Ancient History Reconsidered

Kush: Some of the descendants of Kush, son of Cham, settled in Ethiopia and were known as Kushites. A separate smaller group of Kushites settled in Babylon:

“And Kush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, ‘Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord’. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel [i.e. Babylon], and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.” (Gen. 10:8-10.)

The Land of Shinar here refers to Assyria and Babylonia. The Assyrian kings Shalmaneser I and Tukulti-Ninurta I referred to the Babylonians as ‘black-headed people’:

“When the lord Ashur chose me for his legitimate worshiper, and, for the ruling of the black-headed people, gave me scepter, sword, and staff, he presented me the diadem of legitimate rulership.”¹

Tukulti-Ninurta I likewise claimed to have “shepherded the extensive black-headed people like animals”.²

The expression ‘black-headed’ seems to be the Assyrian equivalent of the Greek word ‘Ethiop’, which means ‘black-faced’. Herodotus, who referred to these Babylonians as ‘Eastern Ethiopians’, informs us that they had straight black hair:

“The Ethiopians above Egypt and the Arabians had Arsames for commander, while the Ethiopians of the east (for there were two kinds of them in the army) served with the Indians; they were not different in appearance from the others, only in speech and hair: the Ethiopians from the east are straight-haired, but the ones from Libya [i.e. Africa] have the woolliest hair of all men.”³

That these eastern Ethiopians were Babylonians is as good as confirmed by the Jewish priest-historian Josephus:

“Judadas, settled the Judadeans, a nation of the western Ethiopians, and left them his name; as did Sabas to the Sabeans: but Nimrod, the son of Chus, stayed and tyrannized at Babylon, as we have already informed you.”⁴

For some unknown reason, archaeologists have decided to call these eastern Ethiopians Kassites, this being taken from the reading of Kasi in the Assyrian records. Sargon I also supposedly called himself king of Kish.⁵ (Note Kish rather than Kasi.) This is despite the fact that, in correspondence written on clay tablets unearthed by archaeologists at Tell El Amarna in Egypt, both the Babylonians and the Ethiopians of Africa were called Kasi (i.e. Kassites)!

Referring to these letters, Samuel A.B. Mercer records:

“In these letters Babylonia often occurs under the form ^mâtKaši... ...This should be compared with the Hebrew כּוּשׁ (Gen. 10.8 J) as the father of Nimrod, in contrast to כּוּשׁ (Gen. 10.6 P), the son of Ham... ...But there is no doubt that ^mâtKaši in these same letters refers sometimes to Nubia in Africa.”⁶

This suggestion by Mercer that Nimrod son of Kush is descended from a different Kush is somehow hard to comprehend. (What other Kush is mentioned in the Bible?) The fact that both the Babylonians and the Nubians of Ethiopia were called Kasi, and by Mercer’s own admission, the name Kasi is derived from the Hebrew word Kush, all goes to demonstrate that the Kassites are the eastern Ethiopians of the Greek writers.

These Kassites can be traced today to the Hindustanis of India whose holy mountain, the Hindu Kush, betrays their identity. The Hindustani Indians are black with straight black hair as described by Herodotus.

Mitsraim (Egypt): The Hebrew name for Egypt is מִצְרַיִם Mitsraim (AV Mizraim). The true Egyptians are descended from Mitsraim son of Cham, a person called Μέρσην Mestre by Josephus.⁷ As stated above, Herodotus records that the Egyptians were black with woolly hair.⁸ He even adds that they were the colour of a black dove:

“When they [the people of Dodona] say that the dove was black, they are indicating that the woman was Egyptian.’⁹

As far as the 18^th Dynasty Egyptian kings are concerned, the Michigan team which X-rayed the mummies commented that the skulls were “similar to that of the Nubians from the ancient cemeteries of Gebel Adda”.¹⁰ Today, the true Egyptians are dispersed throughout Ethiopia and Africa. The modern-day Egyptians are not the Egyptians of the Bible. They are an admixture of Ishmaelites, Moabites and Edomites. (Further information is provided in the attached works which can be freely downloaded in pdf format.)

Hittites: The Biblical Hittites were descended from Heth son of Canaan. (Gen. 10:15 and 1 Chron. 1:13.) The Hittites were therefore black. Since the discovery of the ancient kingdom of Hatti (var. Khatti) in Anatolia (i.e. Asia Minor – now Turkey), archaeologists would have us believe that the Hittites’ original homeland was there rather than in the Land of Israel. These Hattians later became the Germanic people called Chatti,¹¹ a people who settled in the region of Hesse in southern Germany.¹²

It is abundantly clear that neither the people of Hesse nor the Germans in general are black-skinned. The fact is that the Hattians were not the Biblical Hittites! To use the words of the renowned Swiss Assyriologist and Hittitologist Emil Forrer: “the Hittites were not Hittites at all”.¹³

“The name ‘Hittite’ was given to this language by modern scholars as being the official language of the Land of Hatti, and has been universally accepted; but it is strictly speaking incorrect... ...It is now generally agreed that the true name of the language is ‘Nesite’ or ‘Nesian’, the language of Nesa or Kanesh, but despite this the name ‘Hittite’ is now so well established that it will probably never be abandoned.”¹⁴

Nearly half a century later, archaeologists are still calling them Hittites.

The name Chatti was clearly pronounced Hesse by the Germans. When therefore Nebuchadnezzar claimed to have “conquered the whole area of Khatti-land”,¹⁵ he was in fact saying that the whole of Hesse-ia was now in his control. The name Hesse when transliterated into Greek becomes Asia! Nebuchadnezzar therefore believed that he was extending the boundaries of Asia, which designation at one time applied only to Turkey, the place which we refer to by the old name of Asia Minor. Archaeologists have only clouded the issue by wrongly calling the Hattians Hittites, a misnomer which they are seemingly reluctant to relinquish.

Philistines: According to the Bible, the Philistines (Hebrew פְּלִשְׁתִּים Pilishtim or Philishtim) were descended from Casluchim (AV Casluhim) son of Mitsraim. (Gen. 10:14.) When we talk of the modern Palestinians, there is the danger that we confuse them with the original inhabitants of the land. The Greeks called the Philistines Ethiopians. The Greek word Ethiop (var. Aethiop) means ‘black-face’. The land of Philistia in which the Philistines used to dwell is the region nowadays known as the Gaza Strip.

By the first century of the Common Era, these Biblical Philistines had disappeared from the land. The Latin writer Pliny (middle of the 1^st century ce), who could not work out what had happened to them, wrote:

“Ethiopia was worn out by alternate periods of dominance and subjection in a series of wars with Egypt, having been a famous and powerful country even down to the Trojan wars, when Memnon [Amenemhat III] was king; and the stories about Andromeda show that it dominated Syria and the coasts of the Mediterranean in the time of King Cepheus.¹⁶

Some of these Philistines can today be traced to the Falashas of Ethiopia. The name Falasha is but a variant spelling of the Hebrew Pelishti, a name which transliterates into Arabic as Falastin. There is evidence that the Hebrew letter ת tav can on occasions be transliterated as an ‘s’, which means that Pelisti can be pronounced Pheleshes.¹⁷ (This confusion between the ‘s’ and the ‘t’ in ancient languages is exemplified in the name Hatti mentioned above, which name was pronounced Hesse. Compare also the German word for road Straße, which is pronounced Shtra-ssa, with the Latin Strada. Think also about how we pronounce the word information. Conversely, the region of Bashan in northern Israel was known as Batanaian to the Greeks.¹⁸) The name Falasha supposedly means ‘stranger’ or ‘immigrant’ in the classical language of Ethiopia,¹⁹ which tells us that the Falashas at some time in the past emigrated to Ethiopia from some other location. The reason why these people were regarded as strangers or immigrants is most likely because they arrived in Ethiopia from the land of Philistia. They claim to be descended from Menelik I, a son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, whose name is given as Makeda.²⁰ Menelik I, however, lived centuries after King Solomon and is understood to have been king of Ethiopia around 200 bce.²¹ DNA evidence also shows that they are descended from the same gene pool as the Ethiopians and have no biological connection with the Jews from whom they claim to be descended:

“DNA samples from Falasha Jews and Ethiopians were studied with the Y-chromosome-specific DNA probe p49a to screen for TaqI restriction polymorphisms and haplotypes. Two haplotypes (V and XI) are the most widespread in Falashas and Ethiopians, representing about 70% of the total number of haplotypes in Ethiopia. Because the Jewish haplotypes VII and VIII are not represented in the Falasha population, we conclude that the Falasha people descended from ancient inhabitants of Ethiopia who converted to Judaism.”²²

The Falashas do not like being called Falashas because it betrays their true identity. They would rather believe that they were ‘sons’ of Solomon than to admit that they were at one time his subjects. Nevertheless, they do well to adhere to and live according to the Law of Moses and should be encouraged to continue doing so. We should therefore not be too critical.

Procopius of Caesarea records that many of the inhabitants of the land of Israel migrated to north Africa:

“Now at that time the whole country along the sea from Sidon as far as the boundaries of Egypt was called Phoenicia. And one king in ancient times held sway over it, as is agreed by all who have written the earliest accounts of the Phoenicians. In that country there dwelt very populous tribes, the Gergesites and the Jebusites and some others with other names by which they are called in the history of the Hebrews. Now when these nations saw that the invading general [i.e. Joshua son of Nun] was an irresistible prodigy, they emigrated from their ancestral homes and made their way to Egypt, which adjoined their country. And finding there no place sufficient for them to dwell in, since there has been a great population in Aegypt from ancient times, they proceeded to Libya. And they established numerous cities and took possession of the whole of Libya as far as the Pillars of Heracles, and there they have lived even up to my time, using the Phoenician tongue.”²³

Josephus: Josephus²⁴ provides further information concerning the Chamitic/Hamitic tribes:

“Evilas [Havila], who founded the Evileans, are called Getuli”

The Getuli were the black Berbers who inhabited the desert region to the south of the Atlas Mountains in north Africa.²⁵ The Berbers, however, also comprised Canaanites and Moabites.

“and Ragmus [i.e. Raamah] the Ragmeans; and he had two sons, the one of whom, Judadas, settled the Judadeans, a nation of the western Ethiopians, and left them his name.”

Notice that Josephus called Raamah Ragmus. The name Raamah is written רַעְמָה ra'ama, but the letter ע ayyin is a gutteral and is often transliterated into other languages either as a ‘g’ (as in Josephus’ translation) or a ‘k’, and on occasions as a ‘t’. The addition of the ‘s’ on the end of the word is a typical Greek practice. Strabo also mentions a people called Rhammanitæ in southern Arabia.²⁶ This tribe was located not too far distant from a city called Negrani, a name which in Latin means ‘black’.

“Sabathes [i.e. Sabtah (סַבְתָּה) in Gen. 10:7 or (סַבְתָּא) in 1 Chron. 1:9] founded the Sabathens, they are now called by the Greeks Astaborans.”

Note the metathesis: The ב and the ת have been transposed so that Sabathes becomes Astaborans. Metatheses involve the transposition of consonantal sounds and such transpositions were common in ancient languages. Consider, for example, the English words ‘morph’ and ‘form’. They both mean the same thing (i.e. to form, mould, shape or train), but one is a metathesis of the other. The French word moustique is likewise a metathesis of the English mosquito. In the Bible, we have Chushim (AV Hushim) son of Dan (Gen. 46:23) who is also called Shucham. (AV Shuham – Num. 26:42-3.) Ard son of Benjamin (Gen. 46:21) was also called Addar. (1 Chron. 8:3.) Bath-Sheba’s father was called Eliam in the Book of Samuel (2 Sam. 11:3) but Ammiel in the Book of Chronicles. (1 Chron. 3:5) We encounter a number of examples of this sort of transposition throughout my various works.

The Astaborans were a black Sudanese people.

The Hamathites (Gen. 10:18 & 1 Chron. 1:16), who Josephus called Amathus, were a people who:

“inhabited in Amathine, which is even now called Amathe by the inhabitants, although the Macedonians named it Epiphania, from one of his posterity.”

Pliny called them Nubei (Latin Nubeis, i.e. Nubians) who, he informs us:

“have even penetrated as far as Mount Libanus in the middle of Syria.”²⁷

Needless to say, the word Nubian means black.

The southern Sabeans, we are told, were descended from Seba (who he calls Sabas) son of Kush. (Gen. 10:7.) Most of the Sabeans, however, were Arabs, as Diodorus and Pliny confirm. They were descended from Sheba son of Yoktan/Joktan, one of Keturah’s children. (Gen. 10:28.) Josephus, however, refers specifically to the southern branch of the Sabeans. It is not clear who specifically he was referring to, but bearing in mind that all of Cham’s sons were black, he must be referring to a tribe either in Ethiopia or the Sudan. In Ancient History Reconsidered, we demonstrate that the Queen of Sheba was actually queen of Thebes. The Hebrew name Sheba therefore becomes Theba when transliterated into Egyptian, and becomes Thebes when transliterated into Greek. The Sabeans Josephus seems to be referring to must be the Egyptians who by his time had moved to Ethiopia. (As stated above, the modern Egyptians are NOT the Egyptians of the Bible.)

The Moors: Under the leadership of the Arab Ummayyads, the Moors invaded Spain in April 711 ce. These Moors were black Canaanite Berbers. Arab writers maintain that the Berbers were descendants of the Philistines and Canaanites who once occupied the land of Canaan in Israel.²⁸ Unlike the Arab Ummayyads, who had been practising Moslems for at least a century before the invasion, the Berbers were recent converts to the faith.²⁹ This needs to be emphasized for the simple reason that a lot of people are confused by the various factions which made up the Moslem army. According to the Arab writers, the Umayyads were Moabites, but a number of websites are calling the Moabites black, which is clearly wrong.

The Berbers at one time controlled most of the region of North Africa from Egypt to the Straits of Gibraltar and beyond. These people were black, but following the Moslem invasions of the country from the 7^th century ce onwards, the distinction between the various groups of people has become confused and muddied.³⁰ Consider, for example, the number of immigrants in England (or any other country, if it comes to that) who are of foreign extraction; immigrants who are now officially permanent residents, hence by definition English. Many have since had families, their children in turn likewise being considered of English extraction and all entitled to the same benefits and services of the indigenous population. Any historian or geographer would have great difficulty in distinguishing one part of the community from the whole. This is what has happened to many of the ancient tribes including the Berbers whose identity has been lost in part due to the Arabization of the indigenous people by the invading Moslems.

The Phoenicians: The strongly held view amongst academics is that the Phoenicians were Canaanites.³¹ This misconception seems to be supported by Jewish writers who believe that the Canaanites were sea-faring people who preceded the invasion of the Israelites under Joshua. As stressed above, the Canaanites were a Chamitic/Hamitic race whilst the Phoenicians were a Semitic people. In The Forgotten Tribe of Naphtali & the Phoenicians we reveal who the Phoenicians really were. They were most definitely not Canaanites. Be prepared for a shock revelation!

Yavan (AV Javan): Yavan was one of the seven sons of Yaphet. The name transliterates into Greek as Ionia. Yavan is also the Hebrew name for Greece, but Greece today is not Yavan. Just as the name Berber is today applied to a number of different peoples, so the name Yavan has been applied indiscriminately by the classical writers to nations which at one time dwelt with or alongside Yavan. The Milesians, for example, were confused with the Ionians (i.e. Yavanim) by the Greek writers.³² The Milesians were a Semitic tribe. In fact, the name Milesian is a corruption of the name Menashe, the interchange of the ‘n’ and ‘l’ in ancient languages being well-attested. Both Nebuchadnezzar II and his son Nabonidus were, for example, called Labynetus by Herodotus.³³ The 12^th Dynasty Egyptian king Nemare-Amenemhat III was likewise variably called Lachares, Lamares or Labares by the Greek writers.³⁴ Today, the descendants of Yavan can be found in Japan. The interchange of the ‘p’ and ‘b’ in ancient writings is also well-attested, as is the interchange of the ‘b’ and ‘v’. Japan is therefore merely a variant spelling of the Hebrew Yavan. Greece today is occupied by Edomites. For an explanation of this statement including more detailed information, read Legacy of Edom and The Forgotten Tribe of Naphtali & the Phoenicians.

Tubal: The name Tubal comes to us from the Hebrew. By contrast, the Greeks called them Tibareni.³⁵ The Oriental peoples cannot pronounce their ‘l’s’, hence Tubal becomes Tu’bo’u or similar. The Taybač, or Tuoba Xianbei, of northern China³⁶ as well as the Tuvans who settled in the Republic of Tuva in southern Siberia³⁷ are both tribes who are descended from Tubal.

Kittim: Kittim was one of the sons of Yavan. (Gen. 10:4 & 1 Chron. 1:7.) The region of north China, which at one time was known as Cathay, is named after this tribe. Cathay is a variant spelling of Kittim. The dropping or adding of the final ‘m’ in ancient languages is also well-attested. We shall encounter a number of examples of this in the main works. Those familiar with the New Testament will be aware that Naphtali appears in two places under the name Nephthalim. (Matt. 4:13-15 & Rev. 7:6.)

Riphath: Riphath was one of the sons of Gomer, son of Yaphet. They became the Paretaceni of Herodotus,³⁸ called Paraetaceni by Pliny,³⁹ and ultimately the Buryats who settled in Buryatia in the south-central region of Siberia.⁴⁰ Note that the name Buryat is a metathesis of Riphath.

Magog: The Koreans as well as some of the southern Chinese are apparently descended from Magog. They were originally known as Goguryeo,⁴¹ but as Gog was Edomite (See Legacy of Edom), it means that Goguryeo must be a corruption of Magog.

Elisha: Elisha, one of the sons of Yavan, might possibly be traced to the inhabitants of Laos in south-east Asia.⁴²

Gomer: Gomer was the firstborn son of Yaphet. In ancient languages, the letters ‘g’ and ‘k’ were often transposed. Examples of this transposition can be found in the Tell El Amarna Letters where, for example, a certain person is variously called Aitugama (Letters 53 & 60), Edagama, (Letters 174, 175 & 176), Etakama (Letter 189), Atakkama (Letter 56) etc. (Letters are numbered after Samuel A B Mercer, The Tell El-Amarna Tablets, 1939.) Also, in his Behistun Inscription, Darius I king of Persia called the Cimmerians Ghimiri. The name Gomer therefore becomes Komer. Add to this the fact that the oriental nations have difficulty pronouncing their ‘l’s and their ‘r’s, hence Gomer, which becomes Komer, now becomes Komau or similar. Furthermore, the letter ‘m’ in the Assyrian, Persian, Scythian, Gaelic and Brettonic languages was often pronounced as a ‘b’. Those familiar with the Bible will know, for example, that Merodach-baladan (Isa. 39:1) is also called Berodach-baladan (2 Kings 20:12). The name Gomer now becomes Kabau or Kambau or similar. Philologically, the name Cambodia/Kampuchea is a phonetic variation of the name Gomer. In fact, the land of Cambodia (or Kampuchea) is named after the Khmer people who at one time formed part of the Khmer Empire (802 ce to 1431 ce)⁴³ where Khmer is another variant spelling of Gomer.

Ashkenaz: Ashkenaz was another of the sons of Gomer, son of Yaphet. It would appear that the land of Ashkenaz is mentioned in the Assyrian records of Tiglathpileser III as either Ushkakkâna⁴⁴ or Ushkakan⁴⁵ and was located somewhere in Mesopotamia, in land which at that time belonged to the Medes. It appears to be identical to the Ushshukani mentioned by Adad-nirari I,⁴⁶ a land which was located somewhere between the Habur river and Carchemish on the Euphrates. This was roughly the region where the prophet Yechezekel (Ezekiel) was located when he says:-

“Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar...” (Ezek. 1:1.)
“...the word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was there upon him.” (Ezek. 1:3.)

The river Chebar is the Habur of the Assyrian records. Ezekiel, who was of a priestly family, was therefore dwelling in the land of Ashkenaz which at that time was under Chaldean control, the original inhabitants having been deported by Tiglathpileser III a couple of centuries earlier. Tiglathpileser III had relocated them in land much further north, somewhere between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. Herodotus, who called these people Sigynnae, records that they were located in his day to the north of the river Ister (i.e. Danube):

“I can learn of no men dwelling beyond the Ister save certain that are called Sigynnae and wear Median dress. [i.e. of the oriental style]. Their horses are said to be covered all over with shaggy hair five fingers’ breadth long, and to be small, blunt-nosed, and unable to bear men on their backs, but very swift when yoked to chariots. It is for this reason that driving chariots is the usage of the country. These men’s borders, it is said, reach almost as far as the Eneti on the Adriatic Sea. They call themselves colonists from Media. How this has come about I myself cannot understand, but all is possible in the long passage of time.”⁴⁷

The Eneti Herodotus is referring to are the people other writers call Veneti. They were an Edomite tribe named after Duke Anah who dwelt in northern Italy. Assuming that Herodotus has not made a mistake about the Sigynnae, these sons of Ashkenaz son of Yaphet therefore at one time controlled territory which must have extended into Bulgaria, Poland and southern Germany, though of course these countries did not exist by those names at that time. The alternative is to assume that they controlled the whole of Thrace and Macedonia, which suggestion is clearly untenable as in Herodotus’ day, Macedonia was a fast developing and powerful nation, which, under Alexander the Great, was soon to become an empire. Also, Herodotus does specifically say that the Sigynnae dwelt to the north of the Danube. The use of small horses with chariots (more likely to have been a horse-drawn rickshaw than a chariot) was a Chinese practice. Strabo, who called them Siginni, places them in his day further south, around the Caspian Sea, which is where they were originally settled by Tiglathpileser III.⁴⁸ They appear ultimately to have ended up in northern China where they became known as Xiongnu,⁴⁹ this being a variant spelling of Sigynnae/Siginni.