WEST AFRICA & THE ATLANTIC IN ANTIQUITY

THE SAHARA & THE ATLANTIC

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 www.africanarts-webpage.com), 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

AFRICANS IN ANCIENT EUROPE

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 www.africanarts-webpage.com). 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.

AFRICANS IN THE ANCIENT AMERICAS

Getting There

If the subject of the previous section can be held to be controversial, this is as nothing to what is whipped by the next discussion. The matter of what will be called the Americas to distinguish it from America tending to mean the U.S.A. and who got there first has become a very vexed one in recent years.

For my purposes, several routes will be touched on but only one will be fully discussed and the subject-matter of that discussion is in the title of this section.

It seems there are five main theories of how the first inhabitants reached the Americas. The Bering Crossing (Siberia/Beringia/Alaska & subsequent overland spread); the Pacific Coast (West-coast Americas reached & subsequent spread down the coast via ice-free pockets or refugia in the Holocene ice); Pacific Crossing (straight across the Pacific from Australia to western South America); North Atlantic Crossing (progress across the Late Pleistocene/Holocene glaciation via refugia on ice-floes to North America); Middle Atlantic Crossing (on what later times woul call the Middle Passage).

All have their critics but that of our Middle Crossing or Guinea-to-Guyana is particularly fierce. The questions include if west Africans reached the Caribbean/Meso-American/Mexican parts of the Americas, where is the evidence of the diseases that so devastated the Amerindians after the time that Columbus got there? Given that the Polynesians unwittingly took rats to even the remotest islands of the Pacific in open vessels based on the dugout-canoe, where are the signs of Pre-Columbian rats that the Guinea-to-Guyana routes would call for in Venezuela-to-Veracruz (Mexico) sea-trips?

How can bound slaves become rulers? Can the basalt spheroids turned into Colossal or Great Heads by Amerindians called Olmecs really portray Africans? Are not the terracotta figurines collected by Walter Von Wuthenau that supposedly mirror the the Great Heads for African looks just fakes? Are not the "African" looking skeletons studied by Andrej Weircinski in Mexico merely the result of bad science, as said by Pete Rostum (online)? How can bound African slaves have become rulers in somewhere as strange to them as the New World/the Americas?

The legends of the Vikings are best known via tales of saga type and these Norse or Viking sagas tell us of several voyages to somewhere called Helluland/ Markland/ Vinland that is probably the eastern coast of North America (inc. Newfoundland). They are given archaeological respectability by the excavation of the Ingtads at L’Ans-aux-Meadows (Newfoundland) and given that the Norse sagas fall into the "Lands Beyond" class, where are the west African versions?

Ivan Van Sertima (They Came before Columbus 1976) and Hakim Quick (Deeper Roots: Muslims in the Americas & the Caribbean From Before Columbus To the Present 1998) wrote of Abubakri II (13^th c. king of Mali) sending a fleet to seek the other bank of the Atlantic and lands beyond. Yet is the single returning captain any less than a legend than is "The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor" from Egypt on the other side of Africa and are not both merely folkloric devices known the world over that enables the story to be told by the lone survivor?

Is the standard west African vessel any more than a dugout-canoe? How seaworthy were they? What of claims that they could not cope with currents between the Cape Verde Islands and the west African coast, so how can they be expected to have been able to deal with those of the Atlantic? What would induce anyone to get into one that once past the Cape Verdes had only the open Atlantic in front of them? What was it that was not being met by being by the extensive trade-routes of west Africa that Guinea-to-Guyana voyages were needed? What of the different canoe-forms of west Africa and East-coast Americas? Are not the Amerindian tales of Pre-Columbian or Old-One type mentioning wooden vessels merely referring to Spanish ships? Is not the pale-skinned figure otherwise called Kukulkan or Quetzacoatl any more than a "Christian" (as the early Spaniards liked to call themselves, presumably to emphasise their otherness from the Amerindians who were so much more numerous)? Indeed, does not the cross-adorned cloak of Kukulkan/Qetzalcoatl identify him as a Catholic bishop?

The problems of ironworking in ancient west Africa are well known but it is at least proven there but why did west Africans not leave evidence of this technology between Venezuela-to-Veracruz taken here to symbolise the Americas coast facing the Caribbean, Meso-America and south Mexico? In this case, how sound is it to base any argument on the so-called iron bar held to be depicted under the ship carved on Stela-5 at Izapa (Mexico)? The more so as it plus many of the sites online relating Pre-Columbian ironworking in the Americas generally attach to those wanting to give the Book of Mormon an American setting?

Even return trips have had attention paid to them by the sceptics. One suggestion has been that such trips brought back with them American forms of tobacco, cocaine from South America and the like. An article by messrs Buckland and Panagiotakopulu (Antiquity 2001) rubbishes this theory. They explain that tobacco was widely used as a 19^th c. insecticide and that when insects attacked the mummy of such as Ramses II, this insecticide was used and this makes tobacco remains in the body explicable

More of this could fill these pages but the reader will get the general idea, which basically can be summed up in the words that no way can Pre-Columbian Africans be deemed as having been capable of crossing except as slaves of Europeans. The comment about no Old-World rats in New-World findspots comes from Nigel Davies (Voyagers to the New World 1975). Many of the other remarks are from messrs. de Montellano, Haslip-Viera & Barbour (Ethnohistory 1997 & Curren Anthroplogy 1997). As these latter articles are by the same authors, they will be characterised here as de Montellano et al.

Of the various theories of how the earliest inhabitants got to the Americas, the unlikeliest is surely that of the Pacific Crossing. It calls for acceptance of purposeful non-stop voyages of c. 8000 miles at dates set in what is otherwise the Late Pleistocene or Holocene (in geological terms) or the Lower Palaeolithic (in technological terms). This is based on comparison of Koori (= Aboriginal) and what archaeologists have called Luzia-type skulls. As the bulk of the Luzia-type skulls cluster in northeast Brazil, presumably to the voyage(s) would be added treks across northern South America. This would truly be the stuff of legends to sing about around the camp-fires, always assuming one or more of our putative heroes made it home. This overlooks both the Africoid look of Luzia and her cohorts and that if purposeful non-stop voyages are looked to, the 1500 miles between Guinea and Guyana is considerably shorter than is the c. 8000 miles from Australia to the Americas (& is made even shorter using the Cape Verde Islands).

A version of the Bering Crossing is looked to by Davies (ib.). His explanation is that anything Africoid/African-looking on the east coast of the Americas is that it came across with the ancestors of what were easily the largest body of early emigrants to the Americas. They are technically known as Palaeo-Indians on the western coasts of the Americas. What is being looked for here is the Africoid/Negroid component to be submerged in the general run of things and for it to specifically re-emerge on coasts that are almost the furthest they could be away from the Bering land-bridge or Bering Straits (as now) on those western coasts. Again the very much shorter distance between west Africa and Guyana is ignored and anyone with an African look in East-coast Americas at this date probably represents origins in west Africa not the claimed re-emegence.

The North Atlantic Crossing is based on the claimed Europoid look of such as Kennewick Man plus the supposed 17 affinities of the Solutrian (= the Upper Palaeolithic = Late Holocene of "Iberia") and the Pre-Clovis of North America. It should be noted that the "Iberia not Siberia" of this theory means Spain, Portugal plus France in much the way that Guinea could/can mean west Africa or that Guyana is taken to be the Caribbean/Meso-America/Mexico. The realy interesting thing about the North Atlantic Crossing theory is that despite coming under very heavy fire in very recent times, it has almost secured scholastic acceptance.

Several European countries have claimants for having sailed the ocean blue before 1492 (i.e. before Columbus). Easily the most famous and detailed are those of the Viking sagas. As said already, this seems to attest several voyages to North American coasts with some confirmation provided by archaeology. However, what if the Ingtads had excavated at L’Anse-aux-Meadows (Newfoundland, Canada) in the appalling circumstance of the treasure-hunting that passed for archaeology (& still with us in the form of the metal-detector brigade) for most of the 19^th c.? The house-sites would probably have been held to be anomalous Five-Nations long-houses and the artefacts would have joined a long list of artefacts claimed as proving the Norse presence in North America and accordingly dismissed as fantasies.

Going back to to what appear to be the very legitimate question of where is the evidence of the diseases of the type we have noted devastated Post-Columbian Amerindian but why only restrict it to Pre-Columbian west Africans? What tends to be overlooked is that the Proto-Inuit ancestors of the Inuit/Eskimoes never stopped coming ceased coming over the Bering Strait until stopped by the Soviet Government. The survivability of Old-World bacteria and/or viruses in the Americas is unknown to me but the question here is did/do emigrants entering the Americas from the west really leave their nasties behind?

The Norse sagas have been seen as recording several Trans-Atlantic crossings but what of Old-World bacteria/viruses entering the Americas from the east? Anyone who has seen the material from excavated Vikng sites in Scandinavia, Coppergate (at York, England), Wood Quay (at Dublin, Ire. before Dublin Corp. crassly built its offices over it), etc, will just laugh at any notions of germ-free Viking houses and ships. We may legitimately also wonder about Viking hygiene when we read of humans and livestock overwintering under the same roof.

The Groenlandsaga (Greenland Saga) portion of Landnambok (= Book of Settlements tells of the settlements of Markland/Helluland/Vinland (= part of s-east Can./n-east U.S.). In it are recorded such as milk being sold to Skraelings; a bellowing bull that frightened Skraelings; cattle that could be turned out into the fields without the need for winter hay, etc. This shows Viking contact with the mainland but should this not also indicate that there would be Old-World bovine conditions on the Americas mainland that would also affect the North American ungulates?

The Norse sagas show us that where the Vikings went so went their very large dogs and there is some confirmation provided by excavation of Viking sites in Iceland that have yielded remains of dogs (& at one settlement in Greenland, an elkhound & calf were found together having been slaughtered by starving people). An online history of the Newfoundland dog has it indigenous dogs mated with those brought by the Vikings to "Markland/Vinland" to produce the Newfoundland breed. If so, where is evidence of the Old-World canid diseases affecting New-World Canidae?

According to feline-history experts, the Vikings were amongst those using cats to protect their stores from rats and mice both at home and aboard ship. Cat-bones have been found at Viking sites and if the cats failed, this could mean the difference between survival and non-survival (especially during winter). An article by messrs Adalsteinson & Blumenberg is summarised on the Vnlnd site online as saying mainland cat-breeds came with the Vikings (? Norse Skogkatt-to-Maine Coon) but again where are the Old-world felid conditions acting on New-World Felidae?

As to the rats, it can be accepted that Polynesians went on to the high seas in open boats with minimal deck-housing/superstructure of any kind and in crossing the largest ocean in the world to the remotest islands in the world, unwittingly spread rats at the same time. The Viking knorr (= freighter) did have holds in which grain plus other things were stored. This would have been a godsend for rats in providing home plus for them, hence the cats. So putting the question again, where are the rats brought in Viking bottoms to the Americas?

Emigrants from the direction from whence came came the ancestors of the Amerindians plus the Inuit/Eskimo never ceased to come until stopped by Soviet Governments. Messrs Klar & Jones argue for "Linguistic Evidence for a Prehistoric Polynesia-Southern California Contact Event" (Anthropological Linguistics 2005). It may well be that that the theory of Thor Heyerdahl that the Polynesians originated in the Americas is wrong but such as words for sweet potato from South America occurring in Polynesia is evidence for contacts but what of diseases from there?

The frequent voyages described in the Viking/Norse tales of saga type are now being accepted as reality. As already shown, they demonstrate direct contact with the natives that they called Skraelings. The Vikings originated in a continent where conditions of hygeine were such that when illnesses such as Black Death, bubonic plague, etc, swept through Europe, it affected all parts of that continent. This included both the stay-at-homes and the Vikings who were more mobile than most others of the same date. Is it really believable that they left all those nasties behind?

This seems to show that whether from the west to the Americas from Siberia and/or Polynesia or from the east by the Vikings, most of the above paragraphs in this section only rule out Trans-Atlantic contacts by west Africans. A relevant factor has to be that of the so-called devastating diseases. If this dubious honour truly marks the presence of Pre-Columbian emigrants to the Americas, it seems messrs. Acuna-Soto (as Legner online) and Legner (Ethnic Diversity in America before Columbus Suggests Prehistoric Old World Contact) remove even this crumb of comfort for the anti-diffusionists. Acuna-Soto is cited as showing haemorrhagia as rife in the Pre-Columbian Americas. These are Ebola-type diseases that are usually given African sources.

To the east of Africa are the Great Heads of the giant Buddhas stretching from India to China but supposed African sources disappear when answered by opinions cited by Marilyn Reidel (Peopling the Americas online). This is that snails were placed on the heads of Buddhist holy-men to cool them down. On a rock near Medina (Saudi Arabia) is carving that is illustrated separately by messrs. Rashidi plus Chandler (in African Presence in Early Asia edd. Runoko Rashidi & Ivan Van Sertima 1995). They label it "Ishmael". Rock-art is notoriously difficult to date and this Medina Ishmael is no exception to this general rule.

A contributer to the online site called the Unexplained Mysteries Discussion Forum (= UMDF) calls attention to a Mesopotamian vessel with three aboard that turn out to be the gods named Enki, Enlil plus a sphinx-like figure. With there being a number of Mesopotamian traits claimed to have acted on Late Pre-Dynastic Egypt, this includes the ship-type and that in the occupants lay the origin of the face of the Great Sphinx. Also troubling are the opinions of the experts cited by Peggy Brooks-Bartram (Egypt: Child of the Nile ed. Van Sertima 1991) about the figures carved on the stele found at Zinjirli (Syria). This is because of perceived errors and this is also claimed for the Great Heads of the Olmec Culture of Mexico.

Errors by the carvers of the Olmec Great Heads is but one of several thoughts belonging here. This list includes (a) the errors just noted; (b) the intention to depict "baby-faces"; (c) the depiction of were-jaguars (= shamans/witch/doctors turned jaguars); (d) the depiction of congenital deformities; (e) that the basalt spheres that were turned into the Great Heads was too hard to carve; (f) that the tools used being of copper and/or bronze; (g) that they had to be carved in a certain way to avoid fracturing.

Snails placed on the fevered brows of sweaty Buddhist holy-men sounds like a joke but one that quickly loses its appeal on the realisation of what is at work here. That something is that this is designed to avoid the need for any attribution to any part of Africa. In any case, the "snails" turn out to the tight curls that are a world-wide convention for depicting the hair of most Africans. Moreover, the "snails" leave unexplained the black skins of the giant Buddhas that are reinforced by other gods in India but this time, of the Hindus. They include Krishna (= the Black One), Jaganonoth (= the Great One & hence, Juggernaut), Shyama (= the Great Black One), etc. The Medina Ishmael closely resembles the head of a Nuba shown in books by Van Sertima.

The several claimed Mesopotamian traits in early Egypt are more generally discussed in "East Africa & the Sea in Antiquity" and are more than merely the alleged Mesopotamian origin of the face of the Great Sphinx. Attaching to these views about the Great Sphinx are the former UFO/men-from-space problems of John West plus those of the UMDF site, etc. The latter fails on two main counts. One is that the vessel depicted in the scene described in the UMDF is actually several centuries earlier in the Eastern Desert (Egypt) than is known in any part of Mesopotamia.

Myths about giants and/or great-heads abound in African myths. Thus the Korobo (mainly Tanzania/Kenya); Umlindi (Sth. Africa); body-length face-masks (esp. central Africa); menhirs/standing-stones (esp. parts of Mali & Senegal); Mijin-masa (mainly Nigeria); Sao (mainly Chad/south Libya). Even more striking is the tendency towards gigantism in that part of Africa that is Egypt. Good instances of this involves the giant carvings of the heads of Africans plus other prisoners-of-war at Tanis (Egypt), the remains of the heads plus other parts of giant statues at the Ramesseum (= the mortuary-temple of Ramesses II near Thebes, Egypt), Osiris surnamed as the Great Black, etc.

The fragments of statues at the Ramesseum were first rediscovered by messrs. Burkhardt, Belzoni plus others in the early 19^th c. They inspired the poem called Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley (19^th c. Englishman). Ozymandias was a Greek garbling of the throne-name of Ramesses II. The impressive head of a statue of Ramesses II is illustrated by a photograph in "Chronicles of the Pharoahs" by Peter Clayton (1994). However, easily the best known example of the Great Head tradition in Egypt has to be that of the Great Sphinx at Giza/Gizeh (Egypt).

The claimed Mesopotamian origin of the Great Sphinx falls on acceptance of the Europoid/European put forward by Mark Lehner. Unfortunately, Lehner’s computerised methods are described in "Black Spark, White Fire" (by West cited by Richard Poe 1999) as likely to prove the face was that of Elvis Presley as anybody else. A totally separate opinion is one that has the authority of considerable antiquity behind it.

This is because that opinion belonged to Herodotus (5^th c. B. C. Greek). He argued for a dominant Aethiopian (= African) strain in Egypt. This was very much in the mind of Constantin de Volney (18^th/19^th c. French) when in Egypt and he felt this made sense of the face of the Great Sphinx. This is also the thinking behind the etching made by Vivian de Denon (18^th /19^th c. French). Equally, the photograph by J.T. Willard (as shown in Early America Revisited by Ivan Van Sertima 1998) belongs here. Alongside this are the line-drawings of Frank Domingo (as Poe ib.).

Domingo was a forensic artist working for the New York Police. On finishing his work, he commented that the face of the Great Sphinx matched those of African Negroes (esp. those of Kush/Nubia/Sudan). More Africans in ancient Egypt are those said from parts of "Mali" by Arabic writers to have gone there to participate in the mystery-systems of Pharoahonic Egypt, so qualify as African "Empires of the Mind".

In pages above, more African giants and/or great-heads were seen in the traditions of Atlantic-west Europe. With there being suggestions that west Africans went thousands of miles to the east across the Sahara and thousands of miles to the west across the Atlantic to become participants in mystery-cults there, these same parts of Atlantic-facing Europe have further interest.

This is because west Europe has also been seen to have had folklore about Africans in the role of shamans/witch-doctors participating in the west European mystery-cults. It should be realised that this is yet another case of there being little in the way of archaeology backing this up but as said above, these "Empires of the Mind" only rarely leave much for the excavators. What this does bring to the fore are the astonishing convolutions performed by those not wanting to accept certain conclusions and the "errors" of ancient sculptors of African heads provide superb examples of this.

It should come as no great surprise that the Great Heads and the form that they take have prompted numerous theories as to what they actually represent. It should not go unnoticed that the various theorists agree on one thing and one thing only. That one thing is that under no circumstances can an African origin be allowed. It will be as well to observe that much of what is said applies equally to relevant depictions of smaller heads.

Jose Melgar and Matthew Stirling are both cited by Ivan Van Sertima (They Came Before Columbus 1976) as making remarks about some of the earliest rediscoveries of Great Heads in southern Mexico that run counter to the arguments of objectors. However, some of those objections are curious to say the least. Taking this a little further, some are outrightly fallacious. Nicely demonstrating is the statement that Great Heads cannot be picturing Africans as the Great Heads demonstrate the epicanthic or "Chinese" fold of the eye because Africans do not.

The absence of the Chinese fold in Africa will be a surprise to Africanists. Evan Hadingham (Ancient Chinese Explorers online) argued for Chinese influence on east Africa. However, the presence of the epicanthic fold on the island of Pate (Kenya) is unlikely to represent Chinese influence but something else. That something is the epicanthic fold shown by messrs. Evans-Pritchard plus Seligman in Sudan and Meek in Nigeria (as cited by Van Sertima in African Presence in Early America 1992; Early America Revisited 1998).

In short, the "Chinese" fold is proven across Africa and another of the curious objections is that Great Heads represent players of the famous ball-game. Quite apart from the fact that the ball-game is not actually proven to have passed from the Olmec Culture to the Maya, this leaves unexplained why the ball-players look nothing like their supposed Amerindian coevals. It is probable, that the ball-game did pass from from the Olmecs to the Maya but again, there is little resemblance of the ball-players and the Maya or other present-day inhabitants of the same region.

Nor do the Great Heads greatly resemble suggested matches such as "baby-faces" or were-jaguars. Another of the objections is that Great-Head forms result from "errors"by the sculptors on turning basalt spheroids into Great Heads. The spheroids can be up to 60 miles from source; be up to 10 feet in height and between 10 and 30/40 tons in weight. Some may have begun as thrones but were recarved into Great Heads that probably resembled those that had once sat on them.

Clearly, transport, sculpting and recarving represent a massive communal investment. It can be assumed that this indicates a controlling authority and that this centred on the Olmec priest-kings. These priest-kings were no democrats and to base arguments on sculptural mistakes overlooks this simple fact. The families of such rulers would hardly brook ancestors being depicted by "mistakes" in what would in effect be official state portraits. The sculptor held to be responsible could look forward to a short career for reasons elaborated below.

Messrs. de Montellano, Haslip-Viera and Barbour (Anthropos 1997; Current Anthropology 1997) wrote that Africa has nothing like the Great Heads but do not state that there is also nothing like them in the Pre-Olmec Americas. In any case, the de Montellano et al comments are simply wrong. Not only do African traditions about giants have non-bodied heads among them but legends about African giants outside Africa were also seen to include disembodied giant heads.

The Great Sphinx at Giza/Gizeh (Egypt) and Monument-F at Tres Zapotes (Mexico) share felid body-form plus African faces that in the case of Tres Zapotes-F seems to closely mirror that of a Nuba (Kenya) chief in a photograph published several times by Van Sertima. The Great Sphinx (of Khaphre/Chephren at Giza/Gizeh, Egypt) and the Great Heads (of Olmec priest-kings of Mexico) share being giant-sized portraits of rulers. Messrs. Petrie (online) plus Van Sertima (1976) attest other African faces of Oromo/Galla and Nuba type respectively. Those of the Oromo also appear as Taharquo-type sphinxes. The type of helmet from those of worn by Kushite Africans captured by Egypt are among the ethnic mix depicted in massive size at Tanis (Egypt) to that of some images of Taharquo (one of the Kushite Pharoahs of Egypt) also seems to be standard for the Great Heads of Olmec Mexico.

The comparison is made the stronger by the Tanis/Taharquo and Great-Head helmets being worn by Africans; massive size; being tight to the skull; straight-down cheek-pieces; straight-line ornament. Braided locks are said by de Montellano et al not to appear in Africa and this is wrong again, as they too are seen across Africa and were also carved on Great Head No. 2 at Tres Zapotes. Forelocks marking noble youths in parts of Africa are also thought to attest African influence on parts of Europe and Mexico. Van Sertima (1976) also compared the headscarves plus hair-dos of a young Nigerian woman and that of a figurine of a dancer in the collection of Alexander Von Wuthenau.

Emphasis on great-head/big-head traditions should not cause us to lose sight of closely-related but separate ones about giants. They were seen the length of Atlantic-facing Europe from Iberia to Ireland and were seen to have been given strong African connections. By the same token, there are Amerindian folktales about Black giants in ancient Mexico according to a leading Mexican folklorist named Nicholas de Leon (as cited by Van Sertima 1976).

Seperately, it is always difficult to know how old a particular myth is but there is Raymond Girardeau (The Esotericism of the Popol Vuh online) writing of these blacks defeating whites. The Popol Vuh (= Book of Counsel = the national epic of the Quiche Maya) is one of what has been called elsewhere, Old-One (= Pre-Columbian Amerindian) sources. Presumably in line with this would be the black priests leading the sacrificing of defeated blond warriors shown by messrs. Morris, Charlot & Morris (The Temple of the Warriors at Chichen Itza 1931) at Chichen Itza (Mexico).

Where the blond warriors came from need not detain us too long but the accounts of Girardeau and Morris et al do appear to marry in terms of blacks defeating whites in a Mexican setting. It may prove relevant that Atlantic-west Europe was once mainly Celt-ruled and among the western Celts, women had rights that astonished the Greco/Roman and Germanic worlds. In this light are the instances of women frequently choosing their own husbands and the most famous example is probably is probably amongst the Gauls or Gauls of what was Gaul/is now mainly France.

A Celtic tribe of Gaul/France were the Saluvi. One of their chiefs was Nanus. His daughter was Glyptis and she chose Protis (? 6^th c./? 5^th c. B.C. Greek) as her husband and was given as dowry a parcel of land that became Massilia (= later Marseilles). An Amerindian tribe of the Americas were the Powhattans. On of their paramount chiefs was Powhattan. His daughter was Pocahuntas and she chose John Smith (17^th c. Englishman) as her husband and was given as dowry a parcel of land that Roanoke (= later Fort Raleigh, Virginia, U.S.). Having established that the principle of high-status females choosing their own husbands was known on both sides of the Atlantic, it seems here is the explanation of Amerindian females plus African males in the same Olmec graves according to Andrej Weircinski.

Further to this is Van Sertima (1976) describing the average African male as something like 18/24 inches taller than the average Amerindian, so impressive physiques may have played a part in such stories. However, Weircinski has come under severe criticism but not really from de Montellano et al (ib) and Weircinski seems to be largely absent from the numerous pages of these three critics. The major criticism of Weircinski came from Pete Rostum (Olmec Skeletons? No, Just Bad Scholarship -- online).

Keith Jordan (in African Presence in Early America ed. Ivan Van Sertima 1992) cites the title of one of the Weircinski articles as "Inter & intra populational racial differential of Tlatilco, Cerro de la Mesa, Teotihuacan & the Yucatec Maya". Probably more accessible is "An anthropological study of the origins of the "Olmecs" by the same author because Clyde Winters has put it online.

The range of sites studied by Weircinski is in the title of the article cited by Jordan. He revealed an African component at these Olmec sites that for the Early Olmec he estimated as c. 15% of the whole and that by the Late Olmec was down to c. 5%. This lessening of the African component over the course of time is to be expected. To this is added what Bernardino de Sahagun (17^th c. Spaniard) and Ivan Van Sertima (1976) state about movement to the southwest.

The Old-One story fom Sahagun has those arriving from the sunrise moving to the southwest and this may have finished with the danzantes (= dancers) at Monte Alban. Here at the Temple of the Danzantes are carvings that as the title strongly suggests were originally interpreted as dancers. However, Michael Coe (as cited by Van Sertima 1976) saw them as the bodies of slain rulers and Van Sertima (ib.) linked this to de Sahagun noting the movement from Panco/Panuco to the southwest and it is felt that bulk of these "danzantes" at Monte Alban are Negroid.

If this stands, there is the complete story of how the how the African influence ended. However, we would hard put to recognise anything about the Weircinski research fom the pages of de Montellano et al.

It is curious that in the numerous pages that they were allowed, that there seems to be little reference to the work of Weircinski, John Guthrie (online) and Peter Underhill et al National Academy of Sciences of the USA 1996). Given that getting to the publication stage can take a long time (esp. if the scientific/academic establishment are trying to kill the work off— see also what the Klar & Jones article reveals below).

This cannot be so with the work of Andrej Weircinski. This is quite simply because he is cited by Ivan Van Sertima in "They Came Before Columbus" and this is a book published in 1976 and this is several years before the publication of the main de Montellano et al critiques of Afrocentrism as applied to the Americas. According to information kindly emailed to me by Peter Underhill, Andrej Weircinski was still a contributor to important scientific papers right up to the 1990s; perhaps he was not so rubbish a scholar after all.

Mistakes have long been invoked to "explain" supposed African influences ouside the continent and frequently at that. This was well shown by the expert opinions seen to have cited by Reidel (ib.) about what was carved on the heads of the giant Buddhas. This was to the effect that they were snails on the Buddha-heads, whereas, we know that what is being depicted is the tightly-coiled that is an African norm. This was briefly discussed above and little needs to be added but more interesting are the experts cited by are the experts cited by Peggy Brooks-Bertam (in Egypt: Child of Africa ed. Van Sertima 1994).

These experts say that the sculptor of the Zinjirli (Syria) stele was mistaken about one of the three figures carved on it. Those three figures were Esarhaddon (King of Assyria), Baalithobel (King of Tyre) plus an unknown with the last two being shown as bound prisoners of Esarhaddon.

Zinjirli was one of a series proclaiming Assyrian victories over the Kusho/Egyptian Empire ruled by Africans from Kush/Nubia/Sudan. Errors of the kind in such a propaganda piece being suggested would no more be tolerated than they would have been by the families of those providing the models of the Olmec Great Heads of Mexico. Also of the persons portrayed, we are expected to believe the only inaccuracy in the entire sculpture involves the third party.

Just what happens to those making such errors in such a piece is nicely illustrated by Georgia Lee (The Rock-art of Easter Island 1992). This comes comes under the heading of an insult to the gods and/or their representatives on earth. Atonement for that insult was usually paid for with the life of the perpetrator of the perceived insult. Oddly, the same experts have no difficulty in identifying as Kushite-African, figures that are nearly identical to the third individual carved on the Zinjirli stele. To cut this short, this third individual turns out to be none other than Usanaru (a son of Taharquo of Kush).

The bound slaves have prompted discussion as to whether they could ever have become rulers in new lands. For accounts of this involving Africans east of Africa see the the contributions of Runoko Rashidi to "African Presence in Early Asia ed. Rashidi & Van Sertima 1995). For accounts of this about Africans as slaves and rulers in Egypt see the references in "East Africa & the Sea in Antiquity" (online at www.africanarts-webpage.com. Applied to the Americas, there are the bound prisoners depicted on the Alvorado stele and described by Balboa in what is now Panama.

However, Balboa also refers to African slaves that came to rule large parts of what is now Ecuador. Supporting what is said by Balboa (15^th/16^th c. Spaniard & probably the 1^st European to see the Pacific from the Americas) about African slaves becoming rulers in parts of the Americas are the Slave Revolts of various places but above all, in Haiti.

The Alvorado slab is also important as evidence that Amerindian sculptors had no difficulty in distinguishing between someone of their own race and an African Negro. Unless, of course, that old faithful mentioned several times above, namely that of "errors" is trotted to "explain" this. An ancient artistic convention when depicting Africans was tightly-coiled hair as curls. This occurred as Buddhas as statues or statuettes; Memnon heads in Greek art; depictions in Spanish cantigas; the stele from Alvaredo; Slab No. 5 at Izapa (Mex.). The Izapan Culture seems to lie between the Final/Epi Olmec and the rise of the Maya. Morris et al (ib.) called attention to the several images of blacks painted on the walls of the Temple of the Warriors at Chichen Itza conducting sacrifices to the gods.

This is an admittedly small sample but if this holds together, it must prove that Amerindian sculptors had live prototypes as models. The accuracy of detail also tells strongly for this. Moreover, it will be seen that Africans in the role(s) of the variously termed priest-king/shaman/magician/seer, etc, is to be seen in carvings at Izapa, paintings at Chichen Itza, etc. It is also very important that it is realised that stretches into many diverse media and to which can be added the terracottas collected gathered in the collection of Alexander Von Wuthenau (Unexpected Faces in Ancient America 1975).

However, de Montellano et al describe the Wuthenau collection as fakes. This very immediately tells us that Wuthenau did not know what he was about. This is despite his being a collector for decades and this applies equally to all the other collectors/collections of similar material. The art of forgery is usually followed so as to make money from a prospective dupe but having pointed out what seems to be absent by our trio of writers, there is something else that they missed.

That something are dating tests based on the thermolumiscence (=T/L) method. Such T/L-tests have been around for many years and and are generally considered to be very reliable. That Wuthenau paid for such T/L-dates to test for authenticity is unmentioned by de Montellano et al. Also seemingly missed by this trio of writers are the quite separate series of T/L-tests paid for by the Stevenhagen Museum (Ger.) that proved the figurines brought from Wuthenau were genuinely ancient not modern forgeries.

Van Sertima (1976) has listed what our putative forger(s) would have needed to know to successfully achieve their scam(s). Among them are African faces, black colouration, prognathism, thick lips, tattooing, scarification, elababorate coiffueres, compound earrings, etc. The African look plus black skin takes us to the Domingo comment about the face of the Great Sphinx; that of Morris et al about one of the several heads of blacks in particular at Chichen Itza; of Jose Melgar plus Matthew Stirling about the first of the Great Heads rediscovered at La Venta; of Wuthenau about his collection; that they are Ethiopian or Negroid.

Van Sertima was seen to have compared the heads of a Nigerian girl and that of one of the Wuthenau figurines. Another comparison is of the head of the African-looking Queen Tiy (mother of Tutankhamun) and that of a Negress from Teotihuacan (Mex.). Conical head-gear not only marked the royal and the religious in west Africa but also in Meso America where it also occurs on such as Izapa-5 plus another of the Wuthenau figurines What elsewhere have been called Old-One sources attach the arrival of Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl to Panotla (= Panco/Panuco = the landing-place). Panco/Panotla was/is in the Mexican province of Huasteca. Kukulkan was seen as having arrived from the sunrise (= the east) and the the La Venta Great Heads also face east. Tlatilco was one of the places from whence came material studied by Weircinski and also gave some of the Wuthenau terracottas.

Yet still the figure of the "white" Kukulkan is still before us. The returning white god is by no means as unique to ancient Mexico as archaeologists would have us believe. The first Europeans in parts of east Africa reaching Uganda were treated as the returning Chwesi (esp. by the Karamoja). Thor Heyerdahl shows this kind of thing involved such gods in the Pacific as as Mangaroa, Lone, Tane, etc. Thus the crew of the Endeavour in the Pacific were treated as the Sons of Mangaroa. The captain of the Endeavour was none other than other than James Cook and on Hawaii, he was treated as the god named Lone as having come back.

The west coast of the Americas had more of these figures. They are best known via Viracocha but of whom there were several. More still are known under the names of Bochica (Colombia & Venezuela); Zamna/Zamne (Brazil & Venezuela); Gucuzman (for the Quiche Maya); Kukulkan (for the rest of the Maya); Quetzalcoatl (for the Aztecs and the rest of the rest of the Mexica naming from Yucatan to Texas).

Some diligent research would probably reveal many more but there is enough here to indicate that the notion of returnee gods was widespread. They were regarded as religion/culture-bringers. Also they are usually regarded by most moderns as white-skinned and blond-haired. Something else they generally share is a generous welcome, those doing the welcoming usually regretting having done so in short order and those that had been welcomed not remaining so.

It may well be the Endeavour crew were treated as the returned Sons of Mangaroa and their Captain Cook as Lono/Lone having come back to the faithful but that did not stop Cook being killed by his "faithful". Heyerdahl lists other instances of the "faithful" turning on their supposed returning gods in the Americas. This may explain something of the activities depicted on the walls of the Temple of the Warriors at Chichen Itza.

In any case, the much-quoted "white" Quetzalcoatl was in a party of black plus lighter-skinned (not white) individuals. Much of the subsequent attribution as whites of these Americas culture-bringers (inc. Kukulkan & Quetzalcoatl) seems to be based on an early Spanish cleric seizing on a reference to the straw-like beard of Quetzalcoatl and the whole thing seems to have grown from that to indicate hair plus beard that were straw-coloured not straw-like.

It will be immediately apparent that there will have been several elements making up the deity that became Kukulkan. In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that among them will have been an Olmec component. It was said above that it it is usually difficult to date the beginnings of a myth. However, Douglas Peck’s "Yucatan: From Prehistory to the Great Maya Revolt of 1546 ib." was cited in "West Africa & the Sea in Antiquity" as showing that the Feathered/Flying-snake or Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl concept was around in the Olmec period but only became standard in that of the Maya.

This does something to suggest there is a considerable southern element in the rise of the Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl cult. This is confirmed by the bright feathers of the quetzal as part of the representations of Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl. The quetzal is a bird of the southern jungles not the Mexican highlands. Frederick Peterson (Ancient Mexico 1958) is cited by Van Sertima (1976) as saying the cult of the jaguar was also a jungle-related one that spread well beyond the natural habitat of the jaguar and it should be said that most writers are of this opinion .

Of the well-known bird/snake/feline triad of Meso America, the latter in the form of a jaguar seems to have been easily the most important. The jaguar-cult not only spread north from the Meso American jungles but also south. Here was a culture named after Chavin de Huantar (Peru). As this Chavin was mountain-based, it would again be expected the feline that was revered would be the mountain-lion/puma/cougar, instead, it is the jungle-loving jaguar that filled this role for the Chavin Culture of about the same date as the Olmecs were the dominant culture over much of Meso America/Mexico.

Eastern connections are told for by the tradition that Kukulkan/Quetalcoatl came from the sunrise and having seen that Pre-Spanish Amerindian sources in Meso America/Mexico indicate black and paler-skinned persons in the group that came with him, there are some interesting views belonging here.

One is an opinion by Peterson (ib.) that the only definite Old-World component to be seen in Meso America/Mexico is that from west Africa and another comes from Paul Barton (Black History: It Began Before 1492 online) linking the west African name of Meci with that of the Amerindian name of Olmec. This agreess with the suggestion by Stirling (National Geographic 1940) that La Venta was Pre-Mayan and that Great Heads there were of Negroes.

Peterson (as Jordan in Van Sertima ib.) may have recanted on this earlier opinion but the views put forward by Stirling have not only stood the test of time but also have been fully vindicated.

The suggested tying of west African Meci with the Amerindian Kukulkan reinforces the below-seen argument that from the west African group known by the linguistic umbrella-term of Mande came words that combined to form the name of Kukulkan.This also goes some way to explaining why the origin of Kukulkan type gods was/is sought in the sunrise/east and why Great Heads are both black and demonstrate African facial traits. In answer to the point that such gods are only black because they become so over timeis what is said about the Kukulkan-type god named Quetzalcoatl by messrs. Hedrick (in Man Across the Sea ed. C. Riley et al 1971), Guadardo & Shindle (Quetalcoatl online). That they are black by choice not by chance is proven, because they are painted black.

Reference has also been made to west Africans as apparent Cult-masters/Magicians prepared to travel several thousand miles across that great sea of sand that is the Sahara and again across the sea that is the Atlantic. If the first takes them across Africa, Africans outside Africa have also been seen in this role in the totally separate Asian and European traditions and Peterson (1958) was suggesting Africans in this role for Olmec Mexico.

This seems to be so for these were-cat cults, thus lions in east Africa, leopards in west Africa and jaguars and Winters feels that one of the scenes aboard the ship carved on Stela-5 at Izapa (Mex.) illustrates just this. This scene is interpreted as a shaman bringing an initiate into a nama-tigi (= humano/jaguar cult) that is said to happen under what is regarded as a jaguar-glyph. The shaman seems to be holding a writing-stylus and has his hair in the tightly-coiled manner that is a worldwide convention for depicting the tightly-curled hair of most Africans.

Clyde Winters (Evidence of the Africa Migration to America online; Atlantis in Mexico 2006) also wrote that the other major scene aboard the Izapa-5 ship involved a shaman (= witch-doctor/medicine-man) initiating a newcomer into a kuno-tigi (= humano/bird cult). Both shaman/cult-master plus the initiate wear the conical head-gear denoting high status shown to particularly mean the religious and/or the royal in west Africa and Central or Meso America. We might also wonder at what appear to be depictions of straight-sided pyramids in the bottom panel.

In southern Africa, snake-cults revolved around the yellow python but Bradley saw the cobra in this role in Egypt. Across Africa are such as Bugi (Congo/CDR), Abuk (Sudan), Solkar (Egypt), Osumare (Nigeria), Anywieno (Ghana), etc. All are brightly-hued snake-gods regarded as flying into the sky to become rainbows and of them, Solkar is the Flying-snake aspect of Osiris. Winters shows Mande words of ka/kan (= snake: height: sky) and the same in Mayan with identical meanings and this further occurs in Mayan Kukulkan (= Flying/Plumed/Feathered-snake).

This seems to be solid evidence for practitioners of African mystery-cults in the Americas, thus supporting what is said by Peterson (Ancient Mexico ib.) plus Winters (Evidence of the African Migration to America; Malinke/Bamabara Words in the Mayan Languages online; Atlantis in Mexico ib.). Winters further suggests Mande amankye (= teacher/leader) closely relates to Mayan amoxaque (= teacher/bookman) i surprise. Closer isMande tigi/amatigi/amantigi (= [?] cult-leader/master) as Mayan teci/amateci/amanteci (= leader & incorporating teci/tequi = master or chief).

The matter of writing being in the hands of the religious and this giving those clerics enormous power is something else that is worldwide and we may further observe that the west African priestly master of the jaguar-cult seems to be in this role as he holds a writing-stylus. Winters (The Decipherment of the Olmec Writing System online) adding Mande-group words based on *se’be and Mayan-group words based on c’ib. Both sets of words are from now-lost originals and as such are what philologists term ghost-words and mark them with asterisks. They also both nearly the same in spelling, are pronounced the same and both mean writing/script.

Our pen-holding priestly cult-master of the nama-tigi/jaguar-cult was seen to have a have a hair-style in which the tight curls are depicted as circles and this is not only a highly international artistic convention for picturing African hair but is one that has prompted daft comments about snails on the head. The latter is shown by Riedel (ib) and involves not just Africans in a priestly role again but also Great Heads as part of giant statues. Another hair-style is that of the young Nigerian woman seen above as having been remarked on by Van Sertima when comparing with one of the figurines also having an (?) almaizor-like head-scarf.

Harold Lawrence (in African Presence in Early America ed. Ivan Van Sertima 1997) points to the word of almaizor as a word known in both Mande and Arabic. This is underlined by almaizor-cloth that was widely traded along the west African from Guinea to Morocco. There were other fabrics, of course, but it does appear that almaizor cloth was traded for over for considerable distances. Here fits the cloth noted as very similar in the Caribbean by Columbus but who then ruled out any possible connection but it is seen he is flatly contradicted by one of his own early chroniclers. The more so given that Lawrence can point to Mande masirili/masiriti/masiti as Mayan maxtli.

This seems to be yet another case of a word from the vast west African linguistic family called Mande (inc. Manding, Malinke, Bambara, etc.) occurring in Mayan too that is nearly of identical spelling and a meaning that is. In this instance, Mande masiri and Mayan maxtli both mean breech/loin-cloth and as shown, are far from being the only such words belonging here. This much becomes clearer again fom the research by Lawrence but this time about metals.

Of all the ancient metals used in Africa, iron is probably the most vexed and puzzling. Some writers state that Kushite kings having conquered Egypt using bronze weapons, eventually could not hold on to it against iron-using Assyrians.The region with the earliest C14-dates attached to the earliest ironwork in Africa is also where very much later, the finest trade-items were being bartered for rusty old iron nails from the Portuguese in Gabon. The inhabitants of the Phoenician-founded city of Carthage were definitely iron-users/makers yet of areas closeby, el-Zouhi (9^th c. Arab) could write that the Wakar kingdom could defeat its enemies in the same parts of northwest Africa because those enemies "knew not iron.

Michael Bradley (Dawn Voyage: Black African Discovery of America 1991) plus several Mormon/LDS online-sites discuss west African and Meso American ironworking respectively, mainly in terms of tools and or ornaments. It should be noted that standard text-books about archaeology in any part of the Americas will tell us that Amerindians did not possess iron technology. However, in the Latter-day Saints (= LDS) websites just referred to, non-LDS authors are referred to several times in justifying an American setting for the Book of Mormon. They are cited as saying that ironwork is not just present in Meso/ North America but that in one report cited on "Questions about Metals & Weapons in the Book of Mormon" (online), there is reference to an Olmec site with several tons of worked iron ore was found at San LorenzoTenochtitlan (Mex.) and note-14 refers to numerous articles relating to iron being known to Pre-Columbian Amerindians in Meso-America. One is the book "In the Land of Olmec" by messrs. Coe & Diehl making the point that Olmec use of iron may even indicate the earliest known use of the compass.

Given what has shown about the west African arrival(s) in Caribo/Meso-American and where they landed, it has considerable great interest just how closely this coincides with what Lawrence (ib.) says about an entirely different metal. That other metal is guanin is a west African metal having a very high gold content and profligacy with gold must surely tell for a secure gold-source that was also plentiful. This was/is almost certainly Gold Coast/Ghana and with Phoenician, Carthaginian, Roman, Arab, Portuguese and Spanish interest taken in it. We may also note Arab writers describe how Malian kings were buried. On this basis, if ever an intact Malian royal tomb was found, it will rival that of Tutankhamun.

Guanin was an alloy apparently second in value only to gold, was shiny and sounds remarkably like the alloy that Plato (5^th c. B.C. Greek) called aurichalcum on both counts. Given that this involved Atlantis as islands/island of the Atlantic and that where we are told that the islands of the Atlantic are where Columbus obtained his samples of guanine (from the Amerindians of Hispaniola = Haiti & the Dominican Republic).

There are several different spellings in west Africa of the word seen here as guanin that again and Lawrence (ib.) shows that they are seen mainly in mainland parts of South and Meso/Central America and/or the islands of the Caribbean. It was also seen that Columbus obtained samples of guanin in Atlantic or Caribbean islands. These were spearheads of guanin that came into the hands of Columbus from Amerindians of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (now divided between Haiti & the Dominican Republic). Having seen that the west African word(s) based on guanine, what must surely clinch it for west Africa is that samples sent to Spain for analysis proved the 28 parts of gold, six parts of silver plus six parts of gold of west African guanin was echoed by that from the Caribbean. In short, they were identical.

Parts of west Africa were seen to appreciate that wealth came from the sea and books by messrs Peck plus McKillop attest this for parts of East-coast Americas. What is not generally known is that not only are images of the Mayan god of trade usually black but that his name was Ekchuah (= The Black One). This surely says as much about the Black traders in the Pre-Columbian Caribbean as anything proven by the analysis of the Caribbean guanin and what is said by Bartolome de las Casas (friend, confidant & early chronicler of Christopher Columbus) about such Blacks in the Caribbean trading from canoes such as the items traded to Columbus (& sent back across the Atlantic for the above-noted analyses).

More long-distance trade-routes are those from Egypt-to-Punt for which there is little archaeological support in the form of actual finds. What elsewhere has been called the Voyage of Necho that took Phoenicians right round Africa but which has little support from archaeology. Another of these Phoenico/Punic Periploi (= Voyages) along the Atlantic-facing coasts of Africa to which was anciently tied to 300 sites and none of which can be proven archaeologically. More Atlantic voyages from Africa are shown by "Empires of the Mind". Such "Empires of the Mind" were seen across Europe from Greece to Ireland and are again known almost solely from literary texts.

The great proslytising religion of antiquity has surely got to be that great "Empire of the Mind" called Buddhism. Something not dissimilar took Hinduism from south India to southeast Asia and so Indianised it that the terms of Indo-China plus Indonesia (= the Indian Islands) arose. The Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl cults of the Olmecs came "from the sunrise" to Mexico/Meso-America. This presumably agrees with the African-like rites depicted on Izapa-5 of the Olmec/Izapa/Early Maya sequence and fitting with the fact that one of the Wuthenau figutines also has the Malian-type conical headgear. From what is said by Peck (Yucatan: From Prehistory to the Great Rebellion of 1546 ib.) another such religio/cultic package was also by spread by sea. This came from the Maya of Yucatan (= s/east Mexico) to the Calusa of Florida. There is plenty of archaeological support for this.

Another religio/cultic complex is one belonging to the Aqualithic or Great Wet Phase of the part of Africa now mainly the Magreb or the Sahara. The reed-boats that are known to have been depicted on rock-art in the region have close parallels in the Nile Valley. The Huntingford (1980) translation of Periplus Maris Erythraei (= The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea = PME) cites Erastothenes (3^rd c. B.C. Greek) saying the form, sails plus rigging of Nile Valley craft was exactly the same as that of Egyptian ships on the Erythraean Sea (= the western Indian Ocean). Egyptian sails and those of west Africa have also prompted comparisons.

The papyrus/reed-boats also provided the prototypes of the vessels made for Thor Heyerdahl (The Ra Voyages 1971). Of them, Ra I almost made it across the Atlantic and Ra II successfully did so. Winters (Proto Saharan Civilisation online; Proto Saharan Religion online; Atlantis in Mexico 2006) re