Africa/Egyptian presence and jewelry in Mesoamerica?

[Ishtar]

Carthage had a bad habit of relying on mercenaries but your drawing is a fair representation of this re-enactor.

Then you might find this introduction to the story interesting:

This is the story of the lost Phoenician empire in Southern Africa, a story still sung and told around village fires in South and Central Africa today, a true story - it has thousands of relics in the hands of witchdoctors.

Badly rusted and crumbling swords of ancient Greek manufacture, old gold coins and parts of bronze shields and helmets, bronze spears and Egyptian battle axes, all of which are in the secret possession of witchdoctors of southern Africa, confirm the truth of the story ...


Also Min, these guys came inland, down a river - in southern Africa.

[kbs2244]

Ish:
Where in Africa?
And how old?
I have made the point on other threads that the Phoenicians commonly made a 3 year clockwise trading circuit around Africa.
So, if on the west coast, in addition to a southward exploration/trading trip from Gibraltar, it may have been a northbound one from the Red Sea.

[Minimalist]

Carrthaginian seamanship in the Western Med was unchallenged until 260 BC during the First Punic War. Mariners themselves, from the foundation of Carthage, they thus had about six centuries to explore and/or exploit whatever they wished.

http://www.tuniscarthage.com/index.php/ ... gator.html

Carthage dispatched Hanno at the head of a fleet of sixty ships to explore and colonize the west coast of Africa. He sailed through the straits of Gibraltar, founded or repopulated seven colonies along the African coast of Morocco, and explored significantly further along the Atlantic coast of the continent. Hogan cites the visit of Hanno to Mogador, where the Phoenicians established an important dye manufacturing plant using a marine gastropod found in the local Atlantic Ocean waters.[2] Hanno encountered various indigenous peoples on his journey and met with a variety of welcomes.

On the island which formed the terminus of his voyage the explorer found it heavily populated with what were described as hirsute and savage people. Attempts to capture the males failed, but three of the females were taken. These were so vicious they were killed, and their skins preserved for transport home to Carthage. The interpreters called them gorillas, which has provided the etymology for the species name.

[Ishtar]

Trouble is, KB, as with all legends, it's very vague on dates and actual locations. It only says the story is told throughout southern and central Africa, and it is a Bantu story - or Niger Congo B. See this map for the spread of Niger-Congo B peoples.



Also, Min, they may not have been mercenaries because they had an old man plus women and children with them.

The old man drew pictures on a calf skin with what looked like a pointed reed which he dipped into black fluid, to explain who they were.

He showed a savage battle between them and another race with long flowing beards and hair. Then he showed his own side being routed in a charge by foot soldiers and warriors riding on strange beasts “like zebras without any stripes”. After this, he showed a number of canoes with long poles in the middle and showed his side fleeing towards these boats in panic.

He showed the males fighting a rearguard battle while figures, obviously female and young, clambered aboard the canoes. The canoes were then represented in full sail over what was obviously water with fish and crabs swimming below the surface.

Then the old man drew a circle above the boats, representing the sun, and made a hundred strokes under it – in other words, they were at sea for a hundred days.

The old man also showed battles between them and wild beasts – lions, elephants and leopards, battles which they always won because of their ‘superior metal weapons’.

In fact, I'm now thinking that they could have been Trojans.

[kbs2244]

Well the Jews were traders, and not afraid to travel.

The Phoenicians commonly made a 3 year clockwise trading circuit around Africa.
And the idea of the trips being finianced by carrying Jewish traders with them would not be illogical.
It took 3 years because of seasonal wind conditions.
So, if on the west coast, in addition to a southward exploration/trading trip from Gibraltar, it may have been a northbound one from the Red Sea.


On the South East coast are the Lamba. Black Jews.
The Lamba would be about a 1/3 way around if you started at the north tip of the Red Sea.
One story I read about them called them “primitive Jews” because their customs were pre-Judaism.
That the big influx of them fled Judea pre Babylon invasion would not be hard to believe. It was no secret the Babylonians were coming, and you didn’t have to real smart to figure it wasn’t going to be pleasant.
If you had trading relations a years sail away it would be a logical place to take your family.
http://www.freemaninstitute.com/Gallery/lemba.htm

http://www.mindspring.com/~jaypsand/what.htm

http://www.mindspring.com/~jaypsand/lemba.htm

http://www.sdjewishjournal.com/stories/mar04_1.html

Also note the West Africa sites of Black Jews locations are costal. And at the 2/3rds point. While an overland route is possible, a sea based one would be much easier and more comfortable. It would be the logical route if they had old people and women with them.

http://www.hebrewhistory.info/factpaper ... africa.htm


This concept of the smart trading families with overseas contacts fleeing before the Babylonians came is my explanation for the puzzling abundance of Jewish relics found in North America. They stretch from Los Lunas at the headwaters of the Rio Grand in New Mexico to the mountains of West Virginia. And they can be dated to the same time frame.

[Minimalist]

Graham Hancook in The Sign and the Seal (his hunt for the Ark of the Covenant) gets into the Lemba and Falashas (black Jews) and it is a very interesting tale.

Essentially, there is evidence of a Jewish temple on Elephantine Is. in the Nile which flourishes prior to 400 BC when it is destroyed. Again, it is portrayed as a unit of Jewish mercenaries (mercenaries were very common in the Egyptian army) who upon retirement could well have begun trading and traveling along the Nile. If you follow the Nile far enough, you end up at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and guess where the Falashas came from?

But they seem to follow a distinctly old variant of Judaism. They have no knowledge of the more modern celebrations, ( I think Purim and Hannukkah) because contact was lost deep in antiquity.

For that stuff alone, the book has some value. Obviously, he does not find the Ark!

[rich]

KB wrote:

This concept of the smart trading families with overseas contacts fleeing before the Babylonians came is my explanation for the puzzling abundance of Jewish relics found in North America. They stretch from Los Lunas at the headwaters of the Rio Grand in New Mexico to the mountains of West Virginia. And they can be dated to the same time frame.

Hmm - those artifacts could have been brought here after the settlement of the west by families that saved them and brought them to the new world at that time. Then for whatever reason they buried them. They didn't have to be brought here waaaay back.
The possibility goes either way.

[kbs2244]

While it is Samaritan and not Jewish, Google Los Lunas.
Nobody came later and buried that.
All the local Indians say “It was there when we came.”
And go beyond the stone to the whole mesa site.
It is covered with art of various ages
And some not “Palo-Indian.”

[Minimalist]

Good grief, kb. You're not a Mormon, are you?

[kbs2244]

No Min,
Far from it.
I just think the concept of a global ecomony is pretty old.
And, like any thing, it has gone through it's cycles.

[Minimalist]

To be completely serious, kb, that makes sense. What mitigates against it is the seeming lack of any impact of such trade on Europe and Africa.

We have recently found evidence of cross Pacific transport of plants and animals which should clinch the argument about the voyages of the Polynesians.


But corn, potatos and tomatos were all new world plants and they didn't get here until after Columbus. I find that troubling.

[kbs2244]

My main argument for a trans Atlantic trade is the Mediterranean destination of all the Lake Superior copper.
It was heavy and valuable.
I don’t think there would have been much room for plants.
After all, how much corn did the Spanish bring back?
My problem is what did they bring on the West bound trip?
What did they trade for that copper?

[Digit]

Logically, gold, bronze, slaves.

[kbs2244]

Of the 3 I have thought of white women.
There is not enough gold, and not any bronze, stuff found to be the economic equivalent of the tons of copper mined.
But I don’t know if a slave trade would have been big enough either.
But it is the only thing I can think of in short supply when you had a whole continent to trade with.
It would be the basis for an interesting DNA study wouldn’t it?

[Digit]

Indeed it would.