Getae aristocrat portrait, Peretu scepter 5-4 century BC

http://www.agentia.org/anchete/goana-dupa-aurul-sarmisegetuzei-178.html

GETO_DACIAN NAME

The Getian (tribe) were known as Geton (plural Getae) in Greek writings, and as Dacus (plural Daci) and also Getae in Roman documents; also as Dagae and Gaete—see the late Roman map Tabula Peutingeriana. Strabo states that the original name of the Dacians was "daoi", which could be explained with a possible Phrygian cognate "daos", meaning "wolf". This assumption may be supported by the fact that one of the Dacian standards, the Dacian Draco, had a wolf's head. Phrygii was another cognate used within the region, and in later times, some Roman auxiliaries recruited from the area were referred to as Phrygi. Their capital was Sarmizegetusa, in the Sureanu mountains, in the Romanian Western Carpathians.( From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

A tradition preserved by Hesychius informs us that daos was the Phrygian word for "wolf.' P. Kretschmer had explained daos by the root *dhäu, "to press, to squeeze, to strangle."' Among the words derived from this root we may note the Lydian Kandaules, the name of the Thracian war god, Kandaon, the Illyrian dhaunos (wolf), the god Daunus, and so on.

The city of Daous-dava, in Lower Moesia, between the Danube and Mount Haemus, literally meant "village of wolves. Formerly, then, the Dacians called themselves "wolves" or "those who are like wolves," who resemble wolves. Still according to Strabo, certain nomadic Scythians to the east of the Caspian Sea were also called daoi. The Latin authors called them Daliae, and some Greek historians daai. In all probability their ethnic name was derived from Iranian (Saka) dahae, "wolf." But similar names were not unusual among the Indo-Europeans.

South of the Caspian Sea lay Hyrcania, that is, in Eastern Iranian "Vehrkana," in Western Iranian "Varkana," literally the "country of wolves" (from the Iranian root vehrka, "wolf').

http://www.losttrails.com/pages/Hproject/ThracoGetae/ThracoGetae01-01.html

http://www3.sympatico.ca/gonciar/Dacian_Excavation.html

  Contents:

Getae Elites between Carpathians and Balkans.The History of the European Getai.

Palazzo Strozzi, Italy, Daco-Getian Exhibit 

The Dacian Stones Speak, by Paul Lachlan MacKendric 

European and Asian Getae, Quen Tomyris of the Massagetae, Death of Cyrus the Great

Stories of the East from Herodothus 

The Getes by Sundeep S. Jhutti; Da (Greater) Yuezhi; Great Getes

Hercynian Forest Stretched along the Danube to Dacia

Getic Empire Borders in Europe

Strabon about the Getai

Arkaim, cea mai misterioasa cetate ridicata de geti 

Scitii, Parti si Astracizii erau Geto-Daci?

 Gaetuli from Africa

The Dacian Stones Speak, by Paul Lachlan MacKendrick

  
    The author of The Dacian Stones Speak spent a good deal of time in Romania, talked to all leading experts in Geto-Dacian history and culture and on top of that did his own research. Speaking strictly about the info one should drawn from the stones and ancient artifacts, the book is well documented and easy to follow.

Read it online at: http://books.google.com/books?id=Lwt5Li_q2asC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_book_other_versions_r&cad=6

http://www.s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/27_Scythians/Massagetan%20Warrior%20En.htm

The Persian Empire map of 500BC with location of Massagetae and Dahae

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/mladjov/files/persia500nbc.jpg

  Asia 323bc at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Asia_323bc.jpg

 Tyragetae

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyragetae

 The Tyrageti, Tyragetae, or Tyrangitae (Greek: Τυραγγεῖται, τυραγγέται, or Τυρεγέται, Strabo vii.; Ptol. iii. 5. § 25), literally, the Getae of the Tyras, were a sub-tribe of the Getae Thracians, situated on the river Tyras (modern day Dniester in Moldova and Ukraine). They were regarded as an immigrant tribe of European Sarmatia dwelling E. of the river Tyras, near the Harpii and Tagri, and, according to Ptolemy, the northern neighbours of Lower Moesia. Pliny (v. 12. s. 26) calls them, with more correct orthography, Tyragetae, and represents them as dwelling on a large island in the Tyras.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Transnistria.

In ancient times, the area was inhabited by Thracian and Scythian tribes. Pliny the Elder names the Tyragetae, a Getae tribe living on an island of the Dniester (ancient name "Tyras"), the Axiacae living along the Tiligul River^[1] (ancient "Axiaces") and the Crobyzi, a Thracian tribe living beyond the Dniester.

At the mouth of the river, the Ancient Greeks of Miletus founded around 600 BC a colony named Tyras. It fell under the dominion of native kings whose names appear on its coins, and it was destroyed by the Dacians about 50 BC. In AD 56 it had been restored by the Romans and henceforth formed part of the province of Lower Moesia, which also included Dobruja (part of Romania) and northeastern

Bulgaria.

 Thyssagetae

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyssagetae

 Thyssagetae were an ancient tribe described by Herodotus^[1] as occupying a district to the north-east of Scythia (present-day Russia) separated from the Budini by a desert seven days journey broad, perhaps the Voguls. From their land four rivers flowed into the Maeotis, but as one of them, the Oarus, is almost certainly the Volga, there must be some mistake about this. They seem to have held the southern end of the Urals about TJfa and Orenburg.

 References 

1. ^ Herodotus. Histories, 4.22. "...after the desert, if one inclines somewhat to the east, the Thyssagetae are reached, a numerous nation quite distinct from any other, and living by the chase."

 Sources

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
•   http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/THE_TOO/THYSSAGETAE.html   

  Massagetae

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massagetae

 The Massageteans^[1] (Greek: Massagetai; Latin: Massagetae) or Massagetaeans^[2] were an Iranian people^[3][4][5][6] of antiquity known primarily from the writings of Herodotus. Their name was probably akin to Getae and Thyssagetae.....

They were similar to the Scythians in their dress and mode of living. Each man had one woman, yet their wives were held in common, this custom differentiating the Massagetae from the Scythians. Queen Tomyris succeeded her dead husband, the former king of the Massagetae. The Massagetae worshipped only one god, the sun, and sacrificed a horse in its honour....

Customs

According to Herodotus:

History

A number of different versions have been transmitted concerning the death of Cyrus the Great. One version reported:

According to Herodotus, Cyrus the Great of Persia met his death in a battle with the Massagetae living beyond the Araxes river. They were a people from the southern deserts of Khwarezm in today's Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

The queen of the Massagetae, Tomyris, prevailed, although Cyrus had defeated Tomyris's son Spargapises. Herodotus mentions: Of all the combats in which the barbarians have engaged among themselves, I reckon this to have been the fiercest.

Note on the geography of Herodotus

The name Araxes probably means "rapid stream"^[7]. In the context of the Massagetae "Araxes" refers to Jaxartes.

Continuity

Ammianus Marcellinus considered the Alans to be the former Massagetae.^[8] At the close of the 4th century CE, Claudian (the court poet of Emperor Honorius and Stilicho) wrote of Alans and Massagetae in the same breath: "the Massagetes who cruelly wound their horses that they may drink their blood, the Alans who break the ice and drink the waters of Maeotis' lake" (In Rufinem).

Others contact them with the Huns:

Procopius' writes in History of the Wars Book III: The Vandalic War^[9]: "the Massagetae whom they now call Huns" (XI. 37.), "there was a certain man among the Massagetae, well gifted with courage and strength of body, the leader of a few men; this man had the privilege handed down from his fathers and ancestors to be the first in all the Hunnic armies to attack the enemy" (XVIII. 54.).

Evagrius Scholasticus (Ecclesiastical History. Book 3. Ch. II.): "and in Thrace, by the inroads of the Huns, formerly known by the name of Massagetae, who crossed the Ister without opposition"^[10].

See also

• Mount Imeon 

References 

1. ^ Christian, David (1998). A History of Russia, Central Asia, and Mongolia. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-20814-3. 
2. ^ Engels, Donald W. (1978). Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army. California: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-04272-7. 
3. ^ Karasulas, Antony. Mounted Archers Of The Steppe 600 BC-AD 1300 (Elite). Osprey Publishing, 2004, ISBN 184176809, p. 7.
4. ^ Wilcox, Peter. Rome's Enemies: Parthians and Sassanids. Osprey Publishing, 1986, ISBN 0850456886, p. 9.
5. ^ Gershevitch, Ilya. The Cambridge History of Iran (Volume II). Cambridge University Press, 1985, ISBN 0521200911, p. 48.
6. ^ Grousset, René. The Empire of the Steppes. Rutgers University Press, 1989, ISBN 0813513049, p. 547.
7. ^ Wheeler James T., The Geography of Herodotus ...: Illustrated from Modern Researches and Discoveries. London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1854, LCCN 05006215 p.192.
8. ^ Ammianus Marcellinus: "iuxtaque Massagetae Halani et Sargetae"; "per Albanos et Massagetas, quos Alanos nunc appellamus"; "Halanos pervenit, veteres Massagetas".
9. ^ Procopius: History of the Wars. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_the_Wars/Book_III
10. ^ Ecclesiastical History. Book 3. http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/evagrius_3_book3.htm

External links

• Herodotus Histories
• Ammianus Marcellinus

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massagetae" See also: www.livius.org/da-dd/dahae/dahae.html

 Oxus River

The 'Amu Darya' - ''Amudarya'' ( - ''Omudaryo'' or ''daryoi Omu''; - ''Âmudaryâ''; , with ''darya'' (Pahlavi) meaning sea or a very large river), is the longest river in Central Asia.
Amu is said to have come from the city of Āmul, now known as Türkmenabat. It is formed by the junction of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers. Many local people refer to the river as ''Jayhoun'' (جيحون) which was thought to be a derivative of ''Gihon'', the biblical name for one of the four rivers of the Garden of Eden or paradise. ^[1] The river is also known by this name to most of the medieval Islamic writers.
The river is navigable for over 1450 km (800 miles). Its total length is 2400 km (1500 miles) and its drainage basin totals 534.739 km² in area, providing a mean discharge of around 55 cubic kilometres of water per year, all of which comes from the high mountains in the south where annual precipitation can be over 1000 mm. Even before large-scale irrigation began, high summer evaporation meant that not all of this discharge reached the Aral Sea - though there is some evidence the large Pamir glaciers provided enough meltwater for the Aral to overflow during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries A.D.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxus_River

In classical antiquity, the river was known as the 'Oxus' in Greek--a clear derivative of Vakhsh—the name of the largest tributary of the Amu. It was known as 'Jayhun' or 'Gihun' in ancient Arabic sources. 'Jayhun' was likely influenced by 'Dgihun', the traditional name given to it by the people who inhabited its surrounding region.^[2]
In Vayu Purana and Matsya Purana, the Oxus is mentioned as the river Chakshu, flowing through the countries of Tusharas (Rishikas?), Lampakas, Pahlavas, Paradas and Shakas etc.

[Sidenote: Cyrus the Great B.C. 559-529]

[Sidenote: QUEEN TOMYRIS AND CYRUS B.C. 529]

X Then Cyrus, king of the Persians, after a long     61
interval of almost exactly six hundred and thirty years
(as Pompeius Trogus relates), waged an unsuccessful
war against Tomyris, Queen of the Getae. Elated by his
victories in Asia, he strove to conquer the Getae, whose
queen, as I have said, was Tomyris. Though she could
have stopped the approach of Cyrus at the river Araxes,
yet she permitted him to cross, preferring to overcome
him in battle rather than to thwart him by advantage of     62
position. And so she did. As Cyrus approached, fortune
at first so favored the Parthians that they slew the son
of Tomyris and most of the army. But when the battle
was renewed, the Getae and their queen defeated, conquered
and overwhelmed the Parthians and took rich
plunder from them. There for the first time the race of
the Goths saw silken tents. After achieving this victory
and winning so much booty from her enemies, Queen
Tomyris crossed over into that part of Moesia which is
now called Lesser Scythia--a name borrowed from great
Scythia,--and built on the Moesian shore of Pontus the
city of Tomi, named after herself.

[Sidenote: DARIUS B.C. 521-485]

[Sidenote: DARIUS REPELLED]

Afterwards Darius, king of the Persians, the son of     63
Hystaspes, demanded in marriage the daughter of Antyrus,
king of the Goths, asking for her hand and at the
same time making threats in case they did not fulfil his
wish. The Goths spurned this alliance and brought his
embassy to naught. Inflamed with anger because his
offer had been rejected, he led an army of seven hundred
thousand armed men against them and sought to avenge
his wounded feelings by inflicting a public injury. Crossing
on boats covered with boards and joined like a bridge
almost the whole way from Chalcedon to Byzantium, he
started for Thrace and Moesia. Later he built a bridge
over the Danube in like manner, but he was wearied by
two brief months of effort and lost eight thousand armed
men among the Tapae. Then, fearing the bridge over the
Danube would be seized by his foes, he marched back to
Thrace in swift retreat, believing the land of Moesia
would not be safe for even a short sojourn there.

[Sidenote: Xerxes B.C. 485-465]

After his death, his son Xerxes planned to avenge his     64
father's wrongs and so proceeded to undertake a war
against the Goths with seven hundred thousand of his
own men and three hundred thousand armed auxiliaries,
twelve hundred ships of war and three thousand transports.
But he did not venture to try them in battle, being
overawed by their unyielding animosity. So he returned
with his force just as he had come, and without righting
a single battle.

Sino-Platonic Papers, 127 (October 2003)

The Getes by Sundeep S. Jhutti

Introduction

Iranian-speaking nomads have caught the attention of many societies, from early Greco-Roman, Persian, Indian, and Chinese writers to modern scholars intrigued by their unique, somewhat romantic lifestyle as horse-mounted warriors constantly searching for greener pastures, military challenges, and riches. Spread throughout the vast Central Asian steppes, they were known to the Greeks, the Persians, the Indians, and the Chinese. In most early writings, be they Chinese, Persian, etc., these nomads were generally shown in negative light -- partly due to their uncouth ways, partly to their robbing and looting, but mostly due to fear and misunderstanding. As the nomads were typically the enemies of these settled societies, the negative view of them was augmented. It is, therefore, not rare to read in Indian scriptures about the Sakas, Kushans (Da Yuezhi), and even the Hunas (White Huns or Ephthalites) being considered as Mlecchas (foreigners, outcastes), Asuras (demons), etc. (Dhillon 1994, 15). Similar perspectives are alluded to in Persian or Chinese texts. Such is the fate of all unlettered societies whose history is told by outsiders. As such, they are frequently victims of bias.

Of these Iranian-speaking nomads, the best known were the Scythians, due to their contact with the west, particularly Greece. According to the Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary the Scythians were, "a member of a nomadic Indo-European people who settled in Scythia before the seventh century b.c. and were displaced by the Sarmatians. They were specially noted in warfare for their mounted archers and in art for their rich gold ornaments. They spoke an Iranian language" (W.E.D. 1988, 900). Since these nomads had no written language their history was been gathered by settled societies, who as aforementioned often times were enemies. Therefore, the accounts we have on them were not only scanty, but also tended to be very negative as settled societies viewed their own civilizations as superior.

Fortunately for our understanding of these Iranian nomads, Herodotus, the father of history, was intrigued, even compelled, by the ways of the "barbarians," so that he dedicated a great portion of his Histories solely to the Scythians during the days when the Persian and Egyptian empires were thriving.

Beyond his mythical suggestions of the origin of the Scyths and similar nomads, he was keen in noting another important and more eastern Iranian tribe called the Massagetae, whom he considered to be like the Scythians (Rawlinson 1928, 79). Herodotus writes about the Massagetae:

Now the Massagetae are said to be a great and warlike nation.... By many they are regarded as a Scythian race.... In their dress and mode of living the Massagetae resemble the Scythians [Rawlinson 1928, 75, 79].

Although they had very similar customs and shared a common language, this does not necessarily advocate that they were one entity.

The Massagetae of Herodotus were designated by the comprehensive name "Sakas" by the Persians, and it is believed by some scholars that the Saka Tigrakhauda or Peaked-capped Sakas were the Massagetae of Herodotus. In an article in Nomads of the Eurasian Steppes in the Early Iron Age, Leonid T. Yablonsky writes, "Some scholars are inclined to identify the Saka-Tigrakhauda of the ancient Persian inscriptions with the Massagetae of Herodotus and to place them east of the Caspian Sea" (Yablonsky 1995, 250).

In addition, geographer Strabo applies the comprehensive name Scythian to the Sakas, Dahae, and Massagetae. He states:

Now the greater part of the Scythians, beginning at the Caspian Sea, are called Daae, but those who are situated more to the east are called Massagetae and Sacae, whereas all the rest are given the general name of Scythians, though each people is given a separate name. They are all for the most part nomads [Jones 1928, 5: 261].

Thus, the term "Scythian" was used by later writers sometimes to specify the Scythians proper, but also comprehensively, to address the Sakas, Massagetae, Dahae, and so on. This is especially evident in the works of the Alexandrian age writers who repeatedly called these nomads at "various times, 'Scythian,' 'Massagetae,' or 'Dakhs'" (Yablonsky 1995, 251). Interestingly, Alexander Cunningham, the former Director-General of the Archeological Survey of India, believed that the Dahae of the Greeks and the Dahyu of the Persians were the same word as the colloquial term daku used in India (Indo-English "dacoit"), which literally means "a robber or enemy" (Cunningham 1888, 32). The Scythians could have been perceived as dacoits by these sedentary societies, and these terms could have been those of reproach (Cunningham 1888, 32). The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica also holds this view,

The predatory tribes of Turan [Turkistan] (e.g., Massagetae) seem to have belonged to the same stock [Iranian]. These tribes are distinguished by the Iranian peasants as Daha (Gr. Daai), "enemies," "robbers"; by the Persians as Sacae; and by the Greeks generally as Scythians [E.B. 1911, 21: 202].

As mentioned previously, the Massagetae were likely a sub-tribe of the Sakas, or more specifically the Saka-Tigrakhauda. The Sakas, in particular, made their way to the Indian subcontinent. In his Guide to Taxila, Marshall, the former Director-General of Archaeology of India, says the following about the Sakian invaders of India:

Known to the western world under the comprehensive name of Scythians, to the Indians as Sakas, and to the Chinese as Sai or Sai-wang, these invaders came principally from the three great tribes of Massagetae, Sacaraucae, and Dahae, whose home at the beginning of the second century b.c. was in the country between the Caspian Sea and Jaxartes river [Marshall 1960, 24].

In addition to the tribes mentioned by Marshall, there were many other lesser-known nomadic tribes not mentioned, for example, the Thyssagetae, Tyrigetae, etc., who probably were like the Sakas. Marshall, therefore, believes that the Scythian term was an all-inclusive name applied to all Iranian-speaking Central Asian nomads. Cunningham, on the other hand, referring to the Scythian invaders of India, included the non-Iranian-speaking Ephthalites or White Huns. He states:

The different races of Scythians, which have successively appeared on the border provinces of Persia and India, are the following ... Sakas or Sacae, the Su or Sai of the Chinese...Kushans, or Tochari, the Great Yue-chi of the Chinese ... Kidaritae, or Later Kushans, the Little Yue-chi of the Chinese ... Ephthalites, or White Huns, the Ye-tha-i-lito of the Chinese [Cunningham 1888, 27].

Tod also classifies the White Huns as a "Scythian" people (Tod 1829, 131). Consequently, the comprehensiveness of the term "Scythian" was caused no doubt by the lack of consistency in the use of the term by the classical writers. Some have argued that the term was used almost exclusively from geographical perspective by the classical writers to denote invaders from Central Asia (Kephart 1960, 531). Yet another view is that the classical writers were not effectively able to tell the particular tribes apart, as aforementioned, given that the Alexandrian writers used different terminology for the same people (Yablonsky 1995, 251).

Now it is difficult to believe the Scythians were ever really one ethnic entity, since they were so greatly separated along the vast Central Asian steppes. This is further attested by the non-homogeneous ethnicity even amongst particular tribes themselves (Yablonsky 1995, 241-52). What seems more reasonable is that they were groups of many independent nations with a similar language and culture. Therefore, the comprehensive name "Scythian" probably signifies a people who shared a common culture, language, and extended geographical area. Names of tribe such as Massagetae, on the other hand, were more geographically specific, referring to in this case, a tribe east of the Caspian Sea with somewhat unique customs.

Leaving tribal origins aside, the history of these Scythian tribes is impressive. They were known by the Greco-Romans to the west, by the Chinese to the east, and by the Indians and Persians to the south. One of the most interesting aspects of these tribes was their mobility as mounted nomads who left little of Eurasia unexplored. In his In Search of the Indo-Europeans, referring to a map of Eurasia, Mallory says:

Reading from west to east we can include as Iranian speakers the major Iron Age nomads of the Pontic-Caspian steppe such as the Kimmerians (?), Scythians, Sarmatians and Alans. The incredible mobility of these horse-mounted nomads becomes all the more impressive when we recall their westward expansions through Europe. Sarmatian tribes not only settled in the Danube region, but during the second century AD, were conscripted to defend the borders of Roman Britain. The Alans traveled as far as France and forced their way south through Spain, ultimately to establish a state in North Africa [Mallory 1989, 48-49].

Did the Scythians leave any place in Eurasia untouched? It cannot be overemphasized that the mobility of the Scythian tribes was often the result of their being driven on by other tribes, even kindred tribes, so that an event on one side of the steppes would cause a chain reaction of events reaching the other.

This was the case with the Hsuing-Nu (Huns), a nomadic Mongol people, who uprooted the nomadic Yuezhi near the Great Wall of China before the Christian era. The Chinese Emperor Zheng (Shi Huangdi, 246-210 b.c.) linked together the existing frontier walls into a continuous defense system, thereby creating the Great Wall of China (Haywood 2000, 26). As a result the restless Hsuing Nu tribe attacked their neighbors the Caucasian Wusun and Yuezhi, which led to a wholesale movement of these nomads (Dhillon 1994, 41). Not only were the fleeing Yuezhi uprooted, but so also were a perhaps kindred people, the Sakas, near the Aral Sea (Dhillon 1994, 41). Eventually this chain of events led to these nations appearing on the Indo-Iranian borderlands and settling in these regions (Dhillon 1994, 41). This same movement of tribes was the driving force that finally led the Alans to enter Roman territory (Dhillon 1994, Preface). Haywood provides a good summary of this large-scale movement:

The rise of the Xiongnu [Huns] had a destabilizing effect on the Iranian nomads to the west. In 170 the Xiongnu inflicted a crushing defeat on the Yue Qi [Yuezhi], who fled westward, unsettling the Sakas, before overrunning the Bactrian kingdom around 135. The Sakas headed south, first to invade the Parthian empire and, around 141, northern India, and were able to occupy much of the northwest without facing much serious opposition. On the western steppes, the Sarmatians defeated and absorbed the Scythians in the 2nd century and by 150 three distinct groups appeared: the Iazygians, the Roxolani, and the Alans [Haywood 2000, 28].

It does not seem mere coincidence that the timeline for the "barbarian" invasions of Rome corresponds very closely to that of the similar invasions of northwest India and northeastern Iran, or that Huns were associated with these assaults. For example, the Alans reached Gaul in a.d. 408 (Dhillon 1994, 91), and the Ephthalites conquered Transoxiana and Bactria around 440 and reached India around 455-460 (Grousset 1970, 67-68).

McGovern provides a bird's-eye view of the movement of these tribes:

The Sakas, like their neighbors, the Alani, were destined to play an important part in later history. But whereas the Alani spread westward into Europe, the Sakas chose the lands south of them for the seat of their later actions; and at one time they were lords of much of Eastern Iran and Northern India [McGovern 1939, 40].

And yet this does not appear to be the first such movement of Central Asian tribes. Earlier it was mentioned that the Scythians may have had similar customs and language, but it is doubtful that they were ever one ethnic entity. This statement, however, could be partially untrue. The dominance by one group in particular, the Massagetae, who in post-Alexandrian times were classified as Sarmatians, may have led to some homogeneity across most of the steppes. McGovern wrote, "The decay and eventual downfall of the Scythians was due almost entirely to invasion by their distant kinsmen, the Sarmatians" (McGovern 1939, 38). The Sarmatians were "a member of the nomadic Indo-European people who displaced the Scythians on the lower Don. First the enemies and then the allies of Rome, they were displaced by the Goths in the third century a.d." (W.E.D.1988, 887).

So the Scythians were gradually displaced and absorbed by their distant kinsmen, the Sarmatians. McGovern goes further, to list the Massagetae, Dahae, Alans, and Sacae as Sarmatian tribes (McGovern 1939, 462-64). The term "Sarmatian" gradually began to replace "Scythian" in classical accounts; this was also a Central Asian Iranian-speaking tribe (Littleton and Malcor 2000, 16). Littleton and Malcor call them "Eastern Scythians" (Littleton and Malcor 2000, 16). And for good reason, as the Sarmatians were not much different from Scythians -- they spoke an Iranian language and wore trousers, soft leather boots, and round or peaked caps, although some also went bare-headed (Sulimirski 1970).

Regarding the Sarmatians, Jeannine Davis-Kimball wrote a rather interesting paragraph in her popular book Warrior Women:

Around 400 b.c., the Sauromatians began to be displaced by people known to the ancients as Simatians or Sarmatians. No one is certain of the origins of these people; although they were also Caucasoids and spoke an Indo-Iranian language, their skeletons revealed a variety of ethnic types, with some being tall and large boned ... while others were shorter and delicate in stature. My theory, based on a number of notable comparisons between funeral offerings, is that some of these people might have been younger generations of Saka who were forced from their territories near the Tien Shan Mountains or the southern Aral Sea by the need for additional summer pasturelands. Around the third century a.d., they began migrating westward and eventually these expert horsemen equipped with sophisticated weapons and armor constituted a real threat to the Roman legions guarding the Danube frontier. The enterprising legionnaires, however, defused the situation by recruiting some of the Sarmatians to join their army. In a.d. 175, more than five thousand of the steppe tribesmen (most likely along with their families) were dispatched to the northern English border to guard Hadrian's Wall, which helped repel incursions into Roman Britain by the Picts and the Celtic Scots. Twenty years later, the Sarmatian regiment was redeployed to Gaul (the ancient designation for France and Belgium) to quell a rebellion. Later they were returned to Britain, and as they grew old, the battle-weary Sarmatians retired to a veteran's home in Lancashire. (It seems as if they had taken to the British climate, proving that almost anything is better than the weather of the steppes.) The Sarmatian presence in Gaul and Roman Britain never ceases to fascinate me -- I always wonder how many unsuspecting modern-day Frenchmen and Britons, as well as Americans of those extractions, possess the genes of the ancient steppe warriors [Davis-Kimball 2002, 32].

So what was the driving force behind the expansion of the Sarmatian tribes who gradually absorbed their kindred Scythian tribesmen? In his book The Sarmatians, T. Sulimirski offers an opinion:

The destruction by Alexander the Great of the Achaemenid (Persian) monarchy and his subsequent conquest of Bactria and Sogdiana in 330-328 BC also influenced the history and development of all the peoples of Central Asia. Neither the Chorasmians nor the Massagetae were subjugated by Alexander, but as a result of having to fight against the highly trained and organized Macedonian army, they developed new military tactics using armoured cavalry, the 'cataphracti'. Some authors think that the Massagetae owed their conquests solely to the use of this armoured cavalry against weaker adversaries [Sulimirski 1970, 81].

Sulimirski continues, "In the fourth and third centuries BC, the Massagetae subdued nearly all the nomad tribes of Central Asian north of the Macedonian frontier, eastward to the Tien-Shan Mountains, and possibly many tribes of the Kazakhstan steppes; this led to a tremendous extension of their culture which to a great extent derived from that of Achaemenid Iran" (Sulimirski 1970, 81). Therefore, the battles against Alexander in Bactria and Sogdiana led to a great improvement in Massagetan military technology, who were already essentially a cavalry nation. Moreover, this mechanism led to the expansion of their culture east to China, west to the German frontier, and perhaps even southward to India. So did the Massagetae provide at least some continuity between the vast steppes, before this nation was scattered by the Huns? Are there more precise ways to examine their legacy?

This leads us to the thesis of this article. In a rather bold paragraph in their recent book on The Tarim Mummies, James P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair suggest that there may have been more cohesion among these nomads than was previously believed. They wrote in the following paragraph regarding the Yuezhi nomads near the border of China:

Da (Greater) Yuezhi or in the earlier pronunciation d'ad-ngiwat-tieg, has been seen to equate with the Massagetae who occupied the oases and steppelands of West Central Asia in the time of Herodotus; here Massa renders an Iranian word for "Great," hence "Great Getae." ... Others have seen in this word an attempt to capture in Chinese the name of a tribe that is rendered in Greek as the Iatioi who are recorded in Ptolemy's geography. The original pronunciation has been reconstructed as gwat-ti or got-ti or gut-si, which opens up distant lexical similarities with the Goths (the German tribes of northern and eastern Europe), the Getae (the Dacian, i.e., Balkan, tribes northwest of the Black Sea), the Guti (a people on the borderlands of Mesopotamia), the Kusha (our Kushans), the Gushi (a people mentioned in Han texts and regarded as brigands along with the peoples of Kroran), or a combination of some but not all of the above (Mallory and Mair 2000, 98-99).

This comparison of like-sounding tribal names, although merely a paragraph in length, could potentially generate volumes of discussion and can help us understand more definitively the nature of the barbarian invasions in ancient Rome, the powerful Kushan Empire in India, the possible origins of the Guti people, the Guti kings of Mesopotamia, and the similarity between the Goths, Getae, and the Yuezhi. Moreover, this opens up the possibility that at least some of the people termed "Scythians" were a single tribe -- the Getae. So could there have been a nation of nomads who knew themselves as Gets, Gats, Guts, or Yuts?

This is not the first time that the suggestion has been offered that the Yuezhi could be related to Goths. In his Tableaux Historiques De L'Asia, Julius Von Klaproth (1783-1835) wrote:

Le nom des Yue ti ou Yut rappelled celui des Yuts ou Goths, qui sont venus en Europe: il serait tres possible que les Yutes, arrives en Scandinavie avec Odin, aient ete le meme peuple qui, trois siecles avant notre ere, habitair encore ... noor et a l'ouest de la province chinoise de Kan sou. Ceci supposerait l'emigration des Goths de l'Asie centrale posterieure a celle des autres peoples germaniques (Klaproth 1826, 289).

A rough translation:

The name of Yueti or Yut recalls that of Yuts or Goths, which came to Europe: it would be very possible that the Yutes who arrived in Scandinavia with Odin, are the same people who three centuries before our era, still inhabited the area ... northwest of the Chinese Kansu province. This would suppose the emigration of the Goths of Central Asia after that of the other Germanic peoples.

This identification between the Yuezhi and the Goths by Klaproth suggests that the tribes involved in the movement of nomads into Roman territory may have been greater than modern scholarship holds. Could it be that the Goths, along with the Alans, were pushed into Europe under pressure from the Huns? Moreover, could these same tribes be found in the Indian and Persian frontiers? The South Asian Jats are one such group that may lead us in the proper direction, as their settlement corresponds geographically with the Indo-Scythian settlement on the Indian subcontinent. Perhaps by examining the customs and characteristics of this living population we can better understand the role the Getae played in history.

 http://www.sino-platonic.org/abstracts/spp127_getes.html

Stories of the East From Herodotus, by Alfred J. Church

King Darius Maketh War Upon the Scythians

King Darius, being lord of all Asia, wherein were great multitudes of men and much wealth, purposed to make war against the Scythians, desiring also to punish them for their wrong-doing in time past. Now their wrong-doing had been this. They had invaded Asia in the days of the Medes, and had ruled it for twenty and eight years, and when the years were ended had gone back to their own land. About which going back there is this to be told. When they were come to the border of the land, they found an army drawn out in battle array against them; and this army was of their own slaves. But when they had fought with the slaves many times and could not prevail, one of them said to his fellows, "Men of Scythia, we do ill, fighting against these slaves. Come, let us cast aside our spears and take each one of us his whip. For so long as they see us with arms in our hands they count themselves to be our equals, but when they shall see the whips they will remember that we are their masters." Thus the Scythians did, and it was so with the slaves, that when they saw the whips they fled.

King Darius therefore prepared to make war against the Scythians, requiring soldiers from some nations, and from some ships, and commanding others that they should make a bridge over the Thracian Bosphorus. But in the meantime Artabanus, that was brother to the King, would have persuaded him not to go against the Scythians, as being men that had no possessions; but he could not prevail. And when the King was now about to depart from Susa, which is the chief city of Persia, there came to him one Œobazus, entreating of him that he would suffer one of his sons to tarry at home, for he had three sons and all were in the army. Then the King said that because Œobazus was his friend and asked but a small thing, all his sons should tarry at home. Whereat the man was greatly rejoiced; but the King sent his executioners and slew them all. In this fashion did they tarry at home.

When the King was come to the Bosphorus he set up two pillars of white marble, whereon he inscribed the names of all the nations as many as were in his army; and indeed of all that he ruled none were absent. The writing on the one pillar was Persian and on the other Greek. Now the number of the men was seven hundred thousand, besides those that were in the ships, and of ships there were six hundred. After this he crossed by the bridge, which Mæandrius of Samos had made over the Bosphorus, commanding the Ionians that they should sail along the shore to the river Danube and should make a bridge across the river, and so tarry till he should come. Then he went on his way through the land of Thrace till he came to the river Tearus. Of this river they say that the water thereof healeth diseases both of men and beasts beyond all others. It has thirty and eight springs flowing from one and the same rock, of which some are cold and some are hot. Here the King pitched his camp, and beside the river he set up a pillar by it, whereon was written, "To the Tearus which is the best and fairest of all rivers came Darius, son of Hystaspes, King of the Persians, being the best and fairest of all men."

At this time the Getæ, that are called Immortal, submitted themselves to him. This they did without fighting, though they are counted the most valiant and righteous of all the Thracians. The cause wherefore they are called Immortal is this. They believe that they die not, but that such as seem to die go to their god Zalmoxis. And every fifth year they send a messenger to Zalmoxis with a message concerning the things which they need. They cast lots who shall be this messenger; and their manner of sending him is this. Some of them stand in order holding up three spears; and others take the messenger whom they would send to Zalmoxis by the hands and the feet, and throw him from above on to the spears. If the man die they hold that Zalmoxis is gracious to them; but if he die not, they blame the messenger, saying that he is a wicked man; and then they look for another. But the message they give him while he is yet alive. These Thracians shoot arrows into the sky when there is thunder and lightning, and threaten the Gods, holding that there is in truth no god but this Zalmoxis. As for this Zalmoxis, some say that he was a slave in Samos, and that his master was Pythagoras, and that when he had gathered much wealth he went back to his country; and that he affirmed that neither he nor they that were his disciples should die, but should come to a country full of all manner of all good things; and that while he taught these things he made for himself a dwelling under the earth; and that when this dwelling was finished he vanished out of the sight of the Thracians and dwelt therein for three years; and that afterwards he showed himself again to the Thracians, so that they believed all that he had taught them.

Granițele Imperiului Getic

 Granițele Imperiului Getic

VEST

Alpii Norici (estul Austriei) până la lacul Bodense (vestul Bavariei) tot sudul Bavariei până la lacul Bodense
Râul Drava din Croația (granița dintre Croația și Ungaria)
La vest de Viena

SUD

Munții Šar din Kosovo (“Scardus Oros”; până unde se termină râul Morava și Marița, aproape de Skopje
Râurile Sava, Drava și Dunarea (unde erau scordiscii) la vest de râul Morava până la râul Bosna (lângă Saraevo)
Haem (râul Morava la vest și râul Iskar din Bulgaria la est
Munții Balcani (până lângă Sofia)

EST

Până la Marea Neagră, la Apollonia (Sozopol), la sud de Burgas
Până la Olbia “Oceacov” (unde se varsă Bugul în Marea Neagră, în Ucraina)
NORD


Sudul Boemiei în Cehia și Moravia (cadrilaterul boem-sudul Boemiei)
Avea granița de nord-est pe râul Bug
Vestul Ucrainei de la Hust până la Lvov în Carpații Păduroși
Sudul Poloniei (până la râurile Vistula și Oder)
 

Articol scris de Kogaion: www.kogaion.info

Ptolemy Map

Book III, Chapter 8

Location of Dacia
(from the Ninth Map of Europe)

Dacia is bounded on the north by that part of European Sarmatia, which extends from the Carpathian mountains to:

on the west by Iazyges Metanastae along the Tibiscus river; on the south by that part of the Danube river between the mouth of the Tibiscus river and Axiopolis, from which town as far as the Pontus and the mouth of the Danube it is called the Ister; the several sections of this southern boundary are:

After the mouth of the Tibiscus river

thence the Danube river to its mouth is called the Ister as we have said.

On the east Dacia is bounded by the Ister river near the bend close to the town

then by the river Hierasus, which near Dinogetia flows into the Ister from the north, and turning eastward extends as far as the indicated bend of the Tyras river.

The Anarti, the Teurisci and the Coestoboci inhabit Dacia in the northern part, beginning from the west; below these are the Praedavenses, the Rhatacenses, and the Caucoenses; below these, in this order, are the Biephi, the Burideenses, and the Cotenses, and below these are the Albocenses, the Potulatenses, and the Senses; below these, in the southern region, are the Saldenses, the Ciagisi, and the Piephigi.

The most important towns of Dacia are these:

Thayer's Note:

a BIOEA is almost certainly a modern editor's misreading for ΒΙΘΙΑ

Hercynian Forest

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Pliny the Elder, in Natural History, places the eastern regions of the Hercynium jugum, the "Hercynian mountain chain", in Pannonia (present-day Hungary) and Dacia (present-day Romania. Pliny the Elder, in Natural History, places the eastern regions of the Hercynium jugum, the "Hercynian mountain chain", in Pannonia (present-day Hungary) and Dacia (present-day Romania.

 

Black Forest panorama, Feldberg, 2003

The Hercynian Forest was an ancient and dense forest that stretched eastward from the Rhine River across southern Germany and formed the northern boundary of that part of Europe known to writers of antiquity. The ancient sources^[1] are equivocal about how far east it extended. All agree that the Black Forest, which extended east from the Rhine valley, formed the western side of the Hercynian.

Across the Rhine to the west extended the Silva Carbonaria and the forest of the Ardennes. All these old-growth forests of antiquity represented the original post-glacial temperate broadleaf forest ecosystem of Europe.

Relict tracts of this once-unbroken forest exist under many local names: the Schwarzwald ("Black Forest"), Odenwald, Spessart Rhön, Thüringerwald (Thuringian Forest), Harz, Rauhe Alb, Steigerwald, Fichtelgebirge, Erzgebirge, Riesengebirge, the Bohemian Forest, and the forested Carpathians.^[2] The Mittelgebirge seem to more or less correspond to a stretch of the Hercynian mountains, with Old High German Fergunna referring to the Erzgebirge and Virgundia (cf. modern Virngrund forest) to a range between Ansbach and Ellwangen.

Etymology

Main article: Perkwunos

In fact "Hercynian" has a Proto-Celtic derivation, from perkuniā, later erkunia. Julius Pokorny^[3] lists Hercynian as being derived from *perkʷu- "oak" (compare quercus). He further identifies the name as Celtic. Proto-Celtic regularly loses initial *p preceding a vowel, hence Hercynia (the H- being prothetic in Latin, the Latin y signifying a borrowing from Greek). The corresponding Germanic forms have an f- by Grimm's Law: Old English firgen "mountain", Gothic faírguni "mountain range".^[4] The assimilated *k^werk^wu- would be regular in Italo-Celtic, and Pokorny connects the Celtiberian ethnonym Querquerni, found in Galicia.^[5]

It is possible that the name of the Harz Mountains in Germany is derived from Hercynian, as Harz is a Middle High German word meaning "mountain forest." The name of Pforzheim (Porta Hercyniae) in southwest Germany and the tiny village of Hercingen^[6] are also derived from Hercynian.

Hercyne was the classical name (modern Libadia) of a small rapid stream in Boeotia that issued from two springs near Lebadea, modern Livadeia, and emptied into the Copaic lake.^[7] It had no geographical connection to the Hercynian Forest, so, logically, it must have been a parallel derivation from similar etymology.

Ancient references

The name is cited dozens of times in several classical authors, but most of the references are non-definitive,^[8] as the author is assuming the reader would know where the forest is. The earliest is in Aristotle (Meteorologica), who refers to the Arkýnia (or Orkýnios) mountains of Europe, but tells us only that, remarkably in his point-of-view, rivers flow north from there.^[9]

During the time of Julius Caesar, this forest blocked the advance of the Roman legions into Germania. His few statements are the most definitive. In De Bello Gallico^[10] he says that the forest stretches along the Danube from the territory of the Helvetii (present-day Switzerland) to Dacia (present-day Romania). Its implied northern dimension is nine days' march. Its eastern dimension is indefinitely more than sixty days' march. The concept fascinated and perhaps frightened him a little, even if the old wives' tales of unicorns^[11] and of elk without joints, which leaned against trees to sleep in the endless forests of Germania, were later interpolations in his Commentaries.^[12] Very likely, today's concept of an endless Black Forest descends in large part from Caesar. His name for the forest is the one most used: Hercynia Silva.

Pliny the Elder, in Natural History, places the eastern regions of the Hercynium jugum, the "Hercynian mountain chain", in Pannonia (present-day Hungary) and Dacia (present-day Romania.^[13] He also gives us some dramaticised insight^[14] into its composition, in which the close proximity of the forest trees causes competitive struggle among them (inter se rixantes). He mentions its gigantic oaks.^[15] But even he— if the passage in question is not an interpolated marginal gloss— is subject to the mythological aura exuding from the gloomy forest. He makes mention of unusual birds, which have feathers that "shine like fires at night". Medieval bestiaries named these birds the Ercinee. The impenetrable nature of the Hercynian Silva hindered the last concerted Roman foray into the forest, by Drusus, in 12-9 BCE: Florus asserts that Drusus invisum atque inaccessum in id tempus Hercynium saltum^[16] patefecit. ^[17]

The isolated modern remnants of the Hercynian Forest identify its flora as a mixed one; Oscar Drude^[18] identified its Baltic elements associated with North Alpine flora, and North Atlantic species with circumpolar representatives. Similarly, Edward Gibbon noted the presence of reindeer— pseudo-Caesar's bos cervi figura— and elk— pseudo-Caesar's alces— in the forest.^[19] The wild bull which the Romans called the urus was present also, and the European bison and the now-extinct aurochs, Bos primigenius. ^[20]

In the Roman sources, the Hercynian Forest was clearly part of ancient Germania. We do find an indication that this circumstance was fairly recent; that is, Posidonius states that the Boii, who were allegedly Celtic, were once there (as well as in Bohemia).

  Gaetuli

Languages

 http://books.google.com/books?id=QME-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA188&lpg=PA188&dq=African+Getuli&source=bl&ots=xtgiyJ5Od4&sig=lPS8u0wcMhtEdKrlBhMpFViiloQ&hl=en&ei=4fKtTKTqHKTtnQfO9ZyNBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=African%20Getuli&f=false

Zenata people

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  (Redirected from Zenata)

Jump to: navigation, search

for the article about the commune see Zenata, Algeria

Zanata Stone (Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain).

Zenati were an ethnic group of North Africa , who were technically an Eastern Berber group and who are found in Tunisia , Algeria and Rif mountains.

According to the French historians Emile Felix Gautier and Gabriel Camps, Zenata tribes entered in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia from the east of Northern Africa in pre-Islamic times and grouped themselves with the tribes of Maghrawa, Miknasa, and Banu Ifran, etc....

According to Ibn Khaldoun, an Arabic historian of the 14th century, there were Zenata tribes dispatched in all North Africa (current Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria), and some of them may have also lived in modern Egypt as well.

According to Ibn Khaldoun, the Zenata are one of the main divisions of the medieval Berbers, along with Senhaja and Masmuda etc...He added that these tribes, traditionally nomads, were concentrated in Middle Maghreb (part of the current Algeria); it's why he called " Middle Maghreb " home of Zenata.

The hypothesis of Ibn Khaldoun about the origin of this Berber group or ethnicity is not widely accepted by the modern historians like Emile Felix Gautier or Gabriel Camps.

About the origin of this Berber group the Arabic historian Ibn Hazm have supposed an origin from Yemen, but the hypothesis is shown by some historians like a political hypothesis.

Zenata would come from Gaetulia (Berber people group from North Africa) ^{[1] [2]}

According to some hypothesis, yet to prove, some of berber tribes called Garamantes would be also probably Zenata ^[3]

According to the very discussed hoypthesis of Ibn Khaldoun, Madghacen was the Patriarch of Zenata.^[4]

The oldest mausoleum (between -12 at -3 B.C) in current Algeria is Madghacen mausoleum,(Madghis town near Batna). Madghacen was probably a zenata king of Numidia ^{[5] [6]}

Contents [hide] 1 Language 2 History 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

Language

Their varieties of Berber, collectively termed Zenati, are spread over a wide area; for this reason, several languages are termed "Zenati" or in some cases are spoken by people who call themselves Zenata.

Among these are Beni Snassen (or Ait Iznassen in Tamazight), a tribe that lives in Northern Morocco and Algeria, mostly in the mountains near Berkane called the Beni Snassen mountains; Sened (now extinct), and some Saharan oasis languages.

The Zenata are also recalled in several placenames across the Maghreb, notably Oued Zenati in Algeria. Also a GM

History

The Egyptians named the Berbers closest to them Libu,and those right behind them in the area where later the Zenati came from, the Meshwesh.

In the 8th century most Berber and Zenata were Kharijites and took part in the Maysara revolt against Umayyad rule. The last Kharijite rebellion was in the 10th century under Abu Yazid, and was defeated by the Fatimids.

During the 10th century some Zenata from Ifriqiya were predominantly allied with the Caliphate of Cordoba, which fought for control of a aprt of current Morocco with the Fatimids. In the process the Zenata were pushed out of Morocco by the Sanhaja tribe, allies of the Fatimids.

In the 13th century the Zenata regained political importance with the Abdalwadids (Zayyanids of Tlemcen) in western Algeria.

In the 15th century, in Morocco, the Marinids and the Wattasids ruled the country.

See also

• Masmuda
• Sanhaja
• Zanata Stone

References

1. ^ Recueil des notices et mémoires de la Société archéologique de la province ... De Société archéologique
2. ^ http://books.google.fr/books?id=NpoEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA131&dq=g%C3%A9tule+aur%C3%A8s&lr=
3. ^ [1]
4. ^ Ibn khaldun, History of berbers
5. ^ The past of Africa's dark centuries Nordles Emile De Felix Gautier
6. ^ http://books.google.fr/books?id=q44cAAAAMAAJ&q=madghis&dq=madghis&pgis=1

External links

• Zenata at Love To Know
• Zenata in Sahara [2]: Zenata in Sahara
• [3]: Zenata

 WEST AFRICA & THE ATLANTIC IN ANTIQUITY 

http://clarence-webpage.com/AfricanArts/bourne005.html

Probably a salient fact of what has been defined as the Aqualithic by John Sutton is just how wet what is now the arid Sahara once was. The earliest signs of humankind seem shown when the Wikipedia (online) on "Prehistoric Central North Africa" tells us tools of the east African variety named by the Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania) were found at Ain el-Hanech in the Sahara. These Olduwan tools are given a guesstimated age of 2/1.5 million years ago. Early hominids occupied the Aterian (named after the site at Bir el-Ater) about c.200, 000 years ago. Between 50,000 and 30,000 B.C., a culture called the Aterian (after Bir el-Ater) is known across the region.

There is another connection with east Africa, namely the Eburran (= the Kenyan Capsian). It has been compared with the Saharan Capsian (named after el-Cafsi/Capsi, Tunisia) mainly on the basis of blade-like implements. Others dismiss any linkage between the Kenyan Capsian (11,000-9000 B.C.) and the Saharan Capsian (10,000-4000)

This probably means that the Saharan Capsian is more or less coeval with most of John Sutton (Journal of African History = JAH 1974.; Antiquity 1977) was just seen to define as the African Aqualithic (15,000-5000/4000 B. C.).

The concept has been questioned by some but the one-time large bodies of water lying behind it have been proven by aerial and satellite photographs of wadis (= now-dry riverbeds) of vast size. There are also Greek accounts plus Berber legends about Lake Tritonis (probably the much-reduced Shotts of south Tunisia) and Lake Chad as the very much larger Lake Mega-Chad.

As the early rock-art shows both buffaloes plus wild cattle, it is possible their hides were used for skin-boats but on very large bodies of water (esp. the sea) they give problems. The bowl-like coracle tends to spin and even early forms of the more boat-like currach "goes where God wills". The last is also seen in Gesta Caroli Magna (= GCM = History of Charlemagne) by (?) Notker Balbulus (9^th c. German) writing Albinus plus Clement bringing Greco/Latin culture back to Post-Roman Gaul not yet become France. James Hornell (Mariner’s Mirror 1937/8) refers to the coracle-skills, as opposed to the lesser ones needed by users of currachs.

Also roughly coinciding with the early rock-art is the dugout-canoe found at Dufuna (Nigeria) found in one corner of the former Lake Mega-Chad. It was radiocarbon-14-dated (= C14-dated) to between 6000-5000 B. C. (= 5520 +/- 100; 5314 +/- 50). However, if skin-boats were ever a part of the tradition of the region, they soon were not and in this same way, it is probable that the dugout-canoe was never a major tradition of this variously called Saharan/Magrebi region.

The most important one is the reed-boat and it is certainly the form that predominates in the early pictures on the rocks of what was gradually turned from the very wet Aqualithic to the super-arid Sahara. This is alongside such as beds of reeds, men fishing from the boats built from the reeds plus pictures hippopotami, crocodiles, etc

Attempts have been made at giving this Saharan rock-art some precise dates based on perceived dominant motifs. Thus Bubaline (based on buffalo/wild cattle), Bovidian (based on domest. cattle) plus Equidian (based on horsed chariots). This is uncertain and so too is that of R.L. Smith (What Happened to the Ancient Libyans: Chasing Sources across the Sahara from Herodotus to Ibn Khaldun in Journal of World History 2003 & online). The Smith scheme runs Bovidian/Tebbu, eastern Equidian/Garamantes/Tuaregs plus western Bovidian/Gaituli/Mauri (= Moors).

Some substance for the tentative scheme of Smith (ib.) is provided by the mapping of Equidian/chariot-trails mapped by messrs. Oliver and Fage (A Short History of Africa 1962). This shows they do divide into two separate eastern plus western routes. A chariot-motif showing the "flying-gallop" could be of c. 1700-1500 B.C. on external comparisons or c.1000-500 on the Garamantian association.

The eastern trails probably connect with traders near Tripoli (Libya) but more certainly with Garama (= Djerma & the Garamantian capital) for one fork and Ghadames for another before merging into one trail that came close to the River Niger. The western one also bifurcates with one trail leading from very near the Atlas foothills and the Wadi Draa/Dra and when both join, they again come to the Niger but further west. The ends of both sets of trails are about equidistant from Timbuctoo (Mali).

A number of defence-systems start before the rise of the Sea-Peoples but whose great increase seemingly coincides with the raids of the Sea-Peoples and/or their allies west of the Sea-Peoples. They include nuraghi (Sardinia), torri (Corsica), ksour (west Magreb), etc. The west African culture building the ksour (plural of kour) is the Dar Tichitt. It seems unlikely the resources for building ksour (= stone-walled villages) on a large scale were just local and it may be appropriate to observe the comment(s) that the distribution of Tichitt-Culture remains closely resemble those of an empire (see below).

It should also be noted that following the repulse of the attempted conquest of Egypt, the Libyan interest seemingly turned west. It was shown that Brass (The similarities & differences between the rise of complex societies in West & East Africa) attached this Libyco/Berber interest in the west to this horizon. It should also be borne in mind that something attracted the unwanted Libyco/Berber attention and with this we may be back with whatever provided the resources for the ksour-building.

The suggested answer was trade-routes that along with caravanserai are only rarely proven archaeologically (esp. early phases) and are known almost entirely from writings. Thus al-Masudi (9^th c.) wrote of "Nubians going left (= east) & Kushites right (= west)" and other Arabs reported west African priests from Gao (Mali), Timbuctoo (Mali) served in Pharoahonic Egypt. Herodotus (5^th c. B.C. Greek) wrote of Nasamones (of Tunisia/east Libya) crossing the Sahara and Athanasius (3^rd /4^th cs. A. D. Greek) says Mago of Carthage did so many times. Marinus of Tyre (via Pliny) tells of Septimius Flaccus plus Julius Maternus very late B.C./very early A.D. Pliny (1^st c. A.D. Roman) noted the Roman advance across the desert under Cornelius Balbus.

The Nasamones and the Garamantes may be further linked by having Garama as their mutual ancestor-god. They are discussed by such as messrs. Meek (JAH 1960) and Parker (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute = JRAI 1923) and usually placed amongst the Berbers. Meek (ib.) thought Nasamones translated as "Negroes of Ammon" and also that Ammon/Amon/Amun was a common African part-name.

Messrs. Lhote (in Meek ib.) and Parker (ib.) noted names of the Plinian list, thus Dasibari, Barracum, Balsacum, Alasi, Galla, Tapsacum, etc. Lhote (ib.) felt Songhai Da Isa Bari (= River of the Great God = the River Niger) was Latinised as Dasibar. Parker (ib.) felt Mande Barakunda (= Boat-town) was Lat. Barracum; Mande Lasikunda (= Closed village) as Lat. Alasi; Mande Balsakunda (= Goat-town) as Lat. Balsa; Mande Gala (= Market/Assembly-place) as Lat. Galla: Mande Tabusakunda (= Market under the Tabu [= Fig] Tree) as Lat. Tapsacum.

Parker (ib.) further held that words from the vast west African linguistic family called Mande could render Garamantian in the list made up by Pliny is proof positive that the two were closely linked. The more so as Wa nGara/Wangara (= Children of Garama) is regarded as an obsolete Soudanic (not Sudanic/Sudanese) term for the [Gara]mande/Garamante.

Eastern chariot-trails were seen to coincide with the territories of the Nasamones plus Garamantes. Especially given that the eastern trails appear to begin in the Phazania/Fezzan homeland of the Garamantes, that one fork of these eastern trails clearly starts close to Garama/Jerma (the Garamantian capital); that at Wadi Zarza (Phazania/Fezzan, Libya) is of the quadriga type that Herodotus was seen to directly associate with the Garamantes. It has long been suggested the trails denote trade-routes and further tying this to the Garamantes seems proven by Robin Law (JAH 1967) with an article entitled as "The Garamantes & Trans-Saharan Enterprise in Classical Times". Emphasising this further is that Mande words rendering Garamantian ones so often mean market plus Mohammed Yakin (Almanac of African Peoples & Nations 1999) adding to Wangara as an obsolete term for the Mande by saying that Wangara also meant trader.

Pausanias (2^nd c. A.D. Greek) linked these tribes to those described as Atrantes and Atlantes. Smith (ib.), Michael Skupin (The Carthaginian Columbus online), etc, are amongst those wondering why Herodotus separated the Atalantes/Atlantes and the Atarantes/Atrantes. This would indicate that they were not so separate and the Greek atlao (= endurance//bearing/suffering) occurs as part of such as Atlas, Atlantis, etc. In line with this will be that the Atlantes/Atrantes also greatly suffered.

The suffering of the Atlantes/Atrantes was because the desert sun burned their skins plus faces to relate closely to the Greek term of Aithiopes which also occurs as part Leukaithiopes referred to by Ptolemy (2^nd c. A.D. Egypto/Greek). Smith (ib.) cites Ptolemy further describing the Melanogetuli and ibn Hawkal (10^th c. Arab) the Banu Tanamak plus Sanhaja.

The burnt faces take us directly to the Greek term of Aithiopes (= Burnt-faces) as the most common of the many Greek term for Africans. Leukaithiopes simply translates as White/Lighter-skinned Africans. Gaituli/Getuli means "From the South" according to Smith (ib.) and Clyde Winters (Atlantis in Africa 2006) points to a parallel in the Old-Egyptian terms of nsw/n y swt as meaning the same. Even today, "From the South" in Africa tends to mean what such Afrocentric writers as Winters (ib.), Ivan Van Sertima (They Came before Columbus 1976), etc.

If the term of Leukaithiopes truly carries in it the recognition that some Africans are lighter-skinned than others and from what was said in the previous paragraph, it will be obvious that Melanogetuli merely recognises the reverse of this. The "Negroes of Ammon"/Nasamones and Mande/Mante/Garamante linkages probably belong with discussions about skin-tones. So too does the mix of Blacks plus Berbers seen to have recorded by ibn Hawkal when referring to the Sanhaja of the Sahara as consisting of 22 clans of Banu Tanamak (= Black) plus 19 of Sanhaja (= Tuareg).

In "West Africa & the Sea in Antiquity" (on http://www.africanarts-webpage.com/study.html), it was shown that several groups originating in Anatolia (= Asia Minor = most of modern Turkey) were rather more sea-minded than generally supposed. When it is realised included the Proto-Phoenicians, Carians, etc, this will be no great surprise. Livio Stecchini (online re. Hanno) wanted those noted sailors and friends of the Phoenicians called Carians to recognised in the name of Teichon Karikon (= ? Fort of the Carians) but which more generally is accepted as a Phoenician colony. However, Winters (ib.) shows Carian/Garian was also applied to the Garamantes itself a Greek form of the original west African term (see above) and the Garamantes were a lot closer to Teichon Karikon than any Anatolian group. Moreover, the trans-desert links anciently recognised between the Nasamones/Garamantes on the one hand and the Atlantes/Atrantes is further underlined by the hints made by Law (ib.) about the relationship of the Garamantes and the Gaituli.

Law felt that many of the towns that Pliny says were taken by the Romans from the Garamantes were in fact Gaitulian, so presumably denotes yet another instance of trans-desert relationships being closer than we suppose. Gaituli was noted as likely meaning Black(s), the more so given were another of the probable tribal confederacies already suggested with the Mauri/Moors as surely leading lights in the Gaitulian confederacy. Underlining this is that Mauri plus Moor(s) are both ancient words also translating as black and are but versions of the same word.

Skupin (ib) is among the many holding that the Phoenician cities along the coast of northwest Africa referred to by Hanno of Carthage were mainly in the nature of resettlement of something pre-existent. This would include the colony of Teichon Karikon that once again, must be taken as indicating the African traders seen under the several guises of Mande/Wangara/Garamantes and that they had a presence in the far northwest. By the northwest is, of course, meant what is known variously as Africa Minor, the Magreb/Maghreb, Soudan (again, not Sudan), northwest Africa, etc, but is otherwise north Africa west of Egypt.

Herodotus is a basic source of information in so many different regions. It is of great interest that much of what he has written was formerly regarded as fairy-tales and dismissed out of hand by historians. Of even greater interest is just how much of what was reported by Herodotus has been confirmed by archaeology. He describes the black "birds" referred to by the Greeks as famous oracles at shrines dedicated to Zeus Ammon at Siwa (Egypt) plus Dodonna (Greece). Herodotus tells us that they are actually humans with what to the Greeks was bird/bat-like speech.

If we need to seek humans with bat/bird-like speech, we need look no further than the Saharan natives chased by Garamantians in the above-noted chariots. This seemingly indicates slaving within the same community that has also been historically attested in very much later times and is hardly confined to parts of Africa. Very much to be borne in mind is that these Saharan natives were Aithiopes, therefore, were Black.

These Aethiopes appear to have had parallels in the far west Magreb in what is said by Hanno says about those of the Atlas Mountains and which inhabitants have already been said have already said to have been black on totally different grounds. Most authorities accept that the Aithiopes with bat/bird-like speech mentioned by Herodotus are the Tibu of today. To this is added the apparent lack of personal names of the Tibu/Tibbu noted by Gustav Nachtigal (19^th c. German explorer) that takes us straight back to the same feature recorded by Herodotus of the inhabitants of the Atlas Mountains. In short, blacks are linked at opposite ends of the Magreb.

Herodotus very directly says the Tibesti Aithiopes/Tibu were chased by the Garamantes and Hanno of Carthage seemingly says the same of the Atlas Aithiopes/Atlantes. In the case of the Aithiopes/Tibu naming the Tibesti Mountains (sth.Lib./nth Chad), the chasers were the Garamantes in their 4-horse chariots. This cannot be taken as showing the Aithiopes and the Garamantes were separate. Indeed, if the above plus the opinion that the Garamantes are today’s Tibu hold, they cannot be so.

Moreover, Winters (ib.) cites Latin words labelling Garamantes as black and it should be recalled that words from the west African language called Mande/Manding were seen to render Garamantian ones. It has been shown that traits are to be identified desert-wide and that this was recognised anciently. This takes us from one side of the Magreb to the other and beside this belongs another trans-desert characteristic, navigation

The point about about black humans being taken to be black "birds" becomes relevant when we return to Nasamonian Tunisia. The temple/shrine to Ammon equated with Zeus at Siwa (Egypt) was on Nasamonian territory. According to Diodorus Siculus (1^st c. B. C. Greek), Alexander the Great wanted to pray at Siwa but he and his group got lost and had to be found and guided by black "birds" across the desert. Having just noted that in this part of Africa, not only were blacks associated with bat/bird-like speech but were also seen as actual birds. Therefore, it follows that the black "birds" leading Alexander’s party across Saharan sands were Nasamonian Blacks.

It may have been the Greeks were a little shy of clearly saying so but it seems Arabs plainly state that Saharan Africans were capable of great feats of navigation. This comes out when Van Sertima (1976) cites the Toffut al-Alabi (12^th or 13^th c. Arabic) saying "Negroes led the caravanserai across the Sahara because they knew the ways of the birds & stars".

James Hornell (Antiquity 1949) wrote of "Birds as Early Navigational Aids". He shows that Gomez Zurara (15^th c. Portugese) confirms use of birds on these lines in the Sahara in the way that they were on the Atlantic. Proving this at sea is Cosmas Indicopleustes (= C. of the Indian Sea/Ocean) writing about seabirds marking coasts of east Africa. These large seabirds appear to be identical with those that Jean Barbot (17^th/18^th c. French) says marked the coasts of west Africa.

Whether the Tale of Wenamun (11^th c. B.C. Egyptian) and the watching of birds being likened to the sails of ships means the same in Egypt remains moot. Such as The Shipwrecked Sailor (c.2000 B.C. Egyptian) do suggest long sea-trips by Egyptians. Other stories other indicate points of contact that needed controlling by a series of forts leaving few remains but known from The Story of Sinuhe, The Prophecy of Neferti, etc.

Nor are there many remains of the bitter war between Troy and Greece known from the long epic poem called The Trojan War by Homer. A find in an excavation proves that Ophir was a real place but the doings of Solomon and the Phoenicians are mainly Biblical reports. The Phoenicians and/or their descendants are said to have founded 300 cities that could not be located by the sources used by Strabo (1^st c. B. C. Greek). Benedict Fitzpatrick (The Foundations of Europe 1927) cites such non-Athenians as Hippias, Proclus, Protagoras, etc, founding the Academy at Athens (as Plato); such Greeks as Critolaus, Carneades, Diogenes, etc, bringing Greek thought to Rome (as Plutarch); such Irishmen as Albinus, Clement, etc, reviving Classical thoughts in Post-Roman Gaul/France as "Empires of the Mind" known only from written texts.

Instances of this kind of thing are far too numerous to even attempt to list here and those that are merely serve to illustrate the fact that all too often, quite sober writers are selective as to what is accepted from ancient times. This means there is no valid reason why "The Shipwrecked Sailor", "The Returned [Malian] Captain", etc, do not also fall into this category.The Shipwrecked Sailor and The Returned Captain are shown in "Abubakri II—Who He?" to have many things in common.

Two salient facts emerge here from "The Returned Captain". One is the ability to sail a considerable distance out to sea and to be able to navigate a return to the home port. The other is the reporting of the "undersea stream" that is frequently identified with the combination of the Canarian plus North Equatorial or "conveyor-belt" Currents that could take unwary crews on unwitting trips to the far side of the Atlantic.

Avoidance of these "conveyor-belt" currents by fishermen at some distance from the nearest west African shores would require something of the skills attributed by Homer (dated to anywhere between the 10^th & 8^th cs. B.C.) to Atlas. The prototype of Atlas is often seen as a native of the Atlas Mountains given to following the worldwide practice of climbing to high places/mountains for communication with the gods. It may also be relevant that Diodorus attributes astrology/astronomy to Atlas. Plato (5^th c./4^th c. B. C.) shows Atlas as eldest son/successor of Poseidon (founder of the island-empire of Atlantis). Atlas was also described "as a great magician knowing the depths of the sea".

Atlas seen as a native of the Atlas region probably means he relates to the locals. We recall words from Mande/Mante relate to to those of the Garamantes; Gaituli meant "From the South" (= African) but the keyword here is surely atlao (Greek for bearing, suffering & endurance) and Herodotus was noted as citing that the Atlantes/Atrantes also suffered. The reason for their suffering was seen to be that the sun burnt their skins plus faces and that this closely relates to the Greek term of Aithiopes itself the most frequently used of all the ancient Greek words for African Blacks.

This all adds up to Proto-Atlas being African and his being ruler of a vast empire is also a west African norm. Tichitt Culture sites have been touched on and Natalya Marquand (Megaliths & Stone Circles of Morocco & their relationship to those of Mediterranan & Europe online) says Saharan megaliths also display an empire-like spread. The Tichitt/Proto-Wakar/Wakar (= Old Ghana) sequence takes us to the even larger empires of Mali and Songhai. A hallmark of development is orderly succession of rule from generation to generation. This rarely happens in Pre-15^th c. Europe but was normal for the great west African empires and is referred to in what was written by al-Umari about the Malian Empire.

It is worth noting that the great west African empires also had several ethnicities under one ruler with all that this could lead to in terms of instability. Yet they usually went through the worldwide norm of imperial cycles of two/two-&-half centuries without splitting asunder. Procopius (6^th c. A.D. Greek) shows Africans adding parts of Iberia to their empire(s) millennia before his day and this too falls into a west African pattern. This is demonstrated by the west African basis of two of the four "Arabic"conquests of Iberia

These later west African empires were certainly Islamic but hardly Arabic. The first was by the al-Murabitun (= Men of God/the Monastery) or Almoravids and the second by the al-Muwwaddi (= Men of the Faith) or Almohades. If an analogy for Proto-Atlas as a mystical ascetic searching for a mountain retreat is needed, this is precisely answered by Abdallah ibn Yasin (founder of the al-Murabitun/Almoravids).

Another sequence was given of western Equidian/Gaituli/Mauri. Of them, Gaituli had an Old-Egyptian parallel and it has been said more than once they translate as "From the South" and that generally this means from Sub-Saharan/Black Africa. Mauri occurs in the names of Mauritania (= ancient Morocco), Mauretania (c. 400 miles to the south & spelt slightly differently), Morocco (via the spelling of Marrakesh), Moors, etc. All derive from words meaning Black and this is emphasised when we find west Magreb/Morocco anciently described as Mauretania (= Land of Blacks). Moreover, the Morocccan troops conquering Medieval Iberia plus those used by Franco to achieve success in the Spanish Civil War were still being called Moros (= Blacks).

In west Africa, the Almoravid Empire stretched from Algeirs (Algeria) to Auogadast (Mauritania) and provides another parallel facet of Atlas. It seems Proto-Atlas was an ascetic mystic seeking a high-place retreat no less than did Abdallah ibn Yasin. Ibn Yasin also retreated to the High Atlas, built a murabit (= hermitage/small monastery) and started to attract followers. From them came the nucleus of the western Islamic reformist movement called the al-Murabitun/Almoravids.

Another west African pattern was/will be seen to be star-based way-finding. That pertaining to Saharan Blacks has been touched on and for west Africa see the references in "West Africa…in Ant". Gerald Hawkins (Stonehenge Decoded 1968) plus Sean McGrail (Boats of the World 2002) have attached the respective ancient mathematics and/or astronomy of the Stonehenge-builders plus the Celtic priests called the Druids to maritime way-finding. Priests from Timbuctoo (Mali) crossed the Sahara to officiate at Pharaohonic cremonies in Egypt according to Arabic writers, Those of Islamic date noted at the Sankore or University at Timbuctoo by Chancellor Williams (Destruction of Black Civilisation 2001) had their considerable abilities harnessed to the ocean-going efforts Abubakri II of Mali according to Ivan Van Sertima (They Came before Columbus 1976).

Mainly internal waterways in Senegambia appear marked by Barakunda (in Senegal)/Barokunda (in Gambia) placenames meaning Boat-town(s). Senegal from sunugal (= place of boats) probably has more to do with the sea. Senegal as Djahi in the Wolof language of mainly Senegal with the meaning of Place of Navigation definitely has, as here there is yet another Egyptian parallel. This is because Old-Egyptian also has Djahi translating as Djahi but this time applied to Phoenicia and with whom there is absolutely no difficulty as to a connection with the sea.

The method(s) of way-finding across the sea of sand that is the Sahara was seen to have been compared with those used for way-finding across the sea of salt that is the Atlantic. An early navigational device was that labelled as the wheeled-cross/cross-in-ring plus its variants. They were in use as early as the Bronze Age on Atlantic-facing coasts from that the Bulge of Africa to the British Isles and Nordic Europe.

This more or less maches the 1^st millennium B.C. date shown above for such as the Iliad (about war between Troy & Greece) plus the Odyssey (about the post-war exploits of Odysseus/Ulysses) written by the Hellenic Homer. These Homeric tales nicely illustrate how modern historians treat material from such as the Bible plus the Classics and fom outside these categories (see end of next section).

There are many stories from Hellenic Greece to Nordic Europe in the opposite corners of the continent that are as sea-based as those about Atlas. It is true that Atlas is best known as the moronic giant of the type called Titans who led the Titan revolt against the gods of Olympus and was punished by Zeus/Jove by having to hold up the world forever on his shoulders.

However, there is entire body of myth/legend outside this about Atlas. Homer describes him as knowing the depths of the sea and confirming this in west Africa is the knowledge of the undersea stream or combined Canarian/North Equatorial currents by the Returned Captain. The Homeric description of Atlas as a "magician knowing the depths of the sea" seemingly suggests that his navigational skills were such that they were deemed to be magical. To this is added that if the Returned Captain truly did know of the effects of the combined Canarian/North Equatorial or conveyor-belt Currents occurring some distance out to sea on the open Atlantic, he too had considerable skills demonstrated by his getting back to his home port.

An online article discussing Atlas refers to more than one Atlas in differing parts of Europe. There is also the matter of his realm of Atlantis being regarded as being of various locations. Nor is it of much help when Plato (5^th/4^th c. B.C. Greek) tells us that Atlantis was just beyond the Pillars of Hercules, as their location is also disputed.

Attempts at rectifying the "errors" of ancient Greek geographers by situating Atlantis in the Mediterranean tend to fail on the very real distinction made between what in Latin was Mare Noster (= Our Sea = the Mediterranean) and what the Greeks called Okeanos (= the Ocean = the World-stream = the seas beyond the Pillars/Straits). Moreover, depite mainly modern efforts at wanting not to regard the Pillars of Hercules as marking what are now the Straits of Gibraltar, it is the case that easily the bulk of ancient writers were of the opinion that the Pillars are today’s Straits. In any case, there are other signs of the western links of Atlas that further illustrate where Atlantis was.

The mountains also called Atlas are on the northern edge of Africa. The "Daughters" of Atlas include the Hesperides (= Western Isles), Atlantides (= Atlantic Isles), Atlantis (= Daughter of A.), etc. This very surely indicates where the Atlas family (inc. Atlantis) were regarded as being located, namely to the west of the Pillars/Straits in the ocean sharing its name with Atlas, Atlantes, Atlantis, Atlantides, etc.

Yet another set of "Daughters" are the Pleaides best known as a star-system. As they appear on the horizon, they are taken to indicate the start of the ploughing season for farmers, the start of the sailing season for sailors, the start of the fishing season for fishermen, etc. Pleaides coming from Greek pleien (= Sailing-stars) is to be put alongside the consistently western linkage given to the Atlas "family" seen to include the Pleaides. Underlining all this, is the actual location of Mount Atlas.

The several traits seen right across north Africa from Egypt to Morocco/Mauritania are added to by forms of boat/ship. There is a type of reed-boat that is referred to by Eratosthenes (3^rd c. Egypto/Greek) as ocean-going in the Indian Ocean. He also informs us that this was the standard Nile-River type and it is usually as having barely changed from the days of the Egypt-to-Punt trade. It probably attaches to what Winters (The Proto Sahara online; The Proto Saharan Religion online) describes as a desert-wide half-man/half-fish deity called Maa. There is also the resemblance that many writers compare with that of the earliest images of the Ark of the Covenant. In reduced size, it is likely to be represented by west Magrebi reed-boats called almady itself later applied to almadias (= canoes) by the Portuguese. It is also the form that went across the Atlantic on "The Ra Voyages" with Thor Heyerdahl (1971).

West Africans on the Atlantic Ocean are further demonstrated by the term of Mare Ethiopium. This derives from those perceived as the dominant users of a particular body of sea by whoever was doing the recording of the name. Its significance comes to the fore when it is realised that till about 1700, it was a synonym for the Atlantic. After about c. 1700, it increasingly stopped appearing in records. Even more to the point is that it means Ocean/Sea of the Blacks or Negroes.

Ethiopium was seen to come from the Greek Aithiopes/Aethiopes for all Africans and it is known that it is not the only team used in this way. That of the Persians and Arabs for east Africans was Zanj and was but one of many Persio/Arab terms for Black Africans. It also occurs in works of Piri Reis (15^th/16^th c. Turk). The maps of Piri Reis usually figure in discussions about movement on the Atlantic but he also touches on the Indian Ocean that he calls the Bahr-e-Zanj/Zanj-e-Bahr (= Ocean/Sea of the Negroes) according to sources cited in both "East Africa & the Sea in Antiquity" and "Abubakri II—Who He?". Zanj-e-Bahr was used of east Africa from Sudan to Mozambique till the 1920s and is still with us in the name of Zanzibar according to a website dealing with the history of the island of Zanzibar.

Underlying this, are the Indian (?) koland plus Chinese k’un-l’un that may possibly mean Africans. In turn, they form part of such words as kolandophunta and kunlun-po (= ships of the Blacks) that indicate sea-going vessels on the Indian Ocean. Way-finding on the Indian Ocean for such non-powered craft was very much based on utilisation of the monsoon-system. This differs from what happened on the Atlantic but if messrs. Ben-Jochanan (Black Man of the Nile 1989) and Chami (The Unity of African Ancient History 2006) are confirmed, the methods on the two oceans may not be so separate after all.

Chami (ib.) on the Phoenicians plus Ben-Jochanan on the Portuguese point to both need African navigators. Chami (ib.) felt that rounding Cape Agulhas (the southern tip of Africa) happened rather more frequently than generally imagined. Cabo Agulhas means Cape of Eagles in Portuguese but perhaps more relevant birds are the large seabirds seen to attest the east and west coasts of Africa. Birds were also used as navigational aids in pre-instrumental days by the Africans seen to have crossed the hundreds of miles of the sand-sea called the Sahara using methods also said to have been identical to those used to cross the hundreds of miles of the salt-sea called the Atlantic

What have been variously described as Out-of-Africa/Garden-of-Eden/African Eve theories probably began affecting Europe in the Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age), Middle Stone Age (= Middle Stone Age), Neolithic (= New Stone Age) then Metals (i.e. Copper/Bronze/Iron) Ages. Some of the earliest cultural stages were recognised by French archaeologists as the Abbevillian followed by the Acheulian. They are from French type-sites and these labels have stuck.

So much so have they stuck, that even when Bednarik (ib) plus colleagues found sites as far away as Indonesia, the designation of Acheulian was given. From them came dates too early for carbon-14 dates (C14-dates), so other methods had to be used. They indicate an early hominid form that has become known as Homo floriensis (from being found on the island of Flores) had developed the ability to cross short stretches of sea. This was deduced from similar sets of tools on islands a little distance from each other. Even allowing that sea-levels differ now from those of several hundred thousands of years ago and no actual boats were found, this assumption was made and seems supported by finds of cordage that were the remains of presumed fishing-nets.

More comparisons of tools separated by short stretches of sea were those of Abbevillian type noted by Sean McGrail (Mariner’s Mirror = MM 1991) in north Magreb/ Morocco opposite south Iberia/Spain. Bednarik placed great emphasis on the intellectual development of early hominids arising from the going to sea and having seen that Abbevillian precedes Aechulian, it may have significance that Morocco-to-Iberia seemingly antedates that just seen in part of Indonesia. Indeed, Africa-to-Iberia may even be not just earlier but the earliest datable such sea-trips, as from Bednarik, we learn that Homo florensis seems to be an offshoot of Homo sapiens (= Thinking man = Modern man). In this respect, it may worth noting the Stillbay sites at the opposite end of Africa. They are not discussed here but are mentioned in East Africa & the Sea in Antiquity, as they are just the IOR side of Cape Agulhas and involve fishing and possible use of some kind of craft.

Of roughly the same dates as the Stillbay Culture would be Perfuga (Sardinia) at c. 300,000 B.C. with more sea-going occurring on Sardinia held to be shown by Corbeddu at c. 20,000 B.C. This may also have involved the Riviera (sth. France) and/or Liguria (= n/east Italy). As to via Sardinia and/or the Riviera to Liguria, in Liguria are the Grimaldi Caves. Here the population had skulls that are variously described as Australoid/Africaoid/Negroid or even African (? dare we use the term) plus more of the cordage that as seen, may indicate fishing-nets.

What should not be overlooked here is the long-held recognition that as Anatolia acts on the Balkans (= s/east Europe) so the Magreb (= nth. Africa west of Egypt) acts on Iberia and not for nothing is there the phrase "That Africa ends at the Pyrenees" (separating Iberia/Spain from France). This is frequently attributed to Napoleon but is probably considerably older than Bonaparte. Nor should it be forgotten what is implied by the Grimaldi finds, that no matter what is said about light-skinned Berbers in the Magreb/Sahara, there were blacks in the Magreb at that date. This is confirmed by the content of some of the Saharan rock-art, the first phases of which may be of this date.

Some of the oldest African Mesolithic material is that called Capsian. The earliest finds that have labelled Capsian are from Kenya but the type-site is at el-Gafsi/el-Capsi (Tunisia). Many regard it as likely there is no connection but if there is, it will be obvious the chronological priority is with east Africa and the Kenyan material. There is some reason to connect the Capsian of Magreb and Iberia. This would be reinforced by what is sometimes seen as a coastal form of the Magrebi Capsian called either the Oranian (after Oran, Algeria) or the Maurusian (after Maurusia = an ancient name for Morocco). It became the IberoMaurusian, in short, the Iberian form of the Maurusian.

Various studies of other ancient sea-borne Africans, especially of trade exist. A pioneering attempt was The Geography of Herodotus but pertaining especially to the Periplus of "Necho" by J.T. Wheeler (1854). Then there are the translations of PME by messrs Huntingford (1980) and Casson (1989) that differ radically on some details, particularly about the African version of Ausan/Awsan that may or may not be tied to Azania. Both refer to Punt and Azania as trade-networks in east Africa. The many crop-types apparently originating in west Africa that led on to the earliest west African urban centres had inland plus coastal markets handling large amounts of these crops. Those on the west coast presumably offer parallels for those of the "Punt" and "Azania" networks of east Africa and again mean that Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Islam, Colonial Europeans, need to be harked to for the rise of the earliest west African urbanism. These coastal depots were the basis for what has been called here the WAAC.

Part of this lies in the period called the Chalcolithic (= Copper/Stone Age), as shown by messrs Harrison & Gilman (in Atlantic Eur. & the Mediterranean ed. V. Markotic 1977). They demonstrate trading between that part of west Africa that is west Magreb/Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula. Articles bearing titles like "Looking for a Lost City" and "Looking for the Lost City of Tartessos" are by Stephen Arts. They again indicate trade between west Africa and Iberia and take this into what for Iberia would be the Late Bronze Age (= LBA)/Early Iron Age (= EIA). Arts connected that of west Africa with that of Tartessos as the Biblical Tarshish plus the Israel of Solomon. In doing so, he is identifying the Tartessos (an ancient kingdom in the s/west of Ib.) of Classical writers with the Tarshish of Biblical writers. He also identifies Tartessos/Tarshish with Atlantis.

Of German attempts at identifying where Atlantis was, that of Frobenius (as above) put it in Yorubaland (Nigeria), that of Borchardt (as Stecchini ib.) put it in Algeria/Tunisia and that of Schulten (as Arts ib.) put it in west Iberia. The views of Schulten plus Arts would at one bold attempt, settle once and for all, problems of where Tarshish and Atlantis were. As said above, if we have to believe in Atlantis, it might as well be regarded as any one of these. They are after all, close to where Plato placed it.

African conquests in Europe have been claimed from at least the time of Taharquo of Kush ruling also as Pharoah of Egypt but more on this in "East Af. …" . The relevance of this is that such diverse and ancient writers as Josephus (1^st c. A.D. Jew), Strabo (1^st. c. B. C. Greek), Procopius (6^th c. Greek), al-Makary (10^th c. A.D. Arab), etc, trace African conquests in Europe south of the Pyrenees (= the Iberian Peninsula). Given just how frequently matters earlier are repeated at a later date in west Africa, it must have great interest that of the four Islamic (note not "Arabic") dynasties that combined Morocco with Iberia, at least two appear to have been west African and black.

Further confirmation of this comes with a map from the writings of Rufus Avienus (ib.) reconstructed by Antonio Arribas. He shows Africans in "Libyphoenician" form in just the African-facing areas that the quoted ancient writers say were the African-ruled parts of south Iberia. This particularly means Mons Silurus (= Mountain or Mountains of Silura). From the Maurusian/IberoMaurusian onwards, what has been variously called Gaetulia/Maurusia/Mauritania by Classical writers and Goethluigne by Celtic writers (cited by Roderick O’Flaherty [17^th c. Irish]) had close links with Andalusia. Iberia was further connected with the Irish Clann Mil (= Milesians = Sons of Mil = ProtoGaels) by O’Reilly (ib).

Some measure of can be taken of African involvement in early Iberian commerce. The African Maa was seen in Iberian form. The Iberian Maa was killed at Gadir (= Gades in Latin = Cadiz in Spanish) by Melkarth (the chief deity of the Phoenicians settled at Gadir. Melkart was also important as the chief god of commerce for these Gaditanian Phoenicians. In like manner, the tunny-fishing seen to have probably begun as a maritime aspect of the African Aqualithic, also came into Gaditanian hands. This shows the political and/or commercial realities and probably the context of what messrs. Cary and Warmington (The Ancient Explorers 1963) described as an ostentatious welcome. That welcome was by King Arganthonios of Tartessos (= s/west Iberia). Arganthonios showered gifts on Kolaios/Colaeus (? 7^th c. B. C. Greek) according to Herodotus.

In short, exit one set of rivals for the Phoenicians in the form of Africans and enter another in the form of the newly arrived Greeks. However, the Greeks as the rivals of the Phoenicians from either Carthage or Gadir did not survive long, as the Phoenicians and/or Carthaginians froze them out of most of M/M/M-facing east Iberia and almost all of Atlantic-facing west Iberia.

Africa as a place that exported metals technology may not be as difficult as might appear at first sight. Felix Chami (The Unity of African Ancient History 2006) points to parts of east Africa producing ironwork qualifying as steel because it was so high-gade and of Indian interest showing that some of it came back in the form of manufactured goods. That this continued for another 1000/1200 years is shown by Idrissi (12^th c. Arab) commenting on almost the same thing plus that the east African metal seems to have underlain what was known as Uccu/Wootz steel in India plus Damascene steel in Syria.

A recent study of the west African Iron Age (= WAIA) is by Stanley Alpern (History in Africa 2005). Sources cited in West Africa & the Sea in Antiquity showed dates tied to the WAIA apparently north-going from Gabon. Alpern (ib.) cites Nicole Lambert (ib.) tying that of Mauretania and of Iberia that if too early on Lambert’s notes can be reversed to further show west African influence on Iberia. This would be reinforced by the Tylecote (West African Journal of Archaeology 1975) comparison of furnaces in west Africa (esp. Nigeria) and Nordic Europe (esp. Ger.).

As the dugout-canoe of west Africa plus skin-boats of currach-type in Celtic-west Europe are very simple types having a riverine origin, there should be a logical internal sequence owing little to outside influences. Yet despite this, expert opinions regard both forms as highly international. Currachs are recorded at opposite ends of the Irish Sea as trading British tin from Cornwall to foreign ships at one end and as plying between Ulster (nth. Ireland.) to Scotland (nth. Britain.) at the northern end (see Abubakri II—Who He?). Commerce based on the dugout-canoe was seen to be proven as the basis of commerce the length of the Atlantic coasts of Meso-America, of the Atlantic coast of Africa and Guinea-to-Iberia seems to be the same.

Arribas shows not only the aforementioned map but also mentions that metals-rich areas of Iberia inland from Cordoba were linked to the River Guadalquivir and the Atlantic Ocean by dugout-canoe. It will also be recalled the dugout-canoe is suggested to have led to massive physiques, as recorded by Cadamosto (see West Africa & the Sea in Antiquity online at http://www.africanarts-webpage.com/study.html). Also to be borne in mind are tales of Africans as giant soldiers in Iberia according to messrs Brunson and Rashidi (in Golden Age of the Moor ed. Ivan Van Sertima 1992).

The theme of giants is widespread in Africa. Umlindi of South Africa, the Korobo of Kenya, statues plus Osiris in Egypt, the Sao of Chad, the Mijin-masa of Nigeria, Atlas of Morocco, etc, are good instances of this. The Sao plus the Mijin-masa were deemed to be capable of bringing slain elephants home, other African giants were seen as capable of bearing stones of many tons (including those of Stonehenge) and indeed, Atlas carried the world on his shoulders.

This may be what lies behind the body-length face-masks so important for African shamans/witch-doctors; body-length statue-menhirs in Senegal that translated into human-height terms would mean 15/20 feet; the giant heads of captives from many lands carved in relief at Tanis (Egypt); the monumental statuary of Pharaonic Egypt, Osiris as the Giant Black, etc. More African "giants" are those recorded are the Moors recorded as synonyms for Saracens in Iberia by Brunson & Rashidi (ib.).

More body-length face-masks belonging to what elsewhere has been called the "Great Heads" tradition are those actually called Cabezuelos (= Big-heads) belonging with the Gigantes (= Giants) in Iberian parades. Another giant in Iberia was king Geryon. He was killed by Hercules and his head placed under the first Pharos (= lighthouse) built at Brigantion (near Corunna, in Galicia in northwest Iberia/Spain). This is a point of the Atlantic-west coast of Iberia/France facing the Bay of Biscay that was/is so dangerous for ships that 18^th c. Flemish, Dutch and British Governments offered to defray the Spanish coasts of maintaining a lighthouse there. Biscay or Vizcaya marks Basque lands and folklore here refers to giants as Mauriaks (= Africans or Mauri/Moors) or Gentiliaks (= Gentiles in the sense of Pre-Christian outsiders).

What was Armorica/is now Brittany in northwestern parts of Gaul (now mainly France& Belgium) was where a giant was killed by Arthur. It may be significant that Arthur’s victim was called the "Spanish" Giant by Geoffrey of Monmouth (a 12^th c. British writer) and that that he was slain by aso-called "king" from Britain but who was really a successful warlord. Armorica/Brittany abounds in megaliths (from Greek megas = large & lithos = stone, hence megalith = large-stoned) in the form of Passage-graves, Gallery-graves, menhirs (= standing-stones), stone-rows, etc. The largest known of ancient menhirs may have been Le Grande-Menhir. It has prompted comparison with the Pharos at Brigantion/Corunna. Megaliths in general have long been associated with astronomy and this in turn connects with maritime navigation.

Beler/Boler was a British giant made famous in the poem called Lycidas by John Milton (17^th c. Eng.). Belerion/Bolerion was his home. Belerion can mean all southwest Britain/England; the part of southwest Britain that is Cornwall; the part of Cornwall that is Penwith; the part of Penwith that is Land’s End. Finisterre (= Land’s End) at the tip of the Galician Peninsula; Finisterre (= Land’s End) at the tip of the Breton Peninsula join with the Land’s End at the tip of the Cornish Peninsula. Charles Thomas (National Trust Studies 1989) demonstrates that another name for Land’s End is Vestaeum and that this implies signal-beacons warning ships from straying too near dangerous rocks. Yet more names include Belerion (= in Greek), Belerium (in Latin); Pen-van-lan (in the P-Celtic ancestor of British, Breton, Cornish & Welsh).

That west Africa knew of "going home" (= into the sea/? on to the sea) takes us to the Irish giants called the Fomoire and their king named Balar. The more so given that Fomoire may translate as "From the Sea" and are described as Fomoire Afraicc (= Fomoire from Africa). Net/Neit was an Iberian war-god and grandfather of Balar. After Balar was killed, his massive head with its single eye that needed four ordinary mortals to open it was buried at Carn Ui Neit (= Cairn of the Grandson of Neit). Carn Ui Neit is now called Mizen Head and is at the tip of the peninsular region of Kerry/west Cork or Bantry-to-Shannon parts of west Munster or the deep southwest of Ireland. Iberia (= Spain and Portugal) was Mag Mell (= Plain of Death) or Mag Mor (= Great Plain) and it was ruled by another Fomoire king named Tethba.

The "Cult of the Severed Head" is shown across Celtic/Celtic-speaking Europe by Anne Ross (Pagan Celtic Britain 1968; The Everyday Life of the Celts 1970). However, those of Atlantic coasts may ultimately relate but is otherwise a separate phenomenon. At opposite ends of Africa, the notion of humans turned into stone is clearly proven. Being giants, their heads would be related to the "Great Heads" traditions. The links of the peninsular regions of Galicia, Brittany, Cornwall plus Bantry/Shannon are particularly noticeable here too. Thus messrs McClelland (Chambers Ency. 1973) and Mitchell (The Irish Landscape 1976) respectively wrote of Galicia as "a wetter Brittany" and of the shared geomorphology, archaeology, history plus land-use uniting Brittany, Cornwall and Bantry/Shannon.

Also all four areas produce copper and the first three tin as well. All appear to have had ancient landmarks visible from the sea to warn of dangerous waters; three (Galicia, Brittany &? Bantry/Shannon) had figures with their heads cut off; two (Galicia &? Bantry/Shannon) involved the burial of the head; Alexei Kondratiev (Lugus: The Many-Gifted Lord online) shows just closely are comparable are the tales about Lugh (= the Irish form of Lugus & grandson plus slayer of Balar the Fomoir) and Jack the Tinkard in Cornwall and goes on to describe the Cornish giants as Fomoire but does not say anything about beheaded Cornish giants.

There are also good literary plus archaeological links between Galicia and Bantry/Shannon but they lie outside my brief. However, to the point is Dathi O-hOgain (Myth, Legend & Romance: An Ency. of the Irish Folk Tradition 1990) saying the southern (= Ibero/Atlantic) traditions given to this by Diodorus Siculus (1^st c. B. C. Greek) are much older than the northern (= Nordic/Scandinavian) given in the Irish text that is the first Cath Magh Tuiredh (= Battle of MoyturaMoytirra = 1^st Moytura). Thomas O’Rahilly (Early Irish History & Mythology 1946) was of the opinion that the so-called 2^nd Moytura was in the older of the two versions of Moytura. This is in line with what is said by Diodorus plus that 2^nd Moytura is that having most to with the Ibero/southern link and the Fomoire there. There is also O-hOgain (ib.) pointing to Beler/Balar-names marking the most south-westerly points of Britain and Ireland at Land’s End and Mizen Head respectively.

Africans were seen as being capable of hefting great weights (elephants, massive stones, the world, etc.) and legend has it that large stones were brought from Africa to Ireland. Geoffrey says they were set up at "Killarus" (=? The Curragh, Kildare, Ire.) and at Arthur’s behest, they were taken from Killarus/Killare and set up as the Giant’s Dance on Salisbury Plain (Wilts., Eng.) but is now called Stonehenge. Nor is this the only British stone ring that in British tradition this kind of linkage attaches to. There were also the Africans wearing feathered cloaks building Callanish on the Scottish island in the Hebridean group called Lewis. Callanish is sometimes called the Scottish Stonehenge.

Another Africo/Black linkage comes with Crom Dubh (= Black Crom). His name occurs in that of the largest stone circle in Ireland at Rannadh Crom (= Wheel/Ring of Crom, nr. Lough Derg, Limerick) and Crom Cruach (=? The Circle/Ring on the Mound =? Killycluggin Circle, Cavan). To the last came "the King, Queen & People of Ire". A further sign of the status of Crom is the need by the Early Church to invoke the name of Patrick in the destruction of Crom Cruach. His being the god of the people of Ireland resembles An Dagda (the principal god of Irish Druidism) as the god of all the tribes of Ireland. The Wheel/Ring attribute brings him into line with Mogh Ruith (= Slave/Devotee of the Wheel & chief god of Druidism in sth. Ire. [= Munster]) and both had one eye. Here we further note Crom/Mogh as Black and as wearing feathered cloaks.

Nor is an African connection confined to stone rings that it should be said antedate the Druids by 2500/2000 years. Messrs Mac Ritchie (Britons Ancient & Modern 1884 & 1991) and Spence (The Mysteries of Britain 1928 & 1995; The Origins & Hist. of Druidism 1949; Druids: Their Origins 1995) both look for African-type rites in Britain. This included Ashanti-like blood-rites; the sources of Morris plus wedding dances; first Egyptian corn with a sickle like Druids cutting mistletoe with a sickle, etc.

West Africa was seen to have sent priests to participate in the Egyptian Mystery System (= EMS) of the Pharaohs according to Arabic writers. The Pharaohonic cutting of the first Egyptian corn with a sickle was compared by Lewis Spence (ib.) with the cutting of the sacred mistletoe by the Chief Druid using a golden sickle but sought an origin in an African Cult of the Dead for what in Celtic Europe was called Druidism. Julius Pokorny (Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institute 1908) looked for the sources of Druidism in what others (cited by Mac Ritchie ib.) have called An Dubh Eirionach (= Black Irish).

Classical writers do not list Iberia plus Ireland as places where existed but Celtic literature mainly in the form of that in Irish comes to our rescue. After that of Greek plus Latin, Old-Irish literature is the oldest in Europe and is the oldest vernacular corpus in western Europe and it refers to Druids time and time again. Joyce Salisbury (Iberian Popular Religion 1985) refers to Iberian holy-men that sound very Druid-like and Anne Ross (The Druids 1995 but not in 2004) put the southern boundary of Continental Druidism on a line across Iberia based on the River Tagus. This can be expected to have been strongest in the most Celtic parts of Iberia, notably among the Lusitani (naming Lusitania = Portugal), Gallaeci/Callaeci (naming Galicia), Astures (naming Asturia), etc. The Old-Irish text that is Lebor Gabala (= LG = Book of Invasions) tells of several Iberian groups coming to Ireland complete with Druids.

Inasmuch that Africa is still thought by many to be the "savage"continent, it might equally be held to be appropriate that Africa/Africans may have had a hand in what emerged as what is felt by some to be the savage religion of Druidism. "Savage" Africa is dealt with in these pages plus others far more able than to do so myself. As to "savage" Druids, this was alleged (esp. relating to divination) in antiquity but there were also a considerable number of contrary Classical opinions.

These contrary Greco/Roman or Classical historians compared such intellectuals as the Brahmins of India, Magi of Persia, EMS-priests of Egypt, Pythagoreans of southeast Europe with the Druids of west Europe. Druids taught the young of Celtic-west Europe and Ellis (ib.) notes this was also the case in Britain when showing a British-derived word came into its Welsh descendant as athronieth (= teacher). That this also applies to the Druids of the Irish Celts seems proven by Irish Druids as instructor/teachers in Irish tale-cycles of both Leinster (from Lagin & ster [= province]) and Ulster versions.

The feathered cloaks that are seen to be important to the African shamans/witch-doctors/medicine-men have also been shown to connect with supposed builders of British stone rings (esp. the circles at Stonehenge & Callanish) according to the oldest known British tradition. Mogh Ruith was seen as the principal god of Druidism in the part of Ireland that is otherwise the ancient kingdom/province of Munster. Anne Ross (Everyday Life of the Celts 1970) shows him wearing either a feathered cloak or a bull-hide during divination. The feathered cloaks have been noted several times on the island of Lewis here but Thomas O’Rahilly (Early Irish Hist. & Mythology 1946) shows that bull-hides were also known on Lewis. This was again during divination.

Claimed African influences on European religion appear to have left little for archaeologists to have and to hold and lovingly classify into neat and tidy categories. This then is placed with what above with what were seen to have been called "Empires of the Mind" again usually leaving little in the way of archaeology.

Very clearly, this kind of thing leaves at most a literary path that will often be considered as not precise enough. Even more so when based on folk-life/folklore not buttressed by archaeology and/or various forms of genetic evidence, so will be dismissed accordingly. This of itself tends to overlook the imperfections of both archaeological and genetic research that all too often has subjectivity paraded as objectivity. Just where this leaves tracing such as the pet-names of livestock from Erythraic tongues of east Africa to those of Celtic Europe is anyone’s guess but this was done to track the movement of their owners by the writers followed in East Africa & the Sea in Antiquity

It seems "tropically-adapted" humans were the first ones in the Iberian Peninsula. Sean McGrail (The International Journal of Nautical Archaeological = IJNA 1991) points to "Abbevillian" artefacts on both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar. This suggests Africans were capable of crossing narrow seas either earlier or at dates akin to those for somewhat further east (see "East Africa & the Sea in Antiquity). The Capsian Culture of (? Kenya) and the Magreb had Oranian plus Maurusian/Mauritanian offshoots.

The Capsian and the Maurusian appear to be the parents of the Iberian Capsian and the Ibero-Maurusian respectively. D’arbois de Jubainville (19^th/20^th c. French linguist) held the (?) Ethiopian Atrantes/Atlantes were ancestral to the Basques. Classical and Arabic authors wrote of Africans under Kushite leadership reach (see East Africa & the Sea in Antiquity). Andrew Fear (Rome & Baetica 1996) cites Strabo (1^st c. B.C. Greek), Appian (1^st/2^nd c. A. D. Greek), etc, as saying several thousand Africans were settled in Iberia during the time of Carthaginian domination of south Iberia.

From the extensive list of comparisons that was a prime factor in making some previous sections as long as they are, there emerged what lies behind the Arbuthnot/Faught article of "Iberia not Siberia" (online). This especially means the first arrivals in the Americas. The various main theories about this can be summed up as the Beringia Land-bridge/Crossing (from Siberia-to-Alaska & then overland to east & south); Pacific Crossing (straight from Australia-to-west coast Americas); Pacific Coast (arrival in west Americas & moves via refugia [= ice-free pockets in the Holocene ice]); Middle Atlantic Crossing (see next section); North Atlantic Crossing (Holocene ice-floes used as refugia to cross the north Atlantic), etc.

It is the North Atlantic Crossing(s) that particularly lies behind the surely telling title of "Iberia not Siberia" for at least some of the first arrivals in North America. This gives an interesting context for long sea-trips out of ancient Iberia for both considerable date and length. This also makes it much easier to accept earlier Iberian voyages in other directions that includes those from the most Africanised parts of Iberia, the more so given that this is where we find Mons Silurus (= Mountain[s] of Silura) was located.

Silura/Silurus is also one of the versions of the British place-name now standardised as Scilly (with an intrusive 18^th c. "c"). Silura/Scilly was known as an island till the 4^th c. A. D. but some time afterwards, sea-floods turned it into what are now known as the Isles of Scilly. As islands off Cornwall they appear to have been ruled by a sub-clan/sept of the Dumnoni ruling Cornwall/Devon (= s/west Brit./Eng.) in the way that the Arans off west Munster were ruled by a sept of the Eoganachta ruling Munster (= one of the four ancient kingdoms/provinces of Ireland).

The root of Dumnoni incorporates dubh already seen to mean black/very dark so matches what has been written of the Cornish many times. Silura may also apply to one the small islands off the Welsh coast but easily the famous example in Wales has to be Silures (centred mainly on Gwent in s/east Wales). Here we come to something of a contrast of the genetic and the written records. Tacitus (1^st c. A. D. Roman) records a tribe of British Celts in what is now Scotland as the Caledoni as Germanic and another tribe of British Celts in what is now Wales as the Silures as Iberian.

If the Caledoni as Germanic stands, there seems no reason to doubt the Silures were Iberic. There is at least some blood-group evidence to support this. Moreover, the Tacitean description of the Silures as very dark, curly-haired and Iberian-looking might almost take us to that given by Pliny (1^st c. A.D. Roman) of more British Celts but this time of the north of what is now England as "Ethiopian" (one of the Greco/Roman words for Africans) and/or Mauros/Maurus (one of the many Greco/Roman words meaning black, as seen in Mauri/Moors too).

At the opposite end of Wales from the Silures is north Wales. Here legend has it that Cardigan Bay results from a flood caused by a lock-keeper getting drunk and neglecting his duties. That lock-keeper was called Sethennin and this has been related to the names of Setantae and Setanta (= the pre-warrior-name Cu Chulann & the major hero of the Irish story called the Tain bo Cualgne). The Setantae were a tribe of British Celts placed by Ptolemy (2^nd c. A.D. Roman) in what is now northwest England. The name relates to Setanta (the pre-warrior name of Cu Chulann & seen as the major hero of the main story in the tales named after Ulster [= the northernmost ancient Irish kingdom]). It may be relevant to note that Setanta/Cu Chulann was also "the small dark man"

Just a little north of the Setantae into what is now southwest Scotland was where Ptolemy put the British Celts called the Damnoni. This is but a slight difference of spelling from Dumnoni placed by Ptolemy in Cornwall/Devon and the Domnann placed by the Tain bo Cualgne (= Cattle-raid of Cooley = the Tain) in Leinster (the easternmost of the ancient Irish kingdoms). The basic root of what lies behind the names of the Dumnoni/Damnoni/Domnann was seen to be dubh. This was also seen to mean black or very dark and this relates to yet more "small dark men" populating the Gaelic legends of west Scotland garbled as the Poems of Ossian by James MacPherson (18^th/19^th c. Scot.) and more authentically by John Campbell in Tales of the West Highlands (1865).

It should be said the builders of the Scottish stone circle at Callanish can be seen as small Africans, giant Africans or a possible mix of both. The figure seen as the main warrior of the Irish tale-cycle of the Ulster type under the name of Cu Chullan was also described as small and very dark. Otherwise, the Dubh Eirionach (= Black Irish) are mentioned by messrs Armstrong and Huxley (as the Alis ib.). Huxley put them mainly west of the River Shannon in west Munster.

By now it will be obvious there is ample testimony for Africo/Iberian sea-routes to west France and/or the British Isles. For that part of those islands that is Ireland, such as the writings of messrs. Raftery (The Iron Age in the Irish Sea Province ed. Charles Thomas 1972) plus the several papers by Sean O’Nuallain indicate the strong Iberian links of Munster plus Connacht (the westernmost kingdom of Ire.). This lies with the everyday things and accords with the accounts of Old-Irish literature showing the Iberian ancestry of the Milesians/Sons of Mil/Clann Milid (= the Proto-Gaels/Goidels of Ire.).

In the light of Raftery showing both the separate connections of Iberia and Cornwall and of Cornwall and west Munster, it is surely appropriate to allude to comments of Dathi O-hOgain (Myth, Legend & Romance: An Encycopedia of the Irish Folklore Tradition 1990). He notes that Land’s End plus Mizen Head as the most south-westerly points of Britain and Ireland respectively are marked by the Celtic Beler/Balar-names that very plainly head us back to the Atlantic coasts of west Africa and Iberia.