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

CIRCLES IN AMORITE PHGNICIA-PALESTINE 223

to the east of the Jordan; and Macalister has unearthed at Gaza, ete., rows of megaliths in the “ cup-marked rocks in their neighbourhood.” But, we have seen, that the later restricted Roman province of ‘‘ Pheenicia” itself formed only a part of the Eastern Phcenician empire, while in the Persian Gulf area which the earlier Phoenicians occupied before coming to the Levant, Stone Circles like Stonehenge, dolmens and

2?

other megaliths are reported along with “ Catti’’ names (see Map).

[Between the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, in the district of Kasin, are reported three huge rude Stone Circles, which are described as being “‘ like Stonehenge" and, like it, composed of gigantic trilithons about 15 ft. high ;+ and several huge Stone Circles in the neighbourhood of Mt. Sinai, some of them measuring roo ft. in diameter.?. On the old caravan route from the Cilician coast via “ Jonah’s Pillar” to Persia (or Iran of the ancient Sun-worshippers), several megaliths are incidentally reported by travellers. Near Tabriz, to east of Lake Van, are ‘“‘ several circles’ of gigantic stones ascribed to the giants ‘‘ Caous ” (Cassi) of the Kainan dynasty.» In Parthia, at Deh Ayeh, near Darabgerd, is a large circle.* On the N.W. frontier of India, on the route from Persia near Peshawar, is a large circle of unhewn megaliths about 11 ft. high, and resembling the great Keswick Circle in Cumberland.* And amongst the many megaliths along the Mediterranean coast of Africa, so frequented by the Phcenicians, are several Stone Circles in Tripoli and the Gaet-uli hills with trilithons, like Stonehenge.*]

The probability that the Phcenicians were the erectors of the megalithic tombs, often in the neighbourhood of the Circles, in Britain is also indicated, amongst other things, by the substantial identity proved by Sir A. Keith to exist between the tomb of the Late Stone Age Briton with that of the ‘‘ Giant’s tomb” in Sardinia.? This latter island also abounds in Stone Circles,* and its earliest civilizers and

1S. Palgrave, Central and East Arabia, 1, 251, and others cited by F.R.M.. 444, etc.

2 Palmer, Desert of the Exodus.

> Chardin, Voy. en Perse, 1, 267. These stones are described as “hewn.”

*W. Ouseley, Tvav. in Persia, 2, 124. (with figure).

5A. Phayre, J.A.S. Bengal. 1870, Pt. I, No. 1. It is about 50 feet in diameter, like many British circles.

6 Barth, Trav. in Cent. Africa, 1, 58 and 74.

7 K.A.M., 19. 352) G55.,50, etc.