Monday, December 16, 2019

Sodom and the destructive “chasm” of era of Boethos



God destroyed Sodom with brimstone and fire

 
by
 

Damien F. Mackey
 

 


Manetho states that during the 38 years reign of Boethos (or Bochos)

a “chasm” opened at Bubastis and many people died.
 

 

 

This present article has been lifted from Volume Seven (“Sodom to Saqqara”) of my book, “From Genesis to Hernán Cortés”.

 

 

The combined lives of (Abram) Abraham and Isaac may have enabled us to put together a long-reigning first ruler of Egypt and southern (Philistine) Canaan, Menes Hor-Aha (‘Min’), or, in Hebrew terms, “Abimelech”, whose name, I thought, had some resonance with the Egyptian name Raneb of the Second Dynasty.  

And from the name Raneb I conjectured a possible connection with the celebrated, but obscure, Old Kingdom ruler, Nebka, who, in turn, could be the Nebkaure (Nebkare), said by Pliny to have been the ruler at the time of Abraham.

 

This was pointed out by David Rohl, who had proceeded from there to identify that Nebkaure with Khety IV of the Tenth Dynasty.

 

These combinations, which I would accept as a working hypothesis, would (if correct) enable for a synthesising of the Old Kingdom (First and Second dynasties) with the ‘Middle’ Kingdom (Tenth Dynasty), in accordance with Dr. Donovan Courville’s suggestion that the Old and Middle were by no means vastly separated in time the one from the other, but were to some degree concurrent.

 

One also reads at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weneg_(pharaoh) that a scholar has identified Raneb, in turn, with Weneg, and, further, that N. Grimal and others think that Weneg corresponds to Hor-Sekhemib-Perenmaat.

Such a series of identifications would minimise the number of rulers in the Second Dynasty.

 

The first listed ruler of the Second Dynasty is given as Hetepsekhemwy, whom Manetho calls “Boethos”. His position at the beginning of the dynasty might necessitate an identification of him with the very first ruler of Egypt, the one known to Abraham and Isaac.

While that may be an extremely tenuous connection, I notice that David O’Connor (Leaving No Stones Unturned: Essays on the Ancient Near East and Egypt ….), has embraced an identification of Hetepsekhemwy with Raneb (p. 170): “The earlier rulers of Dynasty II (perhaps as many as six individuals) were probably all buried at Saqqara, where so far only two of the actual tombs have been located, one for king Hotepsekhemwy or Raneb, the other for king Ninetjer”.

The Second Dynasty was unlikely composed of “as many as six individuals”, far fewer.

And I likewise would suggest that the conventional nine or so rulers of the First Dynasty might be similarly in need of a reduction.

Hetepsekhemwy (or Hotepsekhemwy) is so poorly known for a ruler of anything from 38 (Manetho) to 95 (Turin canon) years that he needs one, or more, alter egos.

That is apparent from the following: https://www.crystalinks.com/dynasty2.html

 

Little is known about Hotepsekhemwy's reign. Contemporary sources show that he may have gained the throne after a period of political strife, including ephemeral rulers such as Horus "Bird" and Sneferka (the latter is also thought to be an alternate name used by king Qaa for a short time). As evidence of this, Egyptologists Wolfgang Helck, Dietrich Wildung and George Reisner point to the tomb of king Qaa, which was plundered at the end of 1st dynasty and was restored during the reign of Hotepsekhemwy. The plundering of the cemetery and the unusually conciliatory meaning of the name Hotepsekhemwy may be clues of a dynastic struggle. Additionally, Helck assumes that the kings Sneferka and Horus "Bird" were omitted from later king lists because their struggles for the Egyptian throne were factors in the collapse of the first dynasty.

Seal impressions provide evidence of a new royal residence called "Horus the shining star" that was constructed by Hotepsekhemwy. He also built a temple near Buto for the little-known deity Netjer-Achty and founded the "Chapel of the White Crown". The white crown is a symbol of Upper Egypt. This is thought to be another clue to the origin of Hotepsekhemwy's dynasty, indicating a likely source of political power. Egyptologists such as Nabil Swelim point out that there is no inscription from Hotepsekhemwy's reign mentioning a Sed festival, indicating the ruler cannot have ruled longer than 30 years (the Sed festival was celebrated as the anniversary marking a reign of 30 years).

The ancient Greek Manetho called Hotepsekhemwy Boethos (apparently altered from the name Bedjau) and reported that during this ruler's reign "a chasm opened near Bubastis and many perished". Although Manetho wrote in the 3rd century BC - over two millennia after the king's actual reign - some Egyptologists think it possible that this anecdote may have been based on fact, since the region near Bubastis is known to be seismically active.

The location of Hotepsekhemwy's tomb is unknown. Egyptologists such as Flinders Petrie, Alessandre Barsanti and Toby Wilkinson believe it could be the giant underground Gallery Tomb B beneath the funeral passage of the Unas-necropolis at Sakkara. Many seal impressions of king Hotepsekhemwy have been found in these galleries.

Egyptologists such as Wolfgang Helck and Peter Munro are not convinced and think that Gallery Tomb B is instead the burial site of king Raneb, as several seal impressions of this ruler were also found there. ….

 

Most important for our study here, about great geophysical rifts appearing in the region, is that piece of evidence from Manetho about the “chasm” during the reign of “Boethos”.

If, as I am tentatively suggesting, “Boethos” had been a contemporary of Abraham and Isaac, then one might expect that the “chasm” that killed many people had to do with the destruction witnessed by Abram (Genesis 19:24-28):

 

Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.  

 

That “chasm” may be a something in the life of the monarch, “Boethos”, that could relate to the catastrophism that caused the extinction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, with “Bela (that is Zoar)” saved for the sake of Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19:20-23).  https://www.crystalinks.com/dynasty2.html

“The ancient Greek Manetho called Hotepsekhemwy Boethos (apparently altered from the name Bedjau) and reported that during this ruler's reign "a chasm opened near Bubastis and many perished". Although Manetho wrote in the 3rd century BC - over two millennia after the king's actual reign - some Egyptologists think it possible that this anecdote may have been based on fact, since the region near Bubastis is known to be seismically active”.

 

Manetho, living very long after the “chasmic” event, may have done what Herodotus made bold to do regarding the destruction of Sennacherib’s Assyrian army, which Herodotus transferred geographically from Palestine to the Egyptian Delta, to Pelusium.

 

For Manetho will locate the “chasm” of “Boethos” in Bubastis.

 

Commenting on this, Swiss archaeologist, Henri Édouard Naville wrote in an article, “Bubastis” (1891): “We learn from Manetho that under the King Boethos, the first of the second dynasty, a chasm opened itself at Bubastis, which caused the loss of a great many lives. Up to the present day, we have not found in any part of Egypt monuments as old as the second dynasty”.

 

 

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Abimelech of Genesis may be the legendary Nebka of Egypt



 Jasper weight with the cartouche of Nebkaure Khety.


 
by
 
Damien F. Mackey
 
 
 
 
 
N. Grimal refers to another Aha (that being the name of Abraham’s
proposed contemporary, Hor-Aha) as living at the same time as Khety II.
 
 
 
The king of Egypt at the time of Abram (Abraham) I have identified, e.g. in my article:
 
From Genesis to Hernan Cortes. Volume Four: Era of Abraham
 
https://www.academia.edu/41229801/From_Genesis_to_Hernan_Cortes._Volume_Four_Era_of_Abraham
 
as the first ruler of the First Dynasty, the very long-reigning Menes Hor-Aha (‘Min’).
And I have been able - following the structure of the Book of Genesis (toledôt and chiasmus) - to link that ruler with Abimelech known to Abram (Genesis 20:2) and to Isaac (26:1).
 
 
Whilst Abimelech (אֲבִימֶ֙לֶךְ֙) is a Hebrew name, meaning “My Father is King”, I noted that it had a structure and meaning rather similar to that of the supposedly Second Dynasty king, Raneb, or Nebra:
 

that is, “Father Ra is King”.
 
Before I had come to the conclusion that Abram’s ruler of Egypt belonged to the First Dynasty, I had thought - the same as David Rohl, although quite independently of him - that he must be the Tenth Dynasty’s Khety.
Rohl numbers him as Khety IV Nebkaure, whereas I had numbered him as Khety III (though N. Grimal has a Khety II Nebkaure, A History of Egypt, pp. 144, 148).
If the so-called Tenth Dynasty were really to be located this early in time, I had thought, then this would have had major ramifications for any attempted reconstruction of Egyptian history. Having Abram’s Egyptian ruler situated in the Tenth Dynasty fitted well with my view then, at least, that Joseph, who arrived on the scene about two centuries after Abraham, had belonged to the Eleventh Dynasty (as well as to the Third, as Imhotep).
 
Although I would later drop from my revision the notion of Khety (be he II, III or IV) as Abraham’s king of Egypt, not being able to connect him securely to the Old Kingdom era, I am now inclined to return to it.
Previously I had written on this
 
So far, however, I have not been able to establish any compelling link between the 1st and 10th Egyptian dynasties (perhaps Aha “Athothis” in 1 can connect with “Akhthoes” in 10). Nevertheless, that pharaoh Khety appears to have possessed certain striking likenesses to Abram’s [king] has not been lost on David Rohl as well, who, in From Eden to Exile: The Epic History of the People of the Bible (Arrow Books, 2003), identified the “Pharaoh” with Khety (Rohl actually numbers him as Khety IV). And he will further incorporate the view of the Roman author, Pliny, that Abram’s “Pharaoh” had a name that Rohl considers to be akin to Khety’s prenomen: Nebkaure.  
 
Here, for what it is worth, is what I have written about pharaoh Khety III:
  
There is a somewhat obscure incident in 10th dynasty history, associated with … Wahkare Khety III and the nome of Thinis, that may possibly relate to the biblical incident [of “Pharaoh” and Abram’s wife]. It should be noted firstly that Khety III is considered to have had to restore order in Egypt after a general era of violence and food shortage, brought on says N. Grimal by “the onset of a Sahelian climate, particularly in eastern Africa” [A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell, 1994, p. 139]. Moreover, Khety III’s “real preoccupation was with northern Egypt, which he succeeded in liberating from the occupying populations of Bedouin and Asiatics” [ibid., p. 145]. Could these eastern nomads have been the famine-starved Syro-Palestinians of Abram’s era - including the Hebrews themselves - who had been forced to flee to Egypt for sustenance? And was Khety III referring to the Sarai incident when, in his famous Instruction addressed to his son, Merikare, he recalled, in regard to Thinis (ancient seat of power in Egypt):
 
Lo, a shameful deed occurred in my time:
The nome of This was ravaged;
Though it happened through my doing,
I learned it after it was done.
[Emphasis added].
 
Cf. Genesis 12:17-19:
 
But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai ....
So Pharaoh called Abram, and said,
‘What is this you have done to me?
Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?
Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’? so that I took her for my wife?
Now then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone’.
 
It may now be possible to propose some (albeit tenuous) links between the era of Khety and what is considered to be the far earlier Old Kingdom period to which I would assign Abraham. N. Grimal refers to another Aha (that being the name of Abraham’s proposed contemporary, Hor-ha) as living at the same time as Khety II.
Another tentative suggestion would be that the legendary Nebka, ruler of Egypt, whom Grimal and the likes find difficult to locate precisely in early Egyptian history, was Nebkaure, Nebkare, the traditional ruler of Egypt at the time of Abraham – and Khety Nebkaure according to David Rohl.
This name, in turn, Nebka, may then allow for a link also with Raneb, whose name we found is like Abimelech.
There may be more yet to this king, since “Egyptologist Jochem Kahl argues that Weneg was the same person as king Raneb …”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weneg_(pharaoh)
 
If Menes Hor-Aha (‘Min’) had really reigned for more than sixty years (Manetho-Africanus), then he is likely to have accumulated many other names and titles.
 
We may need to start investigating First, Second and Tenth Dynasty inter-connections.
 
 

Thursday, November 28, 2019

Horrible Histories: Unaccountable Akkadians




 
 
by
 

Damien F. Mackey

  

 

““Uncertainty in identifying exclusively Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to reconstruct Akkadian settlement patterns with any confidence” (Nissen 1993: 100)”.
 
Dr. John Osgood

 

Dr. Donovan Courville would come to the conclusion, in his praiseworthy effort to bring Egypt and Mesopotamia into line historically and archaeologically with the biblical data (The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, 1971), that the distinctive Jemdet Nasr (near Kish) period was archaeological evidence for the Dispersion after Babel.

 


 

Courville was quite confident that the Dispersion from Babel took place in the archaeological period known as “Jemdet Nasr.” …. The strata of Jemdet Nasr in Mesopotamia correlate to Early Bronze 1 strata in the Holy Land. It is believed that this period shows that an “intensive migration” took place from Mesopotamia into Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Asia Minor and into the Aegean islands.

 

Reference is made to W. F. Albright who had spoken of this period as a “transitional period” corresponding to Megiddo 19 and the lowest level of Byblos. …. It is further noted that this was a “narrow period” in Mesopotamian history, and that Jemdet Nasr had a “brief existence” and was “short.” …. The Jemdet Nasr period represents the beginnings of dynastic history, and thus represents a trend toward nationalism.

[End of quotes]

 

Following Dr. Osgood, I shall be suggesting a different context for the Jemdet Nasr phase, somewhat later than Babel.

 

My own view is that the Akkadian dynasty is represented by the sophisticated Halaf culture, currently dated to approximately (a massive) four millennia before King Sargon of Akkad (c. 2334 -2284 BC, conventional dating).

This Sargon I, ‘the Great’, may even be Nimrod himself. See e.g. my article:

 

Nimrod a “mighty man”

 


 

As we are now going to find, the conventional picture regarding the archaeology for the famous Akkadian and Ur III dynasties is hopelessly inadequate. Here is what I have written on this:

 

“Uncertainty in identifying exclusively Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to reconstruct Akkadian settlement patterns with any confidence” (Nissen 1993: 100).

Most interesting, now, that Anne Habermehl’s geographical re-location of the Babel incident:

… finds a most significant and sophisticated ancient culture to accompany it: namely, Halaf.

…. The long Akkadian empire phase of history … so admired by subsequent rulers and generations, is remarkably lacking in archaeological data. I noted this [before] ….

 

“The Akkadian kings were extensive builders, so why, then, so few traces of their work?

 

Not to mention, where is their capital city of Akkad?

 

The Ur III founder, Ur-Nammu, built a wall at Ur. Not a trace remains”.

 

…. here I want to highlight the enormity of the problem.

Archaeologists have actually failed to identify a specific pottery for the Akkadian era!

This is, of course, quite understandable given that they (indeed, we) have been expecting to discover the heart of the Akkadian kingdom in Sumer, or Lower Mesopotamia.

We read of this incredible situation of a missing culture in the following account by Dr. R. Matthews, from his book, The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: Theories and Approaches (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=9ZrjLyrPipsC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=uncer):

 

The problems of fitting material cultural assemblages, especially pottery, into historical sequences are epitomised in the ongoing debate over what, if anything, characterises Akkadian material culture in Lower Mesopotamia (Gibson and McMahon 1995; Nissen 1993; J. G. Westenholz 1998).

Uncertainty in identifying exclusively Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to reconstruct Akkadian settlement patterns with any confidence (Nissen 1993: 100). The bleakest view has been put thus: ‘If we didn’t know from the texts that the Akkad empire really existed, we would not be able to postulate it from the changes in settlement patterns, nor … from the evolution of material culture’ (Liverani 1993: 7-8). The inference is either that we are failing to isolate and identify the specifics of Akkadian material culture, or that a political entity apparently so large and sophisticated as the Akkadian empire can rise and pass without making a notable impact on settlement patterns or any aspect of material culture”.

 

Obviously, that “a political entity apparently so large and sophisticated as the Akkadian empire can rise and pass without making a notable impact on … any aspect of material culture” is quite absurd. The truth of the matter is that a whole imperial culture has been almost totally lost because - just as in the case of so much Egyptian culture, and in its relation to the Bible - historians and archaeologists are forever looking in the wrong geographical place at the wrong chronological time.

 

It is my view that, regarding the Akkadian empire (and following Habermehl), one needs to look substantially towards Syria and the Mosul region, rather than to “Lower Mesopotamia”. And that one needs to fuse the Halaf culture with the Akkadian one. The most important contribution by Anne Habermehl has opened up a completely new vista for the central Akkadian empire, and for the biblical events associated with it. The potentate Nimrod, one might now expect, had begun his empire building, not in Sumer, but in the Sinjar region, and had then moved on to northern Assyria. Thus Genesis 10:10-11: “The beginning of [Nimrod’s] kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went forth into Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city”.

 

And these are precisely the regions where we find that the spectacular Halaf culture arose and chiefly developed: NE Syria and the Mosul region of Assyria.

 

Understandably once again, in a conventional context, with the Halaf cultural phase dated to c. 6100-5100 BC, there can be no question of meeting these dates with the Akkadian empire of the late C3rd millennium BC. That is where Dr. Osgood’s “A Better Model for the Stone Age” (http://creation.com/a-better-model-for-the-stone-age) becomes so vital, with its revising of Halaf down to the Late Chalcolithic period in Palestine, to the time of Abram (Abraham):

 

…. In 1982, under the title 'A Four-Stage Sequence for the Levantine Neolithic', Andrew M.T. Moore presented evidence to show that the fourth stage of the Syrian Neolithic was in fact usurped by the Halaf Chalcolithic culture of Northern Mesopotamia, and that this particular Chalcolithic culture was contemporary with the Neolithic IV of Palestine and Lebanon.5:25 ....

 

….

 

This was very significant, especially as the phase of Halaf culture so embodied was a late phase of the Halaf Chalcolithic culture of Mesopotamia, implying some degree of contemporaneity of the earlier part of Chalcolithic Mesopotamia with the early part of the Neolithic of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria ….

This finding was not a theory but a fact, slowly and very cautiously realized, but devastating in its effect upon the presently held developmental history of the ancient world. This being the case, and bearing in mind the impossibility of absolute dating by any scientific means despite the claims to the contrary, the door is opened very wide for the possible acceptance of the complete contemporaneity of the whole of the Chalcolithic of Mesopotamia with the whole of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of Palestine. (The last period of the Chalcolithic of Palestine is seen to be contemporary with the last Chalcolithic period of Mesopotamia.)

 

Dr. Osgood himself, however, regards the Halaf people as the biblical “Aramites” [Aramaeans]. (“A Better Model for the Stone Age Part Two”: http://creation.com/a-better-model-for-the-stone-age-part-2).

 

Since the Aramaeans, though, tended to be a wandering nomadic people (Deuteronomy 26:5), I would not expect their existence to be reflected in a culture as sophisticated as Halaf. Though they themselves may have absorbed some of it. My preference, therefore, is for Halaf to represent the Akkadians, especially as Halaf was the dominant culture when Osgood’s Jemdat Nasr pertaining to the Elamite Chedorlaomer, arose.

 

This is how Dr. Osgood sees the spread of the Halaf culture:

 

Now if we date Babel to approximately 2,200 B.C. (as reasoned by implication from Noah's Flood 3) and if Abraham came from Mesopotamia (the region of Aram) approximately 1875 B.C., then we would expect that there is archaeological evidence that a people who can fit the description generally of the Aramites should be found well established in this area .... What in fact do we find? Taking the former supposition of the Jemdat Nasr culture being identified with the biblical story of Genesis 14 and the Elamite Chedarloamer,4 we would expect to find some evidence in Aram or northern Mesopotamia of Jemdat Nasr influence, but this would only be the latest of cultural influences in this region superseding and dominant on other cultures.

 

The dominant culture that had been in this area prior to the Jemdat Nasr period was a culture that is known to the archaeologist as the Halaf culture, named after Tell Halaf where it was first identified. One of the best summaries of our present knowledge of the Halafian culture is found in the publication, 'The Hilly Flanks'5. It seems clear from the present state of knowledge that the Halaf culture was a fairly extensive culture, but it was mostly dominant in the area that we recognise as Aram Naharaim.

 

It is found in the following regions. First, its main base in earliest distribution seems to have been the Mosul region. From there it later spread to the Sinjar region to the west, further westward in the Khabur head-waters, further west again to the Balikh River system, and then into the middle Euphrates valley. It also spread a little north of these areas. It influenced areas west of the Middle Euphrates valley and a few sites east of the Tigris River, but as a general statement, in its fully spread condition, the Halaf culture dominated Aram Naharaim ….

 

The site of Arpachiyah just west of Nineveh across the Tigris River appears to have been the longest occupied site and perhaps the original settlement of the Halaf people. This and Tepe Gawra were important early Halaf towns.

 

The settlement of the Halaf people at these cities continued for some considerable time, finally to be replaced by the Al Ubaid people from southern Mesopotamia. When Mallowan excavated the site of Tell Arpachiyah, he found that the top five levels belonged to the Al Ubaid period. The fifth level down had some admixture of Halaf material within it. He says:

 

‘The more spacious rooms of T.T.5 indicate that it is the work of Tell Halaf builders; that the two stocks did not live together in harmony is shown by the complete change of material in T.T.l-4, where all traces of the older elements had vanished. Nor did any of the burials suggest an overlap between graves of the A 'Ubaid and Tell Halaf period; on the contrary, there was evidence that in the Al 'Ubaid cemetery grave- diggers of the Al 'Ubaid period had deliberately destroyed Tell Halaf house remains.’6

 

He further comments the following:

 

‘It is more than probable that the Tell Halaf peoples abandoned the site on the arrival of the newcomers from Babylonia; and with the disappearance of the old element prosperity the site rapidly declined; for, although the newcomers were apparently strong enough to eject the older inhabitants, yet they appear to have been a poor community, already degenerate; their houses were poorly built and meanly planned, their streets no longer cobbled as in the Tell Halaf period and the general appearance of their settlement dirty and poverty stricken in comparison with the cleaner buildings of the healthier northern peoples who were their predecessors.’7

 

He further says:

 

‘The invaders had evidently made a wholesale destruction of all standing buildings converted some of them into a cemetery.’8

 

It is clear from the discussion of Patty Jo Watson9 that the later periods of the Halaf people were found in the other regions, particularly in a westward direction across the whole area of Aram Naharaim, namely the Sinjar region, the Khabur head-waters, the Balikh River system and the middle Euphrates”.

 

[End of Osgood’s article]

 

Dr. Osgood had estimated the Halaf culture as having spread from east (Assyria) to the west: “First, its main base in earliest distribution seems to have been the Mosul region. From there it later spread to the Sinjar region to the west, further westward in the Khabur head-waters, further west again to the Balikh River system …”. Most likely, it was the other way around, with Nimrod (= Sargon of Akkad/Halaf culture) firstly having established his kingdom in the “Sinjar region”, biblical “Shinar” (Genesis 10:10): “The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city”.

 

Andrew Moore had, as we read before, argued for a contemporaneity of the Chacolithic phase of Halaf culture with the Neolithic IV of Palestine and Lebanon ….

Archaeologically, we are now on the eve of the city building phase (inspired by Nimrod?) that will be a feature of Syro-Palestine’s Early Bronze Age. Presumably the Canaanites were heavily involved in all of this work (Genesis 10:18): “… the Canaanite clans scattered and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, as far as Lasha”.

 

Ham himself, though, son of Noah and father of Canaan, gave his name to the land of Egypt (e.g., Psalm 78:51): “He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, the firstfruits of manhood in the tents of Ham” (http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/T2OTBS4EEA84MJ67P/p2):

 

“According to the Bible the ancient Egyptians were descended from Ham through the line of Mizraim. Ham had four sons: Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan (Genesis 10:6). The name "Mizraim" is the original name given for Egypt in the Hebrew Old Testament. Many Bibles will have a footnote next to the name "Mizraim" explaining that it means "Egypt." The name "Egypt" itself actually comes to us from the Greeks who gave the Land that name (i.e. "Aegyptos" from the Greek). In addition to the name "Mizraim," the ancient Egyptians also referred to their land as "Kemet" which means "Land of the Blacks." Western historians, however, say that the word "Kemet" refers to the color of the soil of the land rather than its people. But, the word "Kemet" is actually an ethnic term being a derivative of the word "Khem" (Cham or Ham) which means "burnt" or "black." Ham, who was one of the three sons of Noah and the direct ancestor of the Egyptians, was black”.

 

Similarly, Ham’s son, Cush (Genesis 10:6), is considered to be the father of the Cushite Ethiopians, who were (are) black.

 

Ham’s brother, Japheth, became the god-Father of the Indo-European peoples such as the Greeks, who would identify him as Iapetos, the Titan, and the Indians, who called him Prajapti, “Father Japheth”.

 

Regarding Shem, I follow the Jewish tradition that Shem was the great Melchizedek - which view is chronologically acceptable. Genesis 10:10-11: “Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad. And after he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years [long enough to have been able to meet Abram] and had other sons and daughters”.

 

Monday, November 4, 2019

Philistines can be traced back to ancient Anatolia


Ancient Sea People – The Philistines

 
by
 
Damien F. Mackey
 
 
 
 
“Professor Triantafyllidis states that their analysis indicated that the arrival of these new people on Crete had coincided with a social and cultural upsurge
that had led to the birth of the Minoan [sic] civilisation around 7000 BC [sic]. Specifically, genetic researchers connected the source population of ancient
Crete to the well-known Neolithic sites in Anatolia”.
 
Gavin Menzies and Ian Hudson
 
 
 
Those whom Sir Arthur Evans fancifully named ‘the Minoans’, based on the popular legend of King Minos, son of Zeus, are biblically and historically attested as the Philistines. 
 
Gavin Menzies has followed Arthur Evans in labelling as “Minoans” the great sea-faring and trading nation that is the very focal point of his fascinating book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis: History's Greatest Mystery Revealed (HarperCollins, 2011). Though the ex-submariner, Menzies, can sometimes ‘go a bit overboard’ - or, should I say, he can become a bit ‘airborne’ (and don’t we all?) - he is often highly informative and is always eminently readable.
 
According to the brief summary of the book that we find at Menzies’ own site:
 
... the Minoans. It’s long been known that this extraordinary civilisation, with its great palaces and sea ports based in Crete and nearby Thera (now called Santorini), had a level of sophistication that belied its place in the Bronze Age world but never before has the extent of its reach been uncovered.
 
Through painstaking research, including recent DNA evidence, Menzies has pieced together an incredible picture of a cultured people who traded with India and Mesopotamia, Africa and Western Europe, including Britain and Ireland, and even sailed to North America.
 
Menzies reveals that copper found at Minoan sites can only have come from Lake Superior, and that it was copper, combined with tin from Cornwall and elsewhere, to make bronze, that gave the Minoans their wealth. He uses knowledge gleaned as a naval captain to explore ancient shipbuilding and navigation techniques and explain how the Minoans were able to travel so far. He looks at why the Minoan empire, which was 1500 years ahead of China and Greece in terms of science, architecture, art and language, disappeared so abruptly and what led to her destruction. ...
 
[End of quote]
 
The Philistines
 
Thanks to Dr. Donovan Courville (The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, Loma Linda CA, 1971), we can trace the Philistines - through their distinctive pottery - all the way back to Neolithic Knossos (Crete). And this, despite J. C. Greenfield’s assertion: “There is no evidence for a Philistine occupation of Crete, nor do the facts about the Philistines, known from archaeological and literary sources, betray any relationship between them and Crete” (IDB, 1962, vol. 1, p. 534). The distinctive type of pottery that Courville has identified as belonging to the biblical Philistines is well described in this quote that he has taken from Kathleen Kenyon:
 
The pottery does in fact provide very useful evidence about culture. The first interesting point is the wealth of a particular class of painted pottery …. The decoration is bichrome, nearly always red and black, and the most typical vessels have a combination of metopes enclosing a bird or a fish with geometric decoration such as a “Union Jack” pattern or a Catherine wheel. At Megiddo the first bichrome pottery is attributed to Stratum X, but all the published material comes from tombs intrusive into this level. It is in fact characteristic of Stratum IX. Similar pottery is found in great profusion in southern Palestine … Very similar vessels are also found on the east coast of Cyprus and on the coastal Syrian sites as far north as Ras Shamra. [Emphasis Courville’s]
 
By contrast, the pottery of the ‘Sea Peoples’ - a maritime confederation confusingly identified sometimes as the early biblical Philistines, their pottery like, but not identical to the distinctive Philistine pottery as described above - was Aegean (Late Helladic), not Cretan. 
 
The indispensable “Table of Nations” (Genesis 10), informs us that the Philistines were a Hamitic people, descendants of Ham’s “son”, Mizraim (or Egypt) (v. 6).
Genesis 10:13: “Mizraim was the father of the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, Pathrusites, Kasluhites (from whom the Philistines came) and Caphtorites”.
These earliest Philistines would be represented by the users of this distinctive pottery at Neolithic I level Knossos (Dr. Courville):
 
With the evidences thus far noted before us, we are now in a position to examine the archaeological reports from Crete for evidences of the early occupation of this site by the Caphtorim (who are either identical to the Philistines of later Scripture or are closely related to them culturally). We now have at least an approximate idea of the nature of the culture for which we are looking ….
 
… we can hardly be wrong in recognizing the earliest occupants of Crete as the people who represented the beginnings of the people later known in Scripture as the Philistines, by virtue of the stated origin of the Philistines in Crete. This concept holds regardless of the name that may be applied to this early era by scholars.
The only site at which Cretan archaeology has been examined for its earliest occupants is at the site of the palace at Knossos. At this site deep test pits were dug into the earlier occupation levels. If there is any archaeological evidence available from Crete for its earliest period, it should then be found from the archaeology of these test pits. The pottery found there is described by Dr. Furness, who is cited by Hutchinson.
 
“Dr. Furness divides the early Neolithic I fabrics into (a) coarse unburnished ware and (b) fine burnished ware, only differing from the former in that the pot walls are thinner, the clay better mixed, and the burnish more carefully executed. The surface colour is usually black, but examples also occur of red, buff or yellow, sometimes brilliant red or orange, and sometimes highly variegated sherds”.
 
A relation was observed between the decoration of some of this pottery from early Neolithic I in Crete with that at the site of Alalakh ….
 
Continuing to cite Dr. Furness, Hutchinson commented:
 
Dr. Furness justly observes that “as the pottery of the late Neolithic phases seems to have developed at Knossos without a break, it is to the earliest that one must look for evidence of origin of foreign connections”, and she therefore stresses the importance of a small group with plastic decoration that seems mainly confined to the Early Neolithic I levels, consisting of rows of pellets immediately under the rim (paralleled on burnished pottery of Chalcolithic [predynastic] date from Gullucek in the Alaca [Alalakh] district of Asia Minor). [Emphasis Courville’s]
 
While the Archaeological Ages of early Crete cannot with certainty be correlated with the corresponding eras on the mainland, it would seem that Chalcolithic on the mainland is later than Early Neolithic in Crete; hence any influence of one culture on the other is more probably an influence of early Cretan culture on that of the mainland. This is in agreement with Scripture to the effect that the Philistines migrated from Crete to what is now the mainland at some point prior to the time of Abraham.[[1]]
[End of quotes]
 
Late Chalcolithic, we have already learned, pertains to the era of Abram (Abraham), when the Philistines were apparently in southern Canaan:
 
Better archaeological model for Abraham
 
 
We next find the Philistines in the land of Palestine (the Gaza region) at the time of Joshua. Was there a Philistine migration out of Crete (“Caphtor”) at the time of the Exodus migration out of Egypt? (Amos 9:7): “Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?”
Dr. John Bimson becomes interesting at this point, as previously I have written:
 
Here I take up Bimson’s account of this biblical tradition:[2]
 
There is a tradition preserved in Joshua 13:2-3 and Judges 3:3 that the Philistines were established in Canaan by the end of the Conquest, and that the Israelites had been unable to oust them from the coastal plain …. There is also an indication that the main Philistine influx had not occurred very much prior to the Conquest. As we shall see below, the Philistines are the people referred to as “the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor” in Deuteronomy 2:23 … where it is said that a people called the Avvim originally occupied the region around Gaza, and that the Caphtorim “destroyed them and settled in their stead”. Josh. 13:2-3 mentions Philistines and Avvim together as peoples whom the Israelites had failed to dislodge from southern Canaan. This suggests that the Philistines had not completely replaced the Avvim by the end of Joshua’s life. I would suggest, in fact, that the war referred to in Ex. 13:17, which was apparently taking place in “the land of the Philistines” at the time of the Exodus, was the war of the Avvim against the newly arrived Philistines.
 
As conventionally viewed, the end of MB II C coincides with the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt. Bimson however, in his efforts to provide a revised stratigraphy for the revision of history, has synchronised MB II C instead with the start of Hyksos rule. He will argue here in some detail that the building and refortifying of cities at this time was the work of the Avvim against the invading Philistines, with some of the new settlements, however, likely having been built by the Philistines themselves.
 
[End of quote]
 
I have further written on Dr. Bimson’s laudable effort to bring some archaeological sanity to this era:
 
Bimson has grappled with trying to distinguish between what might have been archaeological evidence for the Philistines and evidence for the Hyksos, though in actual fact it may be fruitless to try to discern a clear distinction in this case. Thus he writes:[3] 
 
Finds at Tell el-Ajjul, in the Philistine plain, about 5 miles SW of Gaza, present a particularly interesting situation. As I have shown elsewhere, the “Palace I” city (City III) at Tell el-Ajjul was destroyed at the end of the MBA, the following phase of occupation (City II) belonging to LB I …. There is some uncertainty as to exactly when bichrome ware first appeared at Tell el-Ajjul.
Fragments have been found in the courtyard area of Palace I, but some writers suggest that this area remained in use into the period of Palace II, and that the bichrome ware should therefore be regarded as intrusive in the Palace I level ….
It seems feasible to suggest that the invading Philistines were responsible for the destruction of City III, though it is also possible that its destruction was the work of Amalekites occupying the Negeb (where we find them settled a short while after the Exodus; cf. Num. 13:29); in view of Velikovsky’s identification of the biblical Amalekites with the Hyksos … the Amalekite occupation of the Negeb could plausibly be dated, like the Hyksos invasion of Egypt, to roughly the time of the Exodus …. But if our arguments have been correct thus far, the evidence of the bichrome ware favours the Philistines as the newcomers to the site, and as the builders of City II.
[End of quotes]
 
Next we come to the Philistines in the era of King Saul, for a proper appreciation of which I return to Dr. Courville’s thesis. He, initially contrasting the Aegean ware with that of the distinctive Philistine type, has written:
 
The new pottery found at Askelon [Ashkelon] at the opening of Iron I, and correlated with the invasion of the Sea Peoples, was identified as of Aegean origin. A similar, but not identical, pottery has been found in the territory north of Palestine belonging to the much earlier era of late Middle Bronze. By popular views, this is prior to the Israelite occupation of Palestine. By the altered chronology, this is the period of the late judges and the era of Saul.
… That the similar pottery of late Middle Bronze, occurring both in the north and in the south, is related to the culture found only in the south at the later date is apparent from the descriptions of the two cultures. Of this earlier culture, which should be dated to the time of Saul, Miss Kenyon commented:
 
The pottery does in fact provide very useful evidence about culture. The first interesting point is the wealth of a particular class of painted pottery …. The decoration is bichrome, nearly always red and black, and the most typical vessels have a combination of metopes enclosing a bird or a fish with geometric decoration such as a “Union Jack” pattern or a Catherine wheel. At Megiddo the first bichrome pottery is attributed to Stratum X, but all the published material comes from tombs intrusive into this level. It is in fact characteristic of Stratum IX. Similar pottery is found in great profusion in southern Palestine … Very similar vessels are also found on the east coast of Cyprus and on the coastal Syrian sites as far north as Ras Shamra. [Emphasis Courville’s]
 
Drawings of typical examples of this pottery show the same stylized bird with back-turned head that characterized the pottery centuries later at Askelon.
… The anachronisms and anomalies in the current views on the interpretation of this invasion and its effects on Palestine are replaced by a consistent picture, and one that is in agreement with the background provided by Scripture for the later era in the very late [sic] 8th century B.C.
[End of quotes]
 
 
“Dr. Wood’s article ["The Genesis Philistines", 2006] provides the evidence
that supports Crete as the ancient home of the Philistines”.
 
 
 
It occurred to me during a recent re-reading of Gavin Menzies’ book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis, that those peoples he - following Sir Arthur Evans - termed ‘the Minoans’, must really have been the Philistines. And thus I wrote Part One of this series:
 
So-called "Minoans" were the Philistines
 
 
Previously, I had devoted Chapter 2 (of Volume One) of my university thesis:
 
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
 
AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf
 
to a consideration of “The Philistines and their Allies”, the Philistines being relevant to any serious study of King Hezekiah of Judah. This chapter was heavily reliant upon the fine research into the subject by Dr. Donovan Courville (The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, 1971).
 
Now, the intriguing “Dr Platypus” has referred to the findings of Dr. Bryant Wood in his post: “Philistines, Cypriots, and Minoans”, at:
 
....
If the Philistines came most immediately from Cyprus, and Cyprus was within the Minoan sphere of influence, is it possible to place Philistines on Crete itself? Amazingly, the answer seems to be yes. The evidence for this has recently been advanced by Bryan[t] G. Wood in “The Genesis Philistines” .... According to Wood, the famous Phaistos Disk, a 6.5 inch diameter, half-inch think baked clay disk with undecipherable inscriptions on both sides, makes possible a Cretan-Philistine connection. This artifact dates from about 1700 BC in conventional chronology. Among its many symbols, the disk has a depiction of a warrior in a feathered headdress, which Wood claims is very similar to the depiction of the later Philistines in reliefs on the walls of Rameses III’s mortuary temple in Medinet Habu, Egypt (T. Dothan 1982: 22; T.and M. Dothan 1992: 35-36). This is not an isolated find, as identical signs, including frontal views of the feathered warrior, have been found inscribed on an axe found in a cave in Crete (Robinson 2002: 306-307).
To the presence of this seemingly Philistine figure on Crete, Wood adds evidence of an early Cretan presence at Gerar (identified as Tell Haror, 17 miles east of Gaza). He states,
Of particular interest is a Minoan graffito found in the sacred precinct dating to ca. 1600 BC. Analyses of the sherd determined that it originated in Crete, most likely the south coast. There are four Minoan signs on the graffito, inscribed prior to firing, which represent a bull’s head, cloth, branch and figs. In addition to the graffito, an unusual chalice of Canaanite shape and fabric was found in a room on the east side of the sacred area. What makes the chalice unusual is its high arching handles, a well-known feature of Minoan chalices, but not of Canaanite.
This find suggests that the Minoans were living in Gerar‚ the city in which Abraham and Isaac encountered Philistines in Genesis 21 and 26‚ and had possibly been for a significant time prior to 1600 BC. Painting Minoan-style reliefs would hardly be among the first tasks undertaken by settlers. It would probably only be done after the city had been firmly established. (I should note here that I favor a lower chronology for the ancient world which would place the Tell Haror graffito at several centuries greater distance from Abraham. I’ll address the issues of chronology and possible anachronisms in the next installment.)
Finally, although the language of Linear A has yet to be deciphered, the phonetic values of many of the signs can be determined by comparison with later Linear B.
Interpreted in these terms, there are a couple of well-attested Philistine names (Padi, Ikausu) found in Linear A inscriptions from Crete.
 
Crete: An African Connection?
 
Is it possible to link Cretan culture with Egypt? If the Philistines are to be associated with Minoan culture and if Genesis 10 is taken to be in any sense an accurate representation of the ethnography of the ancient world, this question must be addressed.
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Very little is known of Cretan history before the beginning of the Early Minoan period, conventionally dated to ca. 2600 BC, although several reputable scholars hazard a guess that there were early migrations from North Africa. Crete has been inhabited as far back as the Neolithic period, ca. 6000 BC. Apparently, most of the early settlement was from Anatolia, but there is also evidence that Crete had a racially diverse population. Differing skull-types discovered at Cretan excavations suggest that such diversity existed. From a later period, Homer (Odyssey 17:175-177) noted at least five different tribes or ethnic groups on the island with each of them speaking a different language. It is possible that Crete was made up of many or at least several separate states at an early stage in its history. In Homer’s day, Crete was
a fair, rich land, begirt with water, and therein are many men, past counting, and ninety cities. They have not all the same speech, but their tongues are mixed. There dwell Achaeans, there great-hearted native Cretans, there Kydonians, and Dorians of waving plumes, and goodly Pelasgians.
Of the five tribes Homer mentions two are late Greek-speaking arrivals: the Achaeans and the Dorians. Native Cretans (or “Eteocretans”), Kydonians, and Pelasgians were likely all present on Crete before the arrival of the Greeks in the Late Helladic period. Eteocretans and Kydonians may have been related groups (in mythology, Kydon was the son of Minos, Crete’s founder and first king). The Pelasgians were also to be found throughout the Aegean and on the Greek mainland. They apparently originated in Anatolia and may have been Crete’s original Anatolian ethnic stock.
Known in later Greek literature as Pelasgoi, they were originally called Pelastoi (Iliad 16:233; the earliest attested form of the word has “t,” not “g”)‚ a likely origin for the Egyptian term Peleset and the Hebrew Pelishtim. Since many believe that the indigenous population of Crete had both Anatolian and North African roots, this leaves Eteocretans and Kydonians as possible candidates for descendancy from Mizraim (Ge 10:13-14).
 
What else can be known?
There are Greek traditions that the Libyans originally came from Crete and/or settled in Crete, although I must hasten to state that the historicity of these traditions is strenuously contested by some, who see them as resulting from a linguistic confusion between Mat Libu, the Assyrian name for the Lycians of Asia Minor, and Libya. At any rate, one of these Libyan groups was the Garamantes, whom Robert Graves (The Greek Myths, vol. 1, pp. 33-35) states originally lived in the Fezzan region of Libya, south of Cyrene. In other words, the Garamantes lived just south of the region of Africa associated with the Casluchim, the ancestors of the Philistines according to the Genesis Table of Nations.
All of this, it must be emphasized, is purely speculation. No one can say for sure that the Eteocretans came from North Africa or were somehow culturally connected with Egypt. There is, however, an abundance of circumstantial evidence for a Cretan-Egyptian connection that has been noted since Sir Arthur Evans first excavated Knossos. Redmond notes several symbols shared by the two cultures:
 
1.      The ankh.
2.      Hathor-like images such as cows suckling calves.
3.      The resemblance between the Minoan “Snake Goddess” figures and Wadjet, the Egyptian Nile goddess represented as a snake. (For a fuller explanation, see Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe, Minoan Snake Goddess. Witcombe states, “It is clear that the Minoans borrowed much their culture and various cult practices from Egypt. Numerous Egyptian objects of one kind or another were found by Evans at Knossos. The most spectacular discovery was the lower part of a diorite statue of a seated Egyptian figure identified from the hieroglyphic inscriptions as a priest of Wadjyt.”)
4.      The orientation of the palaces on Crete was determined in relation to Sirius, as was the position of Hathor’s temple on the Nile.
5.      Both cultures celebrated the New Year at the early rising of Sirius in July.
 
Additional features might be noted, including:
 
1.      Donald A. MacKenzie, Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe, cites the affinities between the Cretan Zeus and Egyptian Osiris.
2.      Sir Arthur Evans believed that Cretan Linear A script was similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics.
3.      Evidence from Cretan murals indicates that the costumes the Minoans wore were similar to those of the Egyptians.
These connections led Evans to speculate that during the unsettling time of the military unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, refugees from Lower Egypt may have immigrated to Crete. ....
 
 
Neolithic Cretan Origins in Anatolia
 
 
 
“... genetic researchers connected the source population of ancient Crete
to the well-known Neolitihic sites in Anatolia ...”.
 
Gavin Menzies and Ian Hudson
 
 
 
 
Gavin Menzies and Ian Hudson, in The Lost Empire of Atlantis: History's Greatest Mystery Revealed, introduce us to professor Constantinos Triantafyllidis of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University and his important DNA studies of the Cretan so-called ‘Minoans’ (ch. 7):
 
Now that scientists are able to test genetic theories with rigour, I was here because of the new study reported by The Times. New work by an international group of geneticists showed that a section of Crete's Neolithic population (i.e. pre-Bronze Age) did indeed go there by sea from Anatolia – modern-day Turkey. Professor Constantinos Triantafyllidis of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University had published the findings of a research group led by geneticists from Greece, the United States, Canada, Russia and Turkey. Professor Triantafyllidis states that their analysis indicated that the arrival of these new people on Crete had coincided with a social and cultural upsurge that had led to the birth of the Minoan civilisation around 7000 BC. Specifically, genetic researchers connected the source population of ancient Crete to the well-known Neolithic sites in Anatolia:
 
The earliest Neolithic sites of Europe are located in Crete and mainland Greece. A debate persists concerning whether these farmers originated in neighbouring Anatolia and over the role of maritime colonisation. To address this issue 171 samples were collected from areas near three known early Neolithic settlement areas in Greece together with 193 samples from Crete. An analysis of Y-chromosome hectographs determined that the samples from the Greek sites showed strong affinity to Balkan data, while Crete shows affinity with central/Mediterranean Anatolia. Haplogroup J2bM12 was frequent in Thessaly and Greek Macedonia while haplogroup J2a–M410 was scarce. Alternatively, Crete, like Anatolia showed a high frequency of J2a-M410 and a low frequency of J2b-M12. This dichotomy parallels archaeobotanical evidence, specifically that white bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) is known from Neolithic Anatolia, Crete and southern Italy; [yet] it is absent from earliest Neolithic Greece ....
[End of quote]
 
From a biblical point of view, I think, the estimated date for “the birth of the Minoan civilisation around 7000 BC” would be very roughly 5000 years too early.
But the origin of the Neolithic ‘Minoans’ in Anatolia would be perfectly in order, considering that post-Flood man must have spread out from ancient Urartu (Kurdistan):  
 
Mountain of landing for the Ark of Noah
 
 
and on to “Shinar” (NE Syria and northern Mesopotamia), and to “central/Mediterranean Anatolia”.
 
Along the same lines, we read at:
 

The Minoans, DNA and all.

Posted on April 14, 2008 | ....
....
Starting with the breaking DNA news, and this rather sinks the ‘Black Athena’ theory from Bernal…
 

....
Crete’s fabled Minoan civilization was built by people from Anatolia, according to a new study by Greek and foreign scientists that disputes an earlier theory that said the Minoans’ forefathers had come from Africa.
The new study – a collaboration by experts in Greece, the USA, Canada, Russia and Turkey – drew its conclusions from the DNA analysis of 193 men from Crete and another 171 from former neolithic colonies in central and northern Greece.
The results show that the country’s neolithic population came to Greece by sea from Anatolia – modern-day Iran, Iraq and Syria – and not from Africa as maintained by US scholar Martin Bernal.
The DNA analysis indicates that the arrival of neolithic man in Greece from Anatolia coincided with the social and cultural upsurge that led to the birth of the Minoan civilization, Constantinos Triantafyllidis of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University told Kathimerini.
“Until now we only had the archaeological evidence – now we have genetic data too and we can date the DNA,” he said.
Archeological dates for the colonisation of Crete are about 7,000 BC.
In more detail
The most frequent haplogroups among the current population on Crete were: R1b3-M269 (17%), G2-P15 (11%), J2a1-DYS413 (9.0%), and J2a1h-M319 (9.0%). They identified J2a parent haplogroup J2a-M410 (Crete: 25.9%) with the first ancient residents of Crete during the Neolithic (8500 BCE – 4300 BCE) suggesting Crete was founded by a Neolithic population expansion from ancient Turkey/Anatolia. Specifically, the researchers connected the source population of ancient Crete to well known Neolithic sites of ancient Anatolia: Asıklı Höyük, Çatalhöyük, Hacılar, Mersin/Yumuktepe, and Tarsus. Haplogroup J2b-M12 (Crete: 3.1%; Greece: 5.9%) was associated with Neolithic Greece. Haplogroups J2a1h-M319 (8.8%) and J2a1b1-M92 (2.6%) were associated with the Minoan culture linked to a late Neolithic/ Early Bronze Age migration to Crete ca. 3100 BCE from North-Western/Western Anatolia and Syro-Palestine (ancient Canaan, Levant, and pre-Akkadian Anatolia); Aegean prehistorians link the date 3100 BCE to the origins of the Minoan culture on Crete. Haplogroup E3b1a2-V13 (Crete: 6.7%; Greece: 28%) was suggested to reflect a migration to Crete from the mainland Greece Mycenaean population during the late Bronze Age (1600 BCE – 1100 BCE). Haplogroup J1 was also reported to be found in both Crete and Greece (Crete: 8.3%; Greece: 5.2%), as well as haplogroups E3b3, I1, I2, I2a, I21b, K2, L, and R1a1. No ancient DNA was included in this study of YDNA ….
 



[1] It is interesting in light of this that Dr. J. Osgood has synchronized Chalcolithic En-geddi with the era of Abraham. ‘Times of Abraham’, p. 181.
[2] ‘The Arrival of the Philistines’, p. 13.
[3] ‘The Arrival of the Philistines’, pp. 14-15.