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

413

Vil

Tre AMORITE PH@NICIAN TIN MINES OF CASSITERIDES OR CORNWALL (?} REFERRED TO ABOUT 2750 B.c. BY SARGON I. oF AKKAD, & KAPTARA or “‘Capetor’’ AS ABDARA IN SPAIN.

A CONTEMPORARY reference to the Amorite Phoenician tin mines in Britain appears probably to exist in the historical road-tablet of the great “ Akkad ” emperor Sargon I., about 2800-2750 B.Cc., recording the mileage and geography of the roads throughout his vast empire of world-conquest. The existing document is a certified copy in cuneiform script of the orginal record of SargonI. It was found at the Assyrian capital of Assur, and was made by an official scribe in the 8th century B.C.t

The tablet details the lengths oi the roads within Sargon’s empire from his capital at Agade on the Euphrates, and records that “ the produce of the mines in talents, and the produce of the fields to Sargon has been brought.”” And it states that his empire of “* the countries from the rising to the setting of the sun, which Sargon the . . . king conquered with his hand,’ included amongst many other lands “ the Land of Gutium,”’ ‘the land of the Muru (or Amorites)’’ and “‘ the Tin-land country which lies beyond the Upper Sea (or Mediterranean).””

This latter reference, which occurs in line 41 is translated by Prof. Sayce as follows :—

“To the Tin-land (KUGA-KI) (and) Kaptara (Caphtor, Krete), countries beyond the Upper Sea (the Mediterranean).’’*

And Prof. Sayce remarks that “‘ “ The Tin-land beyond the Mediterranean ’ must be Spain, and so bears testimony to maritime trade at this early petiod between Asia and the western basin of the Mediterranean. It is unfortunate that the loss of the text on the reverse of the tablet prevents our knowing what the exact construction of the sentence was; but it would have been something like: ‘The road led towards the Tin-land,’ as well as other countries beyond the limits of the Babylonian empire.’

The word-signs in the tablet for “‘ Tin-land,” however, which are rendered “ Kuga-ki’ by Prof. Sayce, possess many other ideographic and phonetic values besides “‘ Kuga ’’ as selected by him ; and an examination of these may help us to recover the real Sumerian or Amorite name for the land in question (— the affix k7 or gi = “‘ land,” and is now disclosed as the Sumerian source of the Greek ge ‘’ earth,” as already noted).

This Sumerian word-sign in Sargon’s tablet for “‘ Tin’’ means literally “ shining, bright,’’ and hence also ‘‘tin’’ and “‘silver’’ ;4 and it has an unequivocal word-value of AZAG,® with the Akkad equivalent of KAS-PU or GAZA-PA,® which latter are probably cognate with the Greek word Kassitevos for Tin and “ Cassiterides.’’ The other Sumerian phonetic value of this Tin word-sign, although usually rendered KU or KU-U,7 is very doubtful, because its two constituent word-signs have so many different values, the first having no less than 28 different sounds. Thus, besides KU-U, this word-sign may be restored amongst others as KU-SAM,

» Text is published in Keilschrifitexte aus Assur verschiedenen Intalts 1920, No. 92.

2 Ancient Egypt, 1924, 2. 77h. 4.

* But “‘silver” is usually distinguished by the addition of the sign for ‘‘ Sun.’’ on account of its superior brightness.

5 Br, 9887. * Br. 9891 and 4722. 7 Br. 9888.