Part 2: Britain Key to World History...,Avebury, City of Hercules...The Expulsion of Israel from Mizraim

Britain Key to World History

by Comyns Beaumont

PART TWO 

THE GARDEN OF EDEN 

I. 

AVEBURY, CITY OF HERCULES 

ABRAHAM CAME south to the land of Canaan and Mizraim. The first reliable clue we possess to the early civilisation of the Bronze Age may be traced with some certainty to the coming of Abraham, more properly Ab'Ram, "Son of the Ram," that is the spiritual son of the god Ammon or Hermes, the deified genius of Magism or Druidism, Ab'Ram becoming the Arch-Magus or Chief Druid of the South. 

Sometime about 2160 BC., according to revised Bible chronology, and as stated by Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews, the patriarch led a strongly armed following of Hebrews (Iberes) from the ancient parent city of Ur of the Chaldees, conducting them eventually to the territories named Canaan and Mizraim, where he built up a powerful state, later called Israelite. Indications point to his success owing to his possession of firearms when such were very scarce and difficult to obtain. He was an initiate into the mysteries of the Cabiri gods, and was himself described as the son of Terah (cp. Angl. terror), a "maker of magic instruments," and hence the word Teraphim or Terror Images, no other, in fact, than fire weapons of war.[1] 

Teraphim! In the investigation of the past the importance of firearms cannot be too strongly stressed. We are aware from modern histories of the effect of firearms when first used against savage races, the terror they caused, the savage's immediate subjection and the tendency to deify the owner of such "magic." In prehistoric times when the possessors of such fire weapons employed them, the same results were obtained, and these pioneers cleverly made a profound mystery of such so that their victims believed they were mighty gods, as we know from the Scriptures themselves.[2] Ab'Ram was himself an initiate, as the son of Terah implies, and brought with him his Cabiri gods, otherwise he established armament factories always hidden underground in some cave or convenient secluded area. The centre of this industry lay first at Hebron, explaining its name of Kiriath Arba, the "City of the Four," four being the number of the Cabiri gods, three being mystical allusions to their magic powers and the fourth being Hermes or Cadmilos, who presided over them. It was the possession of these powers that gave Ab'Ram the predominant position the patriarch acquired among the people of the south, as yet innocent of such knowledge. 

Josephus, the Jewish historian, describes Ab'Ram as a man of "great sagacity and understanding," who "determined to change the opinion men then held about God," and for which reason he decided to march southwards and institute his own state.[3] He came "with an army out of the land of the Chaldeans," and then, marching towards his destination, founded Hebron, "the city of the Hebrew." Presently, when famine prevailed in Canaan, hearing of plenty in the land of Mizraim (translated as "Egypt"), he advanced thence in strength, his pretext being "to know what they said concerning the gods," a provocative curiosity which may be better interpreted as a hostile challenge. What he actually accomplished was to impose a heavy tribute on the Mizraimites, as is admitted in Genesis, although the equivocal word "gifts" is enlisted to explain the payments. In return he imposed upon them his new deity Saturn, whose discovery he apparently made in Ur. 

Josephus practically admits the compulsory conversion of the Mizraimites when he says that Ab'Ram "determined to renew and to change the opinion all men happened to have then concerning God." The historian explains that the patriarch was the first to declare that there was one God, the Creator of the Universe, and that "irregular phenomena" visible on land and sea—a reference, it would seem, to cometary and meteoric bodies so dreaded by the Chaldean or Gnostic ( Page 35 ) sages—the sun, moon, and other celestial bodies were all controlled by a supernatural all-seeing Eye above.[4] 

Whatever the Pharaoh's reaction to this new doctrine may have been, he was obviously frightened by Ab'Ram's demonstration of some hitherto unknown power, and hastened to placate him. He was ready to pay heavy tribute if he would but quit his territories, as also was Abimelech, the Philistine King of Gerar, although the true significance of these negotiations is obscured under a wealth of obscene irrelevances in the Book of Genesis. Ab'Ram had strong grounds for remaining in those parts for reasons to be shown in due course, but if he exploited the Mizraimites, or Egyptians, or Philistines, and continued to occupy an important part of their country, he also taught them much of material value. Josephus says that he "communicated to them arithmetic and delivered to them the science of astronomy, for before Ab'Ram came into Egypt they were unacquainted with those parts of learning."[5] 

This Cushite invasion from Ur thus seems to afford the likely explanation of what Diodorus has to say about the Ethiopian claim to have first civilised Egypt, for "Ethiopia" was only the classic name for Cush or Cushites, meaning the "red" or "ruddy," or "bronzed" men, who had nothing whatever in common with any African Negroid race. Diodorus, whose records of the remote past are frequently most instructive, thus describes the Ethiopians and their contact with Egypt: 

The Ethiopians boast that they were the first men which were created in the world, and therefore they that were engendered, so they were justly with the consent of all called Anthropoi. . . . The Ethiopians maintain also that the worship of the gods was first of all found out and observed by them; as also the sacrifices, solemnities and all other things whereby honour is done unto them by men . . . and hereof the most ancient and renowned of all Greek poets gives a good testimony as when, in his Iliad, he introduces Zeus and all the other gods, coming into Ethiopia. 

They of Ethiopia affirm further that the Egyptians are descended from them in Egypt, which was not firm land before, not habitable, but was at the beginning covered with the sea and afterwards with slime and mud. . . . They say, moreover, that many laws of Ethiopia were transported into Egypt, the colonies keeping the statutes and ordinances of their ancestors; for, holding their kings to be gods, placing their chiefest study and affection on the sumptuousness of sepulchres, and many other things do proceed from the discipline of the Ethiopians, besides the use of great statues and the forms of letters were taken from them.[6] 

I suggest that we may attribute these allusions generally of Diodorus as relating to the culture originally brought by Ab'Ram from the Chaldean. Whether we use the term Ethiopian or Chaldean they claimed to have been the first civilising race, first to worship gods, imposed them on others, as did Ab'Ram upon the Egyptians; caused their own kings to claim divinity as might he said of Ab'Ram and his successors; and produced huge statues, probably whose monstrous relics are yet to be viewed in certain parts of the British Isles. That a vitally important part of Egyptian territory was not firm land but largely covered by the sea and swamps relates, as can, I think, be proved, to Somerset, where Ab'Ram was so active and largely dwelt, as will also be shown.[7] 

For the rest Diodorus appears to indicate that the Egyptians were not so amazingly ancient in their culture or history as our modern Egyptologists are so active in claiming, among whom the late Sir Arthur Evans and Sir Flinders Petrie were prominent.[8] 

Sanchoniathon of Tyre throws a brief but valuable sidelight on the invasion of Ab'Ram. Calling him Taaut, a name for Hermes, he says that "Cronus, King of Phoenicia, travelling in the south, gave all the country of Mizraim to Taaut," whom he describes as the "secretary" of Cronus.[9] Canaan he terms Chna, and states that Osiris, "the brother of Chna," was taught the Mysteries. Actually the "Egypt" of Ab'Ram is named Mizraim in the O.T., and Mizraim really signified the Philistine lands, for, as Josephus records, the Philistines were Mizraimites. But this gift of ( Page 36 ) Mizraim by the god Cronus-Saturn, high-handed as it might seem, is also confirmed in the Book of Genesis, viz. "In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Ab'Ram, saying, unto thy seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt (Mizraim) unto the great river, the river Euphrates (Heb. Perath). And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession."[10] 

Nevertheless, this sweeping statement proved illusory because in point of fact the territories in question—and only they in part—were in the possession of Ab'Ram's successors for just over five hundred years, when the Philistines drove them out of the land. 

However, the patriarch established himself firmly in Mizraim as a semi-divine personage, among an alien and hostile population, whom he dominated by force of arms, as did likewise his successors. He claimed to receive the injunctions and precepts of his god Cronus-Saturn, and became the RAM or RAMA of the South, a claim to divinity playing a vital part in the history of the Mizraimite lands, and, as Diodorus implies, was later adopted by the Egyptian kings. 

An outstanding feature of the occupation of Canaan by Ab'Ram was his building of the city or fortress of Hebron, with its strong "tower" or citadel, outstanding because of the leading part it played in early Bible history. In one passage, be it noted, it was called Thebez: "Then went Abimelech to Thebez and encamped against Thebez and took it," and from its "strong tower" a woman threw a mill-stone on his head and broke his skull.[11] For centuries it remained the citadel of Israelite power in those parts, with Ramah adjoining, until in the eighth year of David, as we may gather from the Scriptures, and also Josephus, after prolonged and bitter wars, the Israelite tribes were driven out by the Philistines or Mizraimites and migrated to another region, where they successfully captured the city of Jebus, named it Jerusalem, and made it the capital and centre of their new and subsequently flourishing state. I shall revert to this emigration and the war again later. 

It is necessary to discuss Hebron and its surroundings closely because it provides a most essential key to the geography as well as history of the past, for I shall endeavour to present evidence to identify its actual site in the south-west of England. Let us first summarise the Bible aspects of Hebron and its environs. Adjoining it, as shown in various Bible texts, was the city of Ramah, also called Ramoth, or Ramoth-in-Gilead, or Ramoth-by-Mizpah, all one and the same, it being the administrative capital, the city of the Ram, so-called after Ab'Ram himself, the HIGH RAM, the RAMA—such being the epithet or official title of the Arch Magus, representative of Cronus-Saturn in the South, the god's prophet and interpreter of his will. 

In Ramah stood the chief buildings, the house or palace of the Rama, from whence he ruled his people as a theocrat, a centre of a considerable population. Here was born and died Samuel, last of the Judges or Ramas, like Eli before him, all of whom ruled as theocrats and gave the law to the people which was delivered through the oracle on Shiloh, the High Place in the near vicinity. Indeed, near Ramah, and not far from Hebron, the citadel, stood two of the most sacred spots in Israelite history, namely, Mizpah and Shiloh, in which latter high place there appears to have been an idol of a man with a ram's head and horns, symbolic of the Rama or Hermes, and perhaps, actually, on certain occasions, where the Rama in his role of "the Lord's Messenger," had his head concealed by a ram's head and horns, while a ram's skin formed a sort of barbaric cope over his shoulders and back. 

All these outstanding and characteristic places, Hebron, Ramah, Mispah, and Shiloh, may be identified at Avebury, Wiltshire, and in its immediate neighbourhood, all being interconnected. 

I mentioned previously that in a Bible passage Hebron was called Thebez. This takes into consideration another supposedly separate city of great ancient fame, namely Cadmeian Thebes. Let us see what it had in common with Hebron. As a matter of fact much, for the city of the unfortunate Œdipus, much more romantically described, thanks to the genius of the Greek poets,  offers in fact, evidence which appears to link it irrevocably as one with Hebron, of which the name is but a variation. 

Traditionally, Thebes was founded by Cadmus, who, with his brother, Cilix, was despatched by the "King of Phoenicia" (as Sanchoniathon says of Ab'Ram), to go in search of his lost sister, Europέ. Such is the explanation offered by Herodotus and Euripides, although Conon, a learned historian, realistically represents Cadmus as sent by the Phoenicians (or Chaldeans) on a mission of conquest to the west. Conon also stated that Cadmeian Thebes was the same as Egyptian Thebes, and implied that Cadmeian Thebes in Greece was a colony from the Cadmeian only built subsequently.[12] The Cadmeian city was where the Theban god had the face of a ram, the birthplace of Hercules, and where the sinister Sphinx ate every citizen alive who emerged beyond the walls until Œdipus destroyed it.  

Let us examine this very curious problem farther. The fabulous Cadmus (or Kadmon), as his name portends, was admittedly a variation of Hermes or Gad of Samothrace in the same way as Ab'Ram was a title of the same important deity.[13] Cadmus, friend and confidant of CronusSaturn, was a mythical version of the Bible account, emanating from a Græco-Phoenician or Pelasgic source. He was inspired by the same objects and went to the identically same regions of the west country, and whether he came originally from Ur of the Chaldees or from Samothrace is not material, for the living being who represented Hermes settled in Samothrace. Seyffert remarks that Hermes was worshipped in Samothrace "as the ancestral god under the name of Cadmus or Cadmilos, and it is natural, therefore, to conjecture that the Theban Cadmus corresponded to the Samothracian deity."[14] Cadmus, a Rama like Ab'Ram, was regarded as the inventor of agriculture, the first teacher of letters and of the Cadmeian alphabet, of working in bronze, and as the pioneer of civilisation generally, in other words, the counterpart of Ab'Ram himself. It is by such comparative methods that we arrive at the facts in the end. 

A third variation of Ab'Ram should here be entertained because as Hu Gadarn he appears before us as the prehistoric Cymric or Cimmerian patriarch, who, according to the Welsh Triads, led the Cymry first to Britain from across the "sea of mist," and eventually settled with his following in Somerset, the "summer country." Like both Ab'Ram and Cadmus he taught the aborigines in the south the arts of civilisation, and was said to have possessed the country by peaceful means. Thus he compares with them, and his activities were unquestionably related to Britain, and, moreover, to those very parts where it will be seen Ab'Ram was so active, although he is supposed to have led his people from Irak into Palestine, and Cadmus to Thebes in Greece. Exactly from whence Hu Gadarn came is unascertained, though wild guesses have been made including Ceylon! He probably came from the direction of Norway or the Shetland-Orkneys, the Orchoe of Jerome, or Ur, which described as the home of the Chaldeans. 

Returning again to Cadmus and Thebes, the legend is that was told by the oracle at Delphi to follow a cow and where she lay down to found a city. She led him to a site guarded by a dragon which he slew and "sowed its teeth in the soil," from whence sprang up "armed Sparti," otherwise warriors. The Dragon's Teeth" subsequently became the Theban "Serpent stone," a circle of stones such as we find at Avebury; and the armed Sparti may be said to compare with the Hebrew Levites, fighting caste, whose headquarters and training centre was Hebron. As Cadmeian Thebes was renowned as the birthplace of Hercules, to whom immense igneous monolithic stones were sacred, it also brings into a like category the fact that Mispah, "a heap of stones," adjoined Hebron, was also a most important site in early Hebrew history, the site where Jacob and Laban set up pillars. 

From consideration of these matters let us turn to the Egyptian record of these same matters. If we study the vestiges of the work of the Egyptian historian and priest, Manetho, it is soon realised that his interpretation of Egyptian history of this period and after differs fundamentally from that of the O.T., which is not surprising seeing that his people regarded the invasion of their territories as an hostile act which existed for 511 years until they were finally expelled. From the Bible we  obtain, as would be expected, the Hebrew conquerors' version of what Egyptians and Philistines regarded as wanton usurpation. Therefore anyone studying this period on its merits, and not as a religious subject, cannot ignore Manetho, High Priest of the temple of Isis at Sebennytus in the time of Alexander the Great, a man of the highest repute for wisdom and versed in both Egyptian and Greek lore. He wrote in Greek in order that the world could judge of the truth of his statements, and though most of his history is lost, his list of dynasties has survived, but quite unjustifiably mutilated to a devastating extent by modern Egyptologists.[15] 

Manetho describes how, in the reign of a king named Timaeus, there arrived in Egypt men "after a surprising manner and of ignoble birth out of the eastern parts," to whom the Egyptians accorded the name of Hyksos, signifying "shepherd kings," because they brought and collected great herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, as we know did Ab'Ram and his followers. These newcomers subdued a considerable part of the Egyptian lands because the latter dared not hazard a battle, realising the invaders' superiority in arms. The Hyksos burnt down towns, destroyed their temples, slew many and took their wives and children into captivity. The name of the first Hyksos king or chief is given as Salatis, who compelled the Egyptians to pay tribute and placed garrisons in their cities.[16] 

This same king built a city named Abaris or Avaris by the Egyptians on a site he discovered in the "Saite Nomus" or "Seth Roite," selecting a strategic post where he could dominate the Egyptians and check the Syrians. Abaris was founded with strong walls and here Salatis maintained a garrison of 400,000 men, whence he repaired every summer from Memphis, where he principally dwelt, to reap the harvest, hold military manoeuvres, and pay his soldiers. After thirteen years he died and was succeeded by another like him, and Manetho mentions by name five of the following "kings" or chiefs, who, including Salatis, ruled for 253 years, but in all the Hyksos over lordship lasted for 511 years when they were driven away after a long and bitter war.[17] 

If we consider this evidence so far, let us note that the name of Abar-is (abar), compares with Hebron (Heber or Eber), or Theb-ez or Theb-ai, all variations of the root word abar, eber or heber, and hence the name Hebrew, Hebron being the city ("on") of the Hebrew. In addition note that the name Abaris or Avaris is very similar to the name of Avebury, also known of old as Abury, and as such described by the Jacobean antiquary Dr. William Stukeley. Moreover, we may find in Avebury, apart from nomenclature, a remarkable point of comparison in the description Manetho accords to this capital built by Salatis. He says it was a "city of Typhon," so-called for a "theological reason." 

Mythologists are aware that Typhon (hence our word typhoon) was another name for Set, the evil brother of Osiris, whom he murdered according to Egyptian belief, who breathed fire, lightning, and destructive winds, and was hurled to earth by Zeus or Horus. Set was figured as a huge celestial serpent with a hundred writhing heads and various fearsome voices, all of which imagery pointed to the comet, a fearful god who rained down rocks and stones, and hence the myth of the "dragon's bones" sown by Cadmus. So when Manetho says that Abaris or Avaris was a city of Typhon, for a "theological reason," he can only have had in mind the stones which had been placed in situ in its vicinity. We are surely justified in claiming further that the Cadmus myth of sowing the Teeth of the Dragon was merely another interpretation of the same event; and, in addition, that same principle of erecting large monolithic stones, whether to Cronus-Saturn or to Hercules, inspired the early Israelites to erect the famous stones of Mizpah, as all one and the same. 

The solution of this ancient event, I contend, may be identified, and only identified, at Avebury, in Wiltshire, near Marlborough, where we find the largest stone circle in the world, erected of unhewn, igneous monoliths, on the south-east joined by a winding avenue of like stones, providing the relic of an Immense and sacred prehistoric monument which some believe to have been designed in the shape of a Winged Globe, a very significant symbol of the past. The centre of a Winged Globe, a circle enveloped by serpents, depicts a fiery mass, with wings to suggest flight and a long tail, thus depicting the Terror of the Skies, the Comet.

A curious aspect in conjunction with the site of Abaris is that Manetho, as mentioned previously, referred to the region as the "Seth Roite," which we may translate as the Seth Route or Road, Seth being a mere variation of Set, the Evil One, after—but not before—the Great Catastrophe. It is no coincidence that one of the oldest and most ancient roadways in England, now the Great West Road, passes a little south of the Avebury Circle, and has to make a detour to avoid Silbury Hill, and this road of old time was dubbed by the early Saxon invaders, the "Devil's Highway."

At this juncture, with Avebury and environs under our gaze, we should consider Bible references to Hebron. In proximity to the fortress or strong place lay Ramah, the administrative and residential city, and nearby stood the famous Mizpah or Mizpeh, the "Place of the Stones."[18] Mizpah, in conjunction with the "High Place," Shiloh, provided the most sacred centre of early Israelite events, or, it might be more correct to say, was the heart of the nation. It first emerges when Laban, seeking the teraphim which his daughter Rachel stole, met Jacob in the sanctuary of Mizpah where they healed their differences and set up pillars of stone as a witness.[19] In the ensuing years it became the great sanctuary where the tribes foregathered in times of stress and disaster, a sort of national parliament, to decide events of the greatest importance when they usually sought the guidance of the god on the height of the adjoining Shiloh. Hereunto did Samuel summon the people when the Philistines had utterly defeated the nation, and here they elected Saul as their first king to lead them in battle. They had met there previously in Benjamin's rebellion and walked from Mizpah in solemn procession to the "House of God" on Shiloh.[20]

Mizpah, central emblem of Israel, as the Place of Sacred Stones, can surely be identified as the same stone dragon as the Theban round temple, or as Manetho's serpent Typhon. The vestiges of this once great site are recognisable, I claim, in the Avebury Circle covering over three-quarters of a mile in circumference, with its mile-long avenue of stones leading into it from the south-east, starting at Hackpen Hill (Celt. hack or hag, serpent, pen, head), "Head of the Serpent," now renamed Overton Hill, and, as some believe, having had originally a similar avenue from the south-west, thus providing in stone the design of a vast celestial serpent, head, tail, and coil, which may have been as suggested the origin of that beautiful symbol, but one of sinister purport, the Winged Globe or Circle.

Linked closely with this great temple, Silbury Hill, covering 5 acres, 130 ft. high, the highest artificial pyramidal mound in Europe, situated a mile south of the great Circle, may be likened to the sacred Shiloh, and is almost identical with it in name. And in the north of this considerable area, guarding the ancient British city, towers Barbury Castle, an immense prehistoric fortress along the northern escarpment of hills, once evidently a castle in fact, with stonework and walls. We may justly propose that here lies the site of Hebron, of which Barbury (cp. abar) may yet preserve the memory. 

Finally, below Barbury, and east of the great temple, spread the vestiges of a prehistoric British city, whose importance may be gauged by the existence of no fewer than five enormous long barrows in the vicinity, sometimes 100 yards long, many divided chambers.[21] These sites and place-names are not coincidences. 

 The “Adam” Rock at Avebury

Industrious archaeologists have sought for the sites of Abaris, Cadmeian Thebes, and Hebron, in Egypt, Greece, and Palestine respectively, and have triumphantly proclaimed their existence by ignoring all evidence that does not fit in with their preconceived conclusions. At the so-called Hebron in Palestine, for example, natives earn a steady income by showing the alleged burial places of the early patriarchs--who were never within thousands of miles of their supposed capital, before Jerusalem succeeded it. Abaris has eluded the Egyptologists who rummage in the Nile Valley, while Cadmeian Thebes, minus any bones of the Serpent," will be exhibited to the tourist who visits modern Greece. In Avebury we possess the site which unites them and also Egyptian Thebes, as one and the same in a prehistoric date.

The immense and weather-beaten stones which have survived weathering of countless centuries (but less the vandalism of modern times, when they were used to construct walls, outhouses, etc.), straggle over hill and dale from the "Head of the Serpent" a Circle originally—until they lead the way into an original entrance of the temple. Inside the Great Circle, surrounded by a former moat which made the site an island, once stood a great number of stones, possibly 360, although the recent investigators claim only 100, and in the centre are the remains of two smaller temples, one having had twelve stones and originally the other thirty, denoting accordingly a  360-day year, the original length the solar year before the Great Catastrophe, that prodigious phenomenon having added five and a quarter days to the year by dumping the residue of a comet—a former planet—on our world and hence forcing the recession of the earth from the sun, thus having permanently affected the earth's axis and orbit. Avebury was therefore used as an astronomical temple in its heyday.

The pyramidal hill of Silbury, on the edge of the Great West Road, a mile south of Avebury Circle, glanced at carelessly by thousands who pass that way, ignorant of its romance, commands a splendid view over the undulating downs, with clumps trees on bare hill-tops proclaiming former sanctuaries of the all-powerful Hermes, or the tombs of once famous men, and here, again, one of the most ancient symbols of divinity may be recalled, speaking of Silbury itself. This sacred emblem of remote antiquity was the All-Seeing Eye of the deity, superimposed over a pyramid. Was it perchance derived from Silbury, the pyramid probably the forerunner of those erected far later in Egypt and in America? —for it should be noted that the great Circle of Avebury, placed above Silbury in a direct line, would represent the Eye of the god Saturn.

But this much we may opine, in company with the learned Canon Bowles, who devoted so much attention to the antiquities of Avebury, that on the summit of Silbury originally stood the temple of the god Hermes or Ammon or Ham, where the deity had his shrine, whither the early Israelites climbed to consult the Oracle, and where, we may suppose, took place the legendary scene when Hercules, whose natal city was Cadmeian Thebes, visited the temple of Ammon and demanded to see the god himself in the form of a ram, and the resultant shifts the priest was put to in order to satisfy him.[22] Perhaps we may recognise from this legend that it was customary for the high-priest who assumed the role of Ammon in the Oracle to wear a symbolical ram's skin with horns in this once holy site.

When it is realised that in the peaceful surroundings of Avebury, where to-day a hamlet and farms, a church and a hostelry, have partially invaded these immortal stones, thousands of years ago were witnessed scenes of intense emotion at the pulsating heart of a nation, it may serve to conjure up sombre thoughts of the mutability of human endeavour. We may sorrow that this once vital centre of man's activity should have passed by like a wave leaving so little in its wake, so little visible to ensuing generations, and that its great fame should have been dispersed to completely alien surroundings. Except for the huge stones here and there, whose significance has long ago been forgotten, how puny appear man's endeavours when we perceive how the rolling chalk downs have smoothly covered and artfully concealed the sites of former great activities, until to-day little that is unusual strikes the unpractised eye. Yet, to receptive minds, over all there prevails a feeling of brooding silence and unsolved mystery.

To the vision of an observant antiquarian this ancient haunt of man offers a constant source of interest. From the summit of Hackpen Hill (Overton Hill), where once stood a cromlech and circle—to-day railed off and marked with stakes by H.M. Office of Works, and where remains of ancient sacrifices were Discovered—an ancient track way called the Ridgeway leads to the former site of the "British settlement," with signs of many former streets or tracks where once stood, according to evidence, the city of Ramah, in the chalk country of Gilead, the administrative centre of Israel in the land of Canaan, and from whence other tracks radiate like the spokes of a wheel in all directions. 

Mr. Hippisley Cox terms it the ancient hub of England, and among other matters are indications of a former canal system. North of these parts along the steep escarpment of hills which offer a grand natural defence to the north and east, stands Barbury Castle with its prodigious earthworks. It stands 889 ft. above sea level, and its selected position indicates its strategic importance in the eyes of its builders towards possible hostile dwellers north and east. The escarpment in question may possibly have been partly artificial so remarkable is the contour of the Marlborough Downs which form here a complete semicircular arc, thus providing a powerful defence of the city below them.

Nor is this all. In the direction descending towards the south-west, this escarpment becomes Hackpen Hill, with a height varying between 700-800 ft., until it terminates at the Head of the Serpent where it descends to 559 ft. On the eastern side it arches to heights of 700-800 ft., until it declines at Ogbourne George, where the little river Og takes its rise, and then "hastes again stretching below the town of Marlborough at its south-eastern extremity. The defences are carried along the south also if we include that queer artificial rampart, known as Wansdyke, which stretches from Portishead, at the mouth the Avon in the west, to beyond Savernake Forest, a gigantic :line with forts and terraces in the east, its highest elevation being nearly 40 ft. opposite Avebury throughout its entire length. 

Many believe that it was erected by the Belgæ or Saxons as a defence against the Britons on their north, but there is evidence that it was a British defence to foreign invaders from the south. The British settlement, which I propose was Ramah, lies inside these imposing defences, and which stretch over an area of more than four square miles. In and about it sprawls the huge quarry of sarsen stones from whence the Temple was originally erected. In the neighbourhood are various tumuli, the great ruined dolmen called the Devil's Den, and beyond in the north looms grim Barbury Castle. 

There is another clue to the past in this region in the River Og, a significant name in many ways. Ogygia was the earliest known name applying to Egypt—and as will be seen this was part of the original Egypt—and was associated with the Ogygian Flood, which traditionally afflicted Thebes at the same time as the Deucalion or Noah's Flood. Ogyges was the legendary name of the earliest king of Thebes, and one of its seven gates was called Ogygian, which probably stood where is now the village of Ogbourne St. George, on the River Og. Josephus recounts that Ab'Ram dwelt "near the oak Ogyges at Hebron," which tends to identify him with both Cadmus and "King Ogyges."[23] 

Moreover we have the renowned Og, the Amorite king who ruled in Bashan, and as we are told in the Scriptures also at "Baal Ammon," which seems to relate to the Oracle of Ammon or Hermes on Shiloh. The "Giant Og," whose name was evoked as the Amorite king of Bashan when the land was overrun by Joshua, must have passed away many centuries before, and as the Bible text suggests was some ancient but famous personality of the past, just as his "iron bed" carefully preserved at Rabbath-Ammon implies an archaic and valued relic of antiquity. Indeed, it would appear that Og was Ab'Ram, and it seems to have related to his role of teacher—as Hermes was the Teacher—orator and law-giver. The Celtic name for the earliest form of writing, ogam or ogham, was derived from the root word Og, and in addition, Hermes in his character as the teacher of knowledge (hence epithets like Taaut, Thoth, etc.), was called Ogmius by the Celts, and was depicted as an elderly man with an almost imperceptible stream of golden words proceeding from his lips to indicate eloquence. Og, therefore, in this area, in conjunction with the separate claims of both Hebron and Thebes, is of significance. 

From Og we return to Silbury Hill, so akin in name to Shiloh as stressed before, the original Israelite seat or oracle of Ammon, where he pronounced the will of the god Saturn, and where for long the sacred Ark was kept. When Joshua carved up the land he had conquered by the sword, he chose Shiloh as the seat from which he divided up the region and gave new boundaries to the tribes he commanded. Shiloh lay not far distant from another famous Israelite landmark, Tanach or Taanach, and two miles south of Silbury towers St. Anne's Hill, formerly Tan-hill, said to have been so named after the British god Tanaris mentioned by Lucan, who may have been the god Poseidon, also called Dan or Tan.[24] Tacitus speaks of a celebrated fane to –“Tan" in the British lands which the Belgæ seized at a date far earlier than generally believed, points to Tan-hill, which pagan name was changed into that of a saint, St. Anne, in accordance with early Christian precept. In the middle of last century an annual fair was still held on Tan-hill on August 6, a date which .synchronises with the May 6 (Vernal Equinox) and November 6 Autumn Equinox) year of antediluvian times. The date appears to have denoted the original Midsummer Day, now relapsed by 16 points of the zodiac by the precession of the equinoxes, and it affords us an example of the vast antiquity of these parts of Britain as also how strangely local customs have until late years survived all vicissitudes.[25]

And Shiloh in Israel's day had its special festival. It was at Shiloh that the young outlawed Benjamites, wanting wives, lay in hiding when the virgin daughters of Shiloh on their way to the Lord's House to take part in a religious dance, were surprised by the young men who sprang on them from their concealment, seized them by force despite their struggles and abducted them, willing or otherwise, and made them their wives. The Elders of Israel, who had more than a shrewd idea of this intended rape, turned nevertheless a blind eye to the proceedings because, while they could not pardon the unrepentant tribe and consent to receive them back into the fold, they had no wish to see them die out or marry wives of other races, so they got round the oath they had sworn at Mizpah or Mizpeh, by this piece of diplomatic blindness.[26]

It might seem that this dance of the daughters of Shiloh was perpetuated as a folklore custom---without the abduction!—like so many time-honoured pagan festivals, now, alas, almost extinct in these materialist times. Commander Christopher Harvey, in his monograph, The Ancient Temple of Avebury and its Gods, describes an annual fête formerly held on Silbury Hill in honour of the young men and maidens, accompanied, he says, with much jollification, high spirits, and flirtations. It may well have been a survival of the rape of the virgins of Shiloh, for it was a gathering intended to bring the two sexes together with a view to matrimony.

Another local tradition of Silbury connects it with the burial place of a prehistoric British king named Seall or Sheal, who recalls King Saul. That unfortunate monarch, a Benjamite, was familiar enough with these Biblical parts, and was slain in battle by the Philistines at JabeshGilead, in the chalk country. David sent to recover his bones as well as those of Jonathan, his son, and to have them re-interred in a place called Selah or Zelah, a name often adjured as a sanctuary.[27] The name resembles Silbury or Shiloh, Bible names frequently vary, and there are many long barrows in the vicinity of Silbury Hill, where Saul might have been buried, for Ramah was his capital during his stormy reign. 

Place-names admittedly are often illusory, but for all that they provide considerable collateral evidence because landmarks tend to retain their names even with a change of masters. We see how Hebron, in the Greek of Manetho, could become Abar-is, and how both apply in nomenclature with Avebury or Abury, their identity being supported by all the other testimony brought forward. 

We have another example of this name Abaris in the "mountains (or hills) of Abarim" where Moses assembled the Israelites and upon a height of which he climbed, in order to obtain a distant view of the land of Bashan. He was ordered by his deity, to "get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto Mount Nebo which is in the land of Moab . . . and behold the land of Canaan . . . and die in the mount whither thou goest up." Moses obeyed and perceived all the land of Gilead "unto Dan . . . unto the utmost sea." He was said to have died on Mount Nebo, and was buried in a valley in Moab, but, the text says, somewhat contradictorily, "but no man knoweth his sepulchre to this day."[28] Before this we have the account of how Balak, king of Moab, prevailed on Balaam to curse the vast number of invaders, and took him to the top of Peor, whence we have the obvious haddishah or pious legend of how the Angel prevented Balaam from proceeding, and how Balaam instead of cursing the huge concourse, stayed to bless them.[29] in the neighbourhood of Abarim. Is it merely a coincidence that the highest point of the escarpment of hills north of Avebury is named Nebo Farm to this day? Or that, farther eastwards, on the borders of Wiltshire and Berkshire, a mile south-west from Membury Camp, we find the height named Balak Farm?[30] How come these most unusual names to be in the very places where they fit in with the Biblical accounts, unless it be that they perpetuate the memory of a great overthrow in a prehistoric time? Strange as it may seem such landmarks do survive unless some subsequent reason causes a change in name, and these sites, precious as they may be in our eyes now, offered no occasion for such a change. Nebo and Abarim—Nebo and Avebury!

Balak and the hilly regions east of Abarim where we gather dwelt the Moabites towards the great river! 

It is not improbable that the temple of Avebury, majestic and imposing as it must have appeared in those long-distant days with every stone in place, with Silbury Hill beyond, and the city of Ramah gleaming in the sunshine, may have given the name of Canaan to the adjoining regions, for the word Can or Chan signified a serpent, and here lay the focus of civic and military life. 

The draconic aspect of the great Circle must have exerted a considerable influence on the minds of succeeding generations, not only because of its immense size and significance, but also because it was almost certainly the first such type of serpentine temple ever erected. Hence, therefore, we find Stephen of Byzantium declaring that Typhon was struck down by lightning at Hero-on-polis, the city of the Hero Hercules; of Apollonius Rhodius stating that Typhon fled from Zeus as far as Pelusium, in which neighbourhood stood Abaris; and Herodotus, that Typhon lay "chained" in that area, all of which traditions intimate that through the ages classic writers associated Typhon, the Serpent or Dragon, thrown down from heaven, with Abaris, and that it was the Egyptian city of Hercules. More could be said on this important relationship of Abaris or Avebury to Hercules and the Pillars associated with that hero or deity, but for the present it will suffice to record that these classic authorities all related the "bones" of Typhon or Set, otherwise the great monoliths, with Abaris, and that we have seen also that the same city was Hebron or Cadmeian Thebes. 

The evidence I have adduced so far in support of the contention that Avebury marks this romantic and important site of pre-history has relied upon the comparison of Bible history, Greek myth and legends, topography, folklore, and place-names, with the great Temple as the pivotal clue. There is other testimony which will further clarify the conclusions tentatively advanced, and that is its situation compared with other important prehistoric cities and settlements which lead towards the fitting together of the past like the pieces of a gigantic mosaic.

2 

THE EXPULSION OF 

ISRAEL FROM MIZRAIM 

I now propose to take the subject a step further relative to Abaris and the Israelites at a very eventful epoch of their history as related by Manetho. 

After describing the oppression exercised by the detested Hyksos against the Egyptians or Mizraimites, part of whose lands they had seized and colonised, Manetho says that they dominated those territories for 511 years in all, their usurpation being terminated by a "terrible and long war" when the "kings of Thebais" and others rose against them and finally drove them out of the country. In the course of this long war the Hyksos were also expelled from other parts of Egypt and were "shut up (besieged) in a place that contained 10,000 arura—this place was Abaris." The name of the king who vanquished the Hyksos is given as Alisphragmuthosis, but who is generally known as Amos, Amasis, or Aahmes, the king who founded the 18th "Dynasty" of the Thebans and the first of the Ramses, which king was duly succeeded by his son named Thummosis or Tethmosis. 

Of Abaris Manetho says, "the shepherds built a wall round all this place, which was a large and strong wall," and this city Thummosis "attempted to take by siege and storm with an army of 450,000 men, but failing in this, he granted terms to the besieged." He then continues: 

A composition that they should leave Egypt and go, without any harm to be done them, whithersoever they would; and after this composition was made they went away with their whole families and effects not fewer in number than 240,000, and took their journey from Egypt through the wilderness for Syria: but as they were in fear of the Assyrians who then had the dominion over Asia, they built a city in that country which is now Judea, and that large enough to contain this great number of men and called it Jerusalem.[31]

We know from the O.T. (Old Testament) that there was such a long-drawn-out war between the Israelites and Philistines—the latter people properly described by Josephus as Egyptians—which in the time of Samuel led to grave disaster to Israel, to such extent that Samuel, albeit unwillingly, agreed to anoint the brave man Saul to become its military chief and bestowed upon him the title of king; how David, with a strong body of followers, treacherously opposed Saul and became a guerrilla force on the side of the Philistines; and how, seven years after his own accession, Israel was in so precarious a situation that David came to some arrangement with his enemy and led his tribes—or such as followed him---out of the Canaanite lands to Jerusalem which he captured at the point of the sword. Manetho explains why David was forced to quit. Incidentally the Jerusalem to which he repaired lay much farther distant from the original Canaan than the twelve miles which the alleged Hebron is distant from the more correctly named El Kuds of our time. [compelling stuff DC]

These long and savage struggles had previously led to such severe defeats of Israel that the apprehensive people demanded a younger man to conduct affairs as their war-lord than Samuel, and the patriarch had found it expedient to succumb to their clamour, but whose resentment is clear enough in the tirade he uttered.[32] In this war "magic" was used by the Israelites, one example of which was when Jonathan and his armour-bearer crept along the rocky gorge of Michmash, not far from the famous Ajalon, until the Philistine sentries challenged them. 

Then the two Israelites—the Philistines termed them scornfully "Hebrews"—rose up on their feet and slew, this slaughter churning up the ground as though it were newly ploughed, accompanied with a trembling and shaking in which the enemy seemed to beat down one another, in the result about twenty being killed suddenly, and the survivors panicked.[33] Can it be reasonably explained by any other means than that Jonathan hurled a grenade or explosive missile into the Philistine camp? In their battles the Israelites used the Ark, which was no other than a munitions chest. When the Philistines were defeated by its means they lamented, "Woe unto us! Who shall defeat these mighty gods?" The flash of fire, the noise like thunder, the missile directed at them which exploded, what were these but emanations of "mighty gods?"[34] None the less, it would appear that in the days of Eli the Ark failed to possess its magic powers and was no longer produced in battle, probably through neglect on the part of the Levites. 

Josephus describes the war which resulted in the expulsion of the Israelites as a great war. "Let no one suppose it was a small army of the Philistines that came against the Hebrews," he says, "but all Syria and Phoenicia with many nations besides them." This reveals a general determination to expel them from the country they had occupied for so long. In the end, besieged within the walls of his capital Hebron, David capitulated on terms which agree with Manetho and seem generous. He was permitted to collect all his people and march away together with their wives and children, taking all portable property and retaining their arms.[35] They went to Jerusalem and seized it with little difficulty from the Jebusites. It is somewhat peculiar that immediately these Hebrews, broken by the Philistines, and having trekked to a distant region from their starting point, should discover this convenient country at their disposal, and also at hand so powerful a friend and patron as Hiram, King of Tyre. Yet so it is described. 

There is another peculiar feature of this exodus. How far actually lay Jerusalem from the areas from which they had been expelled? A passage in Josephus suggests its distance from Hebron as a good deal more than a dozen miles: 

The people of the country say it (Hebron) is more ancient than Memphis in Egypt and accordingly its age is reckoned at 2,300 years. They also relate that it had been the habitation of Abraham, the progenitor of the Jews, after he had removed out of Mesopotamia. They say his posterity descended from thence into Egypt, whose monuments are to this day shown in that small city.[36] 

Nothing in the foregoing passage indicates that Hebron stood on the doorstep of Jerusalem but the reverse, for if words signify anything, Josephus speaks of it as though it lay in some distant country. Nor would that have been surprising for it would have been plain futility on the part of the Philistines if, at the end of this extended and vindictive war, with the Hebrews at their mercy, they should have been content to permit the enemy to set up another kingdom anywhere within their sphere of interest. In my reconstruction Jerusalem lay over three hundred miles distant. 

The compiler of the Book of Chronicles subsequently tried his best to conceal the immensity of the disaster the Israelites had suffered. The text suggests that the Elders went to Hebron to Anoint David as king, whereas he had been their monarch for over seven years. He says that the principal chiefs attended at Hebron at David's own command, who placed his plans before them. He does not exactly specify what these were, but after feasting them he sent them back to collect the respective tribes who were ordered to return and assemble at Hebron, so it is evident, comparing the account with Manetho's and Josephus', that it was effected by an armistice, since the entire object of the Philistines was to be quit of the Hyksos or "shepherds" as quickly as might be, for good and all. Josephus says that 357,000 armed men were led away by David, but it seems assured that a considerable number preferred to remain behind subject to the Egyptians, their descendants some centuries later to become a fresh thorn in the flesh to their conquerors. Zebulon was the only tribe to go "unitedly," 50,000 of them; of Benjamin only 3,000; of Simeon 7,000; while Judah, so important, only amounted to 6,800 ready armed. 

Those who accompanied David took provisions and wine and corn, and set out after three days' feasting and preparation for the long journey.[37] Manetho says that they left "without .any harm being done to them," as also Chronicles implies. The Hebrews appear to have been treated with extraordinary clemency for those harsh times. From one thing or another it may be considered that the powerful influence of Hiram of Tyre was behind this leniency. 

From the foregoing, not only is it apparent that the Hyksos were the Israelites, as Josephus himself states, but that they migrated to a new region some considerable distance from their previous state, a factor in the past which Bible students might perhaps consider. The fact is that divinity students are afraid to question Biblical history or chronology, or else their built-up question is liable to fall to pieces. No such qualms deter Egyptologists in disclaiming Manetho although without him they could never have compiled a dynastic list of the kings of Egypt. This attitude is admitted, as witness Baikie, a recent authority who says bluntly, "Manetho gave us the thirty dynasties as a frame work within which to fit the story of ancient Egypt," and then adds "it has been the fashion to deride Manetho as an historian.[38] None the less their own interpretations are open to serious question. 

Considerable license has been permitted to Egyptologist because they concern themselves with a form of scientific research limited to a small body of archæologists, who seemingly agree tacitly among themselves to put forward claims of which a great many are purely hypothetical or based on false premises to an earnest student of these antiquities. The innocent Victorian swallowed with blind faith the surprising ease whereby from Champollion pére onward Egyptologists have professed to translate from hieroglyphic monuments and papyri with almost as much certainty as a modern linguist can translate one living tongue into another. Behind it all lay, and still lies, the object of throwing a clearer light on the accuracy of Bible history, and to the archæologists for the most part to write anything which confirms Moses and Bible history generally induces pious folks in both hemispheres, and especially in America, to subscribe large sums for excavation purposes to those who claim to be able to reassure them from any agnostic doubts. In some cases these archæological claims are absolutely dishonest; in others, excavators and so forth are led astray by their own enthusiasm. 

Sir Flinders Petrie was a notable offender. He knew the value of publicity and how to titivate the tastes of interviewers and the ignorant public. One such example may suffice. He claimed to have found evidence in the desert of Sinai on the site of a town which he said was Anthelon, and which flourished according to him, in 1212 B.C., traces of a "night club," including sets of dice, ivory counters, and playing pieces of blue glass. He did not know if a night club flourished there over 3,000 years ago, but—it made a good story and obtained cheap publicity for himself. 

To-day, when discoveries in other directions do not coincide with their assertions, doubts have begun to arise as to how far the accuracy of Egyptian archæology may be accepted. Consider the material they have to work on. To begin with there is the question as to what classification the Egyptian language belongs to, for the partly mutilated Rossetta Stone, despite its three inscriptions, one in hieratic, one in demotic, and one in Greek, whilst it gave a clue to certain letters or sounds based on the rendering of Greek names like Ptolemy and Cleopatra, did not assuage all doubts. The Egyptologists finally had to fall back on the assumption that there was no alphabetical code in ancient Egypt, but about 2,000 signs, some being ideographic and others phonetic—i.e., some idealistic signs and some pronounced independently of the signs—and when that problem had been resolved, in so far as it was possible, the next step was to discover what language system it represented or resembled. That the Egyptians were without an alphabet is incomprehensible in view of the fact that one of the most respected of early beliefs was that they were taught letters by the Ethiopians, as to which we have the record of Diodorus, already mentioned. 

The Egyptologists decided, after various searches, that the hieroglyphics were based on the ancient Coptic, a late so-called Ethiopian tongue more properly Abyssinian—which they classified as a member of the "Hamitic" branch of the African tongues. But it then appeared that the Coptic only began in the third century A.D. and actually became extinct in the sixteenth century, so that even if it had been based on the ancient Egyptian language it was at best a debased dialect. The Coptic was a monosyllabic speech, the usual characteristic of primitive races, and later became (so it is contended) very agglutinative, which complicated matters even more. Agglutinative signifies the combination of various words into compounds each retaining its original meaning. Imagine therefore the pitfalls for the translator. For example, Chaucer, who wrote in English, a living language, only as far back as the fifteenth century, and did not use agglutination, is utterly unintelligible to those who read him in the original without a glossary, whereas the Egyptian dates back, if only from Roman times, for some 2,000 years, derived, if from Coptic, in a dead tongue without roots, grammar or alphabet. 

Nor is that all. Throughout the centuries, it is claimed, the hieroglyphics altered and deteriorated from those of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties, that is the Ramses, showing signs of decadence, until under the Macedonian Ptolemies they had acquired other characteristics. Many new hieroglyphics, we are told, were added and the style became overbearing and cramped. Added to all these complications the script is without vowels except for an occasional final vowel, all of which offers an enormous margin for error and how largely guess-work can enter into translations. If, as there is reason to believe from those Egyptian words which have come down to us in the Bible, the Egyptians were of Celtic origin, as to which more might be added, their basic language could scarcely have been "African Hamitic," whatever that may signify, and it is more than questionable that the Abyssinian Copts were in any way Ethiopians, for the latter were the Northern Phoenicians. For these reasons any Egyptologist claim to interpret the past should be looked upon with the utmost reserve. 

To return, then, to the expulsion of the Hyksos or Israelites from the Canaanite lands; this relates unquestionably to the eighth year of David's reign and for these reasons presumably the bibliolatrists refuse to recognise that the Hyksos were the Israelites, although Josephus, the Jewish historian who preserved the records of Manetho, states definitely that they were the same and in following their revised history this is unquestionable. Lepsius, the German Egyptologist, whose knowledge of Egyptian lore was great, and who tried desperately to resolve the vexed question of the Hebrews in Egypt in directions he was wrongly seeking, curtly dismissed the claim of the Hyksos because it failed to conform to the O.T. account. "Not worth refutation,” he says, "the Mosaic narrative is entirely contradictory to it."[39] Strangely enough Lepsius, more than any man, was struggling to reach some understanding of Bible chronology, and had he succeeded he would have seen that the Hyksos, as the Israelites actually give the key to Bible chronology.

After the Hyksos, who are termed Phenakim or Phoenicians in one passage by Manetho, had been driven away to Jerusalem there emerged the new Mizraimite or Philistine dynasty whose leading prince had freed their former territories. it was called 'Theban, Ramesian, or Diospolite— the "Divine Personages"— and though it was termed the Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty of the Ramses, it was more accurately Philistine with its capital at No-Ammon, which it appears was the original Philistine Gath. Adopting the god Ammon of Thebes or Shiloh, his seat of worship was transferred to No-Ammon. At Hebron the fortress was permitted to fall into disuse, the stones formerly sacred to Cronus-Saturn were ascribed to the Egyptian Hercules, and Ramah, no longer of great account, declined, and was called Ramses. Moreover, the new Pharaohs annexed the divine status of the former Ram or Rama, and became god-kings, while the former activity in those regions dwindled until the time of Moses, over 300 years later, all of which, according to the revised chronology, occurred circa 1670-1662 B.C. 

Lepsius, although he vainly sought for Abaris in the Nile Delta, yet rightly believed that the city of Ramses and Abaris were identical and cited Eusebius, who wrote, "Jacob sojourned on Ramses which was formerly called Abaris."[40] The Rev. Mr. Lawson also says, "A writer on the subject of this name Ramah draws attention to Raamses or Ramses, a stone city in Egypt, and says that oriental geographers speak of it as the ancient capital of Palestine."[41] The reference to a "stone city" points definitely to the city of the monoliths—our Avebury. 

The Eighteenth Dynasty, the Ramses (or Rameses), thus annexed the name, and, what is more, assumed the Mantle of divinity which for five centuries had placed the Israelite Judges in turn on so consummate a height as the living Messenger or Oracle of the Lord, heirs to the patriarch Ab'Ram. The Ramses Kings became the Ramas of the south, as heirs of the Cushite Gad---as Diodorus stated that the Egyptian kings did so borrow from the Cushites—and, as it appears, transferred the oracle of Ammon (or Ham) to their capital Gath, re-naming it No-Ammon, it also being known as Rabbath-Ammon, where they piously preserved the "iron bed" of Og, a relic of the ancient patriarch, whose claims to divinity they had annexed. Thus did the Egyptian or Philistine kings enlarge their stature to divine beings, and who of old time dwelt among ordinary human beings as the Egyptian Priests told Herodotus had happened. 

These Ramses, moreover, by the aid of "magic" in which black art they became very proficient—but not proficient enough in the end—extended their power and influence until the collapse of their ascendancy at the termination of the Nineteenth Dynasty 327 years later. For in the reign of Amenophis occurred the thirteen years' war, in which the Egyptians proved inferior in armaments to their oversea enemies. The period terminated with the Great Catastrophe. 

The first of the Ramses Dynasty which had recovered Mizraim from the Hyksos or Israelites were honoured as the "Deliverers," and this tends to recall the mythical account of the Seven Against Thebes, and its later renewal by the Epigone, or "Deliverers," sons of the former Seven heroes, behind it a long-drawn-out quarrel between Argives and Thebans, the Thebans, according to Æschylus, regarding the Argives as the "foreign. speaking foe," they themselves being Phoenicians.[42] The Thebans, in this prolonged war, like the Israelites, used "magic" against the Seven, such as when Capaneus, placing a ladder against the walls, was destroyed by a "thunderbolt," and as when Amphiaraus, fleeing from the walled city, was suddenly swallowed up by the earth together with his chariot and horses caused by another "thunderbolt." 

Ten years later, the Epigone having renewed the war, the Thebans, defeated in battle, retired behind their walls and consulted Teiresias, their seer, who foretold that the gods had declared for their besiegers and that there was no hope of further resistance. Thereupon they sent a herald to the enemy offering to surrender on terms which were granted, whereby they were given free conduct to depart. They then moved to another region altogether with their families, and sought a domicile among the Illyrians in the same manner as the Israelites imposed themselves on the Jebusites. The parallel is very near, and, allowing for the elusiveness of Greek mythologists, Œdipus, who defeated the "Sphinx" (Goliath) in the first place, and was in old age betrayed by his sons, answers to David. It is the Bible story in epic form.

The Cadmeian legend has its sequel related by Herodotus when he says that the Cadmeians, driven out of their country by the Argives, found shelter among the Encheles in Illyria.[43] This in turn bears close relation to the fable in which Cadmus, crushed by the terrible doom that weighed upon his city of Thebes, retired among the Encheles or Encheleans of Illyria where his son Illyrius was born. There is another allied myth to the effect that the Cyclop Polyphemus ("of many legends") had three sons by Galatea (i.e. Rhea-Cybele, consort of Cronus), who were named Celtus, Gallus and Illyrius. In this latter legend Polyphemus appears to be a synonym for Cadmus himself—who, in turn, as has been shown, was Ab'Ram—and leads to the conjecture that as the parent or patriarch of the Celts, Gauls, and Illyrians, a distinction which should be noted, the Salads of Manetho should have been properly Galatis, possibly a copyist's error, Galatis and Galatea providing the eponyms. 

Where do these traditions take us? If Cadmus were the synonym for the removal of the Israelites expelled from Hebron, the country of Illyria takes the place of Jerusalem. Such at least is the inference I must draw. The question then arises, why Illyria? What has or had Illyria in common with the Hebrews and Jerusalem? In a revision of ancient geography neither Greek nor Roman Illyria were where they are assumed to have been. Pausanias, in a passage, hints, for example, that Joppa, the port of Jerusalem, was in Illyria, and we have a strange reference in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans to like effect.[44] Who also were these Encheles or Encheleans? They bear a near resemblance to the word English, an ancient nation, known to Scandinavia as Engels. 

Leaving aside for the time being the question of Cadmus and the fate of his descendants, the question now arises as to what constituted the territories from whence the descendants of Ab’Ram were expelled by the Mizraimites, if they are transplanted to the broad acres of south-western England. 

Bible accounts of certain sites are often contradictory and uncertain, but it is reasonably correct to say that for the purposes of this work we may describe early Israel as bounded on the north by the Peak area of Derbyshire and Worcestershire, and southward by the English Channel, excepting Dorset, Cornwall and most of Devon. North of the Marlborough Downs, incorporating most of Gloucestershire, and the territories east of the Severn, lay the fertile Bashan, also known as the land of Argob, over which of old ruled Og, who, according to the Book of Joshua, dwelt in Ashdod or Ashtoreth, which I believe was the original Cirencester. He also ruled in Mount Hermon, another name for Ammon or Shiloh, the sanctuary of the god. It was bordered on the east and south-east by the chalk hills of Gilead, noted for its herbage, otherwise the Marlborough Downs, and adjoining it lay Sharon or Saron, where the royal herds were pastured, namely Salisbury Plain. The Moabites occupied roughly the present Berkshire, stretching as far as the River Thames. In the west was the Sea of Galilee, otherwise the Bristol Channel, and certain very vital cities lay in Somerset, really belonging to the Philistines or Egyptians, including Bethel or Ai or Ajalon, of which more presently. 

Bashan's rich pastures and forests were renowned. Its oaks in the Psalmist and prophets were its chief glory, and the smooth downs, Mishor, the plain, was a "place for cattle," like the Marlborough Downs. Bulls and rams of Bashan were a by-word for excellence. Gilead, the chalk country, where stood Ramah or Ramoth-Gilead, was also famed for its cattle and herds like Saron or Sharon. It will be recalled that when Ab'Ram and Lot first settled in the south, and abode on a mountain between Bethel and Ai (or Hai), their herdsmen fell out, and so they parted company. Ab'Ram went to Hebron but Lot selected the region towards Sodom or Kadesh. Josephus tells us that Lot's descendants, the Ammonites and Moabites, were inhabitants of Bashan. Gad also occupied a large part of Bashan, as far as Saloah in Gilead, and its eastern border stretched down to the outskirts of Sharon.[45] Incidentally there are no chalk lands in the modern Palestine, and very little grass will grow there.

From early times the Israelites of Hebron were bitter enemies of both Ammonites and Moabitcs, the former being allied with, or closely related to, the Philistines. I have indicated as the region of Bashan what to-day in England is known as the great and fertile Midland Plain, in the same way as Coele-Syria, as Josephus says Bashan was later named, was also called the "great plain." It may possibly be that descendants of the original Hyksos or Israelites yet form some proportion of the inhabitants of the Midland Plain, those who remained behind, or some of them, when David led his followers to Jerusalem. Later than the sixth century A.D., a native people named Hwicce or Hwiccas dwelt in the counties of Worcester, Warwick, and Gloucester. We gather from the Venerable Bede that they had a king and were ruled by chiefs, and that they were subdued, if not destroyed, by Ceawlin, the last Saxon king, in a battle fought by him against the kings of Bath, Cirencester and Gloucester, who were defending their rights. The ancient diocese of Worcester was called "Episcopalis Huiccorum," and these Hwiccas may have represented the last vestiges of the Hyksos, their Egyptian name.

If we attempt to fit these Bible regions into the present Palestine it is immediately apparent that they refuse to tally in any possible manner with the Bible accounts. In Bashan, for example, was the valley of Thamnas, Thamna, or Thamnatha, lying between the Great Plain and Saron. In Timnath, as the Book of Judges has it, dwelt a fair Philistine maiden of whom the hero Samson was enamoured and where he slew a lion with the strength of his arm alone. It is possible that this place is represented to-day by the ancient little township of Cricklade, lying between Cirencester and Avebury, whose parish church is dedicated to St. Sampson, of whom we possess no cognisance of such. The young Thames flows through this town, but as late AD. 905 it was pillaged by the Danes who came upstream in their shallow boats. This name Thamnas is very close to our Thames, and if the elusive "St. Sampson" were originally the Danite hero Samson, the Hebrew Hercules, it fits in completely with the surrounding topography. Cricklade may have derived its name from Erich, a variation of Hercules (cp. Ere, Eric, Erich), and lade, a stone, as to which the parish church contains certain very ancient and obscure Celtic engraved stones.

It may be useful here to interpose some remarks about the hero Hercules and the hero Samson, in view of the fact that Egyptian Thebes, our Avebury, was closely associated with him. Although the Greeks only regarded him as the greatest of Heroes, the Egyptians placed him among the twelve great gods who ruled before Osiris.[46] His peculiar distinction was that he represented DIVINE STRENGTH, something infinitely beyond the capacity of other human men. This strength was associated with immense pillar stones, sacred to him, like the Pillars of Hercules, which stones were endowed with certain magical qualities. This colt of the divine Hercules was paramount in Tyre, the greatest city the ancient maritime world, where the god was given the epithet of Melqarth, and Tyrian coins symbolically employed the design of the two Pillars, each being intertwined with celestial serpents thus indicating lightning or divine fire. That the origin of the idea of the Pillars of Hercules was attributed to Thebes appears from the account of Arrian that, when Alexander the Great led his army before Tyre, he demanded permission to sacrifice in the temple of Melqarth on the grounds that he believed the Hercules of Tyre was identical with that of Thebes.

I contend that the association of Thebes with Hercules was owing to the presence of those great sarsens so lavishly scattered about the area of Avebury, and that there is a link between the Hebrew Samson and Hercules, as in the sixth of his exploits Samson removed the pillars or gates from Gaza to Hebron.[47] Prof. Ignaz Goldzhier says of him: "The most complete and rounded-off solar myth extant in Hebrew is that of Samson, a cycle of mythical conceptions fully comparable with the Greek myth of Hercules."[48] In many cases their exploits were very similar and both heroes slew a lion by tearing asunder his jaws. Nor is the introduction of Hebron or Thebes without significance. Samson was the Danite hero par excellence, and we have the Greek tradition that the sons of Dan (Danaus), fleeing from Egypt (Ægyptus), settled in Hellas for centuries, were expelled from their lands by Eurystheus, and returned to Thebes, "their original home," and who, in the Erse story, from thence migrated to Scandinavia, named after them, Dane-mark.

Consider then that the tribe of Dan, when Hebron was the capital, produced a hero named Samson, who later became immortalised as a Hero or God, that the tribe of Dan called themselves the Heracleids because Heracles or Hercules was their own hero, and that they claimed the epithet as their own because of Samson. I might add that, in my former volume, I have shown how thoroughly the legends and traditions of the Heracleids or Danai or De Danaan belong to the folklore of the British Isles. 

Classic knowledge where the early Egyptian sites and history are concerned must have been mainly from hearsay. Both Strabo and Ptolemy indicate the Sethroitic Nome whose capital was Heracleopolis, city of Heracles, or Hero-on-polis, City of the. Hero, where also was Abaris or Avaris, and Josephus states that when Jacob and his sons appeared before Joseph when they went to Mizraim to beg food, the meeting took place at Hero-on-polis.[49]

Despite Strabo and Ptolemy no trace of the City of Hercules or of the Hero exists in the regions of the Nile, but visitors arc shown mounds of rubbish near Ahnas-el-Medinah, 65 miles south of Cairo and east of the Fayum, although the Sethroitic Nome is placed in the Nile Delta. Both cannot be correct! The modern authorities of the various dynasties, such as Marlette, Lepsius. Wilkinson, and Brugsch, term the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties the Heracleopolites, but Manetho knows of no such a dynasty. They identify them also with the "Karba of Egyptian and Kabanis of Assyrian inscriptions," vouchsafes Baedeker's Guide to Egypt, but all is vague and uncertain. As it is they place Thebes at the far southern end of Egypt, the Sethroitic Nome at the other, where was Abaris, and yet identify them with a zone near the Fayum, south of Cairo! Heracleopolis or Hero-on-polis was, of course, no other than Ramah, later Ramses, Avebury. 

The great stones of Avebury offer unmistakable clues to the trend of prehistory. Through the long centuries of paganism, stained with human sacrifices, to those of Christianity, the “chained" stone monster, most venerable of its order in the world, still retains the vestiges of a long-lost past and points to Britain's historic role as the founder of civilisation

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notes

1) Teraph, pl. Teraphim, is translated as an "image" or "god" in the A.V., such instruments being procurable in patriarchal days by certain wealthy men. It explains the story of Jacob's hasty flight from Padan-Aram, after Rachel, his wife, had stolen her father Labin's teraphim, which the owner valued sufficiently to pursue Jacob to the South country to recover the weapon (Gen. xxxi, 59-35). See also the case of Micah, who bought a teraphim and hired a Levite, to protect him from robbers and the result (Judg. xvii-xviii).. 

2) Many examples are given in the following pages of the employment of munitions of war, both guns and bombs. 

3) Antiq. of the Jews, I, vii, 2. Josephus relates how the patriarch acquired a new deity which caused a "tumult" in Ur and so he quitted it. 

4) Op. cit.,i,vii, 5. Sanchoniathon states that the early gods of the Uranids were "Elion, Most High," perhaps identical with the Elohim of Genesis, the 'gods come newly up." 

5) Antiq. of the Jews, 1, viii, 2. 

6) Dio. iv, T. 

7) According to Herodotus the Ionians also believed "Egypt" to be a vague term: "If we choose to adapt the view of the Ionians we must come to the conclusion that the Egyptians formerly had no country at all. For the Ionians say that nothing is really Egyptian except the Delta" (ii, r5). 

8) Evans dates the 1st Egyptian Dynasty as 5,800 B.C.; Petrie and Dr. Edward Meyer at 4,775 and 3,3 r 5 B.C., Professor Schiaparelli at 4,000 B. C. , with which Brugsch and Maspero are agreed. All these dates are based on surmises and assumptions and have absolutely no astronomical basis. 

9) Sanchoniathon also describes Taaut as "Thoot, Thoyth or Hermes." He bore a similar name in ancient Britain. 

10) Gen. xvi, 18 ; xvii, 7. 

11) Judg. ix, 51-53. It should be appreciated by the reader that the Books of Moses, Genesis to Joshua, really follow generally after Judges, Samuel, Kings and Chronicles 

12) Conon, Neural., 37 

13) Among Hermes' very many epithets must be included the Chaldean or Cushite Cadmus, Cad or Gad, as also Ham or Ammon, or Amen-Ra, always symbolised as a Ram, hence the title Rama. 

14) Die. Class. Antiq., p. 106. Diodorus says that Samothrace was destroyed at some time unascertained in a terrible deluge and earthquake, although many of its inhabitants escaped by fleeing to the mountains and seeking refuge there. Long after the event fishermen drew up capitols and columns in their nets, remains of cities submerged in that catastrophe. My researches lead to the conclusion that Samothrace was that most ancient city on the island of Gotland, situated off Sweden, in the Baltic Sea. 

15) Apart from Josephus, certain extracts of Manetho were preserved by Julius Africanus (third century A.D.), Eusebius, Bp. of Cæsarea (fourth century), and by the monk George Syncellus (ninth century), all being Christian priests and naturally opposed to Manetho. They all lived from 500 to about 1,200 years after Manetho. 

16) Salatis was probably a copyist's error for Galatis. 

17) Josephus, Contra Apion, i, 24. 

18) The name should be more correctly Mizrah, origin of Mizraim. 

19) Gen. xxxii, 47. 

20) Judg. xx, 1, 18-26 

21) R, Hippisley Cox, Guide to Avebury, q. 14 

22 Her., ii, 42. 

23) Jos., Antiq. , I, x, 4. "Now Ab'Ram dwelt near the oak called Ogyges, not far from the city of Hebron." 24) Tan or Poseidon was "Lord of the Isle of Tan or Crete" (R. Brown, jr., Influence in Gk. Myth., p. 117). 

25) Sir R. Colt Hoare believed that many of the hill-top sites were former pagan fanes and compared them with the "High Places" in the O.T. (Amt. Hist. of Wilts, i, p. 8o). Hoare generally agrees with Stukeley. ( Page 94 ) 

26)judg. xxi, i, 16 seq. 

27) All this happened in the region of Og, in the land of Bashan,1) 

28) II Sam. xxi, 14. 

29) Deut. xxxii, 49; xxxiv, t, 6. 

30) Vide Ordnance Survey Marlboroughand Devizes, No,112 

31) Josephus, Contra Apion, i, 14. 

32) I Sam. xii. 

33) Op cit. iv, 8. 

34) Vide the account of how the Ark on its way to Gibeah fell out of the bullock cart, exploded, and killed Uzzah instantly (II Sam. vi, 2-I I). Although the Philistines captured it they regarded it as owing its powers to enemy gods, attributed a plague to its presence among them and returned it to the Israelites (I Sam., chaps. v, vi). 

35) Jos., Anliq., VII, iv, 1. 

36) Jos., Wars of the Jews, IV, ix. 7. 

37) 1 Chron. xi, 1-4; xi, 23-40. II Sam. v, 1-3. 

38) James Baikie, D.D., Egypt. Antiq. in the Nile Valley, p. 40 

39) Lepsius, Egypt. Chronology, pp. 422, 476. 

40) Anas. Graeca, ii, 174. 

41) Rev. J. P. Lawson, Scrip. Gazetteer, ii, pp. 343, 345- 

42) Her. v, 57. "Phoenician" was a generic term used for Chaldeans. 

43) Op. cit., v, 61. 

44) "From Jerusalem and round about Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ" (Rom. xv, 19). The context implies that Jerusalem was in Illyria or very adjacent to it. What other meaning can be given to those words? (see Appendix C.) 

45) I Chron. v, 11, 16. 

46) Her. ii, 43. 

47) Judg. xvi, 3. 

48) Goldzhier, Myth. Among the Hebrews, p. 248. 

49) Jos., Antiq., II, vii, 5.