“The Scandal of Enkomi” by Immanuel Velikovsky

Taken from: http://www.varchive.org/dag/enkomi.htm

The lengthening of Egyptian history by phantom centuries must have as a consequence the lengthening of Mycenaen-Greek history by the same length of time. On Cyprus, Aegean culture came into contact with the cultures of the Orient, particularly with that of Egypt, and unavoidably embarrassing situations were in store for archaeology.

In 1896 the British Museum conducted excavations at the village of Enkomi, the site of an ancient capital of Cyprus, not far from Famagusta, with A. S. Murray in charge.1

A necropolis was cleared, and many sepulchral chambers investigated. “In general there was not apparent in the tombs we opened any wide differences of epoch. For all we could say, the whole burying-ground may have been the work of a century.”

“From first to last there was no question that this whole burying-ground belonged to what is called the Mycenaean Age, the characteristics of which are already abundantly known from the tombs of Mycenae . . . and many other places in the Greek islands and in Egypt.”

However the pottery, porcelain, gems, glass, ivory, bronze, and gold found in the tombs all presented one and the same difficulty. From the Egyptological point of view many objects belong to the time of Amenhotep III and Akhnaton, supposedly of the fifteenth to the fourteenth centuries. From the Assyrian, Phoenician, and Greek viewpoint the same objects belong to the period of the ninth to the eighth or seventh centuries. Since the objects are representative of Mycenaean culture, the excavator questioned the true time of the Mycenaean Age. But as the Mycenaean Age is linked to the Egyptian chronology he found himself at an impasse.

We shall follow him in his efforts to come out of the labyrinth. He submitted a vase, typical of the tombs of Enkomi, to a thorough examination. The dark outlines of the figures on the vase are accompanied by white dotted lines, making the contours of men and animals appear to be perforated. This feature is very characteristic. “The same peculiarity of white dotted lines is found also on a vase from Caere [in Etruria], signed by the potter Aristonothos which, it is argued, cannot be older than the seventh century B.C. The same method of dotted lines is to be seen again on a pinax [plate] from Cameiros [on Rhodes] in the [British] Museum, representing the combat of Menelaos and Hector over the body of Euphorbos, with their names inscribed. That vase also is assigned to the seventh century B.C. Is it possible that the Mycenae and Enkomi vases are seven or eight centuries older?”

Analyzing the workmanship and design of sphinxes or grifins with human forelegs on the vase, the archaeologist stressed “its relationship, on the one hand, to the fragmentary vase of Tell el-Amarna (see Petrie, Tell el-Amarna, Plate 27) and a fragment of fresco from Tiryns (Perrot and Chipiez, VI, 545), and on the other hand to the pattern which occurs on a terracotta sarcophagus from Clazomenae, [in Ionia] now in Berlin, a work of the early sixth century B.C.”

The connection between the Mycenaean and Aristonothos vases caused “a remarkable divergence of opinion, even among those who defend systematically the high antiquity of Mycenaean art.”

The problem of pottery which belongs to two different ages is repeated in ivory. The ivories of the Enkomi tombs are very similar to those found by Layard in the palace of Nimroud, the ancient capital of Assyria. There is, for example, a carving of a man slaying a griffin,

“the man being remarkable for the helmet with chin strap which he wears. It is a subject which appears frequently on the metal bowls of the Phoenicians, and is found in two instances among the ivories discovered by Layard in the palace at Nimroud. The date of the palace is given as 850-700 B.C.”

An oblong box for the game of draughts, found in Enkomi, “must date from a period when the art of Assyria was approaching its decline,” five or six centuries after the reputed end of the Mycenaean age.

“Among the Nimroud ivories (850-700 B.C.) is a fragmentary relief of a chariot in pursuit of a lion to the left, with a dog running alongside the horses as at Enkomi, the harness of the horses being also similar.” The style of the sculpture (of Nimroud) “is more archaic than on the Enkomi casket.” But how could this be if the objects found in Enkomi date no later than the 12th Century? Comparing the two objects, I. J. Winter wrote:

A hunting scene depicted on a rectangular panel from an ivory gaming board of ‘Cypro-Mycenaean’ style found at Enkomi, with its blanketed horses and chariot with six-spoked wheel, so closely resembles a similar hunting scene on one of the pyxides from Nimroud that only details such as the hairdo of one of the chariot followers or the flying gallop of the animals mark the Enkomi piece as a work of the second millennium B.C., separated by some four centuries from the Nimroud pyxis.2

A bronze of Enkomi repeats a theme of the Nimroud ivories, representing a woman at a window. “The conception is so singular, and the similarity of our bronze to the ivory so striking, that there can hardly be much difference of date between the two—somewhere about 850-700 B.C.”

“Another surprise among our bronzes is a pair of greaves. . . It is contended by Reichel3 that metal greaves are unknown in Homer. He is satisfied that they were the invention of a later age (about 700 B.C.).”

Bronze fibulae, too, were found in the Enkomi tombs, as well as a large tripod “with spiral patterns resembling one in Athens, which is assigned to the Dipylon period,” and a pair of scales of a balance like the one figured on the Arkesilaos vase. But such finds are separated by a wide span of time from the twelfth century.

The silver vases of the Enkomi tombs “are obviously Mycenaean in shape.” “On the other hand,” there were found two similar silver rings, one with hieroglyphics and the other engraved on the bezel “with a design of a distinctly Assyrian character—a man dressed in a lion’s skin standing before a seated king, to whom he offers an oblation. Two figures in this costume may be seen on an Assyrian sculpture from Nimroud of the time of Assurnazirpal (884-860), and there is no doubt that this fantastic idea spread rapidly westward.”

Next are the objects of gold. Gold pins were found in a tomb of Enkomi. “One of them, ornamented with six discs, is identical in shape with the pin which fastens the chiton [tunic] on the shoulders of the Fates on the Francois vase in Florence (sixth century B.C.).” A pendant “covered with diagonal patterns consisting of minute globules of gold soldered down on the surface of the pendant” was made by “precisely the same process of soldering down minute globules of gold and arranging them in the same patterns” that “abounds in a series of gold ornaments in the British Museum which were found at Cameiros in Rhodes” and which were dated to the seventh or eighth century.

Among the pottery of “the ordinary Mycenaean and pre-Mycenaean type” gems were found. A scarab “bears the cartouche of Thi [Tiy], the queen of Amenophis [Amenhotep] III, and must therefore be placed in the same rank as those other cartouches of her husband, found at Ialysos [on Rhodes] and Mycenae, which hitherto have played so conspicuous a part in determining the Mycenaean antiquities as being in some instances of that date (fifteenth century).”4

As for the porcelain, it “may fairly be ranked” with the series of Phoenician silver and bronze bowls from Nimroud of about the eighth century. A porcelain head of a woman from Enkomi “seems to be Greek, not only in her features, but also in the way in which her hair is gathered up at the back in a net, just as on the sixth century vases of this shape.” Greek vases of this shape “differ, of course, in being of a more advanced artistic style, and in having a handle. But it may fairly be questioned whether these differences can represent any very long period of time.”

Murray surveyed the glass:

In several tombs, but particularly in one, we found vases of variegated glass, differing but slightly in shape and fabric from the fine series of glass vases obtained from the tombs of Cameiros, and dating from the seventh and sixth centuries, or even later in some cases. It happens, however, that these slight differences of shape and fabric bring our Enkomi glass vases into direct comparison with certain specimens found by Professor Flinders Petrie at Gurob in Egypt, and now in the British Museum. If Professor Petrie is right in assigning his vases to about 1400 B.C.,5 our Enkomi specimens must follow suit. It appears that he had found certain fragmentary specimens of this particular glass ware beside a porcelain necklace, to which belonged an amulet stamped with the name of Tutankhamen, that is to say, about 1400 B.C.

Murray comes to the conclusion that “Phoenicians manufactured the glass ware of Gurob and Enkomi at one and the same time.” Consequently

the question is, what was that time? For the present we must either accept Professor Petrie’s date (about 1400 B.C.) based on scanty observations collected from the poor remains of a foreign settlement in Egypt, or fall back on the ordinary method of comparing the glass vessels of Gurob with those from Greek tombs of the seventh century B.C. or later, and then allowing a reasonable interval of time for the slight changes of shape or fabric which may have intervened. In matters of chronology it is no new thing for the Egyptians to instruct the Greeks, as we know from the pages of Herodotus.

With this last remark the excavator at Enkomi came close to the real problem, but he shrank from it. He did not dare to revise Egyptian chronology; all he asked was that the age of the Mycenaean period be reduced. How to do this he did not know. He quoted an author (Helbig) who thought that all Mycenaean culture was really Phoenician culture, the development of which remained at a standstill for seven centuries.

In 1896 there was found in a tomb at Thebes in Egypt a bronze patera [a shallow vessel] which in shape and decoration has so much in common with the bronze Phoenician bowls from Nimroud that we feel some surprise on being told that the coffins with which it was found belong unmistakably to the time of Amenophis [Amenhotep] III or the first years of Amenophis IV [Akhnaton]. It is admitted that this new patera had been a foreign import into Egypt. Equally the relationship between it and the bronze Phoenician bowls is undeniable, so that again we are confronted with Helbig’s theory of a lapse of seven centuries during which little artistic progress or decline had been effected.6

It was necessary to assume a state of hibernation of almost seven hundred years.

The endeavor of the excavator of Enkomi was directed toward bringing the Mycenaean Age closer in time by five or six hundred years, so that there would be no chasm between the Mycenaean Age and the Greek Age. As curator of Greek and Roman antiquities of the British Museum, he constantly had before him the numerous connections and relations between Mycenaean and Greek art, which could not be explained if an interval of many centuries lay between them. He tried to disconnect the link between Mycenaean and Egyptian archaeologies and chronologies, but he felt that this was an unsolvable problem.

The proposal to reduce the time of the Mycenaean Age was rejected by the scholarly world.

Arthur J. Evans, at the time having just embarked on a long series of excavations at Knossos on Crete, came out against Murray’s work, “so full of suggested chronological deductions and—if its authors [i.e., A. S. Murray and his collaborators] will pardon the expression—archaeological insinuations, all pointing in the same direction,” namely, “a chronology which brings the pure Mycenaean style down to the Age of the Tyrants” of the eighth century, and makes it “the immediate predecessor of the Ionian Greek art of the seventh century B.C.”7

Evans had to admit that “nothing is clearer than that Ionian art in many respects represents the continuity of Mycenaean tradition,” but he built his argument on the manifold connections of Mycenaean art with Egypt of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Are not the flasks of the Enkomi tomb almost as numerous in Egyptian tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty? A fine gold collar or pectoral inlaid with glass paste, found in enkomi, has gold pendants in nine different patters, eight of which are well known designs of the time of Akhnaton (Amenhotep IV), “but are not found a century later.” The metal ring of Enkomi, with cartouches of the heretic Akhnaton, is especially important because “he was not a pharaoh whose cartouches were imitated at later periods,” and so on.

One of the silver vases of Enkomi, Evans wrote, “is of great interest as representing the type of the famous gold cup of the Vapheio tomb.8 These cups, as their marvellous repousse designs sufficiently declare, belong to the most perfect period of Mycenaean art.” This should establish that the theory of the latency of Mycenaean art for six or seven centuries after its flowering in the second millennium cannot help to solve the problem of Enkomi; the Enkomi finds date from the apogee of the Mycenaean Age.

Evans insisted that the material supplied by the Cypriote graves “takes us back at every point to a period contemporary with that of the mature art of the class as seen in the Aegean area,” and this despite his own admission that a number of objects from Enkomi point to a later age, like the porcelain figures “which present the most remarkable resemblance, as Dr. Murray justly pointed out, to some Greek painted vases of the sixth century B.C.” Nevertheless, he concluded with regret that “views so subversive” should come from so high an authority in classical studies.

Two scholars clashed because one of them saw the close connection between Mycenaean art and the Greek art of the seventh century, and the other saw the very same Mycenaean objects disinterred in the Egypt of Akhnaton, dated to the fourteenth century.

The Mycenaean Age has no timetable of its own independent of that of Egypt. I have referred to this question in the chapter dealing with Ras Shamra in Ages in Chaos.

If Evans had had some evidence, independent of Egypt, on which to calculate the ages of the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures, we would have needed to take into account all Minoan and Mycenaean chronological material, as we did with the Egyptian. But there is none.9

“The chronological scheme depends ultimately upon Egyptian datings of Aegean pottery,” wrote H. R. Hall,10 who served as curator of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities at the British Museum.

“Using this Egyptian evidence as his guide, and checking the results of excavation with its aid, Sir Arthur Evans finds that the Bronze Age pottery and with it the general culture of Crete divides itself into three main chronological periods: Early, Middle, and Late, each of which again is divided into three sub-periods.”11

The Mycenaean Age started at the same time as the Late Minoan Age.

Dr. Murray’s case was lost. He had built its defense on two points, one strong, the other weak. His strong point was this: he analyzed and made clear the close interrelation between Mycenaean culture and the early Greek culture of the seventh century. His weak point was his anxiety to disregard the connection between Mycenaean culture and the Egyptian world of the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty. But in el-Amarna of Akhnaton scattered heaps of Mycenaean ware were found.

It was asked, Which fact should be given greater weight by an unbiased judge: the close relation between Mycenaean and Greek cultures or the fact that Mycenaean ware was found in the city of el-Amarna (Akhet-Aton), which was built and destroyed in the fourteenth century?

The verdict in the matter of the age of Mycenae was unanimous: its period of greatest influence is dated between the fifteenth and the twelfth centuries.

This [Mycenaean] ware did not appear in large quantities in Egypt until about 1375 B.C., and little of it was received in the coastal countries after the middle of the thirteenth century. Therefore, whenever a piece of it is found in place in an ancient city, it dates the context between about 1375 [the first year of Akhnaton according to the presently accepted chronology12 and 1225 B.C.13

The verdict with regard to Enkomi was, in the words of Hall, as follows:

Excavations of the British Museum at Enkomi and Hala Sultan Tekke (near Larnaka on Cyprus) have brought to light tombs filled with objects of Minoan or Mycenean art, now mostly in the British Museum, most of which cannot be later in date than the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C. The Egyptian objects found in them are demonstrably of this date, and not later, being all of the late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties. Rings of Akhenaten [Akhnaton] and a scarab of Teie [Tiy, mother of Akhnaton] have been found here as at Mycenae, and fine Egyptian necklaces of gold also, which, from their style, one would adjudge to the Eighteenth or Nineteenth Dynasty. Probably, too, the greater part of the treasure of gold-work found in the tombs and now in the British Museum is of this early date. The golden tiaras and bands certainly seem to connect with those of the Myceanean shaft-graves. But at the same time there are many objects of later date, such as a bronze tripod . . . which are demonstrably of the Dipylon period, and cannot be earlier than the tenth or ninth century.14

Thus, in effect the excavator of Enkomi is accused of having been unable to distinguish burials of different ages in a grave.15

He denied that the graves of Enkomi had been re-used.

Somewhere I came upon the expression, “the scandal of Enkomi.” I ask: Was the excavator to be blamed for something that was not his fault? The allegation that possibly objects dating from two different epochs were mixed up in Murray’s archaeological heaps does not meet his main arguments. His elaborated statements dealt with simultaneous relationships of single objects with Egypt of the fourteenth century and Assyria and Greece of the ninth and eighth centuries.

We learn from this case the fact which both sides admitted: the Greek culture of the seventh century has many interrelations with Mycenaean culture. The resulting chronological gap, as we have seen in Chapter I, had to be taken as a Dark Age.

“Cyprus no less than Greece itself passed through a long and tedious Dark Age.” “Cyprus withdrew into herself, and life during this transitional age was dull and poverty-stricken, unenterprising and dim,”and after the Mycenaean Age came to its close elsewhere, “in Cyprus it was perpetuated.”16

A generation after the excavations at Enkomi. in 1896, other excavators opened more graves there and passed the following judgment:

The burials in the graves belong to the second or Bronze Age, its Late or third period, the second part (out of three) of this third period, more precisely to the subdivisions A (9 graves), B (10 graves) and C (8 graves) also a few belong to Late Bronze IA and IB. Thus the graves on the acropolis are “all intermingled with each other in a seemingly arbitrary way.”17

What does this mean? It means that simple and great questions are eclipsed by nomenclatures.

In recent years French and French-British campaigns at Enkomi18 have failed to solve the problems left by the British Museum excavations of 1896. The finds are still evaluated by Egyptian chronology.

References

1. Murray, “Excavations at Enkomi,” in A. S. Murray, A. H. Smith, H. B. Walters, Excavations in Cyprus (London: British Museum, 1900).
2. (Iraq 38 [19 ] pp. 9-10)
3. W. Reichel, Homerische Waffen 2nd ed. (Vienna, 1901), p. 59.
4. Since the beginning of the present century, the conventional date of the reign of Amenhotep III has been reduced to the end of the fifteenth and the first quarter of the fourteenth century.
5. Sir W. M. Flinders Petrie, Illahun, Kahun and Gurob (London, 1891) Plate 17. Compare also Plate 18 with two identical glass vases which are assigned to Rameses II. Murray, “Excavations at Enkomi,” in Murray, Smith and Walters, Excavations in Cyprus, p. 23, note. Since the above evaluation of the time of Tutankhamen by Petrie, the conventional date of this king, son-in-law of Akhnaton, has been reduced to ca. -1350.
6. Murray, “Excavations at Enkomi,” loc. cit.
7. Evans, “Mycenaean Cyprus as Illustrated in the British Museum Excavations,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute XXX (1900) pp. 199ff.
8. Two gold cups with designs representing men hunting bulls were found in a beehive tomb at Vapheio in the neighborhood of Sparta.
9. The ancient Greek calculations of such past events as the time of Minos, of Heracles, of the Return of the Heracleidae, of the date of the Trojan War and other past events also depend on Egypt.
10. H. R. Hall, Aegean Archaeology (London, 1915), p. 2.
11. Ibid., p. 3.
12. As was noted above, since the time of the Murray-Evans controversy the age of Akhnaton and of Tutankhamen has been reduced by a few decades. This point needs to be kept constantly in mind when one is examining the older scholarly literature on these subjects.
13. G. E. Wright, “Epic of Conquest,” Biblical Archaeologist III No. 3 (1940).
14. Hall, Aegean Archaeology, pp. 23-24. [The tripod mentioned by Hall is dated to the twelfth century by H. W. Catling Cypriote Bronzework in the Mycenaean World [Oxford, 1964] pp. 154-55). It was compared to a tripod found in a grave on the Pnyx in Athens, variously dated, but now assigned by the associated pottery to the eighth century B.C. By analogy to the Enkomi stand and other contemporary examples, Catling judged the Pnyx tripod to be a twelfth-century heirloom. Adding to the controversy, C. Rolley Les trepieds a cuve cluee [Fouilles des Delphes 5.3, Paris, 1977] pp. 126-29), who accepts the Egyptian-based date, now challenges Catling’s assessment of the Pnyx tripod, assigning both it and a very similar example recently discovered in a contemporary grave on the island of Thera to the eighth century.—E. M. S. ].
15. See also H. R. Hall, the Oldest Civilization in Greece (London, 1901), p. 16, and Evans in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XXX (1900), p. 201, note 2.
16. S. Casson, Ancient Cyprus (London, 1937), pp. 64, 70.
17. E. Gjerstad and others, The Swedish Cyprus Expedition, 1927-1931(Stockholm, 1934), I. 575.
18. Claude F. A. Schaeffer, “Nouvelles découvertes à Enkomi (Chypre),” inComptes rendus, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Paris, 1949; Revue archéologique, XXVII (1947), 129ff; American Journal of Archaeology,LII (1948), 165ff.

Did King Solomon’s Fleets Visit America?

Did ancient Hebrews reach the shores of the North
and South American continents thousands of years
before Christopher Columbus? What evidence is
there for Hebrew and Israelite occupation of the
Western Hemisphere even a thousand years before
Christ? Was trans-Atlantic commerce and travel
fairly routine in the days of king Solomon of Israel?
Read here the intriguing, fascinating saga of the
TRUE DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA!
William F. Dankenbring
A stone in a dry creek bed in New Mexico, discovered by early settlers in the region, is
one of the most amazing archaeological discoveries in the Western Hemisphere. It contains
engraved on its flank the entire Ten Commandments written in ancient Hebrew script! Hebrew
scholars, such as Cyrus Gordon of Brandeis University near Boston, have vouched for its
authenticity. I visited the site of the huge boulder, near Las Lunas, New Mexico, in 1973 and
photographed the Hebrew inscriptions. A local newspaper reporter guided me to the mysterious
site, located out in the middle of the New Mexico desert. We watched for rattlesnakes, as we
hiked in to the spot where the boulder lies, unmoved and in situ for who knows how many
mysterious centuries. Who put it there? Who wrote the incredible inscription of the TEN
COMMANDMENTS in an ancient Hebrew dialect?
In his new book The Origins and Empire of Ancient Israel, author-historian Steven M.
Collins points out that the “Las Lunas Stone” inscription in archaic Hebrew was written in the
Hebrew letters of the style of the Moabite Stone, dated to about 1,000 B.C. This would place the
writing on the stone to the time of the kingdom of ancient Israel under its most affluent and
powerful king, Solomon, who reigned from 1014 B.C. to 974 B.C.
Exactly how old the writing is, however, is not known. George Morehouse, a geologist,
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studied it and concluded it is between 500 and 2000 years old, based on the weathered patina on
the rock. However, the inscriptions have received periodic scrubbings, says Collins, and
therefore some of the ancient evidence of weatherization could have been removed in the
process. Collins points out that the punctuation in the inscription matches that found in ancient
Greek manuscripts of the fourth century. Dr. Barry Fell states that separation points found in the
artifact date to as early as 1200 B.C.
Says Collins,
“In view of the above, this Los Lunas inscription pre-dates the arrival of Columbus
by at least a thousand years, but it most likely dates to the time of King Solomon
for several reasons. The first reason is that the inscription is in the Paleo-
Hebrew characters in use from approximately 1200-600 B.C., which includes the
reign of King Solomon. A second piece of evidence is what the inscription says!
Since it is an inscription of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses,
it was obviously made by Israelites at a time when they worshipped the God of the
Bible. Since the Kingdom of Israel quickly degenerated into pagan practices
after the reign of Solomon, it argues that this inscription was made during the
reign of Solomon when God’s laws were the standard for the nation” (Steve
Collins, Origins and Empires of Ancient Israel, pages 218-219).
We will demonstrate later in this article that sea voyages around the world were fairly
common during the time of king Solomon, the son of David, during Israel’s “golden age.”
Solomon’s incredible wealth also strongly points to the Las Lunas stone inscription as
having been carved during his reign. Financing sailing voyages of discovery and maritime trade
is no small feat. Vast sums and investments are required. Solomon was the wealthiest king who
ever lived, and undoubtedly had the resources to fund such far reaching and dangerous voyages.
Also, during his reign Israel was in league with the other major world powers of the day,
including Tyre and the Phoenicians, and the nation of Egypt (Solomon married the daughter of
Pharaoh, thus cementing that alliance).
Steve Collins writes:
“Another factor powerfully supporting a dating of this ancient Hebrew
inscription to the time of Solomon are the economic and logistic realities
in the ancient world. Transoceanic expeditions and colonization efforts
in the ancient world required a very large commitment of monetary and
human resources. The source of such resources had to be the king of a
wealthy nation. Because the New Mexico inscription is in ancient Hebrew,
the sponsor for that ancient expedition had to be a very wealthy king of the
ancient Israelites! Solomon was the wealthiest ancient King of Israel, and
he reigned at a time when the Israelites kept the Ten Commandments”
(ibid., page 220).
The “Decalogue Tablet”
Another fascinating archaeological discovery in America is an ancient artifact bearing an
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5
old Hebrew inscription of the Ten Commandments unearthed in Ohio in 1860. The tablet also
includes a scene of an individual – Moses – carved into the front of the tablet in considerable
detail, holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments. This artifact was discovered in an ancient
burial mound. The Hebrew inscription also has characteristics of the old Phoenician alphabets.
Writes Steve Collins on this remarkable discovery:
“A Hebrew inscription with Phoenician features is exactly what ancient Israelite
inscriptions should be like. The Israelites were close allies of the Phoenicians
and shared a common culture and navy from the time of King David until the
fall of Israel circa 721 B.C. Their artifacts would naturally exhibit the traits of
both cultures.”
Collins continues:
“While this artifact unearthed from an Ohio burial mound cannot be specifically
dated, the alphabet used indicates that it was made by ancient followers of God
who spoke Hebrew. While it would be tempting to date this artifact to the time
of King Solomon, the fact that it was engraved with square Hebrew letters indicates
a date several centuries more recent than the Los Lunas tablet, which exhibited
the more ancient Paleo-Hebrew letters” (ibid., page 223-225).
The fact that the Decalogue was buried at the ancient grave site may be evidence of a
strong Levitical presence with the early Israelite explorers. It was customary in ancient times for
explorers to be accompanied by priests and religious officials, and the Levites were the chosen
tribe to officiate in religious matters in the Kingdom of Israel. It was their responsibility alone to
conduct Temple services and to perform the duties associated with Temple worship, religious
instruction and education, and sacrifice.
Evidence of Ancient Egyptians
Literally hundreds of inscribed Phoenician, Celtic and Basque stone grave markers have
been found in Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania, dated to 800-600 B.C., over 2,000 years
before the fateful voyage of Columbus! It must be said, therefore, that Christopher Columbus
did not really “discover” America. Rather, he and his intrepid sailors rediscovered the “New
World”!
Incredible as it may seem, the presence of ancient Egyptians has been found in the
writing system of the Wabanaki/Micmac Indians in Maine, a sub-tribe of the Algonquins. It has
even been documented, says Collins, that the ancient Egyptians sailed the Pacific Ocean as far as
Polynesia and Hawaii, searching for gold, about 1,000 B.C. – during the very time of Solomon’s
Empire in Israel.
One proof of this fact is an inscription in ancient Ogam and Libyan – the language of
Egyptian merchantmen – found near the Rio Grande River of Texas. The inscription states than
an Egyptian-Libyan king by the name of Shishonq visited North America a number of times. It
is translated as, “A crew of Shishonq the king took shelter in this place of concealment.” Says
Dr. Barry Fell, several kings of this name ruled Egypt and Libya between 1000 and 800 B.C.
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6
Interestingly, the Bible itself mentions a king of Egypt by the name of “Shishak”
(“Shishonq”) who invaded the Kingdom of Judah during the time of Rehoboam, son of Solomon,
after the kingdom of Israel separated from allegiance to the throne of David. Shishak was no
doubt an ally of Jeroboam, the king of Israel, at that time. He was a mighty king and plundered
the Temple and riches of the kingdom of Judah (see I Kings 14:25-26).
Steve Collins declares:
“It is significant that Dr. Fell noted the time period of ‘1000-800 B.C.’ as marking
a period of significant Old World exploration of the New World. This time frame
exactly parallels Bible records showing international travel and commerce flourished
with fleets undertaking multi-year voyages and visiting other continents. This time
frame begins with the reigns of Kings David and Solomon, but continues through
much of the history of the northern kingdom of Israel, the dominant partner in the
Phoenician alliance until Israel fell circa 721 B.C. The conclusion is inescapable
that the record of ancient history verifies the biblical accounts. The Bible is not
a detailed history of all that happened in the ancient world, but it confirms what
archaeology and epigraphy have shown about the real state of commerce and travel
in the ancient world” (Collins, page 227, emphasis mine except boldface).
Mystery Hill
More evidence of early Hebrew-Phoenician presence in North America hundreds of years
before Christ was found in New England. At Mystery Hill, named for the “mystery” concerning
the origin of the site, in North Salem, New Hampshire, a large temple observatory site of about
twenty acres was discovered by early colonial settlers. It included shrines with dedications to the
god Baal, a Phoenician-Canaanite deity condemned by the God of Israel. Dr. Barry Fell dated
these inscriptions to about 800-600 B.C., a time of apostasy in ancient Israel. Radio-carbon
dating of the site, however, indicates it was also inhabited back to the second millennium before
Christ.
Such a site dedicated to Baal should be expected, since most of the kings of Israel, after
David and Solomon, worshipped Baal and the Babylonian pantheon, including Astarte (Easter),
and Tammuz.
Early settlers used stones from the site as building materials for their own homes.
Nevertheless, Barry Fell found enough conclusive evidence to demonstrate that the ancient site
was composed of stone slab chambers and henge stones used for determining summer and winter
solstices. Many temple dedications were found in the stone walls. Radio-carbon dating indicates
the site was in use for hundreds of years, showing that the Phoenician-Hebrews had a strong and
thriving colony in the New World that endured through many centuries.
The Davenport Stele
More evidence of Hebrew-Phoenician explorers being present in the New World comes
from a burial mound found in 1877 near Davenport, Iowa. Unfortunately, it was ignored for
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decades by scholars and historians because no one could read its inscription. Also, it was
considered “suspect” because some of the signs on it contained resembled Hebrew, and others
resembled Phoenician, and this was utterly contrary to prevailing scholarly opinion.
Barry Fell has investigated this ancient stele and found it contains join inscriptions in
three ancient languages – Iberian-Punic [related to Phoenician/Hebrew], Egyptian, and ancient
Libyan. Why these three languages? During the time of King Solomon of Israel, the leading
world alliance of the time was a triple alliance consisting of Israel-Phoenicia, Egypt, and Libya!
Comments Steve Collins,
“These are the language groups of the triple alliance that the Bible reveals began
in the reign of Solomon! Since this ancient stele confirms that these groups were
traveling and working together in the interior of North America, it indicates that
this alliance not only existed but also had a global reach!” (Collins, p.210).
Why would there be parallel inscriptions on the same stone, in Davenport, Iowa, in these
ancient languages, unless these three nations had been working and exploring together?
Says Dr. Fell,
“The date is unlikely to be earlier than about 800 B.C., for we do not
know of Iberian or Libyan inscriptions earlier than this date. . . . It seems
clear that Iberian and Punic speakers were living in Iowa in the 9
th
century
B.C.” (Fell, America B.C., page 268).
The terms “Iberian” and “Punic” refer to languages which are closely related to
Hebrew/Phoenician. Dr. Fell noted the Phoenician “character” of the script on both sides of the
Atlantic Ocean. The Iberian peninsula (Spain) was at one time largely settled by peoples of the
tribes of Israel. In fact, the term “Iberian” comes from the Hebrew word “Eber,” meaning
“Hebrew”!
The Iowa stele indicates that the “triple alliance” begun in the days of Solomon, between
Israel, Phoenicia, and Egypt/Libya, continued on into the 800s B.C. It probably lasted until
Israel was carried away into captivity in 721 B.C. by the growing Assyrian empire. The Bible
states plainly that the northern kingdom of Israel, ruled by Ahab, was still “in bed” with
Phoenicia during his reign, around 850 B.C. Ahab married the daughter of Hiram, king of Tyre,
a woman by the name of Jezebel, a priestess of the Baal-Astarte abomination.
The Jewish encyclopedia tells us that Ahab was a very powerful king – one of the four
greatest kings of all history! According to the Targum Sheni, four kings reigned over the entire
world – and these did NOT include Alexander the Great. They were in order: Solomon, Ahab,
Nebuchadnezzar, and Cyrus of Persia.
The Aggagah declares that Ahab was one of three or four kings who will have no portion
in the world to come (Sanhedrin 10.2). Over the gates of Samaria he placed the inscription:
“Ahab denies the God of Israel.” Influenced by his wife Jezebel, he became an enthusiastic
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idolater like none before him. He left no hilltop in Israel without an idol before which he bowed.
He substituted the names of idols for the divine Name of God in the Torah. Ahab is said to have
ruled over the “whole world” and “his dominion extended over 252 kingdoms” (Encyclopedia
Judaica, “Ahab,” vol.1, p.439).
Thus during the 800s, Israel was still a very powerful kingdom, and the triple alliance
forged by Solomon with Phoenicia and Egypt was still going strong, in the hands of Ahab. An
inscription noting this alliance, by being in three languages of the three kingdoms, found in
Davenport, Iowa, attests to the fact of this continuing and powerful entente. Ahab was a worldly
despot whose wickedness was only surpassed by his foolishness. Nevertheless, he was still the
most powerful monarch in the world during his time, and the triple alliance brought Israel great
wealth and might.
Writes Steve Collins:
“A date of 800-700 B.C. for this stele confirms that the triple alliance of Israel,
Egypt and Phoenicia lasted long after the lifetime of King Solomon. The Bible
records that the ten tribes of Israel forsook worshiping the Creator God after
Solomon’s death, and adopted the religious customs of Egypt, Tyre and Sidon.
Biblical accounts show that Israel and Phoenicia were still very closely allied
during the reign of King Ahab of Israel (circa 850 B.C.), and there is no evidence
that their alliance suffered a breach until approximately 721 B.C., when Israel
ceased to be a nation in the Mideast. . . . Therefore the Iowa stele showing that
these ancient nations were still working together around 800 B.C. in the New
World is consistent with biblical accounts” (ibid., p.212).
In addition to these discoveries, another stele exhibiting the ancient Egyptian-Libyan
script was unearthed on Long Island, New York. Dr. Barry Fell states that it also probably dates
to around the ninth century B.C.
Still another amazing discovery was made in Oklahoma, where another stele was found
which contained references to the gods Baal and Ra, with an inscription which was “an extract
from the Hymn to the Aton by Pharaoh Akhnaton.” Although the dating of Akhnation is
purported to be in the 13
th
century B.C., new Egyptian dynastic dating methods indicate he was
much closer to 800 B.C. Immanuel Velikovsky points out that Akhnaton was a member of the
18
th
dynasty in Egypt, which co-existed with the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the
800s B.C. He was a contemporary of king Jehoshaphat in Jerusalem, and reigned from 870-840
B.C. (see Ages in Chaos, p.229). This Oklahoma stele is written in Iberian-Punic, a language
descended from Phoenician-Hebrew, and Barry Fell declares that it is “scarcely older than 800
B.C.” (see Collins, p.212, Fell, America B.C., p.159).
Peruvian Discoveries
In December, 1989, it was reported that an American explorer in Peru's highland jungles
had found evidence that indicated king Solomon's legendary gold mines may have been in that
region. The explorer, Gene Savoy, declared that he had found three stone tablets containing the
first writing found from the ancient civilizations of the Andes. The inscriptions, he reported, are
similar to Phoenician and Hebrew hieroglyphs!
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The San Francisco Chronicle reports: “The hieroglyphs on the tablets are similar to
those used in King Solomon’s time and include one identical to the symbol that always appeared
on the ships he sent to the legendary land of Ophir, which the Bible described as the source of his
gold, Savoy said” (December 7, 1989).
Savoy is no newcomer to archaeological discoveries. He was the discoverer of the last
Inca city of Vilcabamba in 1964. Savoy declared that the three tablets each weigh several tons
and measure about 5 by 10 feet. They were found in a cave near Gran Vilaya, the immense ruins
of the Chachapoyas Indian civilization which he discovered in 1985.
Hebrews in the Americas 1,000 B.C.?
In 1973, while traveling to do research for an article I was writing for The Plain Truth
magazine, I visited with Dr. Joseph Mahan in Atlanta, Georgia, an expert in ancient Indian
ethnology of the southeastern Indians of the United States. He showed me samples of pottery
uncovered from the waters around the Bahamas, and told me of Indian legends, including that of
the Yuchis, stating they had migrated to the area of Florida and Georgia from the region of the
Bahamas. According to their legends, the island sank beneath the sea and they fled for their
lives.
These same Yuchis later migrated to the Oklahoma territory, where they eventually
settled down. Amazingly enough, they show strong evidence that they had contact with the Old
World in historic times. They have a custom which is unique among the American Indians.
They are racially and linguistically different from their neighbors. Every year on the fifteenth
day of the sacred month of harvest, in the fall, they make a pilgrimage. For eight days they live
in “booths” with roofs open to the sky, covered with branches and leaves and foliage. During
this festival, they dance around the sacred fire, and called upon the name of God.
The ancient Israelites had the virtually identical custom, in many respects. In the harvest
season in the fall, on the 15th day of the sacred month of harvest (the seventh month), they
celebrate the “festival of booths” for eight days. During this time they lived in temporary booths,
covered with branches, leaves, fronds. This festival goes back to the time of Moses and the
Exodus from ancient Egypt (Leviticus 23).
How is it that two totally separated peoples observed the identical custom? The chances
of this occurring by pure “accident” are equivalent to the chances of survival of a snowball in
hell!
Dr. Cyrus Gordon, of Brandeis University in Boston, was privileged to sit in on one of
the fall harvest festivals of the Yuchi Indians, and listened to their chants, songs, and sacred
ceremonies. An expert in Hebrew, Minoan, and many Middle Eastern languages, he was
incredulous. As he listened, he exclaimed to his companion, “My God! They are speaking the
Hebrew names of God!”
Dr. Joe Mahan is a strong believer in cultural contacts between the Indians and the East,
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long before Columbus. He showed me a small tablet containing ancient cuneiform writing of the
Babylonians.
“This,” he said, “was found not long ago by a woman digging in her flower bed, here in
Georgia. The inscription appears to be genuine. There is no reason not to believe it is authentic.”
Perplexing Mysteries
In Quest of the White God, Pierre Honore points out similarities between the ancient
Minoan writing and the script of the ancient Mayas. Independently of him, other scholars have
noted striking similarities between Aztec glyphs from Mexico, and Cretan glyphs on the Phaistos
Disc from the island of Crete in the Mediterranean.
More and more, scholars are coming to admit that peoples from the Middle East reached
the New World long before Columbus or the Vikings. One stone, found at Fort Benning,
Georgia, has unusual markings all over it. It is called the “Metcalf stone” in honor of its
discoverer. In 1968 Manfred Metcalf was looking for slabs to build a barbeque pit. Several
strange-looking, flat rocks caught his eye; he picked up a large flat piece of sandstone about nine
inches long, brushed it off, and noticed odd markings on it.
I saw the stone myself, and took photographs of it. Professor Stanislav Segert, professor
of Semitic languages at the University of Prague, has identified the markings on the stone as a
script of the second millennium before Christ, from the Minoan civilization on the island of
Crete!
The inscription on the stone, Dr. Cyrus Gordon asserts, is in the writing style of Canaan,
the promised land of the Hebrews. Concludes Gordon, whom I interviewed at his old, New
England style home in the suburbs of Boston: “There is no doubt that these findings, and others,
reflect Bronze Age transatlantic communication between the Mediterranean and the New World
around the middle of the second millennium B.C.” He said such discoveries prove beyond doubt
ancient Jews came to the Americas long before Columbus!
Metcalf gave the stone to Dr. Joseph B. Mahan, Jr., Director of Education and Research
at the nearby Columbus Museum of Arts and Crafts at Columbus, Georgia. Mahan sent a copy of
the stone to Cyrus Gordon. Gordon reported:
“After studying the inscription, it was apparent to me that the affinities of the script were
with the Aegean syllabary, whose two best known forms are Minoan Linear A, and Mycenaean
Linear B. The double-axe in the lower left corner is of course reminiscent of Minoan civilization.
The single verticle lines remind us of the vertical lines standing each for the numeral ‘1’ in the
Aegean syllabary; while the little circles stand for ‘100.’”
Concluded Gordon: “We therefore have American inscriptional contacts with the Aegean
of the Bronze Age, near the south, west and north shores of the Gulf of Mexico. This can hardly
be accidental; ancient Aegean writing near three different sectors of the Gulf reflects Bronze Age
translatlantic communication between the Mediterranean and the New World around the middle
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of the second millennium B.C.” The middle of the second millennium B.C. would have been
around the time of Moses and the Exodus of Israel out of ancient Egypt!
Gordon offers the exciting thought, “The Aegean analogues to Mayan writing, to the
Aztec glyphs, and to the Metcalf Stone, inspire the hope that the deciphered scripts of the
Mediterranean may provide keys for unlocking the forgotten systems of writing in the New
World. A generation capable of landing men on the moon, may also be able to place pre-
Columbian Americas within the framework of world history” (Manuscripts, summer of 1969).
The Brazilian Paraiba Stone
Further proof that transatlantic travel and communication existed in the Bronze Age, in
the middle of the second millennium B.C., during the time of David and Solomon, and before,
comes to us from South America.
In 1872 a slave belonging of Joaquim Alves de Costa, found a broken stone tablet in the
tropical rain forests of Brazil’s Paraiba state. Baffled by the strange markings on the stone,
Costa’s son, who was a draftsman, made a copy of it and sent it to the Brazilian Emperor’s
Council of State. The stone came to the attention of Ladislau Netto, director of the national
museum. He was convinced of the inscription’s authenticity and made a crude translation of it.
Contemporary scholars scoffed. The very thought of Phoenicians reaching Brazil thousands of
years before Columbus was viewed with disdain. Few scholars took the stone at all seriously.
Ninety four years later, in 1966, Dr. Jules Piccus, professor of romance languages at the
University of Massachusetts, bought an old scrapbook at a rummage sale containing a letter
written by Netto in 1874, which contained his translations of the markings on the stone and a
tracing of the original copy he had received from Costa’s son. Intrigued, Dr. Piccus brought the
material to the attention of Cyrus H. Gordon. Dr. Gordon, the head of the Department of
Mediterranean Studies at Brandeis and an expert in ancient Semitic languages, as well as author
of some 13 books, was amazed. He compared the Paraiba inscription with the latest work on
Phoenician writings. He discovered that it contained nuances and quirks of Phoenician style that
could not have been known to a 19th century forger. The writings had to be genuine!
Gordon translated the inscription as follows: “We are Sidonian Canaanites from the city
of the Mercantile King. We were cast up on this distant shore, a land of mountains. We
sacrificed a youth to the celestial gods and goddesses in the nineteenth year of our mighty King
Hiram and embarked from Ezion-geber into the Red Sea. We voyaged with ten ships and were at
sea together for two years around Africa. Then we were separated by the hand of Baal and were
no longer with our companions. So we have come here, twelve men and three women, into New
Shore. Am I, the Admiral, a man who would flee? Nay! May the celestial gods and goddesses
favor us well!”

Taken from: http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=53847