Brit-Am Now"- 453
Contents:
1. Tim Murray: The Basques
2. Francishynds: Celts a Mixed People?
3. Were the Melungeons Jewish?
4. Clarifications: Welsh and Basques
5. Phoenician Participation

1. Tim Murray: The Basques
From: Timothy F Murray
Subject: Re: Brit-Am Now"-452, the Basques

Yair, I'm intrigued by references to the Basques.  This is the first time
outside my own speculation that I've seen the potential corroboration of
links between Basques and Celts.
         The following is from an article in World Monitor, September,
1992: "Europe's Mystery People" by Evan Hadingham:
         The Basques have been called Europe's " 'mystery people.'  Their
origins are lost in remote prehistory, and their intricate language stand
alone, a unique and inexplicable oddity."  Searches for their ancestral
descent have included "ancient Georgians from the Caucasus."  Their blood
types have the "highest recorded level of RH-negative.... A similar though
less extreme blood-group pattern characterizes other Atlantic coastal
peoples with a strong heritage from prehistory: Bretons, Irish, and
northern Scots."
         Culturally, the Basques were known as far back as 7 A.D. to permit
women to exercise significant power in government.  They could also
"inherit and control property."
         Further, they were accomplished navigators, having developed
navigation manuals by the 16th C., A.D., which "present a conceptual
division of the globe into base-7 units."  Scholars have deduced that the
scale of distance used "was originally calibrated for sailing the
Mediterranean and particularly apt for mapmaking on the Iberian Peninsula."
         Finally, their measuring system used units "conformed to a base-7
rather than our familiar base-10 number system (meaning the units... ran in
multiples of 7, 14, 49, and so on.)"  It "must have been passed down by
word of mouth over centuries and probably millennia," according to Prof.
Roslyn Frank, the researcher highlighted in the article.  Evidence suggests
"that the underlying system was in use far beyond the Basque
region.  Another [piece of evidence] is the uncannily close parallels Frank
can demonstrate between the Basque units and the traditonal base-7 land
measures recorded in Irish Celtic lore; these extend beyond mere coincidences."
         All very interesting bits of data--
         Tim Murray


2. Francishynds: Celts a Mixed People?
Subject: Re: Brit-Am Now"-452
Celts were a linguistic group, not a racial one!

I read with interest an article on your site concerning the so-called
Celtic nations of Ireland, Scotland & Wales which developed from a
suggestion by a Dr Bradley of Trinity College, Dublin.  In the past as
today people spoke the most common or   most reliably communicative medium
that was available to promote their ideas/culture/well-being.  To suggest
that the aforementioned geographical areas are as one people because of
language is nonsense, it is like suggesting that those who now speak
English are one people.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It
appears nowadays, there are countless people only too-willing to promote
the myth of a harmonist Celtic ancestry in order to transmit a political
ideal or agenda.  For example, on the island of Ireland it took a
'Gaelic-revival' during the 1700's which had a political agenda to achieve
that people in Cork could understand people in Donegal, up to then they
couldn't!  Furthermore archeological evidence shows that Ulster & Scotland
- Scot=people who departed Ulster, were one historic group, not to mention
genetic group.  Gaelic expansionism only achieved a common spoken language
for all in the area for convenience reasons as other languages have done
elsewhere.

It is reasonable thus to suggest that latter peoples arrived on the island
of Ireland from two directions, the Celtic/Gaelic speakers from the south,
and the Germanic Ulster-Scots speakers into the north.  It has been
suggested that the Assyrians moved west taking parts of Israel with them,
it is also suggested that the Assyrians are mostly in part what is now
identified as Germanic, one reason for today in parts of Ulster and
Scotland, goodnight is gudnicht, ach - a common form of expression for
attention is derived from achtung, which is the same.  The list is
basically endless.

With the archeological evidence of a partitioned island of Ireland it is
obvious that this 'end of the world island' is where opposing sides met and
still do!

3. Were the Melungeons Jewish?
http://www.melungeons.com/articles/march2003a.htm
A large site with a lot of detail possibly verging on  fantasy but if even
a few of the claims made are correct
then the information is quite significant: To be read with interest but not
necessarily to be taken seriously:

Extracts:
The background of crypto-Judaism in America must start with the scattering
of the Biblical Jews. Some cardinal dates include:

·        70 C.E., the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the
Romans.

·        132-35­the repression of the revolt of Bar Kochba (and if we are
to believe the evidence of Bat Creek Cave in East Tennessee, flight of some
Jews to the New World).  (For further reading, see J. Huston McCulloch,
"The Bat Creek Inscription­Did Judean Refugees Escape to Tennessee?"
Biblical Archaeology Review, vol. 19, no. 4, July-Aug. 1993, pp. 46-53)

·        Conversion of many Visigoths to Judaism in the centuries during
which the Roman Empire declined.the establishment of a Judaic kingdom in
southern France by Charlemagne's grandfather Theodoric.

·        Welcoming of the Arabic conquerors and their Berber armies into
Spain by the Jews

·        Expulsion of the Jews from Norman England in 1290 (some of the
ennobled ones like the Stuarts and Coopers subsequently hid on their
estates in Wales and Scotland, where central authority was weak).

·        Phillip Augustus's act of expulsion of French Jews following soon
on the heels of this.

·        In Spain, anti-Semitic rioting and forced baptisms beginning in
1390, coming to a climax with the 1492 expulsion of Jews and Moors by
Ferdinand and Isabella.

·        A brief respite for many Jews in Portugal.

·        The efforts of the Spanish Inquisition to punish Judaizers (it was
not dismantled until 1820).

·        Ghettoizing of Italian Jews in the 1500s, with a similar trend of
concentrating Ashkenazi Jews on shtetls in the East.

·        A shifting network of safe havens in the Moslem world such as the
important Jewish colonies at Thessalonica, Rhodes, Smyrna, Istanbul,
Alexandria and Tunis.

·        Livorno/Leghorn, the first attempt to establish a "state," then
Marseilles, Bordeaux, Amsterdam, Hamburg, London, Glasgow and Aberdeen in
Scotland, and finally Watauga and Texas.
In British ports of call such as Barbados, Jamaica, New York, Newport,
Charleston and St. Eustachius, Jews could become citizens of the land in a
legal process called denizening, even vote, serve in the armed forces and
hold office, unlike in Mother England. For Jews, this opened the door to an
extraordinary series of efforts to migrate to the New World and build
communities for themselves. Merchants, hatters, carpenters,
iron-workers­they arrived in the ports of Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Charleston and Savannah. Many later blended with the Indian nations in the
interior. In some cases­among the Lumbees, Pamunkey and Cherokee­Sephardim
families took over the tribal hierarchy. Jewish Cherokee chiefs such as
Will Webber, John Ross, George Guess, John Looney, George Lowrey and Sam
Houston signed treaties, wrote laws and constitutions, and led their people
westward to Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

"Covers" for Judaic communities included the Huguenots, Quakers,
Freemasonry, the Scottish clan system, Ulster Presbyterianism, Primitive
Baptist churches and even Catholicism (in Maryland). Many persons of
Semitic looks explained their dark features by saying they were "Black
Dutch," or "Black Irish," or "Black Douglas," "Black MacDonald" etc. The
War of Jenkins Ear and later the return of Florida to Spain in the 1780s,
with fears of being burned at the stake for heresy by the Inquisition,
produced a panic among New Christians (descendants of Jewish converts) and
crypto-Jews in the Old Southwest and brought an inrush of colonists to
Tennessee. For many reasons, Tennessee was always regarded as the Jewish
homeland in America.

4. Clarifications: Welsh and Basques
In Brit-Am Now"-452
item 4. DNA confusion? Wales and Ireland
we said:
<<Brit-Am Comment:
ON THE OTHER HAND:
"Genetic Evidence for different male and female roles during
cultural transitions in the British Isles
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/98/9/5078.pdf
this paper repeats the assertion that Welsh and Irish Y (Male) DNA
is identical to that of the Basques in the Galicia region of Spain
BUT IT ALSO mentions other results (and provides charts)
such as
the female (mtDNA) results of Ireland and Wales are quite distant from
those of the Basques but close to those of Norway and Friesland.
Another parameter (microsatellites on the X chromosome) also
showed Wales and Norway to be almost identical but quite distant from
the Basque region.
Are DNA experts implying:
(a) Wales and Eire were originally populated by a Norwegian type people.
Along came Basque males, killed all the men and took the women?
(b) Wales and Ireland were originally populated by Basques. Along came
hordes of Viking
female amazons, wiped out all the wives and daughters, then forced the men
to marry them?
(c) Some other explanation? >>

The following clarifications need to be made:
(i) Our suggestions were not meant to be taken seriously but rather as an
indirect criticism
of DNA findings.
(ii) It should also be noted that the findings (for males) reach also into
Western Europe
and account for 30% of Norwegians. In fact another possibility exists
consistent with
the findings:
(iii) It may be that a "Norwegian"-female type is the normal one for the Celts
and it is the Basques who descend from "Welshmen" who married foreign
women. This
suggestion in effect meets DNA standards better than the others.
(iv) We ourselves do not at present support ANY of the above suggestions
but only mention them
since some of our subscribers wished us to react tot he said findings.

5. Phoenician Participation
An historical work, "The Gaels in Gallaecia" by Alfonso Carbonell Lombardero
may be found at
http://www.ctv.es/USERS/ocalitro/

This is an interesting paper that in many ways supports Brit-Am findings
and in other ways does not but is worth looking at.
It will be remembered that based upon Biblical passages, archaeological
findingds,
Roman records, and Celtic legends Brit-Am says that:
A portion of the exiles from Northern Israel were taken in Phoenician and
Philistine ships to
Spain. Many were settled on the southeast coast of Spain but later moved to
the northwest
to Galatia and from there passed to the north and tot he British Isles.

In this connection Lombardero says:
<<Then, the (provisional) conclusion of all this sketch on how and when the
Gaedels came is this: there would be a gradual immigration of Celtic people
who came from the borders of the Black Sea, and the definitive process
received its strongest momentum towards the change of era. Although there
are no direct proofs of it, carrying out this type of colonization was not
possible without the participation of the Phoenicians, who had the
effective monopoly of navigation and lucrative commerce that was related to
copper, tin, and bronze (coming from Galicia and the British Islands and
destined to the markets of the Mediterranean) until Roman times. The
Phoenician findings in Galicia corroborate this assertion, with some
installations that, no matter how incredible it could seem, continue being
functional after 2500 years after their construction (for example the port
of Bares -hills, in Celtic language- in the most Northern point of all
Iberian Peninsula). This way, the Gaedels probably came with the
Phoenicians in order to assure the bases that they had built in the
Galician coast, as the Phoenicians did not have terrestrial troops able to
control the territory. The abundance in Galicia of old toponymy that
alludes to ports (Ortegal -from portegal, pronounced in old Gallaic
mouths-, Ortigueira -similar to the former-, Portugal, etc.) corroborates
this assertion.>>

To remind you the Brit-Am historical scenario is that:
a. Part of Lost Tribes taken in Phoenician and Philistine ships to west
especially to Spain and Portugal wherefrom they moved to British Isles.
b. Most of Lost Tribes taken to north where they were associated with
Cimmerians, Scythians, and Goths.
c. Cimmerians move to Europe at an early date becoming part of Celtic
Civilization.
d. Scythians and Goths as Angles, Saxons, Vandals, Goths, and related peoples
invade the west.
e. A later movement to the west resulting in population pressures and
Viking invasions.
f. Those who stayed in the east became Khazars who converted to Judaism or
remained
amongst non-Israelite peoples until later times.
g. Most Israelites moved to westward and northern extremes especially
British Isles.
Some remained behind in Germany and elsewhere until almost totally
evacuating Central European areas and moving en masse to North America in
the 1700s
and 1800s as we have explained in our work "Joseph" and will expand upon later.