Phoenicians

Chapter 6

One of earliest remote trading location established by the Phoenicians is said to

have been “Gadir”, located on the west coast of Spain.
It is “tradition” that dates the foundation of “Gadir 1” (modern Cadiz, Spain) as
the earliest known Phoenician trading post in 1110 BCE (a date that is contested),
which puts them a little ahead of the original settlers being from Tyre, or does it?
Records of which group or what city-state founded any number of the colonies in
the pre-1200 BCE timeframe are lacking, they could have been from Sidon, but from
what I have been able to determine they were most likely from Byblos. The
founding dates (as mentioned) are legendary, as no Phoenician objects earlier than
the 9th century BCE (after Carthage was formed – 814 BCE) have been found in the
West. At Carthage some Greek objects have been found that date to 750 BCE or
slightly later, which comes to within two generations of the traditional date – all this
raising the question of any earlier trading posts being established by the
Phoenicians. It has been written that, “Tyrian merchants were the 1st who ventured
to navigate the Mediterranean waters; and they founded their colonies on the
coasts and neighboring islands of the Aegean Sea, in Greece, on the northern coast
of Africa, at Carthage and other places, in Sicily and Corsica, in Spain at Tartessus,
and even beyond the Pillars of Hercules at Gaderia (Cadiz)” – Driver’s Isaiah.
The question by some, were these people of the location we call Lebanon really
capable of sailing the seven-seas. We have found evidence that they founded the
city of Tartessus in Iberia, were later it was to be named Gades in today what is
known as Spain.
The laughable part of some Jewish scholars, is in their assumption that “they”
actually (with Phoenicia low-life navigators) named the Iberian Peninsula (at this
point I must ask you if you have seen the moving, My Fat Greek Wedding, where the
father being Greek, walked around telling anybody who would listen that every word
spoken in the English language was linked to another word in the Greek language,
made for a great comedy) but like the Israeli historians stretching the facts a bit.

1
Under the name of Gadir, given to it by the Phoenicians, Cadiz started out as a magnificent trading post in 1100 B. century, trading
tin, silver and amber (http://www.alicante-spain.com/costa-del-sol/cadiz.html )
 It is also understood that these Phoenician mariners moved a little north
establishing trading relations with the people in the British Isle’s, capable I imagine
of much longer voyages.
Various records found have indicated that the Phoenician ships were the largest
ships of their day, far superior to even Celtic ships where during the 1 st Punic Wars
(260-242 BC) it is said their ships were so large that “five” rowers manned each oar
(referencing the length of the oar in order to reach the water), and that there were
50 or more oars. Each ship had over 250 rowers (5 x 50), a full contingent of
officers plus over 120 marines – in the Punic Wars they still lost over 334 ships.
Documentation shows that the Phoenician’s were sailing beyond the Straits of
Gibraltar as early as the 12th century BC (and maybe even earlier), and it well
known that they had established a wealthy and secure string of colonies in the
Mediterranean ranging from Malta to the Iberian Peninsula and by 500 BC had
gained compete control of the western Mediterranean, destroying the Greek
strongholds in Spain.
All well and good, but what about navigation – up until after the about 30 AD it is
said man had a vague idea about this ball we call Earth, and that early navigators
managed to stay within a few miles of an adjacent coast line when they hit the
waterways – or is this another fabrication of the church. It is written that a certain
Greek captain Hippalos, who had his main port of call Alexandria was the first to
discover how the monsoon winds flowed across the Indian Ocean and reduced a
normally 3-year round trip from Egypt to India to less than 7-months, this all took
place around 30 AD (or) CE as it is referred to in this day of political correctness.
Before him, albeit by not much (239 BC), Erosthenes2 had calculated the
circumference of the world as being about 28,000 miles, which wasn’t to bad
considering the tools he had to work with – he was only off by 11% (24,902 miles).
The exact measurement at the equator is 24,901.55 miles (40,075.16 kilometers),
measured through the poles it is a bit shorter, 24,859.82 miles (40,008 kilometers),
in other words the earth is not a ball floating through the galaxy, but an “ellipsoid”
or more properly a “geoid”.
It appears that pre-dating all of this “stuff”, the Phoenicians were sailing around
the world with complete abandon – using the stars. Ancient mariners knew always
where the true pole was located, realizing at an early time that Ursa Minor moved
2
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Mathematicians/Eratosthenes.html
over the position of the pole, in addition after the 3rd century BC maps were drawn
showing the position of the celestial South Pole – in this we know that navigators
were crossing the equator.
It is now accepted that the Phoenicians had maps to circle the globe, where
some have even mentioned the fact that some of the medieval maps found were
copies of ancient maps – maps that had been laid out in spherical geometry, some
of these maps have been verified by cartographers of the United States
government.
One map in particular, the infamous Piri
Reis map, the map that supposedly shows an
unglaciated Antarctica (a geological event that
could have taken place over 6,000 years or
more ago). The map was supposed to have
been drawn by Hadji Muhiddin Piri Ibn Hadji
Mehmed, an Ottoman-Turkish admiral and
cartographer in 1513 and presented to the
Sultan. There is considerable dispute over it
actually showing Antarctica.
Early Greek writer, Diodorus is quoted in
writing that, “The Phoenicians planted many
colonies throughout Libya (Africa) and not a
few as well in western Europe.” Some modern historians write that they even sailed
into the Pacific, planted colonies and assimilated into some of the local populations
found in the South Pacific.
They are credited for engaging in large colonizing ventures from their port in
Carthage, where it is said that they assembled large ventures that at times
transported 30,000 men and women3 in over 60 ships through the Pillars of
Hercules. Some researchers link these journeys to Africa, and Bolivia where a large
port settlement has been discovered and even into parts of the North American
continent.
At Los Lunas (near Albuquerque, New Mexico) was found a version of the Ten
Commandments engraved on a rock, a similar inscription has been found on a stone

3
The number 30,000 seems to appear at different times during the Phoenician history, 30,000 workmen for the Temple of Solomon, 30,000
travelers, etc., etc
tablet in a burial mound at Newark, Ohio – both ancient inscriptions using a north
Canaanite script and old Hebrew language. They have been dated back to the 900-
800 BCE and are reported to use the sections of the Phoenician alphabet.
The date mentioned above was during the time of King Solomon and the
Phoenician King Hiram, and it is noted where some biblical scholars associate this
region of New Mexico with the ‘Ships of Tarshish” in Chapter 1, Kings, verses 10:22.
Scholars, “Nollau” and “Utriusque” have wondered if the inscriptions were made
by a joint collaboration of the Israelites and the Phoenicians, who made long
voyages for King Solomon – where at one time after an absence of three years, they
delivered 420 talents of gold (1 Kings 9:28 and 10:22, which would be worth
approximately 100 million dollars from the land of ‘Ophir4’, unfortunately it is not
listed in the Hebrew Scriptures where the land of Ophir was located, after all the
Phoenicians were noted for keeping their trade routes a “strict” secret.
Recent researchers have speculated on the location of the ‘Land of Ophir’
drawing various conclusions other than those previously noted as South Africa, with
some supposing it could have been somewhere on the South and North American
continents. The point remains (if we accept 1 Kings 9 to be factual) that even in
those days it’s not figured to take 3-years to travel to and from Africa that is unless
your group engaged in the mining and gathering of all that gold and copper.
With reference to the Phoenician presence in America – it well documented that
the Phoenicians (Carthaginians) had established and maintained trade routes
around the Mediterranean and at one point held complete control over the Straits of
Gibraltar with a strong blockade. In their monopoly, which they guarded jealously,
they not only prohibited ships from leaving but foreign vessels from gaining entry to
“their” sea, that is, without their permission.
Copper was not in abundance in these regions, whereas it was an important
metal in the making of bronze, along with tin. Tin was mined in the Cornwall region
of Great Britain, copper it is reported was in abundance in the Great Lakes area in
America.
It is surmised they gained access to the Great Lakes via the Northeastern States,
where at the “Mystery Hill” site in New Hampshire carbon analyses have pointed
back to periods of occupation during the 2nd millennium BC – there has been found
in one of the chambers a inscription dedicating the site to the ancient Phoenician
4
Some believe that Ophir represented a land across the Atlantic (the America’s)
god ‘Baal’, found along with inscriptions demonstrating that other ancient people
also frequented the location among who were the Celts and the Iberians.
Evidence found at the site clearly shows that the Celts built the megalithic
chambers and that Phoenician mariners were welcomed visitors, allowing them to
worship and make dedications in their own language.
The periodic arrival of Phoenician ships on the coast of New England is noted on
an inscription found on “Monhegan Island” off the coast of Maine that says, “It is
obvious that the flat-topped rocky islet would not have set aside for the unloading
and loading of Phoenician ships were they not regular visitors to America, with a
predictable timetable of ports of arrival and departure at expected dates.”
In 1975, Barry Fell translated a carved inscription on Manana Island (southwest
end of Monhegan Island) that said, “Long-ships from Phoenicia: Cargo-lots and
land-quay”. He said the language was “Hinge-Ogam”, a previous unrecognized
Celtic scrip – since it identification it is known as “Celtiberian” and is found not only
in American but also in Portugal and Spain [the Iberian Peninsula].
An arrowhead was found on Monhegan Island that carbon-dated back to
approximately 1800 BC, it was found to be composed of tin and copper. It should
be noted that there are no “tin” deposits in either the eastern or middle states in
America – with the closest mines in Bolivia where the mines were not worked in
1800 BC.
As stated previously, the Phoenicians are credited with spreading the Bronze Age
culture throughout the Mediterranean due to their tin trade, and that Phoenician
ships as early as 1300 BC, regularly sailed from their Cornish and Spanish tin mines
to all parts of the known world, and it appears maybe even to America.
In 1973, during some land clearing near Binghamton, New York, on the
Susquehanna River a small urn was accidentally found. It was a metal
representation of an ancient Mediterranean potter type known as “terra sigillata”,
and found on its upper panel was found a depiction (in bas-relief) a typical south
Iberian head of the “Carthaginian” goddess ‘Tainit’. Tanit in Phoenician-
Carthaginian cosmology, was the wife of ‘Baal’, the Semitic sun god – it was
determined that the neck and base of the urn is the “palmate” design – strictly a
Phoenician feature.
Some believe that the “Celts” were transported to America by the Phoenicians,
who needed men to exploit the American resources, picking them as in their history
they had already established warm relationships with them in Great Britain mining
tin.
North America, with its abundance of copper according to some must have
played an important part in the Bronze Age – where ancient mining sites have been
identified in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Arizona –
but in the end the most active site are the sites located in the Great Lake area,
more so in the upper Michigan Peninsula.
On Isle Royale in Lake Superior and in northern Michigan, literally thousands of
worked copper mines were discovered as early as the 16th century by French Jesuit
missionaries, at the time the residents (Natives) told them they knew absolutely
nothing about how, when and by who these mines were worked or developed.
Found were skid logs, axe marks, cedar shovels, mauls, copper gads or wedges,
charcoal, and great masses of copper – one mine had a detached mass of copper
weighting nearly 6-tons. Henriette Mertz5 speculates that engineers claimed more
than a billion tons of copper from the Michigan Peninsula and Isle Royale. She
supports her claim on this incredible amount of copper not been accounted for by
American archaeologists, where the sum total found in America, going on to state
that five-hundred thousand tons of pure copper just does not disintegrate into thin
air – where is it? Maintaining that certainly it is not in the United States.
Dating of the organic material taken from the mineshafts places it around 1000
BC – a time related to the major Phoenician navel power during the Bronze Age. It
is argued (by Mertz) that the copper was mined for extensive shipment to various
Mediterranean civilizations – mentioning the Egyptians for construction tools,
Greeks who needed it for their building (like the 50 foot dome of the Treasury of
Mycenae and that of Orchomenus) and the artifacts that Schliemann found lining
the roads.
Later thinking now ties the tremendous amount of copper to the construction of
the first temple that King Solomon constructed, being what the time element
matches.
What I find interesting is that some researches (being Jewish) have made some
vain attempts to take the credit that so many have given to the Phoenicians and
albeit along the lines of 50/50 they are slowly making their way into the Phoenician
history almost to the point where they are the initiators of some of the greatest
5
http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=167&category=life
achievements of the race of people from Lebanon. The very same people who
excelled far beyond the race of people who during that time (even their scriptures
confirm this) where nothing but a scattered group of nomadic farmers or shepard’s
– sounds about correct!
Proof, still illusive, might in later years make its way to the forefront of history,
but I doubt that Israel will be a major player in than the fact that King David (and
later Solomon) were one of the largest customers for copper and other materials not
found in Israel – it is already known that they depleted the cedar from the lands of
the Phoenicians, why not send them around the world searching for the other raw
materials. Some historical religious researchers firmly believe that the ancient Lake
Superior copper mines were almost worked to exhaustion during the time frame
that King David was stocking the temple for his God – and keep in mind, according
to other records (or evidence of such) that the known world knew about the copper
mines in the new world, since there has been found evidence of their visiting the
new world before King David began his project to God.
Historical records sometime confuse Hiram I with “Hiram Abif”, the architect that
Hiram I sent (along with over 30,000 workmen) to assist in the building of
Solomon’s Temple – others say he is one and the same. I disagree in the fact that
the construction of the temple was a time consuming affair stretching over many
years and would have effectively removed him as the King of his domain. As an
additional point in the history of Tyre, that the infamous “Jezebel”, the wife of King
Ahab, was the daughter of Ethbaal, King of Tyre and Sidon.
After this period of strong-growth, the city had trading communities in Tarsus,
Zingirli (northern Syria), Karatepe (Turkey), and Carchemish (Turkish border-town –
Turkey/Syria), all near the junction of Asia Minor and the East. They also had built a
harbor at Myriandros (near modern Iskanderum, Turkey), and “may” even have
opened a commercial agency on the banks of the Euphrates – it is here that the
“Assyrians” are reported to have attacked and ejected the Tyrians, whereas this
could have been the 1st attack of Assyria on Tyre.
“Tiglat-Pileser III” was the first Assyrian to actually attack Phoenicia (734 BCE).
After the fall of several northern cities, Tyre quickly surrendered to him. For this
reason, Tyre lost less land than the other cities, but Phoenicia as a whole lost
“Arvad” and “Byblos”. From 734 BCE on, Tyre had to submit to the presence of
Assyrian inspectors and custom officials, and according to the Assyrian reports,
their annual tribute to Assyria rose to 150 talents6 of gold.
Tiglat-Pileser III’s son, “Ululayu” who assumed the name “Shalmaneser V”
blockaded the city from 724-720 BCE (about 5-years), during which the mainland
city of Tyre capitulated and continued to trade with the Assyrians – but the island
city remained untouched.
In 722 BCE “Sargon II” took the throne from Shalmaneser V. It is not clear if
Sargon II was the son of Tiglath-Pileser III or a usurper un-related to the royal family.
In his own inscriptions, he claims he is a “new” man, rarely referring to his
predecessors; however he took the name “Sharru-kinu” (true king) after Sargon of
Akkad --- who had founded the 1st Semitic Empire 16 centuries earlier—Sargon is
the Biblical form of the name.
Sargon II again invaded Phoenicia, he is credited as completely changing the
military policies of Assyria, where instead of just conquering cities, he believed in
complete devastation, destruction and mass deportation, after which he re-
populated the region. He, like his predecessors, never completely conquered Tyre
--- perhaps he understood that a healthy Tyre, paying a large tribute ($99 mil
dollars is nothing to sneeze at), would be worth much more that if he conquered it –
and he without the ships to assume its maritime trade.

6
At today’s price of gold ($600 per troy ounce) one talent (33kg) would be worth approximately $660,000 (x) 150 = $99 million a year