In Robert Sepehr’s book Species with Amensia, he briefly describes the Aryan expansion throughout central Asia as including the sea-faring merchants known as the Phoenicians. He describes them as a technologically advanced society who “have been marginalized by official history, and this has obscured their true identity” (page 124). Their "true identity" isn’t really described by Sepehr, so I am assuming he is saying that their true identity is an even more advanced society than historians have lead on. By looking deeper into their archaeological records, social structure, and languages one can see how little variation there is between the city-states in Canaan including how technologically advanced they were. That being said, the Phoenicians brought many achievements to the Mediterranean, including the invention of the Phoenician alphabet. As a result, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew were created through modifications of the alphabet. Even though Latin is known to have influenced the rest of the Romantic Languages spanning across Aryan societies, there was no European impact on the Phoenician language. Phoenicians were not Aryan in the way Sepehr describes. As a whole, one would characterize the Phoenicians as having Mediterranean characteristics (i.e., not white with blonde hair and blue eyes). This proves the disconnect from the blonde haired, blue eyed Aryans that Sepehr describes transitioning into Phoenician culture because the Phoenicians were the influence for their language. Crossing the Atlantic? Sepehr’s claims about the Phoenicians include the idea that they crossed the Atlantic and were the influence of Aztec culture as well. One significant objection to this argument, noted by Thomas Crawford Johnson in 1913 (page 6) is that “the Phoenician ships were not of sufficient size either to contain an adequate quantity of provisions and water for a voyage of any great length or even to make those voyages if in the open sea." Although their ships were built with new technology, like the iron nail, in order to voyage out in unmarked open waters, they would need bigger boats that utilized the use of sails rather than dozens of men on each side of the boat paddling. Although they did incorporate one main sail successfully to cross up into the English Channel, the craft could have possibly failed to make it across the Atlantic. The most advanced form of the Phoenician boat craft shows that men would have to paddle the entire way across the Atlantic, in a time where there was no frontier to get to the New World, makes it almost impossible that the Phoenicians would even venture out into the Atlantic away from Europe and the Mediterranean. The lack of direct evidence of Phoenicians in the Americas (and the improbability that their ships were capable of making the voyage) has prompted a search for other "evidence." For example, there was a gold coin that was found in Carthage (a city in the Northern part of Africa) that geologist Mark McMenamin claims contains a world map including America. The coin dates to 350 BC. Upon looking at the coin, one can see that the “map,” could be easily interpreted as almost anything due to the nature of the blobby formations (the figure showing the colored version of the map is taken from here). And why would the Phoenician horse be stepping on the rest of the world? If the Phoenicians really did spread their knowledge across the Atlantic to the New World, I feel like they would have a little more respect for all of the land they influenced.
Phoenicians Bringing America Agriculture? The Phoenicians were known for agricultural practices that included the production of olives, grapes, garlic, wheat, and other fruits and vegetables. They spread their knowledge while also integrating new agricultural practices from Asia, Europe, and Africa. From this standpoint, the earliest forms of agriculture began about 11,300 years ago, when natives from Jordan started to replant fig trees. Sepehr states that the Phoenicians brought the use of agriculture to the Americas. The domestication of maize began in the Americas about 10,000 years ago. How did the Phoenicians sailing around in 1500 BC introduce agriculture to the Americas in 8,000 BC? The “map” coin found in Carthage dates to 350 BC, only 2,365 years ago. It doesn't add up. If the Phoenicians truly went to the Americas to inform the natives of agriculture, shouldn’t we find evidence of this that dates back before 10,000 years ago? Sepher's claims about the Phoenicians have no legitimate evidence to back them up. The Phoenicians were not Aryans, did not travel to the Americas, and did not introduce agriculture to the New World.
2 Comments
L.A Waddell
7/17/2017 06:04:37 am
You are absolutely right. The phoenicians weren't around 8000 years ago to be able to sail to americas.
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Sean
3/27/2019 07:29:23 am
You have taken the following information out of context:
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