The Phœnician origin of Britons, Scots & Anglo-Saxons : discovered by Phœnician & Sumerian inscriptions in Britain, by preroman Briton coins & a mass of new history : with over one hundred illustrations and maps

BRITON CIVILIZATION IN 500 BC. 147

where settled, peaceful agriculturalists, and even in Shetland they were agricultural and made wine from “corn and honey.’ And over a century before Pytheas, the Phcenician admiral Himlico, from Carthage, voyaged, about 500 B.c., round part of Britain to report on the tin-producing region there. He states that the Phcenicians of Gades and Carthage were in the habit of sailing the British seas, and refers to “‘ the hardy folk”’ of Britain.? The further excuse for rejecting these Early British chronicles, that there are no contemporary inscriptions to support their ancient tradition, is one which, if accepted, would sweep away not only the early traditional history of Greece and Rome, which is accepted although resting on mere literary tradition, but also nearly all the Old Testament History, and much of the history of the Early Christian Church. There is absolutely no imscriptional evidence whatsoever, nor any ancient classic Greek or Roman reference, for the existence of Abraham or any of the Jewish patriarchs or prophets of the Old Testament, nor for Moses, Saul, David, Solomon, nor any of the Jewish kings, with the mere exception of two, or at most three, of the later kings. All of these are accepted and implicitly believed to be historical by our theologians merely on the strength of their having been believed by our Christian ancestors, because they were believed by the Jews themselves. The only difference between the accepted Jewish tradition and. the rejected British tradition is that the former is actively taught as true by incessant repetition in church and Sunday schools to everyone from childhood upwards; whereas the equally well authenticated Early British traditional history is actively disparaged and stigmatized by modern writers, the one mechanically repeating the other, as mere fabricated

US. 4V;, 53.5-

+ Pestus Avienus in Ora Maritima, 110, etc.

? The only ancient Israelite kings of which there appears to be any epigraphic or contemporary record are ‘“‘ Jehu, son of Khumri” (which latter name is supposed to be “ Omri"’ of the Old Testament), who is mentioned in the tribute-lists of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser IT. in 842 B.c.; and “ Hezekiah of Judah ” who is mentioned in the tribute-lists of the Assyrian Sennacherib in 7or p.c. (C.I.W.A. I, pl. 38 and III, pl. 5,

No, 6.)