Jordan Pace's List: THE WORLD THAT WAS

• From Noah to Dardanus (according to Annius)
• This article describes the descendants of Noah who contributed to the  Egyptian and European histories, up to the time of the foundation of Troy by  Dardanus.
• Note: This history uses source material of questionable origin,  known as "pseudo-Berosus". See the Lost  Works of Berosus. For a more authentic version, see  From Noah to Dardanus.
• Figure 1. Descent of the Trojan and Celtic  (Samothean) Kings
• Source Material
• The source material for this article is a set of fragments that are  alleged to come from Berosus, a 3rd century BC Chaldean priest. His works  are now lost, but the history is related by a Tudor-period historian  called Richard Lynche. See my article on Travels  of Noah.
• Children of Noah
• After the Flood, they had at least 30 additional children, including two  daughters, Rhea and Araxa the Great.
• Noah and his wife Tytea had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, who were  with them in the ark, together with their wives, eight people altogether.
• The children of Noah and Tytea are  not arranged in Figure 1 in the order of their birth. Instead they are  arranged in a way that is easy to draw, considering the intermarriages  within the family.
• Ham and Rhea
• The marriage of Ham and his younger sister Rhea was a second marriage in  both cases. Ham was married to Noegla (or Noela) who had been with him in  the ark, and she was still living at the time of his second marriage.
• Rhea  had been married to Hammon, the great-great grandson of Ham, a union that  might seem incredible to us, but it was possible in those days because of  their great longevity.
• Rhea left Hammon because he was having an  adulterous affair with another woman called Almanthea, and she went to  Sicily and married Ham. (He was in Sicily at the time because he had  invaded Italy but his father Noah had thrown him out.)
• No date is given for the marriage of Ham and Rhea, but it must have been  quite late because of the generations between Ham and Hammon.
• Osiris and Isis
• Ham and Rhea had a son called Osiris and a daughter called Isis, who  subsequently married.
• Isis was born in the year 302 after the Flood, in  the first year of Semiramis queen of Babylon.
• She was 50 years old when  she married Osiris, so the date of their marriage was 352.
• Osiris was  about 60 years old at the time, but both of them were still youths.  Together they ruled Egypt, and they taught the people agriculture.
• Their eldest son was called Hercules, surnamed Lybidicus or Lybicus. He  appears as "Lehabim" in Gen. 10:13 and this means his father  Osiris must be the Biblical Mizraim, as I have explained in my article on  the Samotheans.
• Hercules and Araxa
• Osiris had many other children, from Isis and from other women, and when  they were grown up he assembled an army and went around the world  overthrowing giants.
• During these campaigns, Osiris went to Scythia and  found that his son Hercules had become "greatly enamoured with a lady  called Araxa".
• This is unlikely to be "Araxa the Great",  the daughter of Noah, because Lynche would not have introduced her in this  way. Whenever he returns to a previous character, he identifies them as "the  aforementioned" or something similar.
• Araxa is more likely to be a  descendant of Araxa the Great, but we can only verify it if we can find  some other sources.
• Hercules and Araxa had a son called Tuscus who "much later"  became king of Italy, and the province of Tuscany was named after him.
• As  the details of the story unfold, we find out how much later.
• Osiris, after  subduing giants in many countries, was killed in his home country of Egypt  by a rebellion from within his own family that was led by his brother  Typhon.
• Hercules, assisted by some of his brothers, avenged the death of  his father by killing Typhon, then he went around killing other giants as  his father had done.
• He lived peacably in France for a while, then he went  to Italy and fought with the Lestrigones for 10 years, eventually  defeating them.
• He ruled over Italy for 20 years, then he appointed Tuscus  as king of Italy in the year 625 after the Flood, at a great ceremony in  Viterbe, the capital of Tuscany.
• The appointment of Tuscus was 273 years after the marriage of his  grandparents Osiris and Isis, and is another indication of great  longevity.
• Hercules and Omphale
• While Hercules was going around killing giants, before he went to  France, he went to Phrygia and overcame a tyrant called Tipheus. He  appointed his son Athus as governor, who had been born to him from a lady  called Omphale.
• Later in the story, we find that Athus had become known as  "Athus the Great", and Dardanus was welcomed and entertained in  Phrygia by another Athus who was his fourth-generation descendant.
• Note: Since this Athus is a descendant of Athus the  Great, it adds weight to the argument that Araxa, who married Hercules,  might be a descendant of Araxa the Great.
• Hercules and Galathea
• When Hercules went to France (otherwise known as Celtica or  Samothea), he married into their royal family and contributed to their  line of descent as shown in figure 2.
• Iupiter Celtes was  very proud of her and would not offer her to any man in marriage until  he found someone who was worthy of her.
• He was received by their king, Iupiter Celtes, who had a daughter  called Galathea, a good and virtuous giantesse.
• He was impressed with the  exploits of Hercules and offered her to him in marriage, and they had  a son called Galatheus.
• Hercules became king of France for a while,  then he appointed Galatheus as king, at the same ceremony in Viterbe  where Tuscus was appointed king of Italy.
• The two of them were good  friends, and Tuscus offered Galatheus the island of Sicily.
• Then when  a government was set up, Galatheus returned to France.
• It was in the  days of Galatheus that the kingdom of Celtica was first called Gaul.
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• Hebrew: The Language of Eden
• Was There A Pre-Flood Babylon?
• This article discusses the possibility that Hebrew might have been  the original language of the world, before the dispersion from Babylon.
• The writings of Berosus suggest that the geography of the pre-Flood  world was much the same as it is now, and those who survived in the Ark  returned to Babylon, from where they came.
• This might suggest that it  was just a local Flood, and was not as devastating as the Bible would  have us believe, but the reality is not so simple.
• Edenics
• Since the publication of my book, Forgotten  History of the Western People, some of my readers have pointed  out that the original world language, before the dispersion from the  Tower of Babel, might have been Hebrew. They believe that Hebrew was  the original language of the garden of Eden, and the study of this  subject is called "Edenics".
• The Bible and Berosus
• In my book, Forgotten History of the Western People, I have  quoted some of the text of the Babylonian Flood story and compared it  with the Biblical account.
• When I first heard of this, I  found it a bit strange because English is an Indo-European language,  and Hebrew is Semitic, and the notion of the Hebrew roots of the  English language runs contrary to modern thinking of linguistics.
• They also believe that many  English words are derived from Hebrew.
• There are many points of similarity, but  some differences, and considering the authorship and context I came to  the conclusion that they were two independent accounts of the same  event, and not just copies of each other.
• I  wondered if it might be just another fanciful idea from the British  Israelites, who believe that the British people are descended from the  ten lost tribes of Israel, placing them in a special covenant  realtionship with God.
• Since the book was published in November 2002, it has raised some  controversy among Biblical Creationists who say that we should treat  secular accounts with caution because they might introduce  uncertainties that lead us away from Biblical truth.
• However, I found that the supporters of Edenics  are not British Israelites and they are not trying to prove any  religious doctrine.
• I would say the  opposite, that if we are firmly grounded in the Bible, we have nothing  to fear from the works of Berosus or any other historian of the  ancient world.
• So, I decided to look into the subject, and to my surprise I found  there is some quite substantal evidence that Hebrew might indeed be  the original world language.
• Berosus is in agreement with the Bible on the following points:
• The main source of linguistic evidence is  The Word: The Dictionary That Reveals the Hebrew Source of English,  by Isaac Mozeson.
• For a summary of the evidence from various sources,  but primarily from Mozeson's book, see  Edenic -  The First Language.
• There were ten kings before the Flood, corresponding to the ten  Biblical patriarchs from Adam to Noah, although Berosus gives them  different names.
• God commanded Xisuthrus (Noah) to build a boat, because there  would be a great Flood that would destroy mankind.
• Structure of Genesis
• When the Flood began to subside, Xisuthrus sent out birds, on  three occasions, and the first two flights of birds came back  because they could not find land.
• In addition to the linguistic arguments, I discovered there are  other reasons to believe that Hebrew was the first language, and this  lies in the construction of the Book of Genesis, otherwise known as  the first of the five books of Moses.
• When the water subsided further, the boat landed on a mountain.
• However, Moses could not have  written it, because it describes events that occurred long before his  time. Instead he compiled it from other documents that were available  to him.
• It was commonplace in the ancient world to write a "colophon"  at the end of a document, identifying the author, and sometimes the  date and place when it was written. Colophons have been found on stone  tablets belonging to ancient Babylon, and they are the equivalent of  the modern-day title page that appears at the beginning of a book.
• The points of difference are:
• Xisuthrus had some of his friends in the boat, including a "pilot",  and not just his family. Among his family there was his daughter who  is not mentioned in the Bible.
• Xisuthrus was commanded to write a history of the world and bury  it securely in the City of the Sun at Sippara (Sepharvaim), and the  survivors who emerged from the Ark after the Flood went back there  and recovered it.
• The colophons in the Book of Genesis all have a similar form such as  "This the book of the generations of Adam", or "These  are the generations of Noah".
• The Hebrew word "toledoth"  is consistently used, which means "generations", "origins"  or "histories", and then there is the name of the person who  is signing off this section of the history.
• Xisuthrus and his wife, daughter and the pilot offered sacrifices  when they emerged from the ark, and were immediately translated to  the gods.
• In some cases it is  followed by a list of his descendants, and this has led some  commentators to believe that the "toledoth" phrase is an  introduction to a genealogical list. However, there is not always a  genealogy, and the regular repetition of the "toledoth"  phrase indicates that it is genuinely a signing-off phrase and not an  introduction.
• The Biblical account says that Noah lived on the earth for  another 350 years.
• For a discussion of the text, see The  First Book of Moses and the 'Toledoth' of Genesis, by Damien F.  Mackey.
• The Global Flood of Berosus
• He credits P.J. Wiseman as the original author who discovered  the toledoth structure in 1936, and since then it has appeared in  various commentaries, including The Genesis Record by Henry  Morris.
• There are certain points in the Babylonian story that confirm that  the Flood was global.
• Xisuthrus was commanded to build the boat because mankind would  be destroyed.
• There are nine sections in the Book of Genesis as follows:
• The birds that were sent out from the ark could not find land.
• Noah was commanded to write a history of the world, and this  would have been unnecessary in the event of a local flood.
• The Book of Heaven and Earth (Gen. 1:1 - 2.4), ending with "These  are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were  created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens".
• This must have been written by God because it covers the days of  creation when no man was present.
• The story of Xisuthrus being translated to the gods would seem  implausible, even as a fanciful addition to the story, if the flood  was not global.
• The Book of Adam (Gen. 2:5 - 5:2), ending with "This is  the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created  man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he  them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when  they were created.".
• In contrast to these affirmations of a global Flood, there is one  point in the story that suggests it was not global, or at least the  landscape of Mesopotamia was spared the worst violence of the raging  waters.
• After Xisuthrus had been translated to the gods, the remaining  survivors went back to Babylon and found the writings at Sippara.
• Note: Gen. 5:2 is probably part of the colophon  because of the use of the word "day", similar to Gen. 2:4.
• It  seems unlikely that any point on the landscape could be identified  with such precision after a global Flood.
• It is known from the geology  of Mesopotamia that there are thick sedimentary layers containing many  fossils, obviously deposited from a Flood of gigantic proportions.
• The Book of Noah (Gen. 5:3 - 6:9a), ending with "These  are the generations of Noah".
• In  that case, the writings would have been buried and would never be  found.
• The Book of the Sons of Noah (Gen. 6:9b - 10:1a), ending with  "Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem,  Ham, and Japheth".
• If we try to be as generous as possible to the story handed down to  us from Berosus, we could imagine that the pre-Flood landscape might  have been a series of undulating hills and valleys, and the sediment  deposited by the receding floodwaters would simply fill up the  valleys.
• The Book of Shem (Gen. 10:1b - 11:10a), ending with "These  are the generations of Shem".
• If the writings were buried on a hilltop, they might have  escaped much deeper burial under masses of sediment.
• Of course they  would have to be in a secure sealed container
• The Book of Terah (Gen. 11:10b-27a), ending with "Now  these are the generations of Terah".
• Such  technology would not be beyond the capabilities of the pre-Flood  world, since we know that the early post-Flood world could make  pyramids and we still can't figure out how they did it.
• The Book of Isaac and Ishmael (Gen. 11:27b - 25:19a), ending with  "And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son".
• However, even  if the writings escaped burial under sediment, it is unlikely that the  survivors could have found them in a totally changed landscape, unless  God helped them and told them where they were.
• It is thought that this large section is mainly from Isaac, but  there is a contribution from Ishmael, ending with "Now  these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the  Egyptian, Sarah's handmaid, bare unto Abraham" (Gen.  25:12).
• But if we have to  introduce God into the story in that way, we are getting into a level  of speculation that amounts to the invention of history, or even  mythology.
• We just have to accept that we don't know the complete  Babylonian flood story, because only a few fragments of the three  books of Berosus have survived.
• The Book of Jacob and Esau (Gen. 25:19b - 37:2a), ending with  "These are the generations of Jacob".
• There are  two contributions from Esau. The first one ends with "Now  these are the generations of Esau, who is Edom" (Gen.  36:1), and the second one ends with "And these are the  generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in mount Seir".  (Gen. 36:9). 
  
• To be less generous, we have to say that there is a contradiction in  the Babylonian Flood story.
• First we are told that it was global, then  we are told that the landscape was virtually unchanged and the  survivors were able to return to a place where some writings had been  hidden.
• In that case, should we discard the whole story as a dangerous  and unreliable fable, and avoid it like the plague? Certainly not!
• Instead we should focus on the common ground where we see that Berosus  is in agreement with the Bible.
• The Book of the Sons of Jacob (Gen. 37:2b - Exodus 1:4), ending  with "Now these are the names of the children of Israel,  which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob.  Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin,  Dan, and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.".
• The Apostle Paul followed this  principle with great effect when he preached his sermon on Mars Hill  and used the altar to the Unknown God as his starting point.
• In this case the word "toledoth" is not used in  Exodus 1:1, but the structure is the same, using the word "shemoth"  which means "names".
• The names that follow are not a list  of descendants, but the names of the brothers themselves, probably  assembled together for a signing-off ceremony.
• Redesigning the Landscape
• Joseph's name is  missing because he had died, as recorded in the last verse of  Genesis.
• In that case, the signing-off ceremony was probably soon  after Joseph's funeral. They were all assembled at Joseph's house,  and they looked at the books that had been written so far, and then   they wrote their own book and signed it off.
• The Bible gives us a more consistent story, where the Flood is truly  global, and the landscape is changed as you would expect. We are given  some details of the geography of the pre-Flood world as follows:
• The complete collection  of books remained in the royal archive, and would have been  available to Moses who was brought up in Pharaoh's house.
• And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he  put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord  God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for  food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree  of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water  the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.  The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole  land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is  good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second  river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of  Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it  which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is  Euphrates. Gen. 2:8-14.
• Note: The word "generation" which  appears in Exodus 1:6 is not "toledoth". Instead it is "dor",  which means "circle" or "generation" and is  commonly used to imply continuity.
• Having established that the Book of Genesis consists of nine  separate books, written by different people, the question arises, in  what language were all these books written?
• The name "Hebrew",  referring to both the people and the language of the Israelites, is  attributed to their ancestor Heber, the great-grandson of Shem, so it  must be a very ancient language.
• All the books from Terah onwards must  have been written in Hebrew, because he was the fifth-generation  descendant of Heber.
• The earlier books must also have been written in  Hebrew, for the following reasons:
• The term "eastward in Eden" probably means "to the  east", from the point of view of Moses who wrote the Book of  Genesis, although we are not told exactly where it was.
• The passage  implies that the garden was planted as a dwelling place for Adam,  within a larger area known as Eden.
• Within this larger area there was  an un-named river that went towards the garden, and at that point it  split unto four.
• The language structure is essentially the same throughout the  book of Genesis, including the colophons, and there is no reason to  believe that the earlier books were translations from something  else.
• We are given the destinations of these four rivers,  and two of them are countries that we know today, namely Ethiopia and  Assyria.
• However, this does not imply that these countries survived  the Flood as geographical entities. It is more likely that they were  entirely wiped out, so that it was impossible to locate them on the  new landscape.
• Moses and his scribes were not linguists and there is no reason  to believe that they were compiling and translating documents from  different languages. 
  
• As the descendants of Noah dispersed around the world,  they set up new kingdoms, giving them names that were borrowed from  the pre-Flood world.
• This is a common practice among settlers who  arrive in a new and unfamiliar place, for example in America we have  New York, New Jersey, Birmingham and Rome.
• The Hebrew scribes had such reverence for the language of the  Torah, that if an error was made while copying a scroll, they would  throw the entire scroll away.
• There were no critical revisions, as  might be expected with translations.
• They behaved entirely as if  they were dealing with original text, and not just any old text, but  something very precious that had been handed down to them from the  beginning of the world.
• We know that the landscape was drastically changed because there is  no river in the world today that splits into a delta with four rivers  called Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel and Euphrates. Instead there are four  entirely different rivers with the same names, each with its own  source in the mountains of Ararat.
• Conclusion
• The Pison, now known as the Coruh, has its source in northern  Turkey and flows through a valley between the Pontine and Armenian  Mountains, discharging into the Black Sea near Batumi.
• I have referred to the linguistic arguments of Mozeson, that the  original language of the pre-flood world might have been Hebrew, and I  have also given the structure of the book of Genesis, on the basis of  the well-known "toledoth" phrases.
• Havilah is  thought to be the goldfield in the Pontine Mountains near Trabzon,  and this is where Jason and the Argonauts might have searched for  the Golden Fleece, because miners used sheepskins to catch the gold.
• However, I have not yet  found any books or web pages suggesting that the structure of Genesis  adds weight to the argument, that Hebrew was the language of Eden.
• Have I discovered something new, or have I simply rediscovered  something that was known to our ancestors, whose work is buried  somewhere in a mountain of forgotten histories?
• The Gihon, now known as the Araxas or Araks, has three sources to  the north of Mt. Ararat and flows eastward, joining the River Kura  and discharging into the Caspian Sea to the south of Baku.
• The Hiddekel, otherwise known as the Tigris, has a number of  sources in southern Turkey, and flows south-east through Iraq,  discharging into the Persian Gulf.
• The Euphrates has a number of sources in central Turkey and flows  south-east through Iraq, joining the Tigris and discharging into the  Persian Gulf.
• Update, July 28, 2003
• Since I wrote this article, I found some Jewish people who say that,  according to Jewish tradition, Hebrew is the language of Eden, and  this is what the Jews have always believed. They call it L'shon  HaKodesh which means The Holy Language
• Clearly, the survivors who emerged from the Ark must have surveyed  the landscape and named these four rivers according to the rivers that  they knew from the pre-Flood world.
• In the case of the Pison, the name  was given when they became aware that there was gold in the area.
• and there are many  references to the special status of Hebrew in the Jewish literature.
• It  seems unlikely that the early settlers would have considered gold to  be important, even if they found it, because they were more concerned  with finding food and other necessary means of survival, but their  descendants in later generations might have gone out searching for  gold and given the river its name.
• To give just one example, the Midrash Rabbah, Genesis XXXI:8 says that  "Just as the Torah was given in Hebrew, so was the world  created with Hebrew".
• There are other occasions where pre-Flood names are used in the  post-Flood world, as the names of both people and places. For example:
• Havilah, the son of Joktan, lived in Western Arabia and another  Havilah, the son of Cush, lived in Eastern Arabia near the Persian  Gulf. Both of them gave their names to the places where they lived.
• Gihon is also thought to be the Ganges, the Nile, or the Pyramus  which discharges into the Mediterranean at Adana in Southern Turkey.
• Strangely enough, there is no river in the post-Flood world  corresponding to the river that passed through Eden.
• Clearly, this  river has disappeared, together with the four rivers that emerged from  it, but it would be easy enough for someone to invent a name, such as  the River Eden, and apply it to any new river.
• The reason why this has  not happened is because, in the Genesis account, the river that passed  through Eden never had a name.
• The  reason is because the descendants of Adam and Eve never saw it.
• Why should the four rivers all have  names, but the river that provided their source never had one?
• Adam  and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden after they had taken the  forbidden fruit, and cherubims and a flaming sword were placed at the  east of the garden to prevent them from accessing the tree of life.
• If  this restricted access also prevented them from accessing the river,  it would explain why it had no name. The descendants of Adam and Eve  could only see the four rivers, as they emerged from the boundaries of  the garden, but they could never access their source.
• Landscape of Berosus
• Returning to the account of Berosus, we find that in addition to  Babylon and Sippara, where the survivors returned after the Flood,  there are other place names that are described in a way that implies  an identical pre-Flood and post-Flood geography.
• For example:
• Some of the pre-Flood kings, including the first one who  corresponds to Adam, were Chaldeans.
• The last two kings who precede Xisuthrus (Noah) were from Larissa  (Larsa) in southern Iraq.
• Oannes, the fish-man, came out of the Erythrean Sea (Persian  Gulf) which borders on Babylonia. At that time, Babylonia was  between the Tigris and the Euphrates, and it had a border with  Arabia which was desert. All of this corresponds to the present-day  geography.
• This implies that either that the work of Berosus became garbled as  it passed through the hands of later historians, who might have added  place names to the story, or else Berosus himself failed to understand  the implications of a global Flood.
• We know that he was an astronomer,  but he might not have also been a geologist, and he might not have  realised that large parts of the earth would be covered with thick  layers of sediment after a global Flood.
• He might have thought that  all the place names, borrowed from the pre-Flood world, actually  corresponded to an identical geography.
• Conclusions
• The work of Berosus, together with the work of other ancient  historians who I have not mentioned here, do not present any kind of  threat to those who believe in the Biblical account of a global Flood.  Those who are firmly grounded in the Bible have nothing to be afraid  of.
• For three hundred years after the Reformation, it was commonplace  for the Bible to be read in schools every morning, during a corporate  act of worship, and then the children would go to their classes.
• They  would study the arts and sciences, and many schools had a strong  emphasis on Latin and Greek, so that they could study classical  history, literature and mythology.
• They understood that after the  dispersal of the early descendants of Noah, history becomes distorted  with mythology, and then it comes back together again as real history,  but it didn't bother them.
• Nobody was concerned that the faith of  impressionable schoolchildren would be distorted by Greek and Latin  fables, because they were already fully grounded in the Bible.
• Creation History has always been with us, although it has been  neglected for the most part of the last century.
• Now it is coming  back, and a new generation of Creationists, who are mostly steeped in  science, regard it as something new and unfamiliar, and some regard it  with suspicion because it does not satisfy their appetite for  certainty.
• I can only give one piece of advice for anyone who wants to  get involved in this subject, that you should first become fully  grounded in the Bible and teach others also.
• For those who have little  or no understanding of the Bible, I hope that my book will encourage  them to study it, because without the Bible my book will not really  make all that much sense.
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• The lost city of Cahokia: Archaeologists uncover Native Americans' sprawling metropolis under St Louis
• By  Daily Mail Reporter
    UPDATED:  13:05 EST, 4 January 2012  
• A sprawling Native American metropolis which lay hidden beneath a modern city for a millennium has been uncovered.
• Archaeologists digging in preparation for the Mississippi River spanning bridge - which will connect Missouri and Illinois - discovered the lost city of Cahokia beneath modern St Louis.
• Their findings pointed to a 'sophisticated, sprawling metropolis stretching across both sides of the Mississippi', Andrew Lawler told the journal Science.
• Cahokia, which is near Collinsville in Illinois, was initially believed to be just a 'seasonal encampment'. But experts now think it was a location of much more significance.
• Mr Lawler wrote: 'A millennium ago, this strategic spot along the Mississippi River was an affluent neighbourhood of Native Americans, set amid the largest concentration of people and monumental architecture north of what is now Mexico.
• 'Back then, hundreds of well-thatched rectangular houses, carefully aligned along the cardinal directions, stood here, overshadowed by dozens of enormous earthen mounds flanked by large ceremonial plazas.
• 'Cahokia proper was the only pre-Columbian city north of the Rio Grande, and it was large even by European and Mesoamerican standards of the day, drawing immigrants from hundreds of kilometres around to live, work, and participate in mass ceremonies.'
• The latest excavations uncovered evidence of more than 500 thatched houses. At its peak the city would have been home to 100,000 Native Americans.
• But Cahokia lacked the density of Mayan or European settlements - instead appearing to have organised itself along the lines of 'modern American urban sprawl'.
• The remains of the ancient city can be seen at the 2,000 acre Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, which lies just across the Mississippi River from St Louis.
• The city, the most sophisticated Native civilisation north of Mexico, was inhabited from 700AD to 1400 and known for its large, man-made earthen structures.
• Its original population was thought to have been in the hundreds, but in the 11th century swelled to tens of thousands.
• At its peak between 1100 and 1200, the city covered nearly six square miles and boasted a population of 100,000 people.
• Residents built more than 120 earthen mounds. A total of 68 are preserved within the site, with the largest central one called Monks Mound.
• At 1,000 feet long, 800 feet wide and 100 feet tall, an estimated 22 million cubic feet of earth was used to build it.
• The Cahokian population is thought to have started to fall after the year 1200, and two centuries later the entire site had been abandoned. Theories vary as to why it was vacated, including climate changes, war, disease, and drought.
• The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and as a World Heritage Site in 1982.
• The site is still thought to be sacred and Native Americans believe it is a source of powerful psychic energy.
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• 'World's Oldest Temple' May Have Been Cosmopolitan Center
• Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor

   

  Date: 15 March 2012
• Ancient blades made of volcanic rock that were discovered at what may be the world's oldest temple suggest that the site in Turkey was the hub of a pilgrimage  that attracted a cosmopolitan group of people some 11,000 years ago.
• The researchers matched up about 130 of the blades, which would have been used as tools, with their source volcanoes,
• finding people would have come from far and wide to congregate at the ancient temple site, Göbekli Tepe, in southern Turkey.
• The blades are made of obsidian, a volcanic glass rich with silica, which forms when lava cools quickly.
• The research was presented in February at the 7th International Conference on the Chipped and Ground Stone Industries of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic in Barcelona, Spain.
• Mysterious temple
• Only a tiny portion of Göbekli Tepe has been excavated so far, but what has been unearthed has been hailed by archaeologists as astounding for its great age and artistry.
• The site contains at least 20 stone rings, one circle built inside another, with diameters ranging from 30 to 100 feet (10 to 30 meters). The researchers suspect people would fill in the outer ring with debris before building a new circle within.
• T-shaped limestone blocks line the circles, and at their center are two massive pillars about 18 feet (5.5 m) tall.
• Statues and reliefs of people and animals were carved on these blocks and pillars.
• "Some of the stones [the big pillars] are bigger than Stonehenge," said Tristan Carter, one of the obsidian researchers and a professor of anthropology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.
• (Research on the site has been ongoing since 1994 and is led by Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute.)
• The buildings contain no hearths and the plant and animal remains there show no signs of domestication.
• Even more puzzling is what has not been found.
• Also, so far there have been no buildings found that archaeologists can confirm were used for everyday living.
• Taken together, the research indicates the site was created by hunter-gatherers, rather than farmers, who came from across a large area to build and then visit the site for religious purposes.
• This research is backed up by the style of some of the obsidian and stone tools which suggest that people were coming from Iraq, Iran, the Middle Euphrates and the eastern Mediterranean.
• The discoveries made at Göbekli Tepe over the past two decades have led to a great deal of debate.
• Ted Banning, a professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto in Canada recently published a paper in the journal Current Anthropology arguing that interpretations of the site may be off.
• Banning suggests the stone-ring structures may have been roofed and used as houses, albeit ones filled with art that may have served as both a domestic space and religious area.
• He also suggests that the people of Göbekli Tepe could have been growing crops, pointing out that some of the stone tools would have been useful for harvesting and that, at such an early point in history, it is difficult to tell the difference between wild plants and animals and those that humans were trying to domesticate.
• Banning told LiveScience that he needs to review the team's latest obsidian results before he can give an informed comment on it.
• Volcanic evidence
• To try to solve some of the mysteries surrounding the site, Carter's team has used a combination of scientific tests to match up the chemical composition of the artifacts to the volcanoes from which the obsidian originally came.
• "The real strength of our work is this incredible specificity; we can say exactly which mountain it comes from, and sometimes even which flank of the volcano," Carter told LiveScience in an interview.
• At least three of the obsidian sources are located in central Turkey, in a region called Cappadocia, which is located nearly 300 miles (500 km) away from Göbekli Tepe.
• At least three other sources are from the eastern part of the country, close to Lake Van, about 150 miles (250 km) away from the site.
• Yet another source is located in northeast Turkey, also about 300 miles (500 km).
• Researchers say that what make these results special are not so much the distances involved — 300 miles would be a trip from New York City to Buffalo, N.Y., sans any domesticated horses — but rather the sheer variety of obsidian sources used.
• "It's an aberration," Carter said. The obsidian finds back up "the idea of many people from many different areas coming to the site," he said.
• More mystery
• He cautioned that just because some of the obsidian came from such distant sources, that doesn't mean that people were actually travelling directly from these regions to Göbekli Tepe.
• The obsidian may have been acquired by way of trade, turned into a tool, and then brought to the site.
• To try to resolve this problem, the team is also looking at the way the obsidian tools were made.
• For example, they found that obsidian artifacts sourced to Cappadocia, in central Turkey, tend to be stylistically similar to artifacts found to the south of Göbekli Tepe in the Middle Euphrates region of Mesopotamia.
• Also some of the obsidian artifacts sourced to eastern Turkey, the Lake Van region, have similarities to those made in Iraq and Iran.
• Altogether, these finds suggest that some of the obsidian made its way south and east (possibly through trade) before it was turned into tools and brought to the site, another clue as to where people were coming from.
• Though more research is needed to make any conclusive statements, if the team is right, then Göbekli Tepe was indeed something grand, a place of pilgrimage more than 11,000 years old that attracted people from across the region.
• "If Professor Schmidt is correct, this represents a very cosmopolitan area, this is almost the nodal point of the Near East," Carter said.
• "In theory, you could have people with different languages, very different cultures, coming together."
• The obsidian samples were analyzed at facilities at the Musée du Louvre in Paris and McMaster University. In addition to Carter and Schmidt, the team includes François-Xavier Le Bourdonnec and Gérard Poupeau of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
• 

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• Friday, March 16, 2012
• Coneheads again, And more on Adena Giant Warriors in Peru
• Continuing on Coneheads
• eprint of a December 2011 Bones Don't Lie Blog:
   Not Aliens, Just Humans with Modified Crania
• This entry was posted on December 22, 2011, in Bioarchaeology, Methods.
• Cranial deformation has been the cause of much debate and fascination.
• The elongated skulls and flattened foreheads have created speculation of evidence of aliens or satanic practices. Even this past year, the Daily Mail claimed that skulls found in Peru were potentially those of extraterrestrials.
• According to the article there are three anthropologists that all agree that these are not human.
• However, we know that this practice is not only easy to accomplish in humans, but also continues in cultures today (even our own).
• scholars have still been debating the reasons and methods behind the deformation for hundreds of years.
• Cranial vault modification can be achieved through a number of means. Enchev et al. (2010) discuss two types of modification: tabular or annular.
• Tabular, or “flat-head” modification involves compressing the fontal and occipital with fixed, erect boards or pads. This creates a lateral bulging of the head. A variation on this is when vertical boards are placed higher up on the back of the head to produce more upright modification.
• Annular modification is produced when bands are wrapped around the forehead and the back of the skull to force the bone to grow upright. Examination of modified crania show that they often vary by individual, attributed to the nature of bone growth and idiosyncratic variation in the application of bands and boards.
• Another common term applied to these skulls is cranial deformity, however this term implies that the shape was unwanted or a malformation.
• However, it is unlikely that the changes found in the skulls of Peruvian and Egyptian populations are due to accident. This leads to the question of intent and purpose.
• In order to understand the reasons for the change, it is important to look at the social and political context of the practice, as well as the identity of the individual and their place within society.
• Ayer et al. (2010) argue that deformation was a sign of political and socioeconomic status. In support of their hypothesis, they examine a selection of modified crania in Peru and Egypt.
• The earliest modified skulls in Peru date between 6000 and 7500 BCE, with the majority of remains from this period showing signs of deformation.
• There is potential evidence between 1350 to 1200 BCE in Egypt. It has only been found there in elite individuals, and doesn’t appear to be a widespread practice.
• Ayer et al. (2010) argue that the modification was a literal symbol of being the head of the state.
• Romero-Vargas et al. (2010) discussed the role of modification in the Maya. In the classic Mayan period, 250 to 900 CE, cranial modification consisted of creating a more erect frontal bone using compression pads.
• A 16^th century Spanish chronicler, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, asked the Mayan why their heads were a different shape, and the reasons behind the modification.
• They responded: “This is done because our ancestors were told by the gods that if our heads were thus formed we should appear noble and handsome and better able to bear burdens”.
• Romero-Vargas et al. (2010) argue that the practice has religious and sociocultural meaning, and it is an integral part of someone’s identity.
• Modifying the cranium is a major undertaking and occurred in a variety of cultures through different forms and methods. However, it continues today in order to create the perfect shapes. See Kristina Killgrove’s post on cranial modification and its modern occurrence.
• Currently there is only speculation as to the reasons and purposes of the modification.
• Enchev Y, Nedelkov G, Atanassova-Timeva N, & Jordanov J (2010). Paleoneurosurgical aspects of Proto-Bulgarian artificial skull deformations. Neurosurgical focus, 29 (6) PMID: 21121717
• This Pracas necropolis has ben the center of interest for the Defdormed crania seekers. Although Paracas culture runs back to 700 BC or before, the most of the mummies dig up in the Paracas tombs date from 200 BC to 200 AD approximately.
• These people are thought to have come down from the north and have some relationship to the Olmecs as their predecessoirs of the Cavin culture are suspected to have been. But from the shape of the skulls of some of the mummies, their people came from further North still: some of them are of the same physical type as the Adena Mound Builders of the Ohio Valley.
• On pages 308-323 of his  1808 book, Travels in America, Thomas Ashe describes his inspection of  one of several different ancient Indian mounds he visited in the then thinly  settled Ohio valley.
• He gives an especially detailed account of how he and his  helper visited a mound near the banks of the Muskingum river, climbed to its  summit, lifted flagstones at the top, and descended into an artificial vault  where Ashe reportedly discovered ancient relics and ancient writing.
• What is  particularly interesting about Ashe's account is that he also speaks of  "Mound-Builder" giants in his story of opening that particular mound.
• On pages  321-323 of  his book, Thomas Ashe speculates that the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North  America were inclined to select for their top leaders men of gigantic stature.
• Although Ashe's notion may not represent a universal truth, there are occasional  documented instances of the leaders or "upper classes" in certain socially  stratified Indian groups possessing an extraordinary stature.
• See, for example,  "Tomb of Giants" on pp. 64-65 of the March 2001 issue of National  Geographic for a depiction of "giants" in a Moche burial in Peru.  
• Get a taste of what awaits you in print  from this compelling excerpt.
• The large copper bowl lay within my  grasp, undisturbed for 1,500 years since it had been placed upside down over the  dead man’s face.
• Our team had worked more than a month to reach this point in  the excavation of one of the richest and most intriguing tombs ever found in  Peru—the tomb of a Moche elite.
• The Moche inhabited a series of river  valleys along the arid coastal plain of northern Peru from about A.D. 100 to  800.
• Through farming and fishing, they supported a dense population and highly  stratified society that constructed irrigation canals, pyramids, palaces, and  temples.
• Although they had no writing system, the Moche left a vivid artistic  record of their activities in beautiful ceramic vessels, elaborately woven  textiles, colorful murals, and wondrous objects of gold, silver, and copper.  
  
• Finding undisturbed Moche tombs is rare in an area that has been looted  for more than four centuries, yet from 1997 to 1999 our team of U.S. and  Peruvian researchers discovered three extraordinary tombs at Dos Cabezas, an  ancient settlement in the lower Jequetepeque Valley.
• Outside each burial chamber  was a miniature tomb containing a small copper statue meant to represent the  tomb’s principal occupant.
• Each tomb also contained a remarkably tall adult male  who would have been a giant among his peers. [Emphasis added-DD]
• Gently lifting the copper bowl, I expected to see a skeletonized face. But  
  instead, looking up at me with inlaid eyes, was an exquisite gold-and-copper  
  funerary mask. We were all astonished and knew then how important these  
  tombs could be to unraveling the mystery of the Moche.
  
  Get the whole  story in the pages of National  Geographic magazine
• --This article once again emphasizes that the Warrior elite in the Americas was carefully selected from the larger individuals and bred into a special class, training for combat throug gladiatorial excercises and not actually employed locally for warfare. 
• Iton that they were shipped off to fight wars elsewhere, particularly in the Mid East,.
• And if you do not believe that Peru was diectly connected to Mesopotamia in tye early days (The Verrills have a LOT of evidence on this point), themn have a look at a piece of pottery found at Tiahuanaco which has an inscription on the inside in the cuneiform script common in Babylonia and associated nations:
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• Friday, March 16, 2012
• More on Fomorians
• I had posted here before about the fomorian pirates of ancient Ireland and I thought St. Patrick's day was a good opportunity to add some more on the theory.
• My theory was that the Formorian giants were a specifically bred caste of warriors of very great size and strength, bred out of CroMagnonlike forebearers (likely the Canary Islander natives as a base), and trained by a life of ritual gladiatorial combats.
• The physica type I took to be best represented by the Adena "mound buildes" and they were the basis of reports of "Giant skeletons in the mounds"
• the giant mercenaries were themselves prized trade items and status symbols for thoe ones that commanded them, and they were shipped far and wide because of that.
• They were mosty especially associated with the Atlantic seaboard in Europe and ebventually some ended up in the Holy Lands in company of the Philistines (themselves a variety of the Peoples of the Sea) and hence you have the stories of Goliath and hs brothers.
• Being a highly inbred bunch, they ran to a greater-than-normal frequency of certain mutations such as polydactylity (six fingers on every hand and six toes on wevery foot) and the peculiarity of retaining thre milk teeth while the adult replacement teeth grew in (leading to a double tooth row)
• Fomorians
   

    A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology | 2004   | JAMES MacKILLOP | 700+ words | © A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology 2004, originally published by Oxford University Press 2004. (Hide copyright information)Copyright
• Fomorians, Fomoire, Fomóiri, Fomoraig, Fomhóraigh, Fomhoire, Fomorii, Fomor, Fomors, Fomoré, Fo-Muir, Foawr [Manx]. Malevolent euhemerized deities of the Irish Mythological Cycle, known chiefly from two texts, the *Lebor Gabála [Book of Invasions] and Cath Maige Tuired [The (Second) Battle of Mag Tuired],
• Although current scholarship agrees on their divine origin, earlier commentators often portrayed them as demonic pirates, probably reading the element mór- [phantom] as muir [sea].
• Early Christian commentators traced the Fomorians to the biblical Ham, son of Noah.
• Later ecclesiastical storytellers made them either giants or elves, with goat- or horseheads and other misshapen features.
• While the origins of the Fomorians dates from pre-Christian times, their characterization has been coloured by generations of sea-raiders from the north, first from the Scottish islands and more extensively from the Norse lands;
• they are often linked to Lochlainn [Scandinavia].
• Rejected now is the earlier assumption that the Fomorians were primitive gods of fertility.
• When they first appear in the Lebor Gabála, under their ferocious leader Cichol against the beneficient Partholonians, the Fomorians are portrayed as monstrous and fearful, each having only one eye, one arm, and one leg; see the Irish FER CAILLE and the Scottish Gaelic FACHAN.
• While the Fomorians do not fit into the invasion sequence, they prey upon each successive invader, the Partholonians and the Nemedians, until they are defeated by the Tuatha Dé Danann.
• Later in the text they are more anthropomorphic.
• Curiously absent are Fomorian attacks on the invaders between the Nemedians of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Fir Bolg, prompting some commentators to speculate that the two are identical; later commentators reject this assertion.
• While associated with several locations, the Fomorians never appear to be settlers in Ireland but instead make raids from their fortress on Tory Island, north of Co. Donegal.
• In general the Fomorians are wantonly cruel bullies, cutting the noses off those who would not pay them tribute.
• The Nemedians overcome the Fomorians in three battles until they themselves are defeated at Cnámross (distinguish from Fenian battle on the same site).
• The subsequent humiliations visited upon the Nemedians, especially an exacting annual tribute, cause them to rise up against their Fomorian masters, storming the fortress of Tory Island; they attack Tor Conaind, and the Nemedian champion Fergus Lethderg slays the Fomorian chief Conand. But the Fomorians prevail, and the disappointed Nemedians are scattered around the world.
• In Cath Maige Tuired, the portrayal of the Fomorians draws more substantially on their divine origin.
• They intermarry freely with the Tuatha Dé Danann, the tribe of gods, implying that they are the marine counterparts of the latter.
• The Fomorian Elatha mac Delbaíth, for example, mates with Ériu of the Tuatha Dé Danann to produce Bres, who inherits the leadership of the Tuatha Dé Danann from Nuadu Airgetlám.
• The great champion of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Lug Lámfhota, is the grandson of a Fomorian.
• Although the root of the conflict between the Fomorians and the Tuatha Dé Danann in Cath Maige Tuired is extraordinarily deep, the pre-text within the narrative is the unsuitableness of Bres as king: he insults poets and demands humiliating tributes from the race of the gods made subject.
• Nuadu returns to power and Lug Lámfhota presents himself in court to aid the cause.
• The central conflict pits Lug against the Fomorian menace, Balor of the Evil Eye, who is in fact Lug's grandfather. In an unexpected turn of events, Lug's sling stone drives Balor's eye back through his head, directing it towards his Fomorian comrades in arms and thus debilitating them.
• In the remainder of the story, the Tuatha Dé Danann rout the Fomorians and, amidst much slaughter, drive them back into the sea.
• Cailitin, a wizard slain by Cúchulainn;
• Other often-cited Fomorians include: Ágach, an enemy of the Tuatha Dé Danann;
• Corb, a tribal deity; Delga, builder of the fortress of Dun Delgan [Dundalk];
• Indech, a king killed at Mag Tuired;
• Domnu, the mother of them all;
• Morc, who emigrated from Africa;
• Searbhán, the one-eyed keeper of rowan berries, who is sometimes a Fomorian;
• Néit, the war-god
• Lóbais, druid of the Fomorians;
• Tethra, a warrior-chief killed at Mag Tuired.
• The goat-headed Gaborchend may be derived from the Fomorians.
• Under different guises, as demonic pirates or as spirits of the earth, as earlier commentators described them, the Fomorians have appealed to the imaginations of several writers in English.
• W. B. Yeats spoke often of the Fomorians, whose name he spelled either Fomor or Fomoroh. His sorceress Orchil in The Shadowy Waters (1905) and Dhoya (1891), the abandoned giant, are both Fomorians.
• The Foawr of Manx tradition, initially a local variant of the Fomorians, are stone-throwing giants.

  • "Stone throwing giants"....SEE: Bigfoot; Sasquatch
• See also Alexander H. Krappe, Balor with the Evil Eye (New York, 1927).
• JAMES MacKILLOP. "Fomorians." A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 16 Mar. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
• --At one point I mentioned that the Fomorians having one eye, one hand and one leg each was like the stereotyped pyrate with an eyepatch, hook and a claw.
• And on top of that, they were frequently redheaded or "Redbeards"
• Anymore I think that was a darn good and sensible way of looking at the thing. And there is even some support for the notion they were associated with the sign of the Skull and Crossed bones, which of course predated the pirate age in Europe by several centuries and is also seen in Precolumbian Mesoamerica.
• Crossbones  as a Mayan Symbol of Ixchel:
  Bones crossed in an "x" is Mayan symbol of  foreboding. Crossbones are a mortal Mayan symbol calling upon the concept of  crossroads, which are considered ominous locations. Bones crossed are symbolic  of a juxtaposition between god/man, life/death, dark/light, etc. - there is a  "meeting of duality" in this crossed bone gesture. Bones were often left at  crossroad sites as a gesture to discard contaminants. For example: If you died  of a disease within the community, your bones might have been left at the  crossroads as a gesture to "excommunicate" the disease that took your body.  Crossbones have been identified as adornments on the Ixchel's clothing (in some  of her renditions). This would imply she could be a sin-eater of sorts. It may  also suggest Ixchel morphed into a warrior goddess at some point in the Mayan  culture. She has been seen holding a spear and a shield too. These Mayan symbols  along with crossbones might reinforce a vengeful attitude, and would suggest  Ixchel as fully capable of reaping shrewd judgment in times of tribal war.

  • SEE: the Canaanite warrior goddess and consort of Baal. Also in the case of the "spear" and "shield", she recalls the Greek Athena.
    
    In addition to the above; the mention of "crossroads" in Mayan lore, is also similar to the Greek goddess Hecate.
• This incidentally parallels the crossed spears of the Egyptian Goddess Neith (Greek Athena)

   

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fomorians
• Formorians
• In Irish mythology, the Fomoire (or Fomorians) are a semi-divine race said to have inhabited Ireland in ancient times.
• They may have once been believed to be the beings who preceded the gods, similar to the Greek Titans.
• It has been suggested that they represent the gods of chaos and wild nature, as opposed to the Tuatha Dé Danann who represent the gods of human civilization.
• Alternatively, they may represent the gods of a proposed pre-Goidelic population of Ireland.
• Name

   

   The race are known as the Fomoire or Fomoiri, names that are often Anglicised as Fomorians, Fomors or Fomori. Later in Middle Irish they are also known as the Fomóraig.
• The etymology of the name Fomoire (plural) has been cause for some debate.
• Medieval Irish scholars thought the name contained the element muire "sea", owing to their reputation as sea pirates.^[1]
• In 1888, John Rhys was the first to suggest that it is an Old Irish word composed of fo "under/below" and muire "sea", concluding that it may refer to beings whose (original) habitat is under the sea.^[2]
• Observing two instances of the early genitive form fomra, Kuno Meyer arrives at the same etymology, but takes it to refer to land by the sea.^[3
• Whitley Stokes and Rudolf Thurneysen, on the other hand, prefer to connect the second element *mor with a supposed Old English cognate mara "mare" (which survives today in the English word night-mare).^[4][5]
• Building on these hypotheses, Marie-Louise Sjoestedt interprets the combination of fo and the root *mor as a compound meaning "inferior" or "latent demons".^[6]
• Characteristics
• They are sometimes said to have had the body of a man and the head of a goat, [ie, they are stereotyped devils] according to an 11th century text in Lebor na hUidre (the Book of the Dun Cow), or to have had one eye, one arm and one leg, but some, for example Elatha, the father of Bres, were very beautiful. Bres himself carries the epithet "the Beautiful."
• Irish mythology
• The medieval myth of Partholon says that his followers were the first to invade Ireland after the flood, but the Fomorians were already there:
• Seathrún Céitinn reports a tradition that the Fomorians, led by Cíocal, had arrived two hundred years earlier and lived on fish and fowl until Partholon came, bringing the plough and oxen.
• Partholon defeated Cíocal in the Battle of Magh Ithe, but all his people later died of plague.
• Then came Nemed and his followers. Ireland is said to have been empty for thirty years following the death of Partholon's people, but Nemed and his followers encountered the Fomorians when they arrived.
• At this point Céitinn reports another tradition that the Fomorians were seafarers from Africa, descended from Noah's son Ham.
• Nemed defeated them in several battles, killing their kings Gann and Sengann,^[7] but two new Fomorian leaders arose: Conand son of Faebar, who lived in Conand's Tower on Tory Island, County Donegal, and Morc son of Dela (note that the first generation of the Fir Bolg were also said to be sons of Dela).
• After Nemed's death, Conand and Morc enslaved his people and demanded a heavy tribute: two thirds of their children, grain and cattle.
• Nemed's son Fergus Lethderg gathered an army of sixty thousand, rose up against them and destroyed Conand's Tower, but Morc attacked them with a huge fleet, and there was great slaughter on both sides. The sea rose over them and drowned most of the survivors: only thirty of Nemed's people escaped in a single ship, scattering to the other parts of the world.
• The next invasion was by the Fir Bolg, who did not encounter the Fomorians.
• Next, the Tuatha Dé Danann, who are usually supposed to have been the gods of the Goidelic Irish, defeated the Fir Bolg in the first Battle of Magh Tuiredh and took possession of Ireland.
• Because their king, Nuada, had lost an arm in the battle and was no longer physically whole, their first king in Ireland was the half-Fomorian Bres. He was the result of a union between Ériu of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomorian prince Elatha, who had come to her one night by sea on a silver boat.
• Both Elatha and Bres are described as very beautiful.
• However Bres turned out to be a bad king who forced the Tuatha Dé to work as slaves and pay tribute to the Fomorians.
• He lost authority when he was satirized for neglecting his kingly duties of hospitality. Nuada was restored to the kingship after his arm was replaced with a working one of silver, but the Tuatha Dé's oppression by the Fomorians continued.
• Bres fled to his father, Elatha, and asked for his help to restore him to the kingship. Elatha refused, on the grounds that he should not seek to gain by foul means what he couldn't keep by fair.
• Bres instead turned to Balor, a more warlike Fomorian chief living on Tory Island, and raised an army.
• The Tuatha Dé also prepared for war, under another half-Fomorian leader, Lug. His father was Cian of the Tuatha Dé, and his mother was Balor's daughter Ethniu.
• This is presented as a dynastic marriage in early texts, but folklore preserves a more elaborate story, reminiscent the story of Zeus and Cronus from Greek mythology.
• The Second Battle of Mag Tuireadh was fought between the Fomorians under Balor and the Tuatha Dé under Lug. Balor killed Nuada with his terrible, poisonous eye that killed all it looked upon.
• Lug faced his grandfather, but as he was opening his eye Lug shot a sling-stone that drove his eye out the back of his head, wreaking havoc on the Fomorian army behind.
• After Balor's death the Fomorians were defeated and driven into the sea.
• The Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomorians are closely related. Neit, a war god, is an ancestor of both.
• The Fomorians were still around at the time of Cú Chulainn.
• In later times any settled pirates or seaborne raiders were labeled Fomorians and the original meaning of the word was forgotten.

• List of Fomorians

   
   
   
  • Balor
   
  • Bres
   
  • Buarainech
   
  • Cethlenn
   
  • Cichol Gricenchos
   
  • Conand
   
  • Corb
   
  • Elatha
   
  • Ethniu
   
  • Tethra
• -That the Formorians came from Beyond the sea/ Over the horizon, they are spoken of as being Under the Sea, and so were the Biblical Rephaim.
• It is also important to realise that the Giant Warrior Anakim were travelling with the People of the Sea at the collapse of the European Megalithic age and that is why Goliath was alongside the Philistines: the Philistines were People of the Sea that early on gained knowledge of iron weapons from the Hittites and for a while they held the monopoly on them in the Holy Lands.
• Quoting from my 2006 presentation of the theory in the Yahoo group  Bronze Age World Diffusion:
   
    The Beaker Folk were evidently a
  coalition of traders whose basic  identifiable culture mixes traits
  from Spain, Britain and Central Europe  originally, and at different
  times in different parts of its period of  influence was stone age,
  copper age and bronze age. The culture is credited  with starting
  most of the Bronze age in Europe and building Stonehenge (among  other
  things)
• Several authors have seen the Beaker people as wealthy  merchant
  chieftans with a strong warrior tradition (archery items  are
  prominent among them) and with a religious hierarchy with  priest-
  kings that controlled vast wealth (and frequently were buried  with
  it; they were very obviously interested in gold and other metal  ores)
• Some similarities between the Adenas and the Beaker Folk (besides  the
  physical similarities) were the characteristic conical burial  mounds
  they made and the constructions of Woodhenges--evidently  for
  celestial observations (and forerunners to stonehenge) and  sometimes
  as large circular religious buildings with an open circular plaza  in
  the middle.
• They also favored similar cordmarked "Bell-Beaker"
  pottery  and when forced by poverty to use chipped stone tools, their
  designs for  these are similar.
• They also favored a specific set of
  geometric designs as  decorations, in particular nested diamond
  shapes, but also similar animal  abstract art when it occurs.
• The Beaker Folk and Adenas are different  from their forebearers in
  both North America and Europe and represent a new  physical type and
  culture in both places, as mentioned by Barry Fell in  Bronze Age
  America.
• Some authors have suggested that they were an  "Atlantean
  brotherhood of mariners", but this can be read simply as
  a  "TransAtlantic" brotherhood instead.
• Physically, they seem to be
  based on  Canary Islanders together with whatever European and
  American elements they  took into their society:
• their aristocracy
  would seem to have been inbred,  and showing recurrent recessive
  traits because of this.
• The mixing of the  different peoples in the network would be why
  Fell's Bronze Age America old  Northmen were writing in Tifnaig, and
  why some Canary Islanders ran to  blondism when they were discovered
  by the Spanish.
• It is my further  opinion that they are related to the "White Incas"
  whose mummies are found in  Peru and in the western USA, and who
  figure in Thor Heyerdahl's KonTiki  story, but that is a separate
  discussion.
• This also deals wwith the Giants and Giant skulls reported
   at Tiahuanaco, which would mean that the Giants who built Tiahuanaco
   in Peru were directly related to the Beaker Folk "Giants" who built the
   "Giant's Dance" (Stonehenge) in England.
• From 'America B.C'. by Barry Fell.

   

   "[Beaker]Pottery designs from Portugal, 4. New York and 5. New Hampshire.
  [Pottery is of the type shown above]
  This type of pottery  design was common on the shores of the Atlantic,
  evidence of a seafaring  culture that spanned the oceans over 3,000
  years ago.[the LAST date for this  is given here as 1000BC]
• "Yuri Kuchinski notes on Pan Atlantic  similarities, that: "In both
  Europe and the New World, at the very same time,  Megalithic cultures
  arise around 4500 BC; then on both continents, at the  very same time,
  copper-using Beaker-inspired cultures arise in 3000 BC.
• Next,  the
  Beaker Groups flee from conquest in 1500 BC, as the cultures of  Western
  Europe are disrupted by Celtic invasions.
• It is possible that some  of
  these peoples migrated to America, and their Beaker cultural  traits
  began to be widespread in North America. This period also marks  the
  beginning of the Olmec empire.
• Finally in both Europe and the  New
  World, at the very same time, Beaker-derived cultures collapse in  700
  BC." This claim is subsequently repeated and slightly elaborated in
    Bronze Age America. And Ignatius Donnelly already sensed a connection in 1881.
• The Beaker Folk, Adena Mound Builders and Olmecs all build round mounds of basically conical shape.
• Following is an internet encyclopedia's information on Adenas [similarly printed in the group in December of 2006]
• The Mound BuildersThe beginning of monumental architecture is currently  being
  reevaluated. The first monumental structures may have been built  in
  the Middle Archaic <USWoodlandArchaic.htm>, as early as 4500 –  4000
  cal BC.
• More intensive mound building occurred during the Early  and
  Middle Woodland Period, especially among the Adena culture.
• The  Archaic Glacial Kame and Red Ochre cultures, located just to the
  north and  west of the Adena, foreshadow their development by burying
  their dead in the  natural mounds.
• Glacial Kame also shares some of
  the burial rituals,  including cremation. These customs are thought to
  receive their full  expression in the burial customs of the Adena.
• Grave
  Creek Mound, Moundsville, West  Virginia is thought to be the largest,
  measuring over 20 meters (69 feet) in  height and over 90 meters (295
  feet) in diameter. Constructed over about a  century in several
  stages, it was probably built between 250 – 150 BC. The  Miamisburg
  Mound, Ohio, also thought to be an Adena mound, is of  comparable
  size.
• They built a large number of  conical burial mounds or tumuli.

  • Also the Scythian peoples of the Central Eurasian and Russian Steppes also buried their dead in mounds.
• The Adena constructed not only mounds, but also single  causeway,
  circular enclosures, sometimes with an interior ditch.
• Typically
  these enclosures measured about 50 - 65 meters (150 - 200 feet)  in
  diameter. One of the largest burial mound and sacred circle  complexes
  is on Wolf's Plain on the Hocking River, in The Plains,  Athens
  County, Ohio.
• The Adena MoundsAbout 1000 B.C. we can mark  the beginning of a new period for man in
  North America. This period, which  lasted until about 700 A.D., is
  called the Woodland Period.
• It is during this  time that a new culture
  emerged and made significant settlements in what is  now known as West
  Virginia.
• These people are known to us today by the general  term of
  the Mound Builders. They were so named for their practice of  creating
  earthen burial mounds and other earthworks.
• The Mound Builders  lived
  over a wide range from the Atlantic, to the Midwest and the  Ohio
  Valley to the Mississippi Valley.
• The term "mound builders" refers  to
  several cultures that span a period of about 20 centuries.
• The first  group of people to develop this unique way of life were the
  Adena people.  From about 1000 B.C. to approximately 1 A.D.
• A later
  group of Mound Builders,  the Hopewell, lived from about 1 A.D. to 700
  A.D. and represented a greater  refinement over the earlier Adena
  culture. Other cultures extended the Mound  Builders to about 1300
  A.D.
• The Adena built mounds generally ranging  in size from 20 to 300 feet
  in diameter.
• The Adena lived in a wide area  including much of present
  day Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky and  parts of Pennsylvania
  and New York.
• They had well-organized societies since  the
  construction of the mounds took a great deal of effort.
• The labor of  many people must have been required since the Adena had
  not yet developed  more sophisticated means of construction.
• The large
  amounts of earth had to  be moved by the basket-load. Perhaps for this
  reason, the mounds were often  used more than once.
• We find in many
  mounds there are multiple burials at  different levels. Over a period
  of time, the mounds gradually increased in  size.
• A majority of the people were cremated after death, placed in  small
  log tombs and covered with earth.
• More important people were  often
  buried in the flesh and laid to rest with a variety of artifacts  such
  as flints, beads, pipes, and mica and copper ornaments.
• The Adena  people were extensive traders as evidenced by the types of
  material found in  the mounds they constructed. Copper from the
  western Great Lakes region, mica  from the Carolinas and shells from
  the Gulf of Mexico, all attest to the  economic activity.
• In addition,
  the culture also practiced agriculture,  hunting and fishing.
• A typical Adena house was built in a circular form from  15 to 45 feet
  in diameter. The walls were made of paired posts tilted  outward,
  joined to other wood to form a conical-shaped roof. The roof  was
  covered with bark and the walls may have been bark, wickerwork or
  some  combination.
• By about 500 B.C., the Adena culture began to slowly give way to  a
  more sophisticated culture, the Hopewell.
• Although little remains  of
  their villages, the Adena left the mounds as great monuments to  mark
  their passing.
• In the book, The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, author
  John  Haywood describes; "very large" bones in stone graves found in
  Williamson  County, Tennessee, in 1821. In White County, Tennessee,
  an "ancient  fortification" contained skeletons of gigantic stature
  averaging at least 7  feet in length.
• In February and June of 1931, large skeletons were found in  the
  Humboldt lake bed near Lovelock, Nevada. The first of these  two
  skeletons found measured 8 1/2 feet tall and appeared to have  been
  wrapped in a gum-covered fabric similar to the Egyptian manner.  The
  second skeleton was almost 10 feet long.(Review - Miner, June  19,
  1931).
• George W. Hill, M.D., dug out a skeleton "of unusual size" in a  mound
  of Ashland County, Ohio. In 1879, a nine-foot, eight-inch  skeleton
  was excavated from a mound near Brewersville,  Indiana(Indianapolis
  News, Nov 10, 1975)
• In 1875 workmen were constructing  a bridge near the mouth of Paw Paw
  Creek at Rivesville. While digging through  heavy clay soil they were
  astonished to uncover three giant skeletons strands  of reddish hair
  clinging to the skulls. A local doctor was called to examine  the
  remains and was able ascertain after careful measurement,  the
  skeletons had supported people approximately 8 feet tall.
• Just as  black haired Greeks had an earlier past of taller blonder and
  red haired  people (the Titans), so did the Amerindians.
  
  http://users.on.net/~mkfenn/page9.htm
• Genetics, Antigens and Blood groups
• [Message at yahoo group Bronze Age World Diffusion, January 15 2007]
   I had done a little reading on this matter while in IU in  Bloomington
  (Indiana) working on my anthropology degree,
• and I found that  there
  were faint traces of Old World genetic traits (especially in  certain
  blood groups, including rare traces of one type of  Rhesus-negative
  group cde) in Native Americans which probably represented  inclusions
  of preColumbian settlers and in two basic groups-the first and  most
  obvious being North/Western European genetics in North  America,
  paticularly radiating out from the Hudson's bay and St.  Lawrence
  Seaway centers, and the other radiating out from the Gulf of  Mexico
  and Northern South America with Mediterranean traits.
• I  recently came across reference to genetic/antibody studies that
  confirmed  this latter supposition and even dated the arrival of this
  genetic influx to  between 1500 and 500 BC--and with a secondary
  influx of early Indian  (Dravidian) genetics from the Pacific at the
  same time.
• The East  Asian/Chinese genetic influx is basically non-
  controversial, but it is not  the ONLY line of gene flow into the
  Americas there is.
• Here is the source for that information;
  "Genetics suggest a number of  different arrivals of Eastern
  Mediterranean genes into Central and South  America at about 1200B.C.
  There is also an Indian input into Venezuela about  500B.C.(James L
  Guthrie -Human Lymphocyte Antigens, Pre-Columbiana, June  2001).
  
• One product of this merging of cultures is the Cuna Indians who  have
  Eastern Mediterranean as well as Dravidian genetic and  cultural
  traits. They even have a script related to Harrapan and Rongo  Rongo
  script.
• All these three scripts read in the unique manner,  whereby
  one must turn the script upside down for each successive line.  This
  is termed boustrophedon script.
• It is more than coincidence that  reed
  rafts, the Birdman cult and boustrophedon script keep  re-occurring
  together."
• Link to info, http://users.on.net/~mkfenn/page4.htm
  
• It  also discusses Peruvian tin-mining starting about 4000 BC with a
  series of  "Ur" town names.
• It does not mention that tin ran out in
  the Mesopotamian  area about this time and from then up until about
  1000 BC, expeditions were  sent out to "The sunset lands of the far
  west" for tin.
• The
  Tartessians were in on the early part of  this, then the Phoenicians
  followed by the Carthaginians.That would explain who was
    transporting the giant warrior mercenaries back and forth
    across the Atlantic.
• The Mediterranean genetic influxes mentioned in the
  Guthrie article quoted  below have a range of probably
  1500 to 750 BC and represent different genetic  groups,
  as I understand it.
• My own research on Native American skulls  leads me to
  believe that there are two distinct types of
  Mediterranean  origin entering the Americas about
  then--in the Southern USA and Northern  South America
  (Amazon region to Peru)--with at least the  specific
  North-African/Phoenician and Iberian types being
  represented.
• This is similar to what Barry Fell said
  in America BC but probably starts  earlier than he
  stated in that book:
• the two groups later  being
  represented specifically as the Zunis and the
  Hopewells  (respectively).
• The same or similar types
  are represented in Early  Mesoamerican and Andean
  (pre-Inca) skulls.
• They follow on an older type  from
  3000-4000 BC that could be from mixed Egyptian and
  Mesopotamian  sources (both longheaded and shortheaded
  or Armenoid types).
• This is once  again on top of the
  pre-existing different varieties of Paleoindians  and
  are generally rarer.
• And there is the unexpected situation that the
   Adena moundbuilders, European Beakerfolk, and some of the old
    Peruvian ("White Inca") skulls all fall together as being similar.
• My work on doing an analysis on the various skulls was summed
    up in an academic paper I made in  the mid-1990s for IUPUI
    and for my final paper in Osteology there.
• Interestingly, the
    oldest type examined in that paper had distinctively Neanderthaloid
    features and that was not only my opinion, the instructor noted
    the fact herself in red ink on the original.
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

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• Chinese human fossils unlike any known species
• 14 March 2012         by      Colin Barras
• For years, evolutionary biologists have predicted that new human species would start popping up in Asia as we begin to look closely at fossilised bones found there.
• A new analysis of bones from south-west China suggests there's truth to the forecast.
• The distinctive skull (pictured, right) was unearthed in 1979 in Longlin cave, Guangxi Province, but has only now been fully analysed.
• It has thick bones, prominent brow ridges, a short flat face and lacks a typically human chin.
• "In short, it is anatomically unique among all members of the human evolutionary tree," says Darren Curnoe at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
• The skull, he says, presents an unusual mosaic of primitive features like those seen in our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago, with some modern traits similar to living people.
• What's more, Curnoe and Ji Xueping of Yunnan University, China, have found more evidence of the new hominin at a second site – Malu cave in Yunnan Province.
• Curnoe has dubbed the new group the Red Deer Cave people because of their penchant for venison.
• "There is evidence that they cooked large deer in Malu cave," he says.

• Muddled tree

                        

  Exactly where the Red Deer Cave people belong in our family tree is unclear.
• Curnoe says they could be related to some of the earliest members of our species (Homo sapiens), which evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago and then spread across Asia to reach China.
• He prefers the idea that they represent a new evolutionary line that evolved in East Asia in parallel with our species, just as Neanderthals did
• – primarily because they look very different to early African members of our species.
• Chris Stringer at the Natural History Museum in London, says their distinctive primitive features might suggest they are related to the enigmatic Denisovan people,
• There are other possible interpretations.
• We know that the Denisovans were living in East Asia, and from a DNA analysis, that they mated with our direct ancestors.
• The Red Deer Cave people, says Stringer, could even be the product of that mating.

• Long-standing people

                        

  Although we still do not know exactly where they came from, we do know that the Red Deer Cave people survived until relatively recently.
• Some of the newly described fossils are just 11,500 years old, suggesting that unlike Neanderthals they made it through the height of the last ice age.
• They might not have been the only ancient humans to survive so late, says Michael Petraglia at the University of Oxford.
• We already know of human skeletons with unusual archaic features in south Asia and India that are just 8000 years old.
• Curnoe says an initial attempt to extract good DNA from the fossils failed.
• "We are doing more work now involving three of the world's major ancient DNA laboratories," he says. "We'll just have to wait and see if we're successful."
• 

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• Of Lycanthropy and Dire Wolves (Canis dirus)
• October 19, 2011
• Man is a beast.  I think the ancient superstitious legend of the werewolf originates from a fear of ourselves or at least a fear of feral individuals within our society.
• People with various mental illnesses don’t follow the rules of civilization and behave as if they were wild animals. 
• The legend of lycanthropy may predate written language.
• Both the Greeks and the Romans believed in the existence of men who could temporarily transform themselves into wolves.
• Diseases such as rabies and and the disorder of hypertrichosis compounded the confusion because symptoms of these conditions partly mimic the legend.
• The Age of Reason ended the widespread belief in the existence of werewolves, but the legend lives on as a popular monster of horror fiction.
• When paleo-indians encountered dire wolves they were forced to deal with a real monster.
• Unlike timber wolves (Canis lupus) which originally evolved in Eurasia, dire wolves evolved in America where the large pack-hunting canids never learned to respect or fear man.
• Studies of the fossil record suggest dire wolves appeared suddenly about 200,000 years BP. 
• They replaced Armbruster’s wolf which had been the dominant canid in America for over a million years.
• It’s unclear whether dire wolves evolved from Armbruster’s wolf or another canid (C. nehringi), a little known extinct canid that inhabited South America.
• Dire wolves ranged from coast to coast and from what’s now southern Canada to Peru. 
• They’re very common in the fossil record, suggesting they were the most abundant large predator on the continent. 
• In the northern parts of their range they co-existed with timber wolves.
• In the southeast they co-existed with red wolves (C. rufus) and coyotes (C. latrans). 
• I didn’t include an illustration of a dire wolf because at first glance, they would’ve probably looked just like a modern day timber wolf.  There were some subtle anatomical differences.
• Dire wolves had a broader head, larger teeth, stronger jaws, and shorter but stouter legs.  On average they were significantly larger than timber wolves. 
• The average weight of an adult timber wolf is ~80 pounds.  The average weight of an adult western dire wolf was  ~120 pounds; the average of an adult eastern dire wolf was ~140 pounds.
• Scientists noted a difference in size between eastern and western dire wolf fossils. 
• Eastern dire wolves also had longer legs than their western cousins. 
• Thousands of dire wolf skulls have been recovered from the La Brea tarpits in California.
• Coincidentally, one of the few dire wolf skulls found in South Carolina was larger than all but one of the California skulls.
• Though timber wolves average 80 pounds, some individuals do reach 160 pounds.  That suggests a really large dire wolf would’ve approached 200 pounds.
• White tail deer are not large enough to sustain a pack of wolves consisting of individuals of this size.
• Dire wolves required abundant bison, horses, llamas, and juvenile mammoths and mastodons.
• Interestingly, the appearance of dire wolves coincides with the evolution of the larger Smildon fatalis from the smaller Smilodon gracilis, indicating an arms race of sorts between the two.

  • More evidence of the genetic tampering with creation by the Fallen Angels as outlined in the Book of Genesis
• 

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• The Garden of Eden Discovered
• Well guess what?
• Wouldn’t it be nice to find the actual location of the real Garden of Eden?
• Archaeologist David Rohl claims to have found the site described in Genesis as “Eden” in a lush valley beneath an extinct volcano in northern Iran.
• The Jerusalem Report (February 1, 1999) broke the story in the article – “Paradise Found.”  
• Ten  miles from the sprawling Iranian industrial city of Tabriz, to the  northwest of Teheran, says British archaeologist David Rohl, he has  found the site of the Biblical garden . . .
• "As you descend a narrow  mountain path, you see a beautiful alpine valley, just like the Bible  describes it, with terraced orchards on its slopes, crowded with every kind of  fruit-laden tree," says Rohl, a scholar of University College, London,  who has just returned from his third trip to the area, where mud brick  villages flourish today.
• The highest of  these is Mt. Sahand, a snow-capped extinct volcano that Rohl identifies  as the Prophet Ezekiel’s Mountain of God, where the Lord resides  among `red-hot coals’ (Ezekiel 28:11-19).
• “The  Biblical word gan (as in Gan Eden) means `walled garden,’ ”  Rohl continues, "and the valley is indeed walled in by towering  mountains."
• Cascading down the once-fiery mountain, precisely echoing Ezekiel, is a  small river, the Adji Chay (the name of which also translates in local  dialect as ‘walled garden’). 
• The  locals still hold the mountain sacred, Rohl says, and attribute magical powers  to the river’s water.
• In order to make the journey to this most remote location, one must travel from western Iran, north through the Zagros Mountains of Iranian Kurdistan, down Mt. Sahand, and into the fertile Adji Chay valley. 
• You quickly discover just how remote this location is when you try to find it on modern maps.
• What made Rohl look in this location in the first place?
• One factor was that he read about it in ancient Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets held by the Museum of the Orient in Istanbul. 
• The other factor was the work of the late, little-known British scholar Reginald Walker. 
• The ancient tablets described a 5,000 year-old route to Eden. 
• He has been researching the location since the late 1980’s through academic documents.
• In April 1997 Rohl did something very remarkable to prove his point.  He set out from the Iranian town of Ahwaz, near the northern tip of the Persian Gulf, with only his jeep driver for company.

• According to the article: 

   

   

  They  traveled north toward Kurdistan through what Rohl calls `lawless’  terrain, trusting to luck to avoid the various guerilla factions active in the  region. 
• Rohl followed a route,  documented in the Sumerian cuneiform epic `Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta,’  supposedly taken 5,000 years earlier by an emissary of the Sumerian  priest-king of Uruk.  The  emissary had been dispatched to Aratta, on the plain of `Edin’  – known to Sumerians as a land of happiness and plenty – to obtain  gold and lapis lazuli to decorate a temple that Enmerkar was building in Uruk.
• The cuneiform epic describes the dutiful emissary’s three-month trek  on foot via seven passes through the Zagros Mountains, to the foothills  of Mt. Sahand – the southern edge of Rohl’s Eden – and his  successful procurement of the required valuable.
• Rohl  believes . . . the ancient Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians all knew  of an earthly paradise that had once lain beyond what they called the Seven  Heavens.  For them, Eden was  still very much an earthly place.  Only  later Judeo-Christian tradition bestowed heavenly status on it.
• Obviously, the Tigris and Euphrates are well-known rivers, but the other two have been real problems in the past. 
• The Garden described in the Bible  places the headwaters of four rivers in it: the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Gihon, and the Pishon.
• Rohl has identified them as the Araxes and Uizhun which puts the headwaters of all four rivers in his Eden.
• Interestingly, the Uizhun, Rohl's equivalent to the Pishon which the Bibles identifies with gold, is known locally as the Golden River, and meanders between ancient gold mines and lodes of lapis lazuli.
• Making his case even stronger, Rohl says that he has found the "Land of Nod" which the Bible describes as "East of Eden."
• Nod was Cain's place of exile after the murder of his brother Abel.
• Today the area is called "Noqdi."
• But it doesn't end there because a few kilometers south of Rohl's Nod, at the head of a mountain pass, lies the sleepy town of Helabad.  Formerly it was known as "Kheruabad," which means "settlement of the Kheru people."
• He believes that this could be a permutation of the Hebrew word keruvim that is translated as "Cherubs."
• These people were a tribe of fearsome warriors whose token was an eagle or falcon.
• And if this isn't enough to get your attention yet, he has also found what he believes to be the biblical "Land of Cush." 
• No, it's not located down in Egypt as scholars have declared for centuries.  It's just north of the Adji Chay river valley and over the Kusheh Daugh - the Mountain of Kush.  One of the four rivers described above winds through it.
• Rohl's discovery is now essentially seeking to push back the start of history all the way to the beginning of the Book of Genesis. 
• Modern scholars have argued that the Genesis stories were just myths and should be looked upon in an allegorical sense.
• Since the Bible scrupulously documents the specifics of the garden's location and its surroundings, says Rohl, why shouldn't we take those descriptions at face value?
• "I consider the Bible a historical document just like the writings of Herodotus or a text of Rameses II," says Rohl.  "It's ridiculous to throw it in the dustbin just because it's a religious text.  If so strong a tradition evolves out of the past, it is likely to have a genuine geographical setting."
• His new book - Legend: The Genesis of Civilisation - provides a detail account of his discovery.
• 

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