Brazil
is full of vestiges that corroborate the Phoenician presence in its
lands and everything indicates that they concentrated their occupation
in the northeastern region. A little away from the Longá
and Parnaiba rivers' confluence, in Piaui state, there
is a lake where Phoenician shipyards and a harbour with a place reserved
to tie the "Carpássios" (old long traveling
ships) were discovered.
By navigating
the Mearim river up north, in Maranhão state, when
arriving in the Pindaré and Grajaú rivers'
confluence we can find the Pensiva lake before known as Maracu.
In that lake's borders there can be found shipyards made of petrified
wood containing thick nails and bronze dowels. Researcher Raimundo Lopes,
born in Maranhão State, excavated that location at the
end of the twenties and discovered typically Phoenician tools.
In Rio
Grande do Norte state, after roaming a 11 km canal, the Phoenician
boats used to anchor in the Extremoz lake. The Austrian professor
Mr. Ludwig Schwennhagen studied the place's subterranean parts and the
embankments carefully and also some others that exist near the village
of Touro where the Phoenician navigators anchored after roaming
about 10 km of a canal. The same professor Schwennhagen tells us that
he found Phoenician inscriptions in the Amazon in which there were references
to many kings of Sidon and Tyre (887 to 856 BC).
Schwennhagen
believes that the Phoenicians used Brazil as a base during 800 years
at least, leaving here, besides material evidences, an important linguistic
influence among the natives.
In the
rivers Camocim (Ceará State), Parnaiba (Piaui State)
and Mearim (Maranhão state) entrance accesses there are
stone and lime walls built by the ancient Phoenicians.
Apollinaire
Frot, a French researcher, traveled all over the Brazilian countryside
in order to collect Phoenician inscriptions in the Minas Gerais,
Goiás, Mato Grosso and Bahia sierras. The inscriptions
that he put together are so many that "they would fill uncountable
volumes if they were ever published", according to Frot's statements.
The translation
of those inscriptions refers to Phoenician works in Brazil, to their
trade activity practiced in those distant lands and to the sinking of
Atlantis. Some inscriptions reveal that because of the geological shocks
that hit Atlantis, its survivors went to the north of Africa to found
the empire of Egypt and many other nations of the region known today
as the "Middle East". Those inscriptions still mention the
biblical flood that, according to them, was not a universal catastrophe
but only a local cataclysm in the Mesopotarmia region. This is a fact
that scientists accept as veridical nowadays.
The economic
leadership condition, on whose trade others depended, gave Phoenicia
a kind of stability that allowed its existence to last so long without
having strong armed forces. Phoenicia survived the Egyptian, the Syrian
and the Assyrian hegemonies and even the Persian domination. Finally
a strange racial element appeared the invaders from Europe. Thus Phoenicia
trembled, at first under the Greek invasion headed by Alexander the
Great and later under the power of the Roman legions.
With such
a war the trading practices were interrupted and the far away colonies
and marts now abandoned, started to be destroyed by local populations.
The inhabitants of those regions, too far from the metropolis, withdrew
into a primitive status. Although these are just theories, it would
explain the blond hair and the diverse physical constitutions of savages
that can be found among some Brazilian Indian tribes in the Amazon.
It would also explain the light skin and the big number of Phoenician
expressions and words used by the Tiriós Indians.
Carthage,
the largest of the Phoenician colonies, survived and prospered when
it inherited the sea trade from its ancient colonizing cities. It is
Herodotus, the famous Greek historian, who tells us that "the Carthaginian
senate published a decree in order to forbid -under penalty of death
-- to organize or to take trips to the other side of the Atlantic ocean
because the frequent coming of men and resources were emptying the capital".
Finally
there is the famous inscription in the "Pedra da Gávea"
(Gavea's Rock) in Rio de Janeiro which states: "Here Badezir,
King of Tyre, Jetbaal's oldest son".
There is
no scientific or cultural work in Brazil that has affirmative data about
the Phoenician coming to its territory. However, there are in some foreign
material references to the Phoenecian navigators in Brazilian lands
before its European discovery. Although that information may seem unreal,
legendary and fictitious, I want to believe that it is really true.
Phoenician
inscriptions found in Tyre, known today as Sur (its name in Arabic),
are on tombstones, which are now in London. They mention an expedition
of a Phoenician navigator to a region beyond the Strait of Moloch (today's
Gibraltar) where "the sea penetrated into the land..." a place
where there was an abundance of food and lots of wood.
There still
is another --fact: in excavations that took place in Sidon, French archaeologists
found in 1860 many wooden artifacts that only could have been taken
from Brazil, according to archaeological tests. It is the famous "quebracho"
or "quebra machado" (the "ax breaker") as
it its known in the Brazilian countryside. Besides that kind of wood
a red coloured one was found whose denomination today in Arabic remains
the same as the one in Phoenician times: "Shajarat Ahmar"
-- known in Portuguese as Pau- Brasil.
By the
way, what is the origin of the name, which is given to the Amazon River
after its source?
The answer
to that question is in the Louvre Museum archives, in the Royal Museum
of London and also in Vatican and Lisbon historic documents that state
the Solimões River's name came from its primitive denomination,
which might be "Sulaiman". So, it would be in honour of
the great King of Israel -- Sulaiman (Salomon) -- given by his vassals
who arrived in those regions guided by the Phoenicians, a few years
before the Christian Era.
All the
cuneiform inscriptions discovered in the Amazon region, in the Ararí
area, as well as in French Guyana and Surinam such as hieroglyphs and
rock characters demonstrate clearly its origin from Aramaic, Syriac
and even Sanskrit scripts.
In the
National Historic Museum many photographs show us huge inscriptions
that are widely spread from the Solimões River up to the point
where its name changes to Amazon River (from Ararí to
Madeira River). Those inscriptions demonstrate just a little of the
greatness of the others that exist all over Brazil.
Someone
has already tried to show in Rio de Janeiro that the Maya
people might have written the Gavea's Rock inscriptions. Nevertheless
they are hieroglyphic inscriptions mixed with the Phoenician alphabet
and originally engraved by Phoenician navigators. Other evidences are
four Phoenician characters (signs) engraved on the peak of a big rock
known as "Pão de Açúcar" (The
Sugar Loaf).
There are
various confirmations that say Brazil was already known by many sailors
from the Near East even before its discovery by the Portuguese. The
first European navigator to be familiar with this land was the Roman
Severus Pompeus, whose documents related to that fact is in the Vatican
archives. He obtained from a "Syrian" slave a report and a
confirmation of the existence of others lands. What is ignored is why
that navigator did not try to verify those stories by himself.
The Phoenician
explorers were not interested in lands. They were really interested
in its native products. So, they were not a colonizing people but a
trading one.
Columbus,
the great navigator from Genoa, had never been to the lands of which
he used to talk so much. However, he had an itinerary, a map and other
real documents concerning those distant lands. How did he get them?
Some ancient historians tell the following tale about that: "One
day, at his house, without anything to do, Columbus realized that in
his residential area there was something buried in the ground. So, he
started digging quickly and he found a rotten wooden box. Inside it
there was many human bones (even a skull) and among those bones Columbus
found some papyri documents. Because he already had some nautical knowledge-
he was quite a good sailor- he became intrigued with the discovery and
went to look for information with an uncle of his whom belonged to a
religious institution and who also was a very respected person in the
Spanish Royalty. Columbus gave his uncle what he had found, and he took
them to one of his colleagues. Then both of them verified that those
papers were descriptive maps made by a sailor from Tripoli (Trabulus)
which had been buried many centuries before the fifteenth century when
the place where Columbus' house was had been the sea's border.
Afterwards,
Columbus got an opinion from a very important cartographer about those
exceptional findings. He declared that region as being a huge territory
located beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar). He also
said that its wealth was so great and there were such valuable treasures
kept in that place that he who could dominate it would be considered
"the Lord of the World".
Then from
that day on and protected by his uncle, Columbus started to visit the
Portuguese and the Spanish courts in order to obtain concession, financing
and support to be the "Lord of the World".
It is said
that such a report is a legend but I believe it is true: Columbus came
and discovered the American continent.
In the
"sambaquís" spread throughout Brazil many objects
and rock inscriptions have been found. Some writers, based on paleontology
material, have been writing that its origin is Indian. Other paleontologists
who searched and penetrated into thousands of caves, grottos and lime
cesspools declared that it its neither possible to define the exact
geological erosion of the Brazilian lands nor to determine an ancient
settlement in Brazil before its European discovery.
Nevertheless
the Maya, the Toltec and the Aztec civilizations predominated all over
the American continent. Those populations did not spring from the ground
and only two other peoples could be their ancestors: the Phoenicians
or the Chinese. From the Phoenicians, because they dominated the western
seas and from the Chinese because they dominated the Far East seas.
However, those basis are uncertain and imperfect just because until
today historians were not able to elucidate such a vulnerable fact about
the American pre-civilization History.
When Baron
von Humboldt, at the end of the eighteenth century, took research trips
to explore the Brazilian countryside, he reached the Orenoco slopes
and was surprised by the greatness that Maya, Inca and Aztec civilizations
offered to anyone's eyes and mind. He verified that the legends about
the existence of the Amazon women- whose name was given to the river-
were true.
Beuchat
cites the important Inca influence in the South American civilization
as well as the Aztec influence in Mexico and in Central American societies.
We can
still hear about the lost cities in the Brazilian countryside region,
the petrified cities such as the one known as "Sete Cidades"
(Seven Cities) in the state of Piaui and others in wild zones like the
states of Mato Grosso, Goiás and Amazonas.
From São
Luis dos Cáceres up to the north in the state of Mato Grosso,
there are places that show the existence of buried cities that are the
remains of a millenarian civilization very well.
Doctor
Peter W. Lund, a great Danish scholar, came up with the theory of a
precivilization in Brazil and the Phoenician contribution in its formation.
The Brazilian
Indians, known as Carajás and Carajá-ís, have on their names the etymology of the words whose Phoenician
origin can be found in today's Arabic language. Some other Brazilian
Indian tribes such as the Guaranis, the Tupis, the Guajajaras,
the Chambicás, the Anajás, the Carijós, etc., have in their vocabulary thousands of Arabian words whose
origin is Phoenician.
Maya and
Aztec civilizations differ little from the Phoenicians. Their merchants,
governors, administration, clans and their moral education clearly show
us the ethnology of their civil way of life.
The Indians
who deal with oil, in the north of Brazil, and who still today execute
the Marajoaras work perfectly, adopt the same systems used by
the Phoenician workers with oil who mixed wood and vine ashes with mud
(clay) in order to produce ceramics. The resemblance among these drawings,
the pots' shapes, the small statues and other Indian works and the Phoenician
artifacts is noteworthy.
The same
Phoenician burial ritual -- the one that buried the dead with all the
objects that belonged to them -- also was adopted by almost all Brazilian
Indian tribes.
The Phoenicians
had a factory or a mart in a region, legendarily known as Atlantis that
in their language meant -- according to the Phoenician term "Al-
Atlantic"--: huge, large, extensive, vast, endless. And in Arabic
"Al- Atlantic" means giant, majestic.
When I
went on some trips into the Brazilian countryside, I saw some coins
that had been found in Brazilian ground whose origin is completely unknown.
Making a comparison among these coins and Paraguayan, Bolivian and Peruvian
coins their resemblance to coins from Sidon and Tyre is very great.
In the
Rio de Janeiro National Museum there exist tombstones with Phoenician,
Syriac and Sanskrit inscriptions found in the Brazilian countryside.
Edmund
Bleibel, a distinguished Lebanese historian, in his books "General
History of Lebanon", published in Beirut, states: "when the
Phoenicians were established in Africa, and Gibraltar was the limit
of their empire, they planned to cross the huge ocean towards the unknown".
Then Ilu
of Jbail (Byblos) and his wife Harmonia (Harmony) prepared a big fleet
and navigated the enormous sea looking for the "Eternal Islands"
(Canary Islands) but they disappeared forever. It was said that their
souls embodied two serpents, which meant that their lives had been renewed
by god, Baal's will.
Later it
was corroborated that they had crossed the huge ocean and discovered
the region where today is South America. So, that happened 3,000 years
before Christopher Columbus.
They gave
the first new land they discovered the name of "Barr Ilu"
which means "The Continent of God". When the nation was formed
and its administration was organized, the chosen queen to rule that
place was Mirinieh Mirubieh known as "Queen of the Amazones"
which means "Queen of the Warriors". That queen was sent to
Lebanon to save Ilu of Jbail (Byblos) who was in a critical situation.
The "Queen
of the Amazons" called "The Big Ocean" the ocean known
before as 'Mirubi Ocean" which today is the Atlantic Ocean. This
last denomination was in honour of Atlas, the great Phoenician king
of Lybia
Cadmus,
the great navigator of Tyre, left his city -- Cadamiat -- on a scientific
mission in order to study the Cuchite language spoken in Brazil.
A few historians
have been investigating the origin of such a language and they found
many evidences that confirm the Phoenician's coming to Brazil bringing
with them some Greek workers before any other people. The historian
Deodoro told the way they might have arrived here. That fact was confirmed
by Plutarch and was mentioned by the great Brazilian historian Rui Barbosa,
as well as by other Brazilian poets who sang on their lyres the Phoenician
and their monuments on the Brazilian soil.
Each fleet
that left Sidon, Jbail and Tyre had 200 or 300 boats that headed to
Brazil. The smallest one was used to bring the members of the crew with
their support material and equipment. They usually stopped to rest and
also to buy supplies in Tunis and at the Canary Islands.
Among the
Phoenician civilization monuments in Brazil there is a city that was
called "Airo", today completely lost in the admirable
immensity of this country. Its ancient inhabitants were proud of belonging
to the Phoenician lineage just like the Irish people. They used to say
that they were Tyrian descendants who, during King Hiram's time, came
to take gold. They took this precious metal to Tyre and to King Salomon
of Jerusalem from the land of Ofir, where this mineral was very abundant.
It is located in the Amazon River borders.
Finally
we verify that truth is clear and positive. I wish the Brazilian honourable
governors could help twentieth century dedicated scientists to research,
in the Brazilian entrails, for its pre- historic reality, the one of
its archaic civilization, and maybe we would have even surpassed the
Greek and the Roman civilizations.
