Arcadia Discussion Zone

Hi everyone. I have been asked to upload this picture and have been assured that a discussion on its relevance to the Oak Island will commence shortly.

Thank you Andrew for posting the alphabet for me, much appreciated.

The tableau above shows from Left to Right,

Libyan Oriental
Libyan Occidental
Saharan Tifinagh
6 variations of Touareg
Neo-Tifinagh as developed by the Academy Berber.


If you study the photo of the Oak Island stone Inscription and the smaller piece of rock with similar markings you will see the connection. Whoever inscribed this stone was familiar with the ancient scripts of the Western Sahara.

These symbols are also easily confused with Roman Numerals which is why I would like to see any photos pertaining to these numerals found on a U shaped configuration of logs located in Smith's Cove.

The Berbers have been known throughout history as navigators for the Phoenician and Mauretanian Sea Fleets. The earliest Egyptian inscriptions found in America are associated with Libyan. The bilingual Egyptian /Libyan Stele excavated in 1886 at the tip of Long Island identifies a crew hailing from South Egypt.
There is archaeological evidence that the fleets of Solomon and Hiram of Tyre circumnavigated the globe. Minoan and Phoenician coins and scripts have been found in Tennessee and gold horse-head Carthaginian coins have turned up in Oaklahoma and New England.

In 1996 Gene Savoy the American Explorer found in Peru,high up in the Andes, a series of figures inscribed on the wall of an ancient tomb . One of these glyphs, the largest and most imposing resembled a figure he knew to be of Middle Eastern origin. He translated the glyph to say " Ophir" the biblical name of a secret land where Hiram's Phoenician sailors loaded their ships with gold from King Solomon's mines. This Glyph - a symbom called "Ni-Ther" by the ancient Egyptians, holds a special significance for most scholars. Many biblical archeologists believe that this symbol marked all the ships in Solomon's Navy that travelled to Ophir.

This Glyph is inscribed on a stone on Oak Island, it resembles a "G" in a square box. I can't print out photos on this Forum unfortunately as I don't have the necessary computer brain-cell, but the photo was printed somewhere on this Forum for me a couple of months back by some kind soul.......so please check it out.

I have been exchanging views with Berbers and Amazighs on their Tifinagh websites and all recognise the Oak Inscription for their ancient Tifinagh language and are quick to tell me of the ancient Berbers in America but as yet we have not come up with a translation as there are so many ancient dialects.....yes, there is more to come! At the moment the Academy Berber are checking over the inscription for me but don't hold your breath.

Coins from Burrow's Cave have been found with these seemingly Roman Numerals on them. These coins with V II are not Roman but are proven to be the glyph of the Sun King Alexander Helios, born in Alexandria in 35BC to Antony & Cleopatra. His twin sister married Juba II prince of Numidia and together they ruled the semi-autonomous Kingdom of Mauretania on the West African coast.They had a stunning Ocean going fleet manned by Phoenicians, Berbers, Celtiberians, Spanish and Syrians.
Envious of the country's great wealth, their only son Ptolemy was imprisoned by Caligula and taken to Rome in chains. His Mauretanian subjects rioted on hearing the news, killing many Romans. Ptolemy is executed in Rome and the Roman Army invades Mauretania causing Alexandra Helios and his family to load up King Juba II's treasure & great Library and set sail across the ocean into the West.

1830's. While farming in southern Illinois early settlers find Roman-era coins and other artifacts. Chief Brown, last elected leader of the Yuchi Indians, tells Georgia archeologist Dr. Joseph Mahan the Yuchi story of how foreigners from across the sea arrived in southern Illinois where they dug a large tomb into which they placed a golden treasure, long since lost.

1982. Russell E. Burrows accidentaly finds the tomb and supposed treasure of Juba II, along with the V II glyph of Alexander Helios his brother in law. Over the next seven years Burrows removes an estimated seven thousand artifacts from the site before the tomb site is closed when a powerful blast collapses its entrance.

2002. Excavation of the suspected Mauretanian site using ground-penetrating radar clearly reveals its chambers but fails to detect a point of entry.any attempt to drill into the subterranean chambers is foiled by a large underground water system!

So....... Mauretanians, Phoenicians, Libyans, Berbers all over in America before, during and after the Roman era. Your Oak Island Treasure quest might be more complicated than you think!

Any thoughts?

I see you are still working on this Berber, etc, alphabet connection with the Money Pit flat stone. There are certainly many similarities. Unfortunately, we really have no way of knowing what the original characters on the stone looked like. Maybe the depictions generally shown in publications is accurate, I really don't know what the source was for those depictions.
If there really was a coded message, my guess is that it was a warning not to dig any further before cutting off the flood tunnel feeders. Only someone else knowing the code would get the warning, while everyone else would keep digging and trip the flood tunnels. I can't see it saying that a treasure was 40 feet below. Wouldn't be much point in that.
Thanks for taking the time to write your posts. It's nice to see someone else who is actually interested in solving something related to oak Island.
I think D'Arcy and Tank should take note that I have never said anything bad about Sheila. That's because I only say bad things about bad people, and Sheila doesn't fall into that category.

I like the idea but in my opinion, if the ancient Berbers/ etc had any input in the construction of the pit then it would be unlikely that a visible depression could be seen after the intervening years between their period of exploration and the "discovery" a couple of hundred years ago. Also has there been any parts of the shaft structure scietifically analysed. the wood could be easily dated and this would give a clear indication of the construction period. On the plus side ancient peoples were technologically advanced enough to construct a complex structure like this but would a sea going expedition have the resources to actually do it?

Sheila,

You have done some work on this issue, it shows. There are a lot of hurdles to overcome before the idea that the ancient Berbers were the architects of Oak Island, but your ideas are fresh and worthy of thoughtful consideration. Keep the information flowing please.

Oak Island has a lot of information to reveal yet and we are just scraping the surface as new (reliable) information comes to light monthly or sometimes only yearly. The inscribed stone is long gone and we do not have a photograph, tracing, rubbing or drawing of the stone that is accepted by all the people who genuinely research this mystery. That is not to say there is not one out there somewhere, it just has not surfaced as yet. Thus, the much touted inscription of the stone you see on web sites, books and other media, may not be what was on the stone. There is good reason to doubt that.

I read in your posting that ancient coins have been found in various places in the US. Here in Canada, we have similar stories and in one instance, in a fresh water lake near Halifax, Nova Scotia, two bronze coins attributed to the Carthaginians were found within modern times. This I just found out within the past few days.

The Oak Island Tourism Society has a festival all about Oak Island next week and one of the may items we have on display is a section (s) of the "U" shaped Log Structure to examine. If you are a little closer to us than France, you may want to drop by and have a look. Maybe you have the means to travel on a moments notice, obviously I'll leave that to you to decide. Check out our web site for more details.

However......we know by looking at the large broken stone fragment (that has been photographed,) that the symbols on it are from one of these Saharan Berber languages.
Therefore it would follow that the symbols on the flat "Oak Island Inscription " stone would, even if it was a fake or a copy, be written in the same language.
It is beyond doubt that the large broken stone with the handful of symbols carved on it,is written in one of these Saharan Berber languages.

This is the important stone that needs to be studied.

Where is it? can it be photographed from a different angle so we can be sure of the markings?

Tank,

Just read your post. The original Inscribed stone is long gone, but what about the rougher one with the same symbols carved on it?

Please study the sections of the "U" shaped log structure carefully and make note of any markings for us.

Sheila in France and too far away from Oak Island to even consider a visit!

Sheila,

As with all things regarding Oak Island, we have to ask some tough questions and try and stay away from too much groundless speculation.

The thing is, all we know is that the other stone with what appears to be an "H" and "O" on it are parts of a larger stone (S) that seems to be missing. I don't know for sure where that stone is. It may be in Dan Blankenship's possession as he has a lot of Oak Island material in his office and house, but I have never seen it outside of those photographs.

I agree that the symbols on the so called Heddon Stone seem to match the Inscribed Stone found in the Money Pit and for me, that is pretty good evidence, but not 100%. Oak Island has a lot of inscribed stones on it and mercifully, not many have been used as a fraud. Many stones have names carved in them and dates, one even has what looks like a feather carved in it on the northern shore. There is no way of telling if the Heddon Stone and Inscribed Stone are part of the same work, or author if you will.

The well known "G" Stone is near the shore in Smith's Cove, but some people have misrepresented the square around the "G" as being original, when it is not. The square is in fact some sort of silicone or caulking compound that was spread around the "G" to outline it, probably in the past thirty five years or so.

The "U" shaped log structure is largely still intact under the silt and mud of Smith's Cove. What we will have on display are smaller sections, about 3.5 - 4 feet long and the are terrible cracked and flaking from not being well taken care of. Any marks left over from the original manufacturers have long been ruined on the pieces we have. Good quality photographs are in existence though, my Society has some really good ones we put on display.

Even if the square round the "G" Glyph isn't part of the original, makes no odds. It still resembles the glyph for "Ship" as used by the Phoenicians and Solomons fleet to "Ophir".
As to the so called Heddon stone, what's the story? Where was it actually located originally and why was it broken up?

Sheila

Sheila,
Glad to see you post your information. It's nice to see thoughtful and fresh contributions to the Oak Island mystery. Hope to read more in the future.
I may be thinking of the wrong one, but wasn't the G stone dynamited in the belief it covered a treasure trove? Someone with more information will hopefully correct me if I'm wrong.

Copyright 1953 by Penn Lear.
"Northwest of the shaft was Hedden's bunkhouse, boarded up and deserted. Near the front porch lay four old pieces of broken rock; later we learned the history of these relics. On the beach several hundred yards North West of Smith's Cove had been one huge rock it had carvings, old and new, on one flat vertical surface. In the 1920's someone had dynamited it and dug underneath in a vane hope of disinterring some clue to the treasure; The scattered fragments were collected and brought up to the cabin. Many of the pieces were probably missing but we photographed the ones remaining. Some of the carvings were obviousely recent and in English, yet one stone was inscribed with peculiar symbols. This is generally explained as the work of some prankster, but the figures are deeply cut and very weathered."

So this was the stone that was broken up. The "G" glyph stone is on a large boulder still in the ground, unless I can be corrected?

If any one can post photos could they post a picture of the stones we are talking about.

Thank you, Sheila

Copyright 1953 by Penn Lear

"Lynds company began in earnest and sank the shaft to 95 ft. Every ten feet was another layer of oak planks supporting the earth above it. At the 80ft. point they uncovered a deep layer of charcoal! Beneath it was something stranger still, a thick bed of vegetable fibre had been stuffed into the hole. This fibre proved to be from the outer rind of the coconut, a material that will remain undecayed indefinitely when covered from the air. At the 90 ft. level was found a layer which was either ship's putty or a sticky, light - coloured clay. Just below the "putty" the company unearthed a thin, flat stone, darkly green with a kind of oily composition. It was three feet long, sixteen inches wide and covered with illegible carvings. The stone is now lost but it was once built into the fireplace of Smith's house as an ornament."

Sheila

However I read somewhere else recently that a copy of this stone Inscription was made at the time by someone at Halifax University. How do you track that down?

Sheila,



The "G" stone is a stand alone stone and is not related, as far as I know, to the fragmented stones that used to be near Heddon's cabin. Those stones are up near what has become known as the Triton shaft, all except for the Heddon Stone and I don't know where that one is now.

The "G" stone boulder is not that big, maybe a few hundred pounds and looks very normal, in fact, I was standing on it one day giving a tour and looked down much to my amusement to see that I was standing on it.

Originally, these stones (Fragmented) were found very close to where Fred Nolan's cabin is today, in Joudrey's Cove.

Why don’t you come over to www.oakislandtreasure.co.uk join the forum, and learn more from some real experts who have studied these things up close and personal. I feel sure Andrew won't mind, that way his web site can consentrate on matters closer to his desires rather than read what some of the postings here resort to.

While doing research on the enigmatic "Oak Island Inscription Stone" I found myself reading more and more about the ancient people of the Western Sahara. This Inscription stone as you know, was found in the Money Pit........

"At the ninety foot level was found a layer which was either ship's putty or a sticky, light-colored clay.
Just below the "putty" the company unearthed a thin, flat stone, darkly green with a kind of oily composition. It was three feet long, sixteen inches wide and covered with illegible carvings. The stone is now lost but it was once built into the fireplace of Smith's house as an ornament. Many years later it was removed and taken to Halifax where it was kept in Creighton's book store as a curiosity. It was last heard of in 1928 when it served as a doorstop on the premises of a construction company in Halifax. "
Copyright Penn Leary 1953.

The stone that we see in photographs today is apparently a reproduction of the original. So we have no way of knowing what the original symbols looked like. However they seem to be from the same known alphabet that was used on the so called "Heddon" stone, so whoever reproduced the modern version of the Inscription stone found deep in the Money Pit had already realised that the deeply carved symbols where from the same known language.Penn Leary continues

"We climbed down to the shore opposite Smith's Cove and stumbled over the boulders looking for the stone triangle. The beach there is receding from the pounding of the tide; it has been estimated that the island has lost sixty feet on that side in the last two hundred years. In a small clearing, just on the edge of solid ground, we found the triangle. Following a compass north we pushed through the thick brush, up the hill again, headed straight for the Money Pit.
Northwest of the shaft was Hedden's bunkhouse, boarded up and deserted. Near the front porch lay four old pieces of broken rock; later we learned the history of these relics. On the beach several hundred yards northwest of Smith's Cove had been one huge rock. It had carvings, old and new, on one flat vertical surface. In the 1920's someone had dynamited it and dug underneath in a vain hope of disinterring some clue to the treasure. The scattered fragments were collected and brought up to the cabin. Many of the pieces were probably missing but we photographed the ones remaining. Some of the carvings were obviously recent and in English, yet one stone was inscribed with peculiar symbols. This is generally explained as the work of some prankster, but the figures are deeply cut and very weathered."

So we have two stones, one a modern reproduction, the other, an original piece of a larger rock. Both sporting the same strange symbols that up until recently had been unidentified as a known alphabet. So here we go....... the language is a dialect of ancient Berber/ Libyan/ as used in the Western Sahara. We just need someone to take the time and effort to translate it, depending on which way the original symbols need to be read, as there is Ancient Berber (Horizontal) and Ancient Berber (Vertical). Most inscriptions are written in vertical columns running from bottom to top starting either on the left or the right. Monumental inscriptions generally run in horizontal lines from right to left.
It could be written in Tifinagh which possibly means " Phoenician letters" as the ancient Berber script is based on the Punic script.These languages such as Tifinagh, Tamazight, Tamasheq and Amazigh are spoken by people in Morocco, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria and Libya.

So what was a Berber script doing in Nova Scotia?? Thats when it started to get interesting!

By 1832 a chap called Rafinesque published an important paper on Mayan writing that helped in the decipherment of the Olmec writing; In this paper he discussed the fact that when the Mayan glyphs were broken down into their constituent parts, they were analogous to the Manding or Si writing from North West Africa called Libyco/Berber writing.
The Mande people often refer to themselves as Si. The Si people appear to have been mentioned by the Maya. In 1941 Tozzer claimed that the Yucatec Maya said that the Xiu (Shiu), a group of foreigners from Nonoualoco territory taught the Maya how to read and write. The term Xiu agrees with the name Si as it should be noted that in the Manding languages the plural number is formed by the suffix "u".These Manding people from the Saharan zone of North West Africa with their Libyco/Berber script came to Mexico in twelve waves of immigrants around 1500BC and were the ancestors of the Olmecs.
The Olmec writing system is unique.

So.......does this interest anybody out there?

In 1982 Russell E. Burrows, a treasure hunter in Southern Illinois, stumbled on a hidden cave and its cache of ancient gold sarcophagi and statues, gold coins and weapons. There were also hundreds of black "portrait stones", inscribed with various symbols and letters, and the profiles of Roman soldiers, early Christians and West Africans. Researching more than 7,000 artifacts removed from the cave before it was sealed - Frank Joseph pieces together how these objects came to be found in the middle of the United States.
Almost 2,000 years ago Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Cleopatra and Anthony, ruled the semi-independant Roman province of Mauritania, in present-day Morocco, with her husband King Juba II. Following the execution of their son, Ptolemy, by the Emperor Caligula, the Mauretanians rebelled against their Roman masters. The Roman legions attacked, pushing them down the west coast of Africa in retreat. To escape, the Mauretanian set sail westwards and I think they followed a well worn path to reach the shores of America as their ancestors did before them.They took with them Cleopatra's golden treasure and King Juba's encyclopedic library of ancient wisdom .
Juba was a true scholar whose motivation in life was the eternal quest for knowledge. He was something of a genius, fluent in Numidian, Latin, Greek and Phoenician, publishing dozens of books on history, botany, geography, zoology, philosophy and travel. Juba had personal friends among Rome's literary elite, including Virgil, Horace, Livy, Agrippa and Pliny said he was " one of the great scholars and writers of the age."
By the way, he had auburn hair!
If you want to read about "The lost Treasure of King Juba" please read Frank Joseph's book. Frank is the editor-in-chief of Ancient America magazine.
I believe the Mauretanians sailed the same route as their ancestors before them and that there was continual links and trade between West Africa and America.

So going back to the Olmecs...... They are the so called "mother-culture" of Central America, the earlist high civilisation of Ancient Mexico.
Numerous pieces of characteristically Olmec sculpture have been unearthed. All are monoliths and some take the form of giant heads weighing up to thirty tons. Others are massive stele engraved with encounter scenes apparently involving two distinct races of mankind, neither of them American Indian.. Whoever had produced these outstanding pieces of art had obviously belonged to a refined, well organized, prosperous and technologically advanced civilisation that had arrived in Central America around 1500BC with their sophisticated culture fully evolved. Their monumental stone sculptures portray subjects with unmistakable negroid features, African men wearing close-fitting helmets with long chin straps.

So......does this subject interest anyone? If so can we start a New Topic.


Sheila

It's somewhat interesting but the upper vault of the Money Pit, and the Smith's Cove flood tunnel, were constructed most likely around 1750. This is because the area around the pit was only covered with young tree regrowth when discovered in 1795. The U shaped log structure under Smith's Cove beach was also carbon dated to that period. This is also about the time when Marie de Blanchefort lived, if she happened to be involved in the scenario. My guess is that Admiral George Anson was involved. He's the guy who had the Shepherd's Monument built on his Shugborough Hall estate.
I think the lower vault was placed there much earlier than the second higher one, probably in the early 1600s. Anson simply reopened the pit around 1750 and put more treasure in a second vault and made the Smith's Cove tunnel to protect it. So the stone which was found above this second vault must date from that time. Also, the Roman numerals on the U shaped structure suggest that it was done by Europeans. I also don't find direct matches for most of the characters on the stone with those other alphabets. It's somewhat suggestive of a connection, but that's about as far as you can go with it, in my opinion. There are just too many dissimilarities to positively link it to those alphabets. For instance, there are a lot of closed triangles in the stone inscription but none at all in those alphabets. Opened ones, yes, but not closed ones.
I know this is kind of your pet theory and don't want to be discouraging or anything. This is just my honest opinion based on all the facts I've seen so far.

All,

Now, I don't mean to put a damper on Sheila's wonderful research, however we should keep in mind that Prof. James Leitchi, who 'supposedly' translated the inscription on the stone, was a Professor of Languages. This is purely hypothetical, however if he was in fact told to fabricate the stone to attract investors, he could very well have been familiar with the Berber alphabet, and chosen it so as to make it appear mysterious and complex.

Like I said, I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, just throwing around some possible scenarios.

Indy

Yes......But!...... You are missing a wee point here.....The same alphabet symbols appear on the so called "Heddon "Stone which is in fragments. These same symbols are deeply carved into the stone. Its the same script as on the "Inscription stone" faked or otherwise.

It's no big deal that these symbols are from a Saharan language, these scripts have turned up in various places in America. We need to get away from the so called "Loads of money below" theory. More likely the Inscription says something like " Don't dig any further you're going to get wet!"

Sheila,

The only thing that doesn't quite make sense to me is that the Heddon Stone was part of a boulder which was dynamited in the 1920's. At the time this was dynamited, the symbols could be clearly seen, and someone would have had to remember the inscribed stone and the symbols on it. So why did they destroy it instead of studying it closer?
That's what I'd like to know.

Indy

Indy,
It was apparently dynamited in the 1920's by people looking for clues to the treasure underneath it. Just goes to show doesn't it!

"LIBYAN DYNASTIES, seated in the Delta and viewing the sea different from Egyptian, may have sponsored voyages to America; but Sheshonq I followed hoary Egyptian tradition in concentrating NE by land and insisted on Egyptian religion and 12th-Dynasty forms generally. Sheshonqs mentioned in Spanish and Texas inscriptions, Fell perceived, were late non-Egyptian local Libyan potentates. The earliest Egyptian inscriptions found in America are associated with Libyan. Fell conceded they cannot predate 800 B.C.--a generous terminus a quo. The bilingual Egyptian/Libyan stele excavated 1886 at the tip of Long Island identifies a crew hailing from South Egypt, implying a Red Sea embarkation, though we would expect a ship that reached New York to have sailed from the East-Delta capital Bubastis. Fell conjectured Libyans taught Micmacs to write the language they were already speaking and that the stele was a later Algonquin copy."

Quote from: Wake Forest University, Dept. of History, PO Box 7806, Winston-Salem, NC 27109
As to where it is now you'll have to check out your local large museums or check it on the web,



"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 autthenticity 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.

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!"

The Navy of King Solomon

Cyrus Gordon believes the king mentioned in the script can be identified as Hiram III who reigned 553-533 B.C. The inscription seems to verify an unusual statement found in the Old Testament. An ancient Biblical chronicler wrote:

"And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom. And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon" (I Kings 9:26-28).

In the days of Solomon there was an alliance between Hiram, the king of Tyre and the Israelites under Solomon. They were not only allies, but very friendly toward one another (II Chronicles 2:2-12). Israelites and Phoenicians even worked together to build the Temple of YEHOVAH God in Jerusalem (vs.13-18). This alliance included shipping together, although the Phoenicians were known to jealously guard the secrets of oceanic navigation from other nations. We read in II Chronicles 8, beginning verse 8:

"Then went Solomon to Ezion-geber, and to Eloth, at the sea side in the land of Edom. And Huram sent him by the hands of his servants ships, and servants that had knowledge of the sea; and they went with the servants of Solomon to Ophir, and took thence four hundred and fifty talents of gold, and brought them to king Solomon" (v.17-18).

In the heyday of Solomon silver was "not any thing accounted of" (11 Chron. 9:20). We read, "And the king made silver in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar trees made he as the sycomore trees that are in the low plains in abundance" (v. 27). Solomon had his own personal fleets and dominated world trade. "And king Solomon passed all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom" (v. 22).

There is archaeological evidence, in fact, that the fleets of Solomon and Hiram of Tyre circumnavigated the globe, sailing from Ezion-geber, a port at tne terminus of the Red Sea, near modern Aqaba or Eliat! Hebrew customs, discovered by the early English settlers in the Americas, were found among some of the Indian tribes, including the wearing of phylacteries! Minoan and Phoenician coins have been found, and inscriptions of ancient Phoenician and Minoan scripts, in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and the Star of David was even found in an ancient ruin of the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico! In the middle of the second millennium, B.C., and down to the time of Solomon, circa 1000 B.C., oceanic travel by maritime powers in the Middle East seems to have been fairly common.





Dr. H. B. "Barry" Fell, a Harvard scholar with an avocation for ancient writings. To his credit he solved the riddle of the Phaistos disk, determined that the Etruscan language was related to and decipherable by using Hittite and found the secrets in the Rongo-rongo tablets of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). He was this centuries greatest linguist

Barry Fell's revelation that the Celtic, Arabic and other People visited, emigrated and traded with Native Americans is simple truth. History hides these facts from the general population. They would rather keep the idea that the Native Americans were illiterate savages, incapable of civilized behavior. Nothing could be farther from reality. Dr. Fell examined the rock carved evidence and simply reported the facts that demonstrate the facts as ther are.

The next quote is from Gloria Farley talking about her and Barry Fell's discoveries,

"The first script that I encountered was the old Germanic Futhark used by the Scandinavians, which appears on the Heavener Runestone, and on some other inscriptions apparently left by the Norse in America. Later, many scripts were found more closely related to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern alphabets. These include South Arabian, scattered Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the Cypriot script. I have recorded many inscriptions written in Numidian letters, an alphabet used by the Libyans; in the Carthaginians' Punic script, an alphabet which evolved from the Phoenician; also in North African Greek, Kufic, and the ancient Tifinag, which is still used. From the Iberian peninsula, there are Tartessian, Iberic, and Portuguese­style Ogam. Most of the messages I have recorded in America appear to be written in the Ogam alphabet used principally by the Celts in Iberia, Ireland and Scotland. The Ogam inscriptions have included the specialized Bricren Ogam written with dots. My recordings include the only inscriptions found so far in America in the Gaelic alphabet. All of these mentioned scripts were identified by Fell. There are other scripts recorded by me which have never been identified, and remain for future study.

Variations in the inscriptions made by individual writers must also be considered. If twenty people were asked to print carefully on paper the preceding paragraph, the result would be twenty slightly different versions of the alphabetic characters. However, regardless of the minor differences, each could be read by a person who was familiar with Roman script and the English language. Ancient scribes laboriously incising or pecking their symbols into boulders and cliffs would likewise use different styles and forms of individual symbols. The above mentioned lack of mass distribution of written material would probably encourage a certain amount of individual creativity. But most of the scripts they left are identifiable, and most do translate well.

Many of the inscriptions which I have recorded are bilingual or even trilingual, where the same message is in more than one script or language. Such inscriptions have precedent in the Old World. This bewildering trait, plus the number of ancient scripts recorded, is mind­boggling unless one understands the extent of the integration of cultures in the Old World. For example, the Phoenicians were aggressive traders who established colonies in Spain and North Africa. Carthage was the most successful of these colonies, becoming a power in its own right until it was destroyed by Rome in the Punic Wars. Carthage in turn established colonies elsewhere, including in Spain and on the Mediterranean islands. The Iberian Peninsula became the "melting Pot" for many western European and Mediterranean people.

The Straits of Gibraltar (referred to in those days as the "Pillars of Hercules"), and the nearby Phoenician colony of Gades (Cadiz) were the focal points of the Iberian Peninsula. Northern Europeans trading or moving south were channelled there, where the Mediterranean crossing was the shortest. The ships of the Phoenicians and their colonies were large and seaworthy, as were other ancient Mediterranean ships, fully capable of sailing in the Atlantic Ocean."

"In Plain Sight"

Old World Records in Ancient America

By Gloria Farley



So.......That's a few quotes to be going on with, I'll get back to you with something more concise.

Cheers, Sheila

"Rafinesque (1832) published an important paper on the Mayan writing that helped in the decipherment of the Olmec Writing. In this paper he discussed the fact that when the Mayan glyphs were broken down into their constituent parts, they were analogous to the ancient Libyco-Berber writing..

Winters (1979, 1997) was able to read the Libyco-Berber signs because they were analogous to the Manding or Si signs recorded by Delafosse (1899). These Si people , now centered in West Africa and the Sahelian region formerly lived in an area where Libyco-Berber inscriptions are found (Winters, 1983, 1986). Using the Manding languages Winters (1983) was able to decipher the Libyco-Berber inscriptions (see The Vai Writing System."

Thanks for tracking down the stele, it doesn't look like much though does it.
And by the way it's not a" Historic World-view" it's a "Historic World- Quest".
And calling Dr. Fell " largely discredited" is coming from a very conventional view-point.

Sheila

Quotes:


Phoenician-Berber beliefs

"The Phoenicians were originally a Semitic people that once inhabited the coasts of modern Lebanon. They were seafarers and they founded Carthage in 814 b.C. They gave later birth to the so-called Punic culture which had its roots in the Berber and Phoenician cultures. Some scholars distinguish the relationships between the Phoenicians and the Berbers in two fases:


Before the Battle of Himera (480BC)
When the Phoenicians established in Northwest Africa, they stayed in the coastal regions to avoid wars with the Berbers. They maintained their deities which they brought from their homelands. The early Carthaginians had two important deities: Baal and Astarte.


After the Battle of Himera
The historians believe that Carthage began to ally with the Berber tribes, after the battle of Himera where, the Carthaginians were defeated with the Greeks. Besides the politic changes, the Carthaginians imported also some Berber deities.

Baal was the uppergod worshipped in Carthage. Later, he became united with the Libyan god "Amon" and became Baal-Hammon. The depictions of this deity are found in several sites across north-west Africa. The goddess Astarte became also replaced by a native goddess called Tanit which is supposed to be of Berber origin. The name itself Tanit has languistically a Berber (Tamazight) structure. The feminine names get "T" at the beginning and end of the word in the Berber language. Additionally, some scholars believe, therefore, that the Egyptian goddess Neith was none others than the Libyan goddess Tanit (Ta-neith). Furthermore, some Numidian and Phoenician names had names which may have been partly consisted from the name of the Phoenician uppergod: Baal like Adherbal and Hannibal."


Ancient Libya
(Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

"Ancient Libya was the region west of the Nile Valley. It corresponds to what is now generally called North Africa. Its people were the ancestors of the modern Berbers.

In the Greek period the Berbers were known as "Libyans and their lands called "Libya" extended from modern Morocco to the western borders of ancient Egypt. Modern Egypt contains the Siwa Oasis, historically part of Libya, where the Berber Siwi language is still spoken."

Sheila

Theories abound on origin of New Hampshire stones

Web posted September 27, 1998


By Randall Floyd
Columnist

"On a gloomy hilltop in rural New Hampshire stand the crumbling remains of what appears to be an ancient stone temple where pagans performed gruesome sacrificial rituals more than 2,000 years before the birth of Christ.

Investigators don't know who built the elaborate stone complex or why, but one theory holds that "Mystery Hill," as the ruins are often called, was erected by European outcasts who sailed to America thousands of years ago.

Mysterious markings on some of the stones hint at Mediterranean origins, but at least one scholar suspects that the sprawling, remote complex has Middle Eastern ties. Barry Fell, formerly of Harvard University, thinks ancient Libyans or possibly Egyptians built the Stonehenge-like site some 4,000 years ago.

"If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on the Egyptians," Dr. Fell said in his book, American B.C.

In recent years, the curious complex has become a mecca for New Agers, some of whom believe the place was built by survivors of Atlantis. Visitors say the brooding maze of stone walls, underground chambers and artificial rock structures, some of them towering more than 10 feet tall and weighing almost 5 tons, possesses mystical powers.

"There is real power here," said Randy Jenson, a visitor from California. "It's all around this place, just like at Stonehenge."

Some residents from nearby North Salem say the place is haunted and prefer to keep their distance.

"I just wish it wasn't there," said Sandy Hewar, who works at a local hardware store. "It's caused enough problems already."

Some investigators, including local real estate developer Ed Godwin, say the site is nothing more than a hoax.

"In all likelihood, the Colonials were involved with the construction of this place," said Mr. Godwin. "But it's still unclear why they went to all the trouble to make it look like some kind of modern Stonehenge."

The strange complex does bear resemblance to England's famous circle of stones. There are cromlechs (standing stones) and dolmens (horizontal stone slabs resting on stone uprights), just as at Stonehenge, while a myriad of barrows, subterranean earthen chambers, lead off in several directions.

There are also chimneys and cairns and ledges and portals and an astronomically correct rock calendar the size of a cow pasture.

A pamphlet published by a local chamber of commerce calls the site "one of the most important archaeological sites in the Western Hemisphere."

Some skeptics say the stone construction was the work of an Indian clan.

But radiocarbon dating indicates the site was built some 4,000 years ago, more than 3,000 years before the arrival of the Pattee tribe.

Dennis Stone, a local landowner and amateur archaeologist who occasionally gives interpretive tours of the complex, said that many of the rocks on the site were quarried using stone-on-stone percussion techniques typical of cultures working thousands of years ago without the benefit of drills or other metal tools.

The centerpiece of Mystery Hill is the "sacrificial table," a 4[1/2]-ton, bell-shaped slab of granite set on four stone legs with a deep gutter delineating its perimeter. According to Dr. Stone and other experts, the table appeared to have been used for "bloody" sacrificial rituals similar to those practiced by ancient Mediterranean cultures.

One scholar who examined the ruins shortly after the turn of the century found evidence that convinced him the builders were Phoenician in origin.

Another, William Goodwin, was convinced that outcast Irish monks were behind Mystery Hill's construction more than 1,000 years ago.But Bob Goodby, president of the New Hampshire Archaeological Society and professor of anthropology at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, said that no reputable archaeologist took the pre-Columbian lure seriously.

"There is no evidence that an ancient, old-world culture ever occupied Mystery Hill," he said. "There are no signs that are associated with other megalithic sites elsewhere in Europe."

He said the "sacrificial stone" looked to him like a garden-variety lye stone, used in colonial times to leach lye from ashes to make soap. The astronomical alignments, he added, were coincidental.

Richard Boisvert, deputy state archaeologist, agreed with Dr. Goodby but added that the complex at Mystery Hill "does bear some resemblance to old-world megalithic structures."

Syndicated writer Randall Floyd lives in Augusta.


Sheila

It's a long one..............Sorry!



The Nubians and Olmecs by Clyde Winters

"Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour (1997) have argued that Olmec civilization was not influenced by Africans and therefore Afrocentrism should have no standing in higher education, but in fact it can be illustrated that the facial types as sociated with the Olmec people and Meroitic people are identical; and that Olmec figurines such as the Tuxtla statuette excavation are inscribed with African writing used by the Mande people of West Africa (Wiener, 1922; Winters, 1979 , of Manding writing provide the "absolute proof " recovered by archaeologists from "controlled excavations in the New World" demanded by Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour (1997: 419) to "proof"/confirm Olmec and African contact.

The failure of Haslip- Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour (1997) to realize an African presence in PreColumbian America, is the result of their ignorance of the normal science of ancient Afrocentric studies (Winters, 1996). Haslip-Viera, Ortiz d e Montellano and Barbour (1997: 419) assume that ancient Afrocentric research is the result of the "cultural nationalism of the 1960's and 1970's. This view is false. The ancient Afrocentric studies research tradition was developed before the 1960's (Wint ers, 1994, 1996). The ancient Afrocentric studies research tradition reflects almost two hundred years of original research in the area of ancient Afrocentric studies ( Winters, 1994, 1996). Contrary to the views of Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour (1997) ancient Afrocentric historical research makes ancient Afrocentric area studies a valid field of research (Winters, 1994). Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour (1997) criticized the view held by many Afrocentrist that the Olmec peo ple were Africans, due to the research of Ivan van Sertima. Use of van Sertima (1976) by Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour (1997: 419) to denigrate Afrocentrism is unfair, because this researcher has made it clear since the publication of his book They came before Columbus in 1976, that he is not an Afrocentrist. Although Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour (1997: 431) acknowledge this truth in there rebuttal of van Sertima, the authors refer to Afrocentrist as purveyors of "ras m", interested only in denying the authentic role of Native Americans in the rise of American civilizations.

Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour (1997: 419, 423-25) argue that the claims of the Afrocentrists claims that the Olmecs were Africans, must be rejected because 1) the Olmecs do not look like Nubians, and 2) the absence of an African artifact recovered from an archaeological excavation. These authors are wrong on both counts, there are numerous resemblance between the ancient Olmec people and ancient Nubians, and an African artifact: Manding writing, is engraved on many Olmec artifacts discovered during archaeological excavation (Winters, 1979, 1997)

Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour (1997) argue that the Olmecs could not have been Nubians or Kushites of the Napata-Meroe civilization, as claimed by van Sertima (1976) because the Olmec civilization preceded the civilization of the Kushites by hundreds of years. They also claim that the Olmecs had flat noses, while the Nubians had "thinner noses" because they lived in the desert (Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano & Barbour, 1997:423).

This view is false. The ancient Nubians like African- Americans today were not monolithic, they had different hues of skin, facial features and nose shapes (Keita, 1996: 104). This is evident in from the wall-painting from the tomb-chapel of Sebekhotep at Thebes, c.1400 BC, which show Nubians, of different types bringing rings of gold, incense and other luxury items to the Egyptian Pharaoh (Taylor, 1991).

One of the major Pharoahs of Egypt and Nubia/Kush was Taharqo. The Sphinx of Taharqo c. 690-664 BC, found in Temple 1 at Kawa and the shabti (tomb figure) of Taharqo in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is strikingly similar in facial features, including, the short round face, thick lips and flat nose associated with the Olmec people (Taylor, 1991).




King Taharqa
Moreover a comparison of Olmec heads and a bust of Taharqo illustrated striking similarities when they were placed along side each other (Winters, 1984b:47). The iconographic evidence of the ancient Nubians clearly indicate that there were many round faced, thick lipped, flat nosed Nubians described in the Classical literature (Snowden, 1996: 106) that fit the archtypical Olmec ruler type ( Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour, 1997).



Although the Olmec and Meroitic iconographic documents share many analogous facial features , we must admit that the Nubian hypothesis for the Olmecs must be rejected. It must be rejected because the Kings of Meroitic Kush, and the Olmec Kings existed during different historical eras. The Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour (1997) argument regarding van Sertima's Egypto-Nubian hypothesis has merit . It highlights the failure of van Sertima (1976) to critically read the sources of Africans in ancient America and study the archaeology of West Africa and the Sahara. A cursory reading of Wiener (1922) would have made it clear that the founders of the Olmec civilization were Mande/Manding speaking people.




Comparison of a Nuba and Olmec Head
I was misrepresented by Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour (1997: 421). They claim that I support the Egypto- Nubian hypothesis of van Sertima, and belong to the so-called "extreme" Afrocentric position on Olmec civilization (Haslip- Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour, 1997: 421)

Granted, van Sertima (1976) was wrong about the identity of the Olmecs , but he was correct in claiming that the Olmecs were of African origin. And, there is no denying the fact that Africans early settled the Americas ( Wiener, 1920-1922; von Wuthenau, 1980).

Never in any of my publications on Olmec and African contact have I ever claimed that the Egypto-Nubians had contact with the Olmecs (Winters, 1979, 1981/1982,1983, 1984a, 1984c, 1997). Following Wiener (1922) I have maintained all along the traditional Afrocentric view of Olmec and African paradigm that the Manding speaking West Africans had contact with the Olmec.

Wiener (1922) based his identification of the Manding influence over the Olmecs (eventhough he was unaware of this people at the time) through his identification of Manding writing on the Tuxtla statuette which was created by the Olmecs (Soustelle, 1984; Tate, 1995).

The major evidence for the African origin of the Olmecs comes from the writing of the Maya and Olmec people. As mentioned earlier most experts believe that the Mayan writing system came from the Olmecs (Soustelle, 1984). The evidence of African styl e writing among the Olmecs is evidence for Old World influence in Mexico. The Olmecs have left numerous symbols or signs inscribed on pottery, statuettes, batons/scepters, stelas and bas-reliefs that have been recognized as writing ( Soustelle, 1984; von Wuthenau, 1980; Winters, 1979). The view that the Olmecs were the fir st Americans to 1) invent a complex system of chronology, 2) a method of calculating time, and 3) a hieroglyphic script which was later adopted by Izapan and Mayan civilizations, is now accepted by practically all Meso-American specialist (Soustelle, (1984).

In 1979, I announced the decipherment of the Olmec writing (Winters, 1979). It is generally accepted that the decipherment of an unknown language/script requires 1) bilingual texts and/or 2) knowledge of the cognate language(s). It has long been felt by many Meso-Americanist that the Olmec writing met non of these criteria because, no one knew exactly what language was spoken by the Olmec that appear suddenly at San Lorenzo and La Venta in Veracruz, around 1200 B.C.

The view that Africans originated writing in America is not new. Scholars early recognized the affinity between Amerindian scripts and the Mande script(s) (Wiener, 1922, v.3; Rafinesque, 1832). In 1832, Rafinesque noted the similarities between the Mayan glyphs and the Libyco-Berber writing. And Leo Wiener (1922, v.3), was the first researcher to recognize the resemblances between the Manding writing and the symbols on the Tuxtla statuette. In addition, Harold Lawrence (1962) noted that the "petroglyphic" inscriptions found throughout much of the southern hemisphere compared identically with the writing system of the Manding.

The second evidence pointing to the Manding origin of the Olmec writing was provided by Leo Wiener in Africa and the Discovery of America (1922,v.3). Wiener presented evidence that the High Civilizations of Mexico (Maya and Aztecs) had acquired many o f the cultural and religious traditions of the Malinke-Bambara (Manding people) of West Africa. In volume 3, of Africa and the Discovery of America, Wiener discussed the analogy between the glyphs on the Tuxtla statuette and the Manding glyphs engraved on rocks in Mandeland.

Up until 1995, there were only a few published Olmec inscriptions (Winters, 1979). Today there are many Olmec inscriptions published in Jill Gutherie (1995) catalogue for the exhibition "The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership", organized by the Art Mu seum of Princeton University. Manding Origin of Mayan term for Writing

The linguistic evidence (Brown, 1991), forces us to aknowledge that the Mayan term *c'ib is probably derived from Manding *Se'be. This provides the best hypothesis for the origin of the Mayan term for writing given the fact that the Mayan /c/ corr eponds to the Manding /s/, and the archaeological and linguistic evidence which indicate that the Maya did not have writing in Proto-Mayan times. And as a result, the term for writing had to have come into the Mayan languages after the separation of Proto -Maya. This would explain the identification of the Olmec or Xi/Shi people as Manding speakers. In addition to the Manding origin of the Mayan term for writing, there are a number Mayan terms that are derived from the Olmec language .

In conclusion, the Manding speaking ancestors of the Olmecs came from the Saharan zone of North Africa (Winters, 1983, 1984c, 1986). Here the Proto-Olmecs left their earliest inscriptions at Oued Mertoutek (Winters, 1979,1983). They took a full fledged literate culture to Mexico.

This view is supported both by 1) our ability to read the Olmec inscriptions; 2) confirmation that the Mayan term for writing *c'ib, is of Manding origin; and 3) the symbols for Mayan writing are cognate to the Manding writing systems used in Africa . Moreover, the evidence presented in this paper makes it clear that the people who introduced writing to the Maya when they met at Nonoulco, may have been Manding speaking Olmecs.. Discovery at Olmec sites such as LaVenta Offering No.4 , of Manding writing provide the "absolute proof " of African and Olmec contact. The presence of readable African writing on Olmec celts, masks and statues, is the genuine African artifact found "in controlled excavations in the New World" demanded by Haslip-Viera, Ortiz de Montellano and Barbour (1997: 419) that confirms the Afrocentric claim of ancient African and Olmec contact."



Yes?........No?

Sheila