Twelve Sons of Patriarch Jacob and Corresponding Twelve Stones

The twelve stones in the breastplate of the ancient Hebrew high priest can now be identified, with the corresponding tribes of Israel.

The Lord instructed Moses to have the names of the twelve sons of Israel engraved on twelve stones in the breastplate of the high priest. The exact order, arrangement, and type of each stone were explicitly stated (Ex. 28:17-21), but the name to be written on each stone was not given, perhaps because it was obvious to Moses. After the destruction of the temple, the knowledge of which tribe was associated with which stone was lost, and even the identity of some of the stones has been uncertain. This article attempts to restore this lost knowledge by use of the birth dates of those twelve sons, and the correspondence of those dates to the twelve zodiac constellations, as presented in last month's article.^[1]

Birthstones

Do you have any jewelry containing your birthstone? What is the origin of the birthstones? Are they just a way for jewelers to peddle their wares, or is their really some significance to these twelve stones? And if so, is it the chemical makeup of the stone that is important, or is it the color, or both? And should the stones be associated with months of our Gregorian year, or perhaps the Hebrew months, or maybe the 30-day signs of the zodiac, or how about the actual zodiac constellations in the heavens?

What about the colors associated with certain nations, such as the colors of their flags? Why are so many of the flags of Europe colored red, white and blue?^[2] What about the colors in heraldry, the colors on your family crest? Are they significant? What do colors have to do with families and nations?

Figure 1. The high priest's breastplate contained twelve stones.

The origin of our twelve birthstones and their colors is rooted in the twelve colored stones in the breastplate of the high priest of ancient Israel. The fact that our birthstones are not only associated with different tribes, but also with different months, shows that there was a strong tradition that each of the twelve sons of Jacob was born at a distinct time of year. So if our birthstones trace back to a Biblical origin, the question arises of just how accurate our modern list of birthstones is.

The Problem

Unfortunately, we have known neither the stones nor the associated tribes, much less the time of year for each stone. One of the long unsolved mysteries in the Bible is the identification of the twelve stones in the breastplate of the high priest. Most of those stones are mentioned only in that context, and so they have been extremely hard to identify. Most scholars have given up the identification as a lost cause. Many lists have been published, purporting to be authentic, but in fact they are based only on speculation, such as assuming that the order of the stones is the birth order of the sons.^[3]

As an example of the confusion of the translation of the stone names, the fourth stone is called "emerald" in the King James version, "carbuncle" in the Greek translation (Septuagint), "turquoise" in the New American Standard version, and "garnet" in Strong's dictionary. Note that the colors of those modern stones are all different (green, red, blue, blackish red), so we end up confused both on colors and stones. To add to the confusion, many stones come in a variety of colors: Sapphires are not just blue, they are also colorless, pink, orange, yellow, green, purple and black.^[4] And another problem is that some of the ancient names that we recognize, used to refer to different stones. For example, before medieval times, "sapphire" referred to the blue stone lapis lazuli for at least many centuries.^[5] So it has appeared to be a hopeless tangle of yarn that no one has been able to unravel.

Figure 2. The twelve stones each had a name engraved on it.

These, however, are some of the most difficult examples. The colors of some stones in the list are perfectly known, such as the first one, odem, which means "red" in Hebrew. In other cases, all translators agree on the identification of the stone, such as topaz and amethyst. They might all be wrong, but at least there is a consensus.

The Solution

This paper attempts to provide a definitive correlation of all twelve stones to their modern names, colors, and tribes of Israel. The solution is based on using information from two other sources: birth dates and birth constellations.

First, as mentioned above, the fact that there is a strong tradition that each of the twelve stones is associated with the time of birth of one of the twelve sons of Jacob is a big clue. Sometimes a general idea is preserved over time while the details are lost. The fact that each stone is associated with a different month and also with a tribe of Israel definitely indicates a tradition that it was the time of birth of those twelve sons that identified them with a specific stone. Last month a list of birth dates, derived from sacred calendars, was proposed for each of the twelve sons of Jacob. They were spread out during the year, which agrees with this tradition.

Secondly, that same article also identified each tribe with a constellation of the zodiac. That is also a big clue to solve the puzzle, because the Lord apparently also alludes to several of the constellations as the same precious stones of the breastplate of the high priest. He said to the prophet Ezekiel,

Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. (Ezek 28:13).

Nine of these stones covered Eden.

Those nine stones are nine of the twelve stones of the high priest. The fact that he says the stones were the "covering" in the Garden of Eden, suggests that he might be referring to the canopy of the heavens, and that each of those stones is associated with a zodiac constellation. This argument is not compelling, but if this suggestion is not correct, then just what does the scripture mean? The scriptures do tell us that some of these stones were found in the Garden (Gen. 2:12), but when so many of the stones are listed as a "covering," it seems more likely that it refers to the heavens.

Let us now use these two new lists of birth dates and constellations to identify the stones. Those who wish only to know the answer can skip the somewhat detailed derivation which follows to Table 4 near the end of this article.

Unravelling the Mystery

Let us now solve the mystery of the stones one step at a time. The solution is based upon a few postulates.

Postulates

1. Twelve Tribes. The twelve stones in the breastplate correspond to the original twelve sons of Jacob, not to the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, which were later adopted as sons, effectively doubling the inheritance for their father Joseph. That seems to be implied in the text.

New Jerusalem has walls of jasper.

2. Twelve Foundations. The twelve foundations of the New Jerusalem are garnished with the same twelve precious stones, as named by John the Revelator (Rev. 21:19-20). While those stones are associated with the twelve apostles, they are also near the twelve gates that are named for the twelve tribes of Israel. This postulate is perhaps the most important, because John is writing in Greek some fifteen hundred years after Moses. He is referring to stones that he recognized and understood. Because Greek is so much better known, and those words can be found in so many other documents, this postulate greatly simplifies the problem.

You might ask yourself how well you know gemstones. Suppose you had had the Revelation given to John. How would you have described the foundation stones? Most of us know that rubies are red and emeralds are green, but perhaps not many more. Apparently John knew his gems well, right down to recognizing sardonyx as a specific form of onyx.

3. Twelve Colors. It is proposed that it is the twelve colors of the stones that are most important, and that representative stones were chosen for those colors. The stones had to be large enough to engrave the names of the tribes upon, whereas in other contexts, such as a gem inlaid in a ring, a smaller, more precious stone could be used to represent the tribe equally well.

4. Twelve Constellations. It is also proposed that the twelve zodiac constellations each had a unique color for the figure and that the twelve stones also correspond to those colors. This postulate is a key element that will allow some of the most difficult relations to be discovered.

5. Order. The final order discovered should make sense. That is a vague requirement, but God's house is a house of order, and the order certainly will not be random. The trouble is, almost every time the twelve tribes are listed, they are given in a different order (Gen 27, 49; Num 2; Deut 33; Rev. 7). The names of the tribes were also engraved on stones on the shoulders of the priest, with six on each shoulder according to their birth (Ex. 28). That would be the most logical order to assume for the twelve stones on the breastplate, and indeed, that is usually the case in most studies, as shown in Figure 2.^[6] This study will not require birth order, but at least some sort of reasonable order.

Hebrew Names

Let us proceed step by step, making sure the ground is firm beneath our feet before each new step is taken. One mistake could lead us down a false path. Table 1 lists the stones in order by Hebrew name in the first column and the King James translation in the second. The third column lists the name used in the Greek translation of the Bible done in the third century B.C. (called the Septuagint). That is extremely important because it gives us the understanding of the Hebrews at that time of the meaning of the stones. We still use nearly all of the same Greek names today to refer to the same stones, so if that translation were totally correct, we would just about have the entire answer we are looking for. The final column lists other places in the Old Testament where the name of the stone is used again to describe a color. Unfortunately there are very few such references; most of the stone names appear only in the context of being a precious stone, which doesn't help distinguish one from another.

There are three lists in the Old Testament of these stones: 1) when the Lord instructs Moses how to fashion the breastplate (Ex. 28:17-20), when the breastplate was completed (Ex. 39:10-13), and in a revelation to Ezekiel, when the Lord compares the Garden of Eden's "covering" with nine of these twelve stones, given in a different order (Ezek. 28:13). None of those three references helps us identify the stones, except that some of the meanings refer to colors. The stones mentioned in only those three places are listed with "none" in the column for other references.

Hebrew Name	King James	Septuagint	Color	Other Refs.
1. Odem	Sardius	Sardius	red	"red" (Hebrew); not ruby, which is "paniyn" (Lam. 4:7)
2. Pitdah	Topaz	Topaz	topaz	from Ethiopia (Job 28:19)
3. Bareqeth	Carbuncle (Garnet)	Emerald	green?	color of "lightning," (Dan. 10:6), "green" (Greek)
4. Nophek	Emerald	Anthrax (Garnet)	red-black	precious, Ezek 27:16, "coal" (Greek)
5. Sappiyr	Sapphire	Sapphire	blue	sky blue, Ex. 24:10
6. Yahalom	Diamond	Jasper	many	none
7. Leshem	Ligure	Ligure	?	none; ligure is unknown
8. Shebuw	Agate	Agate	many	none
9. Aclamah	Amethyst	Amethyst	purple	none
10. Tarshish	Beryl	Chrysolite	yellow	color of heavenly chariot wheels (Ezek. 1:16, 10:9 ); color of a heavenly man's body, whose face was like lightning (Dan 10:6)
11. Shoham	Onyx	Beryl	white	"whiten" (Hebrew); on high priest's shoulders (Ex. 28:9)
12. Jashepheh	Jasper	Onyx	many	none

Table 1. Hebrew names of the Twelve Breastplate stones.

Now let's see what we can learn about the identity and colors of the stones from this table.

Odem, meaning red, refers to the sard.

Odem (Red). The first stone odem means "red" in Hebrew^[7] and nearly all translations agree that it refers to a sard (also called sardius), which is a very red stone. Note that while some translations list this stone as a ruby,^[8] one would be hard pressed to find a ruby large enough to engrave a name on, and even then it would require a diamond to write it. Moreover, most rubies are not as red as sard. Thus the first stone and color are well-identified. If all of the stones were this easy, the puzzle would have been solved long ago.

Sapphire represents blue.

Sappiyr (Blue). Our word sapphire comes from the Greek, which in turn comes from the Hebrew sappiyr. At the time of John the Revelator, the name referred to lapis lazuli, a very blue stone. The confirmation that the ancient stone was also this color comes in a vision at the time of Moses, when the Lord appeared on a pavement of sappiyr, described as being as blue as a clear blue sky (Ex. 24:10).

Amethyst is a deep purple.

Aclamah (Purple). All the translations agree that aclamah refers to the amethyst and there seems to be almost no doubt about this identification. While the scriptures don't specify that the color is purple, that is the only color of amethyst.

The second stone is topaz.

Pitdah (Yellow Brown). The other stone on which all translations agree is that the second stone pitdah is the topaz. Although topaz comes in many colors, the principal color associated with the most common variety is a very light yellowish brown color. That is almost certainly the color implied for this stone.

Chrysolite was yellow, like this chrysoberyl.

Tarshish (Yellow). This stone is most likely a golden color, matching the translation in the Septuagint of chrysolite ("golden stone" in Greek). It is the color used by Daniel to describe a man seen in heavenly vision, who face is described like lightning (Daniel 10:6). The name of the third stone is derived from that same word for "lightning" and is presumably a similar golden color. The name Tarshish is the same as the Mediterranean country (Jonah 1:3, probably Spain) and hence also came to mean "Merchant Vessel" (see 2 Chron. 9:21, Psalm 48:7, Isa. 23:1).

Beryl symbolized white or clear.

Shoham (White). The eleventh stone shoham almost certainly refers to a white stone because the root of the name means "to whiten."^[9] It has been translated both as onyx and beryl, both of which have white varieties.

Thus, only six of the stones are clearly identified with colors by the stone itself, by other passages or by name derivations. Note also that there are some serious questions about some of the King James translations. "Diamond" almost certainly is not correct because nothing would be available hard enough to inscribe the name into it, and it would have to be a very large diamond! The name Jasper was probably chosen only because it is similar to the Hebrew word. Nine of the names of the stones only appear in the context of being a precious stone, with no clues at all to color or other identifying characteristics. So let us now turn to other clues.

Greek Translation

In the third century B.C. the Old Testament was translated into the Greek version called the Septuagint. At that time, the temple at Jerusalem was functioning, and the breastplate was not just a memory, but was actually used by the high priest. This translation is extremely important because Greek words would be used to describe those gems, words that should give us excellent understanding of just what stones are implied. Many of our words for minerals today derive directly from these very Greek words. We must be cautious because many have changed in meaning, but they give us a big step up in understanding. Let's consider what is implied about the colors of the stones.

Known Colors. Several of the stones have known colors, either because the Greek word includes the color name, or is synonymous with that color, or because the stone is well known and only comes in one color. As listed in the table, the known colors are: sardius is red, emerald was a synonym for green, sapphire was a synonym for blue, amethyst only comes in purple, "chrysolite" means "golden stone" or "yellow stone," and beryl meant only the white or cream colored variety.

Unknown Colors. On the other hand, jasper, agate, and onyx come in a variety of colors, and often are striped. And to complicate the issue, the meaning of the Greek "ligure" has been entirely lost. While that word is used in English, as in the King James Version, its meaning is unknown, but it is usually associated with the jacinth. Now let us consider other color considerations.

Bareqeth (lightning or green?). The third stone bareqeth derives in Hebrew as the same word for "lightning," supposedly because it represents the same color. For example, Daniel compares the facial color of a man he saw in vision to that of lightning (Dan. 10:6). But the Greek translation is "emerald," which was synonymous with "green" in Greek. Most people would not say lightning is green, and we could hardly think of an angel with a countenance like lightning as having a green face. The solution to the problem proposed in this article explains both translations.

Carbuncle (glowing coal) usually means garnet.

Nophek (reddish black). This stone is a great key to the entire puzzle, which I discovered only after I had solved it the hard way. The Greek translation of nophek is "anthrax," which in turn is translated as "carbuncle" into English. Both are said to mean a dark red stone. "Carbuncle" also refers to red, inflamed boils, and the sheep disease "anthrax" was supposedly named for the dark red streaks and spots that appear. My research showed me that this was definitely correct and that the stone must be a dark red color as a substitute for pure black, the color of the tribe of Dan,^[10] and probably refers to the garnet.

The origin of both the words "anthrax" and "carbuncle" describe the color implied very well. Carbuncle comes from the work carbon, meaning coal, with the "cle" on the end meaning "little," like a "particle" is a "little part." What was implied was the idea that it was a hot, "glowing coal," in the sense that one might speak of barbecuing over the hot "coals" of a fire. Similarly, "anthrax" also means "glowing coal." We still use that Greek root in our word "anthracite" coal. One dictionary definition of "carbuncle" is "deep-red garnet," deriving the word as meaning "glowing ember," which indeed described the color of many garnets perfectly.

"Glowing ember" also exactly matches the description of one of the foundation stones, as described in the next section, which greatly simplifies the puzzle. Just for the record, I only looked up these meanings after I had solved the puzzle the hard way, so to me this derivation comes as comforting confirmation that the solution is correct. It is a lesson in the importance of understanding the origin of words.

The royal blue lapis lazuli.

Sappiyr (blue). The meaning of sapphire has clearly changed over the centuries. All agree that sapphire refers to stones of a blue color, but the exact meaning is unclear. The Greek word sapphire was derived from the Hebrew sappiyr (stone #5). Fortunately, we have a clear reference of exactly what color was indicated. The Lord appeared on a sappiyr colored pavement to the seventy with Moses, which was compared to the color of a clear blue sky (Ex. 24:10). The Greek word sapphire referred to lapis lazuli, which is a royal blue stone. And today in English, sapphire refers to an entirely different blue stone and even to stones of other colors.

New Jerusalem has walls of jasper.

Foundation Stones

Now let us look at the twelve stones that John describes as forming the foundation of the New Jerusalem. All of the twelve Greek stone names are essentially identical to names still used today to describe semi-precious stones, so they are much better understood than the ancient Hebrew names. According to Postulate 2, they should be identical to the twelve breastplate stones, or at least be stones of the same colors.

The twelve foundation stones are listed in alphabetical order in Table 2. The order given in Revelation apparently corresponds to the twelve apostles (Rev. 21:14), and that is not the subject of this article. Let it now suffice simply to correlate the stones to the twelve tribes of Israel.

Greek	Modern Stone	Color	Other Refs.
Amethyst	Amethyst	Purple	none
Beryl	Beryl	White or Cream	none
Chalcedony	Chalcedony	Light Blue	none
Chrysolite	Chrysolite	Yellow (Gold)	"golden stone"
Chrysoprase	Chrysoprase, Peridot	Yellow Green (Gold)	"golden leek"
Emerald	Emerald	Green	"green"
Jacinth	Jacinth (Hyacinth) or Garnet	Reddish Black	color of smoke, Rev. 9:17
Jasper	Jasper	Orange or Fiery Red	Yellow-Red, Rev. 4:3 & Ezek. 1:27. Walls of New Jerusalem, Rev. 21:11,18.
Sapphire	Lapis Lazuli	Royal Blue	"blue"
Sardius	Sard	Red	"red" Rev. 4:3
Sardonyx	Sardonyx	Red & White layers	none
Topaz	Topaz	Yellow Brown	none

Table 2. The Foundation Stones in alphabetical order, with colors

If we compare these twelve stones to those given in the King James translation, we find that eight of them agree (if we equate sardonyx with onyx). But before we get too excited about believing all the correlations, we need to remember that the King James translators had no clue (literally) as to what many of the stones names referred to. Often, they simply picked the name of a modern precious stone (like "diamond") to use in the translation.

Cameo carved from sardonyx.

Three new stones. If we compare these twelve Greek names for the foundation stones to the Greek translations of the breastplate stones given in the Septuagint, we find that nine are identical. That is very encouraging because the Greek Septuagint translation was done some three centuries before John wrote Revelation. It is the fact that most of them are the same, which lends credence to Postulate 2 — that all twelve must correspond. The remaining three stones mentioned in Revelation, which thus need to be matched with the Hebrew names, are chrysoprase (yellow-green), chalcedony (light blue), and jacinth (also called hyacinth, referring to either a red or blue form of zircon). Gem books note that the original meaning of jacinth is unclear. The modern meaning refers to a yellow-red to red-brown from of zircon, but many believe that the ancient stone was blue. The three stones on the Greek breastplate list that are not on the foundation list are carbuncle, ligure, and agate. The two stones of onyx and sardonyx can probably be safely equated because sardonyx is merely a special form of onyx in which the layers are alternately red and white. Sardonyx is used for making cameos, by cutting away one colored layer to form a background for the picture. Thus, specifying "sardonyx" indicates the colors, because onyx can come in many colors, including not only white, but also black.

Jacinth is Carbuncle. In Greek, jacinth sometimes refers to a dark red color and sometimes a dark blue. There is one scripture that seems to tip the scale as to what color the stone "jacinth" represented to John the Revelator. He states,

And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. (Revelation 9:17)

Here we are told the horsemen had breastplates of fire (red), jacinth (?), and brimstone (sulfur or yellow). But then in a parallel construction we are told they breathed out fire, smoke, and brimstone. That construction strongly suggests that the color of jacinth corresponds to the color of the smoke accompanying the fire. That favors the dark red interpretation. Moreover, now that we know the meaning of "carbuncle," it is a perfect with the idea of "glowing ember" because smoke often contains glowing sparks. So let us equate jacinth to carbuncle (Greek anthrax).

Yellow Jasper (silex) has red streaks.

Yellow/Red Jasper. The stone Jasper comes in a wide variety of colors, but John gives us enough clues to deduce that it is the yellow variety with red streaks (silex) that is indicated. The being on the throne is described by John as being the color of Sard and Jasper (Rev. 4:3). Sard is red, but what color is Jasper? Fortunately, in a parallel revelation given to Ezekiel, the being is described has being colored like amber (yellow) filled with swirling fire (red) in the upper body, and like fire in the lower (Ezek. 1:27). So here again a being with two colors is described, even as John compared the colors to two stones. Clearly the red fire corresponds to sard, which leaves the red swirling within yellow to be the jasper. As shown in the illustration, the exactly describes one kind of jasper. Note that this fills in the color wheel area for "orange," but does so in a more picturesque fashion than the simple color orange. Similarly, the opal with an orange color is called the "fire opal," which serves well as a gem of this color.

Chrysoprase is yellow-green.

Golden-green Chrysoprase. One of the new stones on John's list is chrysoprase, which means "golden-green" or "yellow-green" in Greek. This color fits well to be that of bareqeth (stone #3) which was described both as like "lightning" (a golden color) and also as green (emerald). Let us tentatively make this identification, which refers to the modern gem stone peridot or olivine.^[11]

Chalcedony is light blue.

Sky Blue Chalcedony. There are two sacred colors of blue in the scriptures and there are two blue stones of those colors, so let us match them. John adds chalcedony to the list, which is a light blue (sky blue) stone. The other blue stone he lists is called sapphire in Greek, which during his time referred to the stone we call lapis lazuli, which is a royal blue color. In the Old Testament, the stone sappiyr is compared to the azure blue sky, so let us equate that stone to chalcedony.

Royal Blue Ligure. In the temple, the blue color used for the high priest's robe (Ex. 28:31) was a royal blue color that exactly matches that of lapis lazuli (see Figure 1). Let us equate the unknown Greek "ligure" to lapis lazuli. Most translators equate ligure to the blue form of jacinth (blue zircon), but that would yield too many blue stones. I propose that about 280 BC, when that Septuagint was translated, that the Greek "sapphire" referred to the azure blue chalcedony, the color of sappiyr. Nearly four centuries later when John wrote, I propose that the Greek word sapphire had changed in meaning to refer to the deeper blue lapis lazuli. That seems like a reasonable conjecture, and as will be seen in the final order, it is apparently an important key to unlocking the order of these stones.

Agate can be light or dark green.

Green Agate. By elimination, we are left to equate the Hebrew shebuw, translated as "agate" in the Septuagint, with the stone John describes as emerald. Is that reasonable? It is, because agate refers to any of a wide variety of colors of quartz rock, named more for their stripes or variegated patterns than for their color. One green form of agate is called moss agate, which could be the foundation stone. Another possibility is called "emerald quartz." Let's try equating agate to green and see how well everything fits together.

Sardonyx has alternate red and white layers.

Red/White Sardonyx. It is worth noting how much information was added by John the Revelator when he named one stone as "sardonyx" rather than merely onyx. Onyx refers to a layered rock that usually has white, red, or black layers. Sometimes it is all white or all black, so the name onyx alone does not specify color. But the variety with alternate red and white stripes has the specific name "sardonyx." Sardonyx is used to make cameos by carving out one layer to leave a raised picture. The same is done with onyx made of black and white layers of stone.

Table 3 lists the twelve breastplate stones with their Greek translations from the Septuagint, along with the proposed correlation to the twelve foundation stones, and also to gems of similar color.

Hebrew	Greek	Foundation	Gem	Color
1. Odem	Sardius	Sard	Ruby	Red
2. Pitdah	Topaz	Topaz	Topaz	Tan
3. Bareqeth	Emerald	Chrysoprase	Peridot	Yellow green (Golden)
4. Nophek	Anthrax	Jacinth	Garnet	Reddish black
5. Sappiyr	Sapphire	Chalcedony	Aqua- marine	Light Blue
6. Yahalom	Jasper	Jasper	Fire Opal	Orange
7. Leshem	Ligure	Lapis Lazuli	Sapphire	Royal Blue
8. Shebuw	Agate	Emerald	Emerald	Green
9. Aclamah	Amethyst	Amethyst	Amethyst	Purple
10. Tarshish	Chrysolite	Chrysolite	Chrysoberyl	Yellow
11. Shoham	Beryl	Beryl, Onyx	Diamond, Beryl	White
12. Jashepheh	Onyx	Sardonyx, Rose Quartz	Pink Tourmaline	Red/White stripes, or Pink

Table 3. Identification of the twelve stones and colors.

Now let us turn to matching these colors to the constellations.

Constellation Colors

The classic constellations were associated with colors, some of which have been explicitly recorded from antiquity. Others can be deduced, and some are related to the roles of Jesus Christ, which were discussed in an earlier article.^[12]

Scriptural Clues

Cornerstone Constellations. The colors associated with the four "cornerstone" constellations are the best established, and were discussed in detail in an earlier article.^[13] They are that the Lion is red, the Scorpion is black, the Water Bearer is blue, and the Bull is white. All four of those colors show up in the colors of the stones, choosing the royal blue color, which was one of the four principal colors used in the temple. The black would correspond to the red-black of garnet, which makes a more beautiful stone than a straight black color. Similarly, a clear stone like diamond can probably be substituted for white.

One of the Fishes (Pisces).

Purple Fishes. The four colors of the temple were red, blue, white and purple. The colors of the four cornerstone tribes are red (Judah), blue (Reuben), white (Joseph) and black (Dan). It appears that the four temple colors represent the four cornerstone tribes, and hence all of Israel, except that for some reason purple was substituted for black. I propose that such is the case, perhaps for the reason that black is not a good temple color (it also having the connotation of evil, like the black scorpion), and hence another tribe's color was substituted into its place. What is the logical tribe to use for temple work? Is it not Levi, whose tribe was dedicated to temple service? To me it seems clear that purple must be Levi's color. The constellation associated with Christ's role as the Great High Priest is the Fishes (the two fish representing his church), and the high priest was chosen from the tribe of Levi. Thus, purple is the proposed color of the fishes.

As long as we are noting that sometimes black is dropped from the four colors representing Israel, the suggestion arises that this might explain why the colors red, white and blue are so common in the flags of Europe, where scattered Israel migrated.

Golden Ram and Scales. The Ram was often called the Ram with the Golden Fleece, and the ancient Greek authority Homer referred to the Scales as the "golden scales."^[14] There are two "golden" colors in the constellations, one being yellow and one yellow-green. Let us associate those two colors with those two constellations, with the option of switching them if the resultant order requires it.

Fire Opal can be orange like jasper.

Fiery Archer. The archer almost certainly needs to be the fiery orange color described for the heavenly beings. The Archer has wings in the older pictures, such as that at Denderah in Egypt, but in the modern pictures, taken from the Greek, the wings were mistaken for a cloak flowing in the breeze above the Archer.

Tan Crab. The light yellowish brown (tan) color of topaz matches the color of the Fiddler crab very well, and hence is proposed as a tentative identification. It also matches a common color for the donkey, which is also associated with these stars.

The red and white Twins.

Red/White Twins. Let us match the red and white stripes of sardonyx with the Twins for two reasons. First, the twins are associated with the first and second coming of Jesus Christ. He is usually shown in white in pictures of his first coming, and yet he will be dressed in red at his second coming (Rev. 19:13). Moreover, the Twins are the constellation of Benjamin, and that tribe was split into two halves, part going with Judah (red) and part with Ephraim (white). And finally, the red and white stripes so common in flags (including the U.S.) may tie to Benjamin.

Emerald symbolizes green.

Green Sea Goat. By elimination, the last constellation of the Sea Goat must be matched with the color green. That is not unreasonable because green is a color that can fit the sea, which is often a blue-green color, and also the land with green plants.

Let us now list this tentative correlation in a table, along with the tribes of Israel which correspond to these twelve constellations, from last month's article.

Hebrew	Foundation	Color	Zodiac	Tribe
1. Odem	Sard	Red	Lion	Judah
2. Pitdah	Topaz	Tan	Crab	Issachar
3. Bareqeth	Chrysoprase	Yellow Green	Ram	Zebulon
4. Nophek	Jacinth	Red Black	Scorpion	Dan
5. Sappiyr	Chalcedony	Light Blue	Maiden	Naphtali
6. Yahalom	Jasper	Orange	Archer	Gad
7. Leshem	Lapis Lazuli	Royal Blue	Water Bearer	Reuben
8. Shebuw	Emerald Quartz	Green	Sea Goat	Simeon
9. Aclamah	Amethyst	Purple	Fishes	Levi
10. Tarshish	Chrysolite	Yellow	Scales	Asher
11. Shoham	Beryl	White	Bull	Joseph
12. Jashepheh	Sardonyx	Red & White	Twins	Benjamin

Table 4. The Twelve stones, colors and tribes.

The Order

What is the order of these stones? That is, what is the order of the tribes as listed in Table 4? Before considering this, note that many commentators assume is that they must be listed in order of birth date, and they assign Reuben (the first born) to odem, and so on, and consider the problem solved by assumption. This conclusion probably comes from the fact that on the shoulders of the high priest, the names were engraved with six names on each of two (white) beryl stones, with six on each stone, "according to their birth" (Ex. 28:10). Let's examine even that meaning before proceeding.

Shoulder Stone Order

When Moses was told to list the twelve tribes on the two shoulder stones "according to their birth," what did he understand that to mean? Was it strictly in order by birth date? A careful reading of Genesis 29-30 shows that the actual of order of birth of the twelve sons of Jacob is not even given. Rather, what is given is the order of birth by wife. That is, the order of birth of Leah's six sons was Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulon. Similarly, the order of birth of Bilhah's sons was Dan and Naphtali, of Zilpah's sons was Gad and Asher, and of Rachel's sons was Joseph and Benjamin. If you were Moses, how would you arrange these names onto two stones with six per stone?

Aquamarine is light blue like chalcedony.

If you say that you would put Leah's six children all on one stone, with the others on the other stone in the order just listed, then you agree with the standard Jewish interpretation. To me, that is almost certainly correct. It is the order in Genesis, except that all of Leah's children are grouped together, and it just seems to make to most sense to group both by family and order of birth. Another nice touch is that if the priest faced east (the sacred direction), then his right shoulder would face south, which was Reuben's direction, and the left would be north, which was Dan's direction. Thus, the stone on the right shoulder would start with Reuben's name with Dan leading the list on the left shoulder. That also fits with Reuben being the firstborn, which is associated with the son of the right hand. We know that because of his actions, Reuben lost that blessing of being the firstborn, but that does not change the birth order.

Figure 3. Breastplate reconstruction by A. Paul Davis.

This shoulder stone order is usually assumed to be the same order as the stones on the breastplate. The reproductions shown in both Figure 2 at the beginning of this article and Figure 3 here both have the names engraved in this order. Note that the first stone in both cases is in the upper right-hand corner of the illustration, consistent with Hebrew reading from right to left.

Encampment Order

In support of this shoulder order interpretation, consider the order of their names when the tribes encamped in a square fashion, with three tribes in each direction. The order given is Judah, Issachar, Zebulon (east), Reuben, Simeon, Gad (south), Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin (west), and Dan, Asher, Naphtali (north) (Num. 2:3-29). What order are they listed in here? The order is almost the same as just proposed for the two shoulder stones. Judah, Issachar and Zebulon are the last three on Leah's stone in the same order. Why would Judah's three be listed first? Perhaps it is because Judah is associated with the east, and east is the most important direction. Then Reuben, Simeon and Levi would have been the next three, except that Levi was removed from this list when he became head of the priestly tribe, which was protected in the middle of these armies. It would make sense for Gad, the first born of Leah's handmaid Zilpah, to take Levi's place. If so, then the next three are explained. Asher would then have moved up one place and we'd expect the north three to be Dan, Naphtali and Asher. Those are the three encamped on the north, but I have no explanation for why Naphtali and Asher have their order reversed. Perhaps it has to do with when the tribes actually migrated. Finally, the tribe of Joseph was split into Ephraim and Manasseh, which perfectly explains the order of the west encampment. Thus, with the exception of the Naphtali/Asher swap, the encampment order is perfectly explained by starting with the proposed shoulder order and then replacing Levi. Note that the four "cornerstone" tribes of Reuben, Judah, Dan, and Joseph (Ephraim) are each at the head of one of the four cardinal directions in the encampment order. That is in agreement with their each being the leaders for that direction, and their colors of blue, red, black and white representing those four directions.

Breastplate Order

Ruby is red like sard.

Now we are finally prepared to consider the order proposed for the breastplate. Looking at Table 4, we see that the order is very similar to the encampment order, but before Levi was replaced. The first three stones correspond to Judah, Issachar and Zebulon, exactly as in the encampment order. The next three correspond to the north direction, being Dan, Naphtali, and Asher. This time the three are still in the order expected from the shoulder order, rather than having Naphtali and Asher swapped. The next three correspond to south in the exact birth order expected: Reuben, Simeon and Levi. Finally the last three also are in perfect order: Asher, Joseph and Benjamin.

Another way to look at it is that the order is identical to the shoulder order broken into sets of three, and rearranged to have Judah head the list, as in the encampment order. So the order comes out perfectly, with only a slight modification from the standard Hebrew interpretation. That this resultant order would match so closely what was expected, and that it was derived from considerations about the colors of constellations and roles of Christ, is totally beyond chance. Thus, it is proposed that Table 4 indeed lists the correct correlations of the stones to the constellations, colors, and tribes.

Modern Birth Stones

How does all of this relate to our modern list of twelve birthstones? Jewelers pretty much agree on a list of ancient birth stones as correlated to months, and also have a similar modern list. They are presented in Table 5 along with the months according to the actual birthdates proposed for the twelve sons of Israel. The last column lists the gems proposed in this article to represent each of the twelve constellations and tribes.

Month	Modern	Ancient	Tribe	Birthday	Proposed
January	Garnet	Garnet
February	Amethyst	Amethyst	Levi	5 Feb	Amethyst
March	Aquamarine	Jasper	Zebulon	4 Mar	Peridot
April	Diamond	Sapphire	Joseph	6 Apr	Diamond
May	Emerald	Agate	Benjamin, Issachar	25 May, 29 May	Pink Tourmaline Topaz
June	Moonstone	Emerald	Judah	19 Jun	Ruby
July	Ruby	Onyx
August	Peridot	Carnelian	Naphtali	17 Aug	Aquamarine
September	Sapphire	Peridot	Asher	23 Sep	Chrysoberyl
October	Opal, Pink Tourmaline	Aquamarine	Dan	9 Oct	Garnet
November	Topaz, Citrine	Topaz	Gad	2 Nov	Fire Opal
December	Turquoise or Blue Topaz	Ruby	Simeon, Reuben	16 Dec 23 Dec	Emerald Sapphire

Table 5. Modern, ancient, and proposed birthstones.

Pink Tourmaline can replace red/white sardonyx.

One thing to note from the table, which may be surprising, is that four of the modern stones seems to be "correct" in that they match the proposed stones from this research. Amethyst for February, Diamond for April, Ruby for July, and Blue Topaz for December all match the colors well. In the table, Ruby (red) is associated with late June, but it really fits most of July well too. But that is how the stones matched the birth dates 3,800 years ago when these 12 men were born. Let us now discuss why that is not how they would be today.

Constellation Colors

Let us now return to the question of whether the stones correlate to months of our year, or of the Hebrew year, or to the 30 day "signs" used in modern astrology, or to the actual position of the sun in the zodiac constellation at the time of birth. Using the twelve sons of Jacob as a model, the answer is, that it is the actual position of the sun in the constellation at the time of birth which determines the stone. Note from Table 5 that none of the proposed dates for the births of the twelve sons of Jacob occurs in our modern months of January or July, nor is there one birth in each Hebrew month. Moreover, they do not all occur in the twelve equal periods of astrological "signs," beginning about the 21st of each month. On the contrary, the proposed dates of birth for Benjamin, Issachar and Judah all occurred between May 21 and June 21. But all twelve of the births do indeed occur when the sun is actually located in the zodiac constellation associated with that tribe and the stone is the color of that constellation.

One motivation for me as an astronomer to solve this puzzle was simply to be able to create a color picture of the zodiac constellations. Figure 4 is the result of this labor, with the position of the sun indicated for the time of birth of each of the twelve sons of Israel. Note that the constellations are all different sizes. That means not all stones get an equal length of time each year, but that the great constellation of the Maiden has the most people born at that time, whereas the tiny Scales and Crab have fewer who can claim those gems.

Figure 4. The Zodiac Constellations in the proposed colors.

Precession of the Equinoxes

Another matter that is bound to raise questions has to do with what is called the "precession of the equinoxes." The north pole of the earth does not always point to the same place in the sky, but rather it traces out a circle in the sky in about 26,000 years. That causes our solar year to shift through the zodiac constellations by about one constellation every 2,160 years.

Figure 5. The sun's position at the spring equinox.

Figure 5 shows the position of the sun on March 21 (the spring equinox when the sun rises due east) from 2000 BC to AD 2000 on the small scale beneath Aries and Pisces. At the birth of Jacob's sons, the sun was in the Ram on 21 Mar, and then at the birth of Christ it moved into the Fishes, where it still is. Modern astrologers mostly use the "signs" (constellations) associated with a birth date back in ancient times. That is, they say a person in our day born in the 30 days beginning on March 21 is an "Aries" (Ram), whereas the sun was actually in Pisces (the Fishes).

Peridot today is called chrysolite, but is the color of chysoprase

Proposed Stones for Our Day

Some readers will want to know what the "true" birthstones are for our age, based on the current position of the sun in the constellations. Because of the precession of the equinoxes, they would differ by about two months from the "Proposed" column in Table 4 for the twelve tribes. That is, the diamond (or beryl) would be the stone for those born when the sun was in the Bull, which would now be from mid-May to mid-June rather than from late March to early April as at the time of these patriarchs. It is not clear to me yet how to determine exactly where the boundary lines are between constellations for this purpose, but I will venture a preliminary proposal. Judging from the birth dates of these twelve tribes, it appears that the divisions between the constellations may be made according to a calendar based on the 7-day week, such that the sun always enters a zodiac constellation on a Sunday. Looking at the current position of the year in the zodiac the following table should suffice for the current decade.

Constellation	Begins Sunday on or after	Length (weeks)	Gem Stone
1. Maiden (Virgo)	12 Sep	7	Aquamarine
2. Scales (Libra)	31 Oct	3	Chrysoberyl
3. Scorpion (Scorpius)	21 Nov	4	Garnet
4. Archer (Sagittarius)	19 Dec	4	Fire Opal
5. Sea Goat (Capricornus)	16 Jan	4	Emerald
6. Water Bearer (Aquarius)	13 Feb	4	Blue Sapphire
7. Fishes (Pisces)	14 Mar	5	Amethyst
8. Ram (Aries)	18 Apr	3	Peridot
9. Bull (Taurus)	9 May	6	Diamond
10. Twins (Gemini)	20 Jun	4	Pink Tourmaline
11. Crab (Cancer)	18 Jul	3	Topaz
12. Lion (Leo)	8 Aug	5	Ruby

Table 6. Proposed Birth Constellations and Gems for current decade.

For example, in 2005 the day 12 Sep falls on a Monday, so the sun would enter Virgo on the following Sunday (18 Sep). On the other hand, 13 Feb falls on a Sunday, so that day would begin Aquarius. This is only a tentative proposal, but it should suffice until a more accurate model can be deduced. The three close birthdays of Benjamin, Issachar and Judah would be explained if the Crab began at that time on the Sunday on or after 26 May.

Conclusion

An identification is proposed of the twelve stones of the ancient Israelite high priest's breastplate with a) modern stone names, b) the colors, c) the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem, d) the associated zodiac constellations and e) the corresponding tribes of Israel. The derivation was based on name meanings, stone colors, traditional zodiac constellation colors and proposed birth dates for the twelve sons of Israel. The resultant order of the twelve tribes is entirely compatible with other Biblical arrangements. Because there is virtually no possibility that the resultant order could be due to random chance, it is concluded that these correlations are correct and that the long-standing puzzle of the origin of our birthstones has been solved.

Notes

1. Pratt, John P., "Twelve Sons, Twelve Constellations," Meridian Magazine (13 Jul 2005).

2. The flags of the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Norway, Iceland, Luxembourg, Croatia, and Russia are red, white and blue (like the United States). The flags of Denmark, Switzerland, Poland, and Monaco are red and white (like Canada).

3. The Lord specified birth order for listing the names of six tribes on each of the two shoulder stones of the high priest (Ex. 28:10), so many scholars assume the same order for the twelve stones.

4. Schumann, Walter, Gemstones of the World (New York: Sterling, 1997), p. 86.

5. Schumann, p. 86

6. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus explicitly states that the order of the names on the breastplate stones was the birth order (Antiquities III.vii.5). But Josephus cannot be trusted in any detailed information. He lists the order of the stones differently in each of his books, and that differs from the order in the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint.

7. Strong, James, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (McClean Virgina: MacDonald), Hebrew word 124. The Hebrew odem also has the same root as the name of "Adam." In earlier articles we have already identified red as the color of Judah, the Lion (Leo) as his constellation. Moreover, Adam was associated with the bright star in the Lion, so all of this is consistent with Adam also referring to red.

8. New American Standard Bible (Carol Stream, Ill.:Creation House, 1973).

9. Strong, word 7718, "to blanch."

10. Pratt, John P., "The Lion and Unicorn Testify of Christ, Part I: The Cornerstone Constellations," Meridian Magazine (8 Nov 2001). Section 2.7 identifies the four colors associated with the four principal tribes: Judah is red, Dan is black, Reuben is blue, and Joseph is white.

11. While peridot today are called chrysolite, there has been a shift in meaning, because it is clearly the yellow-green color implied by the name chrysoprase.

12. Pratt, John P., " The Constellations Tell of Christ," Meridian Magazine (15 Jun 2005), called "The Zodiac Testifies of Christ" on my website.

13. See footnote 10.

14. Allen, Richard H., Star Names, Their Lore and Meaning (New York: Dover, 1963), first published as Star-Names and Their Meanings by G.E. Stechert in 1899, pp. 78, 271. The quote there from Homer is "Th' Eternal Father hung His golden scales aloft."

Taken from: http://www.meridianmagazine.com/sci_rel/050803stones.html

Joseph as Thales: Not an "Hellenic Gotterdamerung" but Israelite Wisdom

Tracing the Judaeo-Israelite Origins of Metaphysics


The impact of the ancient Near East (particularly Israel) upon our western civilization has been enormously underestimated, with practically all the glory - except in religion - going to the Greeks and the Romans.


It is typical for us to read in the context of our western upbringing and education, in favour of Greco-Roman philosophy [10], politics and literature, statements such as:


"Our European civilization rests upon two pillars: Judeo Christian revelation, its religious pillar, and Greco-Roman thought, its philosophical and political pillar" [50].


"The Iliad is the first and the greatest literary achievement of Greek civilization - an epic poem without rival in the literature of the world, and the cornerstone of Western culture" [100].


"Virgil's Aeneid, inspired by Homer and inspiration for Dante and Milton, is an immortal poem at the heart of Western life and culture" [150].


Nor do we, even as followers of Jesus, tend to experience any discomfort in the face of the above claims. After all, Jesus only said "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22); not philosophy, not literature, not politics.


But is not "salvation" also wholly civilizing?


Yes, it most certainly is. And it will be the purpose of this article to show that philosophy and other cultural benefits are also essentially from the Jews [200], and that the Greeks, Romans and others appropriated these Jewish-laid cornerstones of civilization, claiming them as their own, but generally corrupting them. Let us start with philosophy.


Philosophy


The typical textbook introductions to philosophy begin with an explanation of the meaning of the term, "philosophy", and introduce us to the first philosopher. These are all purely Greek based. The word "philosophy" first used by Pythagoras, thought to be an Ionian Greek from Samos, is a Greek word meaning "love of wisdom"; with sophia "wisdom", originally having a broad meaning and referring to the cultivation of learning in general.[250]


And the first philosopher?


Well, he also is said to be Greek [300]: "The first philosopher on record is a man called Thales. Thales lived at the beginning of the sixth century B.C., at Miletus, a Greek colony on the coast of Asia Minor". Unfortunately there is a complete "absence of primary sources" for Thales who "left no written documents" [350]. And this is where the problem lies. The real existence of Thales as an Ionian Greek of the C6th BC is wide open to doubt.


To Thales is attributed a prediction in astronomy that was quite impossible for an Ionian Greek - or anyone else - to have estimated so precisely in the C6th BC. He is said to have predicted a solar eclipse that occurred on 28 May 585 BC during a battle between Cyaxares the Mede and Alyattes of Lydia [400]. This supposed incident has an especial appeal to the modern rationalist mind because it - thought to have been achieved by a Greek, and 'marking the birthday of western science' - was therefore a triumph of the rational over the religious. According to Glouberman, for instance, it was "… a Hellenic Götterdämerung, the demise of an earlier mode of thought" [450]. Oh really? Well, it never actually happened. O. Neugebauer [500], astronomer and orientalist, has completely knocked on the head any idea that Thales could possibly have foretold such an eclipse.


Other, lesser known Greek thinkers, include: (1) Anaximander (ca. 611-547 BC) and apparently known only from the writings of Diodorus (late 1st cent. BC). Anax. is said to have held the view that man derived from aquatic, fish-like mermen,; (2) Empedocles (ca. 490-430) according to Aristotle's writings (??), is said to have believed in the spontaneous generation of life, an idea also held by the Roman Lucretius (96?-55 BC). We see how far back such incredulous ideas reach. That is why the historian Herbert Butterfield said, that the science of the Middle Ages and Renaissance had as its basis the `knowledge' and ideas of the ancient Greeks who were steeped in superstitions. That is also why we discover that, if the Greeks did not mention a particular subject or discuss a specific proble, the Renaissance as a rule did not think about it.
Going back to Thales, we need to reconsider who this Thales really was, presuming that he ever existed at all.


(a) Thales as the Patriarch Joseph (c. C17th BC)


Ironically, the clue to Thales' identity lies in Glouberman's own title "Jacob's Ladder …", and in his contrast of Thales' scientific method with Joseph's supposedly 'magical' one [550]: "… Thales forecast the bumper crop by observing climatic regularities, not by interpreting dreams of lean kine and fat…". Here we have Thales, not in Ionia, but in Egypt, doing, in Egypt, what Joseph is said to have done there, predicting the rise of the Nile - at least that is what would have been necessary in Egypt for the exceptionally good crop that Joseph had predicted (Genesis 41:29).


To one familiar with the ancient Egyptian language, the name Thales immediately calls to mind the Egyptian theophoric (god-name) Ptah. I shall come back to this.

Thales is simply a Greek retrospection back more than a millennium to the patriarch Joseph of Israel, not Ionia.

The tiny little snippets of information that we have about Thales, vague Greek reminiscences of the biblical Joseph, can be matched with episodes in the life of Joseph.

Apart from the incidents pertaining to Egypt (see also below), there is the classical episode of the young Thales, as the archetypal absent-minded professor, falling into a well whilst observing the stars.

This is simply a corrupted account of the young Joseph whose brothers confined him in a well because of his annoying habit of dreaming, astronomically, to their humiliation - in this case dreaming that these brothers were "stars" bowing down in homage to him (Genesis 37:9,10).

The biblical original probably became corrupted firstly by the local Canaanites - examples of this sort of corruption of the Bible are prolific at the site of Ugarit, for example, on the Levantine coast - and were later shipped to the Greeks by the Phoenicians (including sea-faring Israelites), or picked up by Aegean sailors.

One can see how the Greeks distorted Joseph in their character, Thales, though the original Genesis thread can still be picked up: thus,

 

- a young man
- a dreamer
- in a well
- stars, and: forecasting in Egypt
- the Nile
- bumper crops. [5700]

David Rohl's View of the Earliest Civilisations

The ‘Dynastic Race’

By David Rohl

The birth of Egyptian civilisation have always been a bit of a mystery. How did it come about? And who were the first pharaohs? Were they indigenous North Africans or Sumerians coming from the east? That thorny question had been a subject of heated debate amongst academics over the last 100 years … that is until fairly recently when our tendency towards political correctness deemed that such difficult issues should be swept under the scholarly carpet. But the question of pharaonic origins still remains one of the great puzzles of Egyptology.

In a previous article I proposed that the discovery of hundreds of prehistoric rock carvings in the Eastern Desert between the Nile and the Red Sea was evidence of a foreign invasion which occurred just a couple of centuries before the rise of the 1st Dynasty in Egypt. These amazing drawings show fleets of ships carrying warriors, chieftains, 'dancing goddesses' and what appear to be the standards of Sumerian gods. Many of the boats are being dragged by their crews, suggesting transportation of the vessels across the desert from the Red Sea to the Nile. It's time, then, to go in search of these 'people from the east' in the tombs, temples, hieroglyphs and paintings of ancient Egypt.

An hour's drive north of Luxor, on the west bank of the Nile, there is a vast necropolis of 2000 predynastic graves. The place is called Nakada after the nearby village. Nakada turned out to be one of the most important excavation sites in Egypt because of the light it sheds upon the origins of the pharaonic state. Its excavator was the 'father of Egyptian archaeology', Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, the first British professor of Egyptology and founder of University College London's Egyptology Department where I myself studied and obtained my degree.

The cemetery at Nakada turned out to be the necropolis of the town of Nubt ('Gold Town') which grew up as a result of early gold-mining activities in the Wadi Hammamat region, just across the river in the Eastern Desert. 'Gold Town' was the Klondyke of predynastic Egypt.

What Petrie found in this vast cemetery were two groups of people which he designated Nakada I and Nakada II (and III). The people of Nakada I culture were the earliest occupants of the cemetery, whilst Nakada II superseded them and were therefore chronologically later. The burial goods and distinctive structures of the graves made Petrie realise, almost from the start, that he was dealing with two very different groups. The evidence seemed to indicate the arrival of newcomers in the Nile valley marked by the Nakada II graves which were soon shown, on stylistic grounds, to be contemporaneous with the rock art of the 'invaders' found in the Eastern Desert. Based on the evidence of the Nakada II graves, Petrie developed a theory of an incursion of easterners from Sumer who had taken over southern Egypt and subjugated the indigenous Nakada I population. These invaders, with their superior weapons and technology, eventually came to dominate the whole Nile valley and gave rise to what he called the 'Dynastic Race'.

Up until the 1950s Petrie's Dynastic Race theory received widespread support in Egyptological circles. Indeed, one of its proponents even began to refer to the predynastic invaders as a 'Super Race'. Petrie and his followers were very much of their age. They believed in the superiority of western civilisation over what we today call the Third World. They were colonialists with a colonial view of history. The idea of an intellectually superior race, invading Africa and civilising the region, was quite natural from their political perspectives. The Second World War, the Holocaust and the Arab/Israeli wars put an end to this way of thinking within ancient world studies.

In the politically correct world of late-twentieth-century scholarship the Dynastic Race theory has been quietly forgotten. As a result, it is very rare these days to find an Egyptologist prepared to give credence to the idea of foreign invaders at the dawn of Egyptian history. But should we reject the basic evidence because of the political views of past archaeologists? Nobody disputes that Petrie found what he found. So perhaps we should look again at the Dynastic Race theory – but this time without the rhetoric of pre-war colonialism. It is obvious that we cannot rewrite ancient history in the light of events in our own century. It is surely the historian's job to construct a coherent picture of the past based on the archaeological evidence – wherever it leads.

So, what does that evidence tell us about Egypt's origins?

Petrie found several new elements in the Nakada II graves. First, unlike the earlier Nakada I burials, many of the grave pits themselves were lined with mud bricks. This was the first time that bricks had been used in Egypt and archaeologists have determined that mud brick technology was a Sumerian invention.

Second, the pottery shapes and techniques of decoration were also new – again with clear precursors in Mesopotamia.

Third, the Nakada II warriors were buried with a new type of weapon known as the 'pear-shaped mace'. This was in contrast to the Nakada I people who used 'disk-shaped maces'. Interestingly, not only do the Eastern Desert rock-drawings show the chieftains holding the round-headed weapon but it also became the weapon par excellence of the later pharaohs who were regularly depicted smiting their enemies with the pear-shaped mace.

Fourth, lapis lazuli appears amongst the grave goods for the first time in Nakada II. This beautiful dark blue stone comes from Badakhshan in Afghanistan and was traded across land and by sea (via the Persian Gulf) to Sumer where it was greatly prized. Its sudden appearance in Egypt thus confirms contact with the Sumerians of southern Iraq.

Fifth, the complex niched-facade mudbrick architecture which develops out of Nakada III culture is identically paralleled in Sumer where it was used to decorate the temples of the gods. In Egypt it became a standard design feature of the early pharaohs' tombs. The design is so complex that it is hard to believe the niched-facade structure could have been independently invented in the two regions. All authorities accept that such architecture originated in Sumer and was 'exported' to Egypt.

These are just some of the technologies and artefacts which clearly point to contact between Mesopotamian and Egypt. However, this does not prove that there was a military conquest (rather than simple trade) or if the Sumerian settlers in the Nile valley went on to become the first pharaohs. Here there are more tantalising clues.

A magnificent ivory knife handle was discovered near Nakada, at the turn of the century, which shows a Sumerian hero figure controlling two great lions on one side and a battle on the other between long-haired warriors (one of whom carries a pear-shaped mace) and short-haired opponents who are getting the worst of the conflict. The long-haired victors are associated with high-prowed boats, just like the ones found in the desert rock art, whilst the short-haired losers are represented by sickle-shaped boats made of papyrus and associated with the River Nile. The Gebel el-Arak predynastic knife (now in the Louvre) is not only an amazing 5000-year-old artefact but it appears to depict Sumerian invaders with their high-prowed ships in the very act of conquering the Nile valley.

The evidence for Mesopotamians in Egypt is even more compelling at the site of Butu (ancient Pe-Dep) in the western delta. There, German archaeologists have recently unearthed coloured clay cones which, if their counterparts in Sumer are anything to go by, were used to decorate buildings. This decorative cone technique is so striking that it is hard to imagine it being invented independently in Egypt after it had come into use in Mesopotamia.

Did this élite Sumerian clan eventually come to dominate the whole of Egypt and establish the first pharaonic dynasty? An important clue is found in the fact that the later nobility of Egypt called themselves by a special name. They were known as the 'Pat' or the iry-Pat ('belonging to the Pat') – a term which implied membership of a special clan or blood-line. This term was reserved for members of the royal family, courtiers and high officials. Interestingly, a text from the Middle Kingdom (1000 years after the unification of Egypt at the beginning of the 1st Dynasty) refers to a man who reached high office 'in spite of the fact that he was not iry-Pat', suggesting that the ruling class were expected to have been directly descended from an ancestral élite. These great founding ancestors were also known by another title. The later hieroglyphic texts refer to the 'Followers of Horus' who first established kingship in the Nile valley. They are shown in predynastic and early dynastic carvings carrying their standards into battle in support of kings who bore the title of 'Horus' as part of their names. So, was the first Horus-king a real person who later became deified. Could there have been an original human Horus and, if so, was he African or Mesopotamian?

To answer these questions we need to return to the stories in the book of Genesis and Holy Koran. In my book Legend – The Genesis of Civilisation I identified the location of the traditional site of the Garden of Eden in western Iran, the mountain of Noah's Ark in Kurdestan, and the Tower of Babel in southern Iraq. I argued that the Old Testament legends surrounding Noah and the Flood and then King Nimrod were also to be found in the Sumerian literary tradition. It appears that the Genesis narrative may have been based on actual historical events from primeval times.

Following the abandonment of the Tower of Babel, the biblical story tells of a great migration of the 'sons' of Noah. His eldest, Ham, was the father of Cush who journeyed to north-east Africa in order to establish a kingdom in the lands of Ethiopia and Sudan. The Egyptians knew this area as the 'land of Kush' – after Noah's grandson. Cush had a younger brother called Mizraim and he was the traditional founder of the Egyptian civilisation. The '-im' ending of this name is a West Semitic pluralisation. Thus the original name of Noah's second 'grandson' was Mizra. It is therefore interesting to note that the Assyrians referred to Egypt as Musri whilst a modern Egyptian calls himself a Masri ('one of Masr'). The biblical tradition of an eponymous ancestor of the pharaonic state called Mizra/Musri/Masr thus has extra-biblical confirmation.

I think we can make one further important connection between the Genesis/Koran text, Sumerian tradition and pharaonic royal mythology. The Egyptians believed that their first king was called Horus. Now this name means 'the distant one' suggesting someone who came from afar. It is surely more than an extraordinary coincidence, then, that the Mesopotamian flood heroes, Ziusudra (Sumerian), Atrahasis (Akkadian) and Utnapishtim (Babylonian), all bear the same epithet 'the distant one'? Could it be that the legendary Horus of Egypt was none other than the biblical flood hero and that his descendants, through Ham and Mizraim, settled in Egypt as the Followers of Horus (i.e. 'the ones descended from Horus, 'the distant one')?

Given this extraordinary possibility, perhaps we should investigate how some of the other primeval gods of Egypt might fit into the picture.

It was well known in the ancient world that the Egyptian goddess of love and fertility, Isis (written Iset), was the equivalent of Mesopotamian Ishtar and Canaanite Astarte (biblical Ashtaroth). She is regularly depicted at the head of Pharaoh's sarcophagus, arms raised in the act of prayer. This striking image is identical to the 'dancing goddess' figure found in the Eastern Desert rock drawings and on the Nakada II pottery. So, could this predynastic goddess, associated with the invaders, be the earliest form of Isis/Ishtar? The answer perhaps lies with her husband, Osiris.

The names Isis and Osiris are Greek forms of Egyptian Iset and Asar. The latter is written with the hieroglyphs of a throne and an eye. Amazingly, a Sumerian god local to Eridu (where I have placed the Tower of Babel) is also called Asar and his name is written in Sumerian with the symbol for a throne. It appears that the Egyptian god of vegetation and rebirth may originally have come from southern Iraq, having been introduced to the Nile valley (along with his consort) by Sumerian worshippers.

The tombs in the Valley of the Kings are decorated with scenes from the Amduat ('That which is in the Underworld'). The dead king's spirit is seen being transported from his tomb in the western necropolis across the great underworld ocean of the abyss towards the eastern horizon. His craft is a high-prowed boat just like the ships found in the predynastic rock art. The dead pharaoh is accompanied by the primeval gods, with Re-Atum as his protector. Together, they journey through seven gates before reaching the shore of the underworld desert where the crew is depicted dragging the boat of Re-Atum towards the dawn horizon. There the spirit of the king is reborn as the rising sun over the Isle of Flame. This place is otherwise known as the primeval mound of creation surrounded by the Waters of Nun. It was here that the original primeval temple was constructed by the gods. The island is described as a sandy circular mound surrounded by reeds growing in a freshwater marsh. The temple shrine lies at the centre of the island on a low mound. All later Egyptian temples are architecturally designed to recreate this setting. To enter the temple you pass between two great artificial desert mountains (the pylon gateway) and cross an expansive desert (the open-air perystyle court. You then enter the reed marsh of the Waters of Nun (the hypostyle hall with its giant reed and papyrus columns) surrounding the Island of Nun, before reaching the sacred shrine (the holy of holies) representing the primeval Temple of Nun. All this time you have been gradually ascending as the floor of the temple rises up, step by step. This represents the mound of creation on which the primeval shrine rests.

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Taken from: http://www.davidrohl.com/dynastic_race_11.html