Phoenicia

 

 

The earliest record of the Phoenicians is from the 16th century BC, although it is believed that around 3000 BC they settled in what became known as Phoenicia (from the Greek name, Phoinikes), an area equivalent to the coast of modern-day Lebanon. A Semitic people perhaps originally from the Persian Gulf area, they turned their backs on the sere land they had crossed and developed one of the earliest ancient and great seafaring Western cultures, using commerce as their principal motivation and source of influence. In fact, their name for themselves seems to have been Kena'ani (or Canaanites), a word which in Hebrew means"merchants."

A lot of crazy claims have been made about the Phoenicians. Not content with them having created possibly the world's first alphabet, established an unprecedented trading empire and given the world the color purple*, some amateur historians claim that the ancient seafarers also beat Columbus to the New World by a good 3,000 years.

(*Phoenicians dyed with the purple ink they obtained from a marine snail found on their coast, a whelk, the Murex Murex, other shades of purple requiring the addition of inks from other species of marine snails, all of which were more or less common throughout the Mediterranean).

Unconfirmed tradition has it that they had already sailed as far as Spain and the North African coast as early as the 10th-12th centuries BC, but no evidence has been proven to confirm these dates

Val Osborne is the latest researcher to claim that in Sarina, Mackay in Queensland, a Phoenician harbour "cothon", a temple and some votive symbols were found. Another researcher Jonathan Gray in the "Ark of the Covenant" claims that a wreck of a Phoenician ship lies around the entrance of King Sound in the Buccaneer Archipelago near Derby in Western Australia. This wreck happened to be in the area of the silver, lead and zinc Galena Mine. Ross Wiseman wrote a book called "Pre-Tasman Explorers" which states that the Phoenicians left clues to their presence in stone around Lake Taupo in the North Island of New Zealand. Brett J.Green has devoted his book "The Gympie Pyramid Story" to the ruins and artifacts found in the Gympie and Cooloola regions of Queensland that point to visitations and settlements of Phoenicians. However, the foremost researcher in this topic is Rex Gilroy whose museum in Tamworth, NSW is rich in stones inscribed in Phoenician.

If Osborne's claims turn out to be true, it wouldn't be the first time accepted historical wisdom has been turned on its head. The discovery in 1962 of a Viking camp at L'Anse aux-Meadows in Newfoundland confirmed Old Norse stories that the Vikings had made it across the Atlantic. Subsequent excavations revealed that the camp was permanent; a cemetery and traces of agricultural activity were later discovered. Built in 1000 AD, the camp predates Columbus by almost 500 years. In Lebanon, the Phoenician motherland, we find historians at least pondering the possibility: "So far there is no evidence of the Phoenicians crossing the Atlantic, let alone going all the way to Australia" said Helen Sader, an expert in Phoenician history at the American University of Beirut. "The claims are unsubstantiated. Until we have some scientific evidence, from what we know, it's impossible."

Sader prefers to err on the side of caution. "There are no documented material finds (in Brazil or Australia) and the Phoenician inscriptions that were 'found' in Brazil were 'lost' before they could be studied, she said. "As for Australia, well, let's say right now that's very, very far-fetched, isn't it?" Apart from Australia, Phoenicians are claimed to have discovered Brazil, India and North America, to have brought cocaine and tobacco from South America to Egypt and, most curiously, to have inter-married with native New World inhabitants, producing blond, blue-eyed Amazon Indians.

Professor Mark McMenamin, a geologist from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, believes that a series of gold coins minted in Carthage between 350 and 320 BCE provide proof that the Phoenicians knew exactly what lay on the other side of the Atlantic and that they knew of India as well. Working with computer-enhanced images of the coins, McMenamin was struck by the similarity between seemingly random patterns at the bottom of the coins and Greek geographer Ptolemy's maps of the known world. The difference was that these maps showed a distinct landmass where the Americas should be and a large triangular shape to the southeast of the Mediterranean.

McMenamin's discovery, coming as it does from a highly credited scientist who recently discovered the world's oldest known fossil in Mexico, has resulted in a great deal of discussion. Some scientists are now prepared to concede that Diodorus of Sicily might not have been exaggerating when he wrote in 100 BCE "in the deep off Africa is an island of considerable size that the Phoenicians discovered by accident after having planted many colonies throughout Africa."

That the Phoenicians were familiar with Africa now seems to be accepted fact. According to Greek historian Herodotus, in 600 BCE, Pharaoh Necho hired a Phoenician fleet to circumnavigate Africa, from the Red Sea around the Cape of Good Hope and up the West African coast to the Mediterranean. The mission took three years. The travelers stopped each autumn to plant crops, which would be harvested before the fleet again set sail. "The new trend is to believe that the African story is true, although there is no direct evidence except in Herodotus,"said Sader. "But after discussing the points, all of the information makes sense." This includes a geographically accurate reference to the voyagers watching the southern sunrise on their right as they sailed west around the tip of Africa, a sight Northern Hemisphere sailors never saw. Given the proximity of the West African and South American coasts and the prevailing ocean currents, which flow in a westerly direction, Diodorus' claim is not impossible.

This is a mere compilation of names of researchers who have found Phoenician remains in Oceania. These researchers confirm that there is enough material evidence to warrant a comprehensible study into Phoenician expeditions into Australia and a possible reappraisal of its history. This page aims to establish the stepping-stone for a very plausible hypotheses beyond the reach of academic bias.

Jealously guarding all sea-routes, captains would often sink their ships and abort their expedition if a rival ship was to discover the keys of those routes. The government would compensate them for the loss of these sunken ships. The Phoenicians had sophisticated navigation techniques and ships to carry heavy cargo across continents, but their secrecy had obscured their distant destinations and colonies. In this light, it would not be inconceivable to assume that the ships of Tarshish on their three-year voyages to Ofir ended up in Java, Sumatra and the Torres Strait.

The following is an extract from an article by Glenville Pyke taken from a book by Gilbert Deem titled "Ancient and Mysterious Discoveries in Australia":

'Near Toowoomba, a group of seventeen granite stones were found with Phoenician inscriptions. One has been translated to read, "Guard the shrine of Yahweh's message" and "God of Gods". Another inscription reads "Assemble here to worship the sun". Mr. Gilroy has an ironstone slab found by a man from Cooktown in Far North Queensland years ago, which bears a Phoenician inscription, "The Eye of Ra the sun rules Sinim". Sinim was the ancient Hebrew name for a mysterious southern continent, mentioned in the Old Testament. The Phoenician name for it was Ofir, a "great south land of gold", where gold was supposedly obtained to build Solomon's Temple. The Egyptians called it "the land of Punt". A large ironstone slab in Mr. Gilroy's museum at Tamworth, was unearthed by a Rockhampton area farmer some years ago, and bears another Phoenician inscription that reads: "Ships sail from this land under the protection of Yahweh to Dan." Mr. Gilroy says that it "may very well be that minerals and precious stones from Australia passed through Dan at that time". He points out "black opals found in archaeological digs in Egypt, could only have come from Australia".'

The Gympie region in Queensland sustains a pyramid with Phoenician scripts on it and a Toth-figurine clutching on the Tau [the cross of life]. The region revealed other mysterious megalithic structures and remains of pre-European gold, copper and tin mining operations. An ancient harbour, long dried up, extended inland from Tin Can Bay to the Gympie district, and ancient Aboriginal traditions spoke of fair-skinned 'culture-heroes' having sailed into Gympie in big canoes shaped like birds [Phoenician triremes with sails and bird-headed prows?]. They built a "sacred mountain" [the Gympie stepped-pyramid] from which they worshipped the Sun and stars. They "dug holes in the hills, then sailed away with the rocks they had dug up, promising to return", according to local legend.

Recently, Mr. Gilroy has released a book titled "Pyramids in the Pacific" containing a history of ancient mining operations throughout Australasia. Described in full are a number of what he believes are the remains of Middle-Eastern mining colonies, established across Australia, where copper and tin [needed to manufacture bronze] was mined, as well other precious metals and gemstones. Some of these colonies were established deep inland on the shores of coastal rivers, such as one Queensland site on the Bremer river [which flows into the Brisbane River] east of Toowoomba. Here he unearthed along with his wife more than 50 stone slabs bearing Bronze Age Phoenician, Egyptian, Libyan and Celtic inscriptions. A similar number, recovered at a site outside Moree, in Northern NSW were found near the remains of a megalithic ruin. Here upon an altar stone he found the Phoenician inscription "Temple of Tanit". (Tanit was the Phoenician earth mother Goddess.)

Rex Gilroy argues that ancient Middle-Eastern explorer-colonists, having found the mouth of the Murray River in southeastern South Australia, explored deep into the NSW interior via the adjoining Darling River as far as Dubbo and Bathurst, explaining Phoenician rock scripts found in these areas; and sailed into the Namoi-Peel River system as far as the Tamworth-Nundle district, leaving the mass of inscribed stones and pre-European open-cut mining sites found hereabouts. These mining colonies were large enough to warrant the establishment of local ruling classes, as shown by the many Phoenician and other rock inscriptions referring to various local monarchs. This theory would explain why central, far Western and Northern NSW is literally 'riddled' with rock scripts in a host of ancient Middle, Near Eastern and other tongues.

Near the mouth of the Hawkesbury River over a dozen of human figures reminiscent of ancient Middle-Eastern seafarers were found carved into rock shelves. Near Wiseman's Ferry is a carving of a ship with tall mast, sail and bird-headed row. Further downriver at Richmond a farmer had uncovered two large sandstone lumps of human heads resembling Mithras and Demeter (Baal Hammon and Tanit!). Near Gosford, Mr. Gilroy unearthed two stones inscribed in Iberian Phoenician inscriptions. These state:

"In this harbour* ships lie at anchor, gathered for Baal".
[*Brisbane Water, at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River]

"The priest Ra-wa performs rituals at the shrine of the western [setting] sun."

It appears the inhabitants explored deep inland up the Hawkesbury-Nepean Rivers, venturing across the Blue Mountains as far as Katoomba, where several Phoenician inscriptions were found near the Megalong Valley.

Phoenicians must have penetrated the Georges River, south of Sydney, to leave the three inscribed stones recovered recently at a Lansvale riverbank site; and at Campbelltown further south, in 1970 Mr. Gilroy recovered a sandstone slab bearing the image of a seated, animal-headed figure (which appears to depict Baal, the Phoenician Sun-God) on one side, and on the other the Iberio-Phoenician inscriptions:

"The Sun, the divine King.
Baal the Sun rules.
He the waters of this land rules."

Further south, outside Bowral, near a megalithic ruin, the possible remains of an ancient temple; a large stone bearing the following inscription was discovered:

"To Phoenician Baal this shrine is dedicated by Hu.
We are sailors from Ham who worship the sun."

Nearby the Gilroy's found another inscription; written in Phoenician, but by Celtic hands:

"Bel, God of the Sun, on the prepared
land assemble
at his shrine before his stone.
On Beltain*, on Ludd's altar stone
sacrifice to him.
The pleasing son of Mabo sails the Sunship".

(*Feast of Beltain - May Day)

As Phoenicians and Celts worked together here (a tin-bearing region), this dates the inscription to around 1500 BCE, when Iberian Celts and Phoenicians sailed with their allies on joint mineral-seeking expeditions to Australia and the Pacific Islands beyond.

Various axes, swords, jars, scarabs, rock art along with Aboriginal dreamtime from the Kimberley support the hypotheses that the Phoenicians had reached Australia. Further more they had established long-term colonies and mining operations and intermarried with the Aborigines producing "spirit-children" as the Wandjina tales sustains. If all these accounts can be confirmed then history will be rewritten, if not, then we would have exercised our imagination with a beautiful story.

 

 

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