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

164 PHGENICIAN ORIGIN OF BRITONS & SCOTS

It is thus seen that “ Alban” or “‘ Albanus ’ who occupied part of the south of Alban before the arrival of Brutus, and presumably about 1130 B.c., the supposed date of founding of the Phcenician settlement at Gades, was the son of a half-brother of the grandfather of Brutus,

The “ Sea of Ichi,” across which Briutus banished his senior relative Sylvius Alba, or his agents, derived its name (in series with the Isle of Wight), as we have seen, from the same Pictish source as “ Jctis,”’ the title used by classic Greek writers for the tin-port of St. Michael’s Mount in the Bay of Penzance—which latter name also is now disclosed to be based presumably on one of the many place-names of “ Pheenice’”’ bestowed on their settlements by the Phcenicians, especially as a former name of Penzance, as we shall see later, was “ Burriton,” a dialectic form of Baraton or ‘‘ Briton.”

St. Michael’s Mount or Ictis is physically like the type of the strategic islets so frequently selected by the seafaring Pheenicians for their ports, such as Tyre, Gades, etc. It is an islet contiguous to the mainland and admirably adapted for defence on the landside, yet open to the sea (see Fig. 25). Its towering, graceful, spiry crest stands up, an unmistakable landmark seen far out at sea :—

“ Here the Phoenician, as remote he sail’d Along the unknown coast, exulting hail’d. And when he saw thy rocky point a-spire, Thought on his native shore of Aradus or Tyre.” — Bowles.

It was also called ‘Fort of the Sun (Din-Sol)” presumably from its Phoenician Sun-temple, of which see later.

The neighbouring mainland off St. Michael's Mount, and extending to Land’s End and along the West Coast of Cornwall to Carnbre, is still honeycombed with the old tin and copper workings of the Phoenicians, amongst the mounds of which I have several times rambled, and which are still locally ascribed to the Pheenicians.

It would thus appear from the use of the name “ Sea of Icht,’ that it was from the tin-mines and tin-port of Ictis in