many of the ancestors of Scottish and Welsh tribesmen sojourned in Ireland
before crossing to Britain in addition to the great number of people from Ireland
who moved to Britain, North America, Australia, and similar areas at later dates.
Ancient Irish history is important from several points of view.
A great deal of gold artifacts of high quality from Ancient Times have been found in
Ireland. Was the gold mined in Ireland or was it bough with silver from irish mines?
The question has recently come up as to whether there were both silver and gold mines
in Ireland. Did the Phoenicians plant Israelite captives directly in Ireland to work
the mineral resources in the same way as they did in Spain?
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ancientireland/technology.html
Gold, mined in Ireland, was shaped into beautiful lunulae (moon disks), probably worn as decoration by tribal leaders and priests. Gold has been found in bogs or under standing stones, perhaps left as offerings for the gods. Later, in the Bronze Age, Ireland's metalworking skills were the best in Europe, with Irish craftsmen creating quantities of beautiful gold jewelry, exquisite bronze horns, tools, and weapons of all kinds. Trade routes distributed the manufactured goods while raw gold, tin, and other materials not found in Ireland were imported from Britain and continental Europe.
The Irish Bronze Age may have ended in economic collapse, since technology declined as contact with Europe lessened around 500 B.C.
Some Celtic La Tene (from Switzerland) iron artifacts have been found in Ireland, but there's no evidence that a European Celtic invasion introduced Iron Age technology. Irish smiths learned to fashion the new metal, copying European styles and developing their own. Ireland's Iron Age was a status-conscious culture with prestige objects displaying the height of blacksmith art. Irish builders and engineers also raised huge earthworks and temples. A massive 120-foot-wide circular wooden temple was built, burned, and buried at Navan Fort in Ulster, perhaps in sacrifice to the local god. Roman coins, glass, wine -- even an optometrist's tool -- have been found in Ireland from the first century A.D. Ireland raided and traded with the Empire, absorbing the technology it needed. Things wouldn't change until the coming of Christianity in the fifth century A.D.
http://www.ardue.org.uk/library/book5/history.html
One beautiful feature in the decoration of metal-work seems to have entirely originated in Celtica. Enamelling was unknown to the classical nations till they learned from the Celts. So late as the third century AD it was still strange to the classical world, as we learn from the reference of Philostratus:
"They say that the barbarians who live in the ocean [Britons] pour these colours upon heated brass, and that they adhere, become hard as stone, and preserve the designs that are made upon them."
Dr J Anderson writes in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland:
"The Gauls as well as the Britons of the same Celtic stock practised enamel-working before the Roman conquest. The enamel workshops of Bibracte, with their furnaces, crucibles, moulds, polishing-stones, and with the crude enamels in their various stages of preparation, have been recently excavated from the ruins of the city destroyed by Caesar and his legions. But the Bibracte enamels are the work of mere dabblers in the art, compared with the British examples. The home of the art was Britain, and the style of the pattern, as well as the association in which the objects decorated with it were found, demonstrated with certainty that it had reached its highest stage of indigenous development before it came in contact with the Roman culture." {Quoted by Mr Romilly Allen in Celtic Art p. 136. TWR}
The National Museum in Dublin contains many superb examples of Irish decorative art in gold, bronze, and enamels, and the "strong Celtic tinge" of which Mr Romilly Allen speaks is as clearly observable there as in the relics of Hallstatt or La Tene.
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11. Gold in Bronze Age Ireland
"Brit-Am Now"-640
#7. Gold in Bronze Age Ireland
http://www.britam.org/now/640Now.html
Gold in Ancient Ireland?
Extracts from "Desmond" on another list:
Currently Tournagin Gold Corporation have been drilling extensively at Curraghinalt, near Gortin in Co. Tyrone and have found potentially rich gold sources.
It is quite on the cards that such sources were in use in ancient times - eventually abandoned for want of appropriate technology.(This has happened in the case of abandoned 19th. cent mines in NZ - now successfully reopened.)
On a bus tour of the Wicklow Hills I remember the driver saying that there were ancient gold sources there , reopened for a period in the 19th. cent. and due for further investigation using modern methods.
Some time ago I read in a book that an analysis of Minoan/Mycenaean gold objects had indicated an Irish provenance for the mineral content. Unfortunately I have mislaid the reference to book-title and author. Such a situation could put the working of Irish gold into the Bronze Age.
Gold veins have been reported along the Armagh/Monaghan border and in Donegal, but less fruitful than the Gortin source.
Desmond.
Comment: It is becoming quite clear that rich sources of gold existed and were exploited
in Ireland in the Later Bronze Age and this together with richer sources of silver, copper in North
Wales and enormous reserves of tin in Cornwall lead to Phoenician interest in the area
and an early Phoenician induced colonization of Israelite Exiles to work these reserves.
At the time spoken of up to 70 (or more?) % of the ancestors of the later population of
Scotland and much of Wales was in Ireland. Later in the Iron Age there was a period when Ireland was
denuded of population perhaps due to a local disaster that caused many of the peoples there
to move overseas to Britain.
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12. Welsh Daffodils and the Phoenicians?
"Brit-Am Now"-643
http://www.britam.org/now/643Now.html
#7. Welsh Daffodils and the Phoenicians?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/nature/sites/wildlife/pages/daffodils.shtml
There are two varieties unique to Wales: the Tenby and Welsh daffodils. The origins of the Tenby daffodil are uncertain. Some theories suggest that they were brought to Wales by the Phoenicians or by medieval monks or that they are hybrids between a wild daffodil from the Continent and the native Welsh daffodil.
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13. Tracy Wright: Scottish Heritage of Southerners
"Brit-Am Now"-647
#3. Tracy Wright: Scottish Heritage of Southerners
http://www.britam.org/now/647Now.html
The Confederate army used the St. Andrew's cross because of the Scottish
heritage of Southerners. Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi still have the
St. Andrew's cross on their state flags. Georgia just recently removed it
from their flag. General Leonidas Polk was an Episcopal bishop prior to the
war. He used the St. George's cross on his corps flag which is the cross
used on the Episcopal Church flag. The Episcopal Church also has the St.
Andrew's cross in the canton of their flag.
Does the meaning of "union jack" mean the union of the house of Jacob?
Did Jacob cross his arms, making the "X" or the St. Andrew's cross when he
blessed Ephraim and Manasseh?
I would love to hear some thoughts on this subject!!!
Thanks!
Tracy Wright
Chickamauga, Georgia, CSA
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14. Phoenicians Brought Leeks to Wales
"Brit-Am Now"-649
http://www.britam.org/now/649Now.html
#3. Daffodils Were Not Enough! The Phoenicians Brought Leeks to Wales As Well!
http://www.foodmuseum.com/wales.html
Phoenicians are said to have introduced the leek to Wales when they were trading for tin in the British Isles---a casual act that would unexpectedly elevate this humble plant to national status a thousand years later. Legend has it that some 60 years after St. David's death, in 640 AD, the Briton King Cadwallader was sorely pressed by invading Saxons. To distinguish themselves from the enemy, the Welsh wore leeks in their hats---and subsequently gained a great victory over their enemies.