LEXILINE JOURNAL: Rightfulness of Claims to the Holy Land

I have uploaded a map as the file holyland18thdynasty.png [the graphic below]

to our LexiLine files at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/files/Holy%20Land/
The map is based on a map found in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt p. 233.
See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0198150342/

Who rightfully claims the Holy Land of the Fertile Crescent?

In the previous posting, I published my "Decipherment of the Megaliths of the Holy Land", showing that these megalithic sites were erected ca. 3000 BC as an astronomically based survey of the land by the megalith builders.

Although the identity of the megalith makers may still be open to question, there is no question that megalithic markers served as boundary stones in ancient days. See Stars Stones and Scholars.

These boundaries were persistent and the owners of lands so marked have retained them for thousands of years, all over the world.

As shown in the uploaded map, it is quite clear, for example, that the Holy Land was ruled by the Pharaohs of Egypt in the 18th Dynasty prior to the Amarna Period. See The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, p. 233
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0198150342/

Pharaonic presence in the Holy Land goes back to the early Dynasties (pp. 65-66, 77-78) and we think that Pharaonic civilization goes hand in hand with the history of the Hebrews. See generally http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexikwik.htm

Who were the megalith builders?

Shaw writes (pp. 65-66) that starting with Flinders Petrie, many persons have claimed that Egyptian civilization was founded by a migrating group of people, and we also hold to that view, especially since the recent discovery of long boats at Abydos dating to ca. 3000 BC.
http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/farflt.htm

Dieter Braasch in his book Pharaonen und Sumerer - Megalithiker aus dem Norden [The Pharoahs and Sumerians - Megalith Builders from the North],
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3878471661/ analyzes the history of ship-building technology in ancient days and suggests that the boat-building technology used by the Ancient
Egyptians to make seaworthy craft had to come from elsewhere originally, even if it were then later developed indigenously. It is also worth mentioning in this regard that the oldest known wooden boats stem from the Baltic Sea ca. 6000 BC [i.e. Balto-Scandia].
http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/farflt.htm

What about Earlier Periods?

Earlier periods take us back again to the region of Madaba and Amman. We quote from the book Stars Stones and Scholars, p. 19:

"One of the earliest centers of civilization in the Ancient Near East is `Ain Ghazal, near Amman, Jordan. The archaeological excavation of `Ain Ghazal has led to stratified layers of inhabitation
representing the following – alleged – chronological time periods. [footnote 33: Gary Rollefson and Zeidan kafafi, The Town of 'Ain Ghazal, online at http://inic.utexas.edu/menic/ghazal/intro/int.html]

Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (MPPNB) 7250 – 6500 BC
Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (LPPNB) 6500 – 6000 BC
Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC) 6000 – 5500 BC
Yarmukian Pottery Neolithic 5500 – 5000 BC (?)

Human figurines molded of clay and plaster – which look "Magdalenian" – appear at `Ain Ghazal and Jericho at the start of the MPPNB. [footnote 34: To see these figurines, go to http://www.asia.si.edu/jordan/html/jor_mm.htm the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery exhibition at the Smithsonian
Institution.]

The Yarmukian influx of pottery coincides with the [alleged Black Sea] Flood. Was the end of the MPPNB actually the time of the Flood? Rollefsen and Kafafi write that the end of the pre-pottery period in the Levant was marked by great changes in the settlement of the region. Farming villages in the area of modern Israel and the Jordan Valley were abandoned and migrating populations then surfaced in highland areas, as in Jordan, and certainly some at `Ain Ghazal. Was Ghazal the home of the Catals, Gaidels, Gaetuli & the later Cohen Gadols?"

Written further at Stars Stones and Scholars (p.23):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1412013445/

"Yosef Garfinkel writes that the term "Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (PPNC)" has been coined to deal with the results presented by the period from 6100 to 5600 BC, based on the new stratigraphic evidence from the site `Ain Ghazal near Amman, Jordan.

Previously there had been a transition seen from Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to the Yarmukian Neolithic Pottery Period, but this division could not deal effectively with the new archaeological finds.

Garfinkel concludes that Yarmukian pottery also at `Ain Ghazal and Jericho shows two different styles of workmanship and design and is thus evidence of the presence of two different peoples.

Yarmukian pottery (also spelled Yarmoukian) has been described by E.B. Banning to include decoration with bands in which rows of chevrons are incised [the herring-bone pattern]. [footnote 41: E.B. Banning, University of Toronto, Syllabus, Lecture of February 14, 2001, online at http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~banning/ARH_360files/360Y5.htm]

The pottery from Jericho IX, which is also called Lodian, on the other hand, is much more a painted pottery type, using diagonal lines and marked by knobs and handles near the rim. [footnote 42: E.B. Banning, ibid.]

Garfinkel writes, most significantly for an accurate understanding of the ancient history of the Near East, that there is a clear geographic distribution of the pottery types. [footnote 43: Yosef
Garfinkel, The Yarmukian Culture in Israel, Paleorient 19/1, 1993, pp.115-134, online at http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/archaeology/golan/articl11.htm]

The incised [geometric] Yarmukian pottery is found in the northern and central areas of present-day Israel, whereas the painted pottery [non-geometric] is found in the southern areas of present-day Israel. This north-south difference continues today.

Boian pottery is like Yarmukian pottery in design. Hence, incised pottery is the pottery of the peoples fleeing the Black Sea Flood. From the point of view of the present book, this means that
the 'people of the Flood', the Magdalenians, had arrived in the Near East, catalyzing ancient Near East Civilization. Indeed, the incised herring-bone design is then later found on the artifacts of thePharaohs."

This would mean that the migrant peoples were seafarers who came from Europe via the Black Sea, a hypothesis substantiated by the wooden boats from 3000 BC at Abydos.

These boats at Abydos used the following technology:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/farflt.htm

"After examining the hull section, Dr. Ward ["Dr. Cheryl Ward, a nautical archaeologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee"] said the flat-bottomed boat reflected "a previously undocumented style of construction" for that period. The boat appeared to be built from the outside in, in contrast to the later shipbuilding technique of starting with an internal frame. The thick planks were lashed together by rope fed through mortises. The seams between planks were filled with bundles of reeds to make the boat watertight. Additional reeds carpeted the floor."

Herodotus in his History (Book II)
http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_herodotus_2.htm
[Herodotus Histories translated into English by G.C. Macaulay]
writes about Egyptian boats as follows:

"96. Their boats with which they carry cargoes are made of the thorny acacia, of which the form is very like that of the Kyrenian lotos, and that which exudes from it is gum. From this tree they cut pieces of wood about two cubits in length and arrange them like bricks, fastening the boat together by running a great number of long bolts through the two-cubit pieces; and when they have thus fastened the boat together, they lay cross-pieces[81] over the top, using no ribs for the sides; and within they caulk the seams with papyrus. They make one steering-oar for it, which is passed through the bottom of the boat; and they have a mast of acacia and sails of papyrus. These boats cannot sail up the river unless there be a very fresh wind blowing, but are towed from the shore: down-stream however they travel as follows:--they have a door-shaped crate made of tamarisk wood and reed mats sewn together, and also a stone of about two talents weight bored with a hole; and of these the boatman lets the
crate float on in front of the boat, fastened with a rope, and the stone drag behind by another rope. The crate then, as the force of the stream presses upon it, goes on swiftly and draws on the /baris/ (for so these boats are called), while the stone dragging after it behind and sunk deep in the water keeps its course straight. These boats they have in great numbers and some of them carry many thousands of talents' burden."