Noah and the Great Flood of Genesis 6-9
Just How 'Global' Was the Great Genesis Flood?
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Sumerian History in Chaos
Sumerian Geography in Chaos
Tuesday, January 7, 2020
Ancient Australians. Part Two: Southern Indian Tamil-Dravidian likeness
Ancient Australians
– culture going south
Part Two:
Southern Indian Tamil-Dravidian likeness
by
Damien F. Mackey
“I sat and watched Ten Canoes the other day [Australian aboriginals].
The language in it sounded like Tamil”.
Dr. John Osgood wrote on ancient India in “A Better Model for the Stone Age. Part Two”:
….
The pre-Harappan cultures of the Indus River system all show evidence of continuity of cultural traits into the Harappan culture. Although there is evidence of destruction in some sites, as the Harappan culture emerges, the continuity is evident. This also leaves open the possibility that we are dealing with a population which is the same genetically from the pre-Harappan to the Harappan phase, an exceedingly strong possibility given the early days of this culture and the geography of the area.
The Harappan civilization had its own script, which first appears during its classical period and therefore a short time after the appearance of other scripts, such as proto-Elamite in the west. In fact, their emergence may have been, and probably was being, invented by the separate peoples simultaneously (see Figure 25).
….
This Indus script as been of recent times shown to be, or at least strongly suggested to be, Proto Dravidian; that is the forerunner of the Dravidian scripts of today.58 It was another centre of the multi- centred redevelopment of writing.
The Indus River civilisation was driven out and conquered by the invading Aryans, southward, and its homeland occupied by Aryran speakers. Likewise in India today the Aryan languages (e.g. Hindi) are mainly in the north and the Dravidian languages (e.g. Tamil) are mostly in the south (see Figure 26). ….
To what genetic origin do we owe the Iranian plateau people of these times and the Indus Valley peoples? We must admit that there is at present no certain identification of origin, but the following facts may help:
1. They moved eastward probably from the Mesopotamian area.
2. The Iranian Plateau and Indus Valley had a cultural affinity.
3. The Indus Valley people had a separate script from the Elamites and it came into prominence a little later.
4. The Indus people were apparently dark skinned.
We may provisionally theorise that they were not Shemites - no connection can be made. The skin colour would suggest Hamites, but after that the trail becomes much more speculative. ….
[End of quote]
An ethnic link can almost certainly be established between the dark-skinned southern Indians and the Australian aborigines, whose cultural type was also found emerging at Göbekli Tepe.
Thus Lulu Morris writes, “Four Thousand Years Ago Indians Landed in Australia”: https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/australia/four-thousand-years-ago-indians-landed-in-
….
Genetic evidence suggests that just over 4 millennia ago a group of Indian travellers landed in Australia and stayed. The evidence emerged a few years ago after a group of Aboriginal men’s Y chromosomes matched with Y chromosomes typically found in Indian men. Up until now, the exact details, though, have been unclear.
But Irina Pugach from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology may have recently solved the thousand-year-old case. 4,000 years before the First Fleet landed on our fair shores, Indian adventurers had already settled and were accepted into the Indigenous Australian culture.
By studying the single-nucleotide polymorphisms and their patterns, Dr Pugach revealed a diverse tapestry of ancestry, one different from the lineage of New Guineans or the Philippines. The study found a pattern of SNPs that is only found in Indian genetics, specifically the Dravidian speakers from South India. Dr Pugach’s results were consistent with the Y-chromosome data found years earlier. Using both results she calculated exactly when India arrived in Australia.
Dr Pugach estimates this to be around 2217 BC. An interesting time for both Australia and India. Indian civilisation was just about formed and Australian culture and wildlife were rearranging.
The Indus Valley civilisation (India) emerged between 2600 BC and 1900 BC. During this period, Indus Valley managed to develop seaworthy boats, which they used to trade with their neighbours: The Middle East. This new technology was used to get to Australia.
There is evidence of a shift in technology that coincides with the time Indians were thought to have arrived in Australia. Indigenous Australians switched their palaeolithic crude, stone tools, for neolithic refined tools. Again around about the time India washed up in Australia, the way food was collected and cooked changed, particularly the preparation of the cycad nut. An important source of food for early Australians, the cycad nut is quite toxic until the toxins are drawn out. The indigenous method always involved roasting the nut, but by 2000 BC Indigenous Australians were removing the toxins via water and fermentation. Similarly, the nut, which is found in Kerala in Southern India is commonly dried or roasted. The last rather important piece of evidence that suggests Indian settled in Australia is our beloved dingo.
The dingo has always been an enigma. No one really knows how or why it ended up in Australia. We know it probably exterminated the Tasmanian Tiger on Mainland Australia (apart from the dingo-free island known as Tasmania) and we know it didn’t originate here. The dingo has a striking resemblance to wild dogs found in India and so may have travelled with the first Indian settlers to our Island. However, there are similar looking dogs found in New Guinea and South East Asia.
Whatever the case, modern genetics has highlighted a part of Indigenous Ancestry previously lost to the world.
Makes you think what else we’ll find.
Tamil and Australian aboriginal languages
Posted by Soumitri Varadarajan
I sat and watched Ten Canoes the other day. The language in it sounded like Tamil. Which was a surprise. Just like years ago I realised that Japanese and Tamil words were interchangeable in a sentence. So I went looking for research where others may have found this too. I came across this:
Perhaps most similar to Australian languages are the Dravidian languages of southern India. Tamil, for example, has five places of articulation in a single series of stops, paralleled by a series of nasals, and no fricatives (thus approaching the Australian proportion of sonorants to obstruents of 70% to 30%). Approaching the question from the opposite direction: according to the latest WHO data on the prevalence of chronic otitis media (Acuin 2004:14ff), Aboriginal Australians have the highest prevalence in the world – 10-54%, according to Coates & al (2002), up to 36% with perforations of the eardrum. They are followed – at some distance – by the Tamil of southern India (7.8%, down from previous estimates of 16-34%), … (from http://www.flinders.edu.au/speechpath/Manly%20final.pdf)
Then I started to look at other linking the tamil and the Aboriginal. And here I encountered a lot of material. I big proportio of this has to be discounted as it is typically in the vein of the Indian or Tamil suprematist.
Quickly – that vein is one that claims that Tamil is the original language – and the class of languages called Dravidian ( an unfortunate appellation?) is huge and spread all over the world. Some claim the flaw in this na,ing has given rise to the feeling that Tamil ( as dravidian) is the original language. Still now we can start to read about DNA evidence. See this:
Dr Rao and his colleagues sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of 966 people from traditional tribes in India. They reported several of the Indian people studied had two regions of their mitochondrial DNA that were identical to those found in modern day Australian Aboriginal people. (http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/topic/2011921/1/)
Then there is the Human Genome Project and here is what that has to say:
During his own journey in pursuit of the Y chromosome story in the late 1990s, Wells took blood samples from males of Dravidian ancestry in southern India. The Dravidians were among India’s earliest colonists; they now live among the descendants of a later wave of Sanskrit speakers — like Latin and ancient Greek, Sanskrit is an a branch of the Indo-European ‘mother tongue’, more closely related to modern English and French than to Dravidian.
Wells was looking for a genetic marker called M130, the most ancient, non-African, Y-chromosome marker. It is rare in Dravidians, but quite common in Australian Aboriginal males — and, intriguingly, in the Na Dene peoples of the Pacific north-west of North America.
The Na Dene peoples are descended from a second, later wave of immigrants into North America, who were ultimately of Sino-Tibetan stock — M130 is both the oldest non-African Y-chromosome marker, and the most travelled.
Wells’ suspicion that M130 might have survived, at very low frequency, in southern coastal regions of India, was proven correct
The first African emigres left a durable calling card on the coastal migratory route between Africa and Australia.
Monday, December 16, 2019
Sodom and the destructive “chasm” of era of Boethos
by
Damien F. Mackey
Manetho states that during the 38 years reign of Boethos (or Bochos)
a “chasm” opened at Bubastis and many people died.
This present article has been lifted from Volume Seven (“Sodom to Saqqara”) of my book, “From Genesis to Hernán Cortés”.
The combined lives of (Abram) Abraham and Isaac may have enabled us to put together a long-reigning first ruler of Egypt and southern (Philistine) Canaan, Menes Hor-Aha (‘Min’), or, in Hebrew terms, “Abimelech”, whose name, I thought, had some resonance with the Egyptian name Raneb of the Second Dynasty.
And from the name Raneb I conjectured a possible connection with the celebrated, but obscure, Old Kingdom ruler, Nebka, who, in turn, could be the Nebkaure (Nebkare), said by Pliny to have been the ruler at the time of Abraham.
This was pointed out by David Rohl, who had proceeded from there to identify that Nebkaure with Khety IV of the Tenth Dynasty.
These combinations, which I would accept as a working hypothesis, would (if correct) enable for a synthesising of the Old Kingdom (First and Second dynasties) with the ‘Middle’ Kingdom (Tenth Dynasty), in accordance with Dr. Donovan Courville’s suggestion that the Old and Middle were by no means vastly separated in time the one from the other, but were to some degree concurrent.
One also reads at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weneg_(pharaoh) that a scholar has identified Raneb, in turn, with Weneg, and, further, that N. Grimal and others think that Weneg corresponds to Hor-Sekhemib-Perenmaat.
Such a series of identifications would minimise the number of rulers in the Second Dynasty.
The first listed ruler of the Second Dynasty is given as Hetepsekhemwy, whom Manetho calls “Boethos”. His position at the beginning of the dynasty might necessitate an identification of him with the very first ruler of Egypt, the one known to Abraham and Isaac.
While that may be an extremely tenuous connection, I notice that David O’Connor (Leaving No Stones Unturned: Essays on the Ancient Near East and Egypt ….), has embraced an identification of Hetepsekhemwy with Raneb (p. 170): “The earlier rulers of Dynasty II (perhaps as many as six individuals) were probably all buried at Saqqara, where so far only two of the actual tombs have been located, one for king Hotepsekhemwy or Raneb, the other for king Ninetjer”.
The Second Dynasty was unlikely composed of “as many as six individuals”, far fewer.
And I likewise would suggest that the conventional nine or so rulers of the First Dynasty might be similarly in need of a reduction.
Hetepsekhemwy (or Hotepsekhemwy) is so poorly known for a ruler of anything from 38 (Manetho) to 95 (Turin canon) years that he needs one, or more, alter egos.
That is apparent from the following: https://www.crystalinks.com/dynasty2.html
Little is known about Hotepsekhemwy's reign. Contemporary sources show that he may have gained the throne after a period of political strife, including ephemeral rulers such as Horus "Bird" and Sneferka (the latter is also thought to be an alternate name used by king Qaa for a short time). As evidence of this, Egyptologists Wolfgang Helck, Dietrich Wildung and George Reisner point to the tomb of king Qaa, which was plundered at the end of 1st dynasty and was restored during the reign of Hotepsekhemwy. The plundering of the cemetery and the unusually conciliatory meaning of the name Hotepsekhemwy may be clues of a dynastic struggle. Additionally, Helck assumes that the kings Sneferka and Horus "Bird" were omitted from later king lists because their struggles for the Egyptian throne were factors in the collapse of the first dynasty.
Seal impressions provide evidence of a new royal residence called "Horus the shining star" that was constructed by Hotepsekhemwy. He also built a temple near Buto for the little-known deity Netjer-Achty and founded the "Chapel of the White Crown". The white crown is a symbol of Upper Egypt. This is thought to be another clue to the origin of Hotepsekhemwy's dynasty, indicating a likely source of political power. Egyptologists such as Nabil Swelim point out that there is no inscription from Hotepsekhemwy's reign mentioning a Sed festival, indicating the ruler cannot have ruled longer than 30 years (the Sed festival was celebrated as the anniversary marking a reign of 30 years).
The ancient Greek Manetho called Hotepsekhemwy Boethos (apparently altered from the name Bedjau) and reported that during this ruler's reign "a chasm opened near Bubastis and many perished". Although Manetho wrote in the 3rd century BC - over two millennia after the king's actual reign - some Egyptologists think it possible that this anecdote may have been based on fact, since the region near Bubastis is known to be seismically active.
The location of Hotepsekhemwy's tomb is unknown. Egyptologists such as Flinders Petrie, Alessandre Barsanti and Toby Wilkinson believe it could be the giant underground Gallery Tomb B beneath the funeral passage of the Unas-necropolis at Sakkara. Many seal impressions of king Hotepsekhemwy have been found in these galleries.
Egyptologists such as Wolfgang Helck and Peter Munro are not convinced and think that Gallery Tomb B is instead the burial site of king Raneb, as several seal impressions of this ruler were also found there. ….
Most important for our study here, about great geophysical rifts appearing in the region, is that piece of evidence from Manetho about the “chasm” during the reign of “Boethos”.
If, as I am tentatively suggesting, “Boethos” had been a contemporary of Abraham and Isaac, then one might expect that the “chasm” that killed many people had to do with the destruction witnessed by Abram (Genesis 19:24-28):
Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
That “chasm” may be a something in the life of the monarch, “Boethos”, that could relate to the catastrophism that caused the extinction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, with “Bela (that is Zoar)” saved for the sake of Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19:20-23). https://www.crystalinks.com/dynasty2.html
“The ancient Greek Manetho called Hotepsekhemwy Boethos (apparently altered from the name Bedjau) and reported that during this ruler's reign "a chasm opened near Bubastis and many perished". Although Manetho wrote in the 3rd century BC - over two millennia after the king's actual reign - some Egyptologists think it possible that this anecdote may have been based on fact, since the region near Bubastis is known to be seismically active”.
Manetho, living very long after the “chasmic” event, may have done what Herodotus made bold to do regarding the destruction of Sennacherib’s Assyrian army, which Herodotus transferred geographically from Palestine to the Egyptian Delta, to Pelusium.
For Manetho will locate the “chasm” of “Boethos” in Bubastis.
Commenting on this, Swiss archaeologist, Henri Édouard Naville wrote in an article, “Bubastis” (1891): “We learn from Manetho that under the King Boethos, the first of the second dynasty, a chasm opened itself at Bubastis, which caused the loss of a great many lives. Up to the present day, we have not found in any part of Egypt monuments as old as the second dynasty”.
Thursday, November 28, 2019
Horrible Histories: Unaccountable Akkadians
by
Damien F. Mackey
““Uncertainty in identifying exclusively Akkadian pottery has made
it impossible to reconstruct Akkadian settlement patterns with any confidence”
(Nissen 1993: 100)”.
Dr. John Osgood
Dr. Donovan
Courville would come to the conclusion, in his praiseworthy effort to bring
Egypt and Mesopotamia into line historically and archaeologically with the
biblical data (The
Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, 1971), that the distinctive Jemdet Nasr (near Kish) period was
archaeological evidence for the Dispersion after Babel.
Vern Crisler
tells of it: https://vernerable.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/tower-of-babel1.pdf
Courville
was quite confident that the Dispersion from Babel took place in the
archaeological period known as “Jemdet Nasr.” …. The strata of Jemdet Nasr in
Mesopotamia correlate to Early Bronze 1 strata in the Holy Land. It is believed
that this period shows that an “intensive migration” took place from
Mesopotamia into Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Asia Minor and into the Aegean
islands.
Reference
is made to W. F. Albright who had spoken of this period as a “transitional
period” corresponding to Megiddo 19 and the lowest level of Byblos. …. It is
further noted that this was a “narrow period” in Mesopotamian history, and that
Jemdet Nasr had a “brief existence” and was “short.” …. The Jemdet Nasr period
represents the beginnings of dynastic history, and thus represents a trend
toward nationalism.
[End of quotes]
Following Dr. Osgood, I shall be suggesting
a different context for the Jemdet Nasr phase, somewhat later than Babel.
My own view is that the Akkadian dynasty is
represented by the sophisticated Halaf culture, currently dated to
approximately (a massive) four millennia before King Sargon of Akkad (c. 2334 -2284 BC, conventional dating).
This Sargon I, ‘the Great’, may even be Nimrod himself.
See e.g. my article:
Nimrod
a “mighty man”
As we are now going to find, the
conventional picture regarding the archaeology for the famous Akkadian and Ur
III dynasties is hopelessly inadequate. Here is what I have written on this:
“Uncertainty in identifying exclusively
Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to reconstruct Akkadian settlement
patterns with any confidence” (Nissen 1993: 100).
Most interesting, now, that Anne
Habermehl’s geographical re-location of the Babel incident:
… finds a most significant and
sophisticated ancient culture to accompany it: namely, Halaf.
….
The long Akkadian empire phase of history … so admired by subsequent rulers and
generations, is remarkably lacking in archaeological data. I noted this
[before] ….
“The Akkadian kings
were extensive builders, so why, then, so few traces of their work?
Not to mention, where
is their capital city of Akkad?
The Ur III founder,
Ur-Nammu, built a wall at Ur. Not a trace remains”.
….
here I want to highlight the enormity of the problem.
Archaeologists
have actually failed to identify a specific pottery for the Akkadian era!
This
is, of course, quite understandable given that they (indeed, we) have been
expecting to discover the heart of the Akkadian kingdom in Sumer, or Lower
Mesopotamia.
We
read of this incredible situation of a missing culture in the following account
by Dr. R. Matthews, from his book, The Archaeology of
Mesopotamia: Theories and Approaches (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=9ZrjLyrPipsC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=uncer):
The problems of fitting material cultural
assemblages, especially pottery, into historical sequences are epitomised in
the ongoing debate over what, if anything, characterises Akkadian material
culture in Lower Mesopotamia (Gibson and McMahon 1995; Nissen 1993; J. G.
Westenholz 1998).
Uncertainty in identifying exclusively
Akkadian pottery has made it impossible to reconstruct Akkadian settlement
patterns with any confidence (Nissen 1993: 100). The bleakest view has been put
thus: ‘If we didn’t know from the texts that the Akkad empire really existed,
we would not be able to postulate it from the changes in settlement patterns,
nor … from the evolution of material culture’ (Liverani 1993: 7-8). The
inference is either that we are failing to isolate and identify the specifics
of Akkadian material culture, or that a political entity apparently so large
and sophisticated as the Akkadian empire can rise and pass without making a
notable impact on settlement patterns or any aspect of material culture”.
Obviously,
that “a political entity apparently so large and sophisticated as the Akkadian
empire can rise and pass without making a notable impact on … any aspect of
material culture” is quite absurd. The truth of the matter is that a whole
imperial culture has been almost totally lost because - just as in the case of
so much Egyptian culture, and in its relation to the Bible - historians and
archaeologists are forever looking in the wrong geographical place at the wrong
chronological time.
It
is my view that, regarding the Akkadian empire (and following Habermehl), one
needs to look substantially towards Syria and the Mosul region, rather than to
“Lower Mesopotamia”. And that one needs to fuse the Halaf culture with the
Akkadian one. The most important contribution by Anne Habermehl has opened up a
completely new vista for the central Akkadian empire, and for the biblical
events associated with it. The potentate Nimrod, one might now expect, had
begun his empire building, not in Sumer, but in the Sinjar region, and had then
moved on to northern Assyria. Thus Genesis 10:10-11: “The beginning of
[Nimrod’s] kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of
Shinar. From that land he went forth into Assyria, where he built Nineveh,
Rehoboth-Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the
great city”.
And
these are precisely the regions where we find that the spectacular Halaf
culture arose and chiefly developed: NE Syria and the Mosul region of Assyria.
Understandably
once again, in a conventional context, with the Halaf cultural phase dated to
c. 6100-5100 BC, there can be no question of meeting these dates with the
Akkadian empire of the late C3rd millennium BC. That is where Dr. Osgood’s “A
Better Model for the Stone Age” (http://creation.com/a-better-model-for-the-stone-age) becomes so vital, with its revising of
Halaf down to the Late Chalcolithic period in Palestine, to the time of Abram
(Abraham):
…. In 1982, under the title 'A Four-Stage
Sequence for the Levantine Neolithic', Andrew M.T. Moore presented evidence to
show that the fourth stage of the Syrian Neolithic was in fact usurped by the
Halaf Chalcolithic culture of Northern Mesopotamia, and that this particular
Chalcolithic culture was contemporary with the Neolithic IV of Palestine and
Lebanon.5:25 ....
….
This was very significant, especially as
the phase of Halaf culture so embodied was a late phase of the Halaf
Chalcolithic culture of Mesopotamia, implying some degree of contemporaneity of
the earlier part of Chalcolithic Mesopotamia with the early part of the
Neolithic of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria ….
This finding was not a theory but a fact,
slowly and very cautiously realized, but devastating in its effect upon the
presently held developmental history of the ancient world. This being the case,
and bearing in mind the impossibility of absolute dating by any scientific
means despite the claims to the contrary, the door is opened very wide for the
possible acceptance of the complete contemporaneity of the whole of the
Chalcolithic of Mesopotamia with the whole of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of
Palestine. (The last period of the Chalcolithic of Palestine is seen to be
contemporary with the last Chalcolithic period of Mesopotamia.)
Dr.
Osgood himself, however, regards the Halaf people as the biblical “Aramites”
[Aramaeans]. (“A Better Model for the Stone Age Part Two”: http://creation.com/a-better-model-for-the-stone-age-part-2).
Since
the Aramaeans, though, tended to be a wandering nomadic people (Deuteronomy
26:5), I would not expect their existence to be reflected in a culture as
sophisticated as Halaf. Though they themselves may have absorbed some of it. My
preference, therefore, is for Halaf to represent the Akkadians, especially as
Halaf was the dominant culture when Osgood’s Jemdat Nasr
pertaining to the Elamite Chedorlaomer, arose.
This
is how Dr. Osgood sees the spread of the Halaf culture:
Now
if we date Babel to approximately 2,200 B.C. (as reasoned by implication from
Noah's Flood 3)
and if Abraham came from Mesopotamia (the region of Aram) approximately 1875
B.C., then we would expect that there is archaeological evidence that a people
who can fit the description generally of the Aramites should be found well
established in this area .... What in fact do we find? Taking the former
supposition of the Jemdat Nasr culture being identified with the biblical story
of Genesis 14 and the Elamite Chedarloamer,4
we would expect to find some evidence in Aram or northern Mesopotamia of Jemdat
Nasr influence, but this would only be the latest of cultural influences in
this region superseding and dominant on other cultures.
The dominant culture that had been in this
area prior to the Jemdat Nasr period was a culture that is known to the
archaeologist as the Halaf culture, named after Tell Halaf where it was first
identified. One of the best summaries of our present knowledge of the Halafian
culture is found in the publication, 'The Hilly Flanks'5.
It seems clear from the present state of knowledge that the Halaf culture was a
fairly extensive culture, but it was mostly dominant in the area that we
recognise as Aram Naharaim.
It is found in the following regions.
First, its main base in earliest distribution seems to have been the Mosul
region. From there it later spread to the Sinjar region to the west,
further westward in the Khabur head-waters, further west again to the Balikh
River system, and then into the middle Euphrates valley. It also spread a
little north of these areas. It influenced areas west of the Middle Euphrates
valley and a few sites east of the Tigris River, but as a general statement, in
its fully spread condition, the Halaf culture dominated Aram Naharaim ….
The site of Arpachiyah just west of Nineveh
across the Tigris River appears to have been the longest occupied site and
perhaps the original settlement of the Halaf people. This and Tepe Gawra were
important early Halaf towns.
The settlement of the Halaf people at these
cities continued for some considerable time, finally to be replaced by the Al
Ubaid people from southern Mesopotamia. When Mallowan excavated the site of Tell
Arpachiyah, he found that the top five levels belonged to the Al Ubaid
period. The fifth level down had some admixture of Halaf material within it. He
says:
‘The more spacious rooms of T.T.5 indicate
that it is the work of Tell Halaf builders; that the two stocks did not live
together in harmony is shown by the complete change of material in T.T.l-4,
where all traces of the older elements had vanished. Nor did any of the burials
suggest an overlap between graves of the A 'Ubaid and Tell Halaf period; on the
contrary, there was evidence that in the Al 'Ubaid cemetery grave- diggers of
the Al 'Ubaid period had deliberately destroyed Tell Halaf house remains.’6
He further comments the following:
‘It is more than probable that the Tell
Halaf peoples abandoned the site on the arrival of the newcomers from
Babylonia; and with the disappearance of the old element prosperity the site
rapidly declined; for, although the newcomers were apparently strong enough to
eject the older inhabitants, yet they appear to have been a poor community,
already degenerate; their houses were poorly built and meanly planned, their
streets no longer cobbled as in the Tell Halaf period and the general
appearance of their settlement dirty and poverty stricken in comparison with
the cleaner buildings of the healthier northern peoples who were their
predecessors.’7
He further says:
‘The invaders had evidently made a
wholesale destruction of all standing buildings converted some of them into a
cemetery.’8
It is clear from the discussion of Patty Jo
Watson9 that the later periods of the Halaf people were found in the
other regions, particularly in a westward direction across the whole area of
Aram Naharaim, namely the Sinjar region, the Khabur head-waters, the Balikh
River system and the middle Euphrates”.
[End of Osgood’s article]
Dr. Osgood had estimated the Halaf culture
as having spread from east (Assyria) to the west: “First, its main base in
earliest distribution seems to have been the Mosul region. From there it
later spread to the Sinjar region to the west, further westward in the Khabur
head-waters, further west again to the Balikh River system …”. Most
likely, it was the other way around, with Nimrod (= Sargon of Akkad/Halaf
culture) firstly having established his kingdom in the “Sinjar region”, biblical
“Shinar” (Genesis 10:10): “The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk,
Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar. From that land he went to Assyria,
where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah and Resen, which is between Nineveh
and Calah—which is the great city”.
Andrew Moore had, as we read before, argued
for a contemporaneity of the Chacolithic phase of Halaf culture with the
Neolithic IV of Palestine and Lebanon ….
Archaeologically, we are now on the eve of
the city building phase (inspired by Nimrod?) that will be a feature of
Syro-Palestine’s Early Bronze Age. Presumably the Canaanites were heavily
involved in all of this work (Genesis 10:18): “… the Canaanite clans scattered
and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and
then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, as far as Lasha”.
Ham himself, though, son of Noah and father
of Canaan, gave his name to the land of Egypt (e.g., Psalm 78:51): “He struck
down all the firstborn of Egypt, the firstfruits of manhood in the tents of
Ham” (http://www.topix.com/forum/afam/T2OTBS4EEA84MJ67P/p2):
“According to the Bible the ancient
Egyptians were descended from Ham through the line of Mizraim. Ham had four
sons: Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan (Genesis 10:6). The name
"Mizraim" is the original name given for Egypt in the Hebrew Old
Testament. Many Bibles will have a footnote next to the name
"Mizraim" explaining that it means "Egypt." The name
"Egypt" itself actually comes to us from the Greeks who gave the Land
that name (i.e. "Aegyptos" from the Greek). In addition to the name
"Mizraim," the ancient Egyptians also referred to their land as
"Kemet" which means "Land of the Blacks." Western
historians, however, say that the word "Kemet" refers to the color of
the soil of the land rather than its people. But, the word "Kemet" is
actually an ethnic term being a derivative of the word "Khem" (Cham
or Ham) which means "burnt" or "black." Ham, who was one of
the three sons of Noah and the direct ancestor of the Egyptians, was black”.
Similarly, Ham’s son, Cush (Genesis 10:6),
is considered to be the father of the Cushite Ethiopians, who were (are) black.
Ham’s brother, Japheth, became the
god-Father of the Indo-European peoples such as the Greeks, who would identify
him as Iapetos, the
Titan, and the Indians, who called him Prajapti, “Father
Japheth”.
Regarding Shem, I follow the Jewish
tradition that Shem was the great Melchizedek - which view is chronologically
acceptable. Genesis 10:10-11: “Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100
years old, he became the father of Arphaxad. And after he became the father of
Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years [long enough to have been able to meet Abram]
and had other sons and daughters”.
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