Ghosts, Part 2

"From the Hundred Year War to the Crimea
With a lance and a musket and a Roman spear
To all of the men who have stood with no fear
In the service of the King"*

This is a continuation of yesterday's post about Ghosts.

History is filled with the noble sacrifice of the brave. Men willing to lay down their lives with honor, no matter how terrible the cost. The ghosts of the past.

The Punic Wars were a series of clashes between Rome and Carthage. Two city states with ambitions. Three wars that lasted from 264 BC to 146 BC. It was truly a battle for survival.

And in the end, at the last battle Roman soldiers clawed their way through ferocious city combat. Every inch was contested. Planks were laid from building to building to cross streets. Behind them they burned everything. Thousands died.

In the end Commandant Hasdrubal of the Carthaginian threw himself at the feet of Scipio, General of the Roman forces, begging for pardon. Hasdrubal's wife found this so shameful she threw herself and her children into the flames.

Scipio, having seen the horror, said "Assyria had fallen, and Persia, and Macedon, Carthage was burning. Rome's day might come next."

And it did, it always does. Always with such scenes of horror and destruction. Yet, we can never find a way to avoid the end.

Nobody alive today really cares much for the fate of Carthage. It makes for interesting reading or boring history, depending on your tastes. But, at the time it was very important for the people involved, whose only real conflict was being the two largest powers at the time. Of course, they both wanted the same island, Sicily. But, 118 years later, hundreds of thousands of lives, and the complete destruction of an empire seems excessive.

Assuming for a minute that we can't find a way to live together, (and there is absolutely no reason tothink we can)  and end up kicking over the apple cart, and burning down the world as we know it what will people 2,000 years from now say about the role we played in the destruction? If there is anybody left.




* From The Card Cheat by The Clash

QADESH

THE REAL-WORLD WAR I 

By Nael Noaman
 
 
 
We in life-explained history have taken the subjects of Sumer, Akkad, Persia and Assyria, simply because there are several references unlike the Hittites whom did not have a lot to write thus kept us in the dark about a lot of the details. Yet in the great battle of Qadesh because they were fighting the Egyptians we were told about the details of that battle by the Egyptians with a few details from the Hittites.
To start we should have a quick look at the location of the Hittites and this map tells us what the world was like.
 
So, their empire was in Anatolia and was surrounded by the Egyptians and the Mitanni which kept them always on the alert in case one of these powers would cut them off in Syria which would mean that they will be stuck in the Northern mountains with no commercial routes.I chose a 14^th century map because it was the start of the Hittites golden or Imperial age which lasted until 1200 B.C when they were conquered by the Assyrians
At the end of the Amarna period in Egypt 18^th dynasty, the Hittites, Mitanni and Egyptians fought for supremacy in the territory of today's Syria because it controlled the commerce routes and the way to Mesopotamia (much like the reasons of today's war) but the Hittites and Egyptians managed to settle and wrote a treaty of peace in the 15^th century BC, called the Kurustama Treaty a sort of border agreement and including a non-aggression pact, and that treaty stood for over a 100 years until something happened. It was in the reign of king Suppiluliumas I ( 1375-1345 BCE ) of the Hittites while recapturing the city of Carchemish ( as seen on the map) when he ordered 2 of his officers and ordered the attack on Amka which was under Egyptian rule thus breaking the divine oath. May be it is best to read it from king Mursilis II ( 1315 - 1282 BCE ) son of king Suppiluliumas I as found on the tablets which firstly shows why the oath was divine.
 

And then he tells us what happened in Carchemish or Girgamish.

Now the treaty has been broken by the Hittites and the word reached Egypt, but something really strange happened after that, we continue with King Mursilli.

The king was suspicious and rightly so after invading Egyptian territory and the Pharaoh was dead, why should he believe the Egyptian Queen, so King Mursilli continues

The report came back later on in Spring and was a positive one, so he sent his son Zannanza to Egypt, he then continues;

The plague killed a lot of Hittites and among them was the king himself and there after Mursilli reign starts and the first thing he does was apologize to the gods of Hitti, and he prayed like this

Tings started changing after the death of king Mursilli were his son Muwattalli became king and at the same time the 19^th dynasty of Egypt has started too Ramses I and later Sati I whom tried to bring Syria back to Egypt rule, and the first clash started with the Hittites which went very badly for the new King Muwattalli, so he decided to move his capital south away from the original capital Hattusa.
As we are drawing near the main battle of Qadesh and it is worth mentioning that the Egyptians never had ideas of colonizing or increasing the size of Egypt unlike the Mesopotamians, they simply cared about their economy since all their lumber comes from Lebanon, the commercial routes with the east and to create a buffer zone preventing other empires from invading them since by that time they just got rid of the Hycsos and they do not want that to happen again.
In May of 1274 B.C ,Ramses II marched to Qadesh with 20,000 soldiers and 2000 chariots, he divided his force into 4 divisions namely, Ra, Seth, Amon and Ptah, they also sent a division called Nearin of the Moabites through the sea which the Hittites knew nothing about and finally the Amurru sent their army with him.
King Muwattalli camped just outside Qadesh with 39,500 soldiers and 2,500 chariots almost double the Egyptian army, and it is fair to say for that time this was a world war by all measures.

 
During Ramses march 2 Bedouins came along to tell the Egyptian king that the Hittites are all the way North in Aleppo, of course that was a trick to allow the Hittites take them by surprise and not to push the 3 divisions that were replenishing in the South to move faster so he had only the Amon division with him at the time, it is only by luck when 2 Hittite scouts were captured that Ramses knew that the Hittites were only across the hill, and the Hittites seizing the opportunity by cutting the Ra division in half as they were caught by surprise and the Hittite chariots went fast towards the Egyptian camp and the Egyptian King found himself in a situation to fight or die.

Especially when the Amon division was totally out of the battle either fled or killed not clear from historical text, but it was the Nearin force that showed up catching the Hittites by surprise pushing them back to their camp, but on their way back they faced the division of Ptah which meant that they were surrounded from North and South, and that how the battle of Qadesh ended with a great victory for Rameses II, yet he did not capture Kadesh and that is why the historians call it a draw. It will be many year before Ramses II comes back to the region and proclaim the Hittite cities of Dapur and Tunip

Hannibal, The Lion of Carthage

By Nael Noman 

When writing about history I aim at several goals
1 – revealing lessons for the future
2 – expanding one's horizon of thinking to what caused civilizations to start and how they ended
3 – it helps you seek the truth and allow the reader to compare the information from several writers
4 – understanding the origins of languages and culture
5 – to preserve the memory of great men and women that changed the course of history or almost have done, and today I write about such person a legend that could have ended the Roman empire in its beginnings, and he was so close.

 Carthage (present day Tunisia) is the Latin name for the Phoenician word 'Karat Hadashet' which means new city, it was established by the Phoenician Princess Alisar Daidon the sister of the Phoenician king Bygalamoun , she settled there after fleeing Sidon because of a misunderstanding with her brother the king in the year 814 B.C. She then expanded her rule to include the Western Mitterrandian including Spain which was later called new Carthage, they also conquered Sicily which a few hundred years later became the boiling point with the Romans.

Hannibal was born in the year 247 B.C, son of Hamilcar Barka the famous military General that fought and lost Sicily during the first Punic war (the word Punic is Latin refers to Phoenicia the origins of Carthage also the Punic wars are the first East-West conflicts recorded in history), from there Hannibal's father became obsessed with defeating the Romans, and after returning to Spain where he ruled, he took an oath from Hannibal whom was at age 9 by dipping his hands in blood (the old Canaanite way) and swearing that he will avenge the honor of Carthage, something that Hannibal could not forget all his life.

Our story begins in the year 219 B.C when Hannibal decided to conquer the independent Spanish city of Saguntum which was an ally to Rome, in an what seems to be a provocation to the Romans whom in turn warned his through an emissary that a war on Saguntum means a war on Rome. Hannibal conquered the Spanish city in the same year and Spain became totally under Carthage rule. Proud with his accomplishment he decided to push his army towards Rome and the centuries of rivalry between Carthage and Rome. 

He prepared 50,000 foot soldiers, 12,000 cavalries ,37 elephants and decided to take a very strange route to Rome !!! across the Alps into Italy a distance of 1,500 miles before winter. 

 

This route will be least expected by Rome and also because at that time Rome became the master of the Mediterranean and no ships can carry all that army unnoticed to Rome. 

By Autumn 218 B.C his army reached the Rhone valley in Southern France, when a contingent of Roman army tried to intercept them under the leadership of Consul Scipio after they land from the Alps. It took him 7 months to reach Italy and lost some 20,000 men in the process, yet still determined to move forward.

Scipio's army of 5,000 men was trying to get ready for Hannibal's arrival in North Italy when in November 218 B.C were ambushed by Hannibal wounded Scipio whom was saved by his son Publius (later became a Consul and nick named the African), and this was the first victory of Hannibal on Roman soil. 

 Many of the Northern tribes were already unhappy with Rome, and gladly joined Hannibal when they saw his abilities. Providing the resource Hannibal was needed most, fighting men. 

The Romans being humiliated sent a large army to Trebia led by Consul Longus.

Knowing he was out numbered Hannibal kept his brother Mago cavalry out of the sight of the Romans and baited them to push forward when they became surrounded as the map shows they had nowhere to escape. The Romans lost 25,000 of their men that cold day in 218B.C. The Carthaginians up until that minute where choosing the battle ground, the timing and controlled the terrain. 

Hannibal kept pushing towards Rome knowing that one more battle could end the war and Rome would fall. Realizing the danger, the Romans appointed Fabious Maximus as the head of the council and he had a brilliant idea which is simply do not give Hannibal the battle he sought. Choosing to cut his supply routes and make his army die of hunger. An idea that did not suit the majority members of the Roman Republican council and within 6 months Maximus was out of power and replaced by Gaius Terentius Varro. In 216 B.C he gathered the largest army ever assembled in Roman history and decided to meet Hannibal at a time and place of Hannibal’s choosing. Hannibal chose Cannae in Southern Italy to be the last scene with the Romans, whom in turn followed the same tactics that lost them the first 2 battles, of trying to pierce through the center of Hannibal's army . 

In the 2^nd of August 216 B.C Hannibal chose a new formation a half circle or a bow type formation that is strong yet flexible at the same time. 

This time Hannibal started by sending the cavalry first, a move the Romans did not anticipate thus driving the Roman cavalry away from the main battle, the Romans had to march forward full of confidence with the numbers they have and met Hannibal's army which did not give ground easily, and suddenly he attacked the Roman flanks with the African infantry. Half of the cavalry came back to completely surround the Romans. 60,000 Romans perished that day a great loss like no other to Rome, it was a matter of time till the Romans surrender as per old protocols, Hannibal refused to enter Rome with a military campaign as his brothers advised and waited to receive Rome's answer.

To his surprise the Romans did not surrender but quite the opposite, Maximus came back to power, Rome's defenses strengthened and Scorpio junior became the head of the Roman army. Realizing the situation Hannibal asked Carthage for more troops but the council denied him his request and ordered him to go back home because the Romans have organized themselves and were heading towards Spain. 

With Rome not giving way and no troops were coming from home Hannibal started feeling helpless, and headed towards South Italy conquering it city by city in an effort to draw the Roman army out of Rome to the South and try to sneak behind them to Rome but that did not work. Until one day after 14 years in his campaign he received a message that Scipio has landed in Carthage and is waiting for him at Zama 50 miles south of Carthage, he looked one last time at Italy before his ships started the journey home. 

At Zama, it was the last stand, the Romans were determined to end the war, with Scipio a leader that learnt from the best, he arranged his army knowing all of Hannibal's tactics Scipio allowed the elephants to pass through his army as they shifted sideways as shown in the map, he did not allow the cavalry to flank the Roman army and that was done by attacking the cavalry first it was all over to Hannibal, he left the battle to Carthage and told the council to accept any Roman terms. 

He then escaped to Levant and for one last time he fought the Romans with the king of Syria but lost the battle and escaped to Gebze Turkey, but the Romans chased him from place to place until they found his location but Hannibal has decided to drink poison rather than be captured and humiliated, he died at the age of 64 in the year 183 B.C, and that was the end of a legend.

By Nael Noaman

The origin of civilizations is a very hard code to break especially when the civilization states that all the knowledge they have come from the gods. This is as true for the Sumerians as is for the Egyptians, and all what we read is that those civilizations just popped from nothing or suddenly arose or unexpectedly developed a civilization, and all of these assumptions are not scientific.

For this reason, historians as well as archeologists and scholars worked very hard to find the answers and break the code which could when found links the ancient world together thus revealing the events that led to such civilization and the knowledge we can gain from it.

First there is the theory of aliens, yes aliens you might laugh but the late Dr. Sitchin provided evidence that cannot be explained otherwise, he wrote several books on the subject including the famous "The 12th planet" (Nabiru) that was translated into 24 different languages, and conducted several presentations during his life.

His theory comes from the understanding of the Sumerian text which resembles the stories in the Bible like the 7 tablets of creation (Enuma Elish) and for the folks that wants a complete translation of it ,please visit The Babylonian Epic of Creation.; and the epic of Gilgamesh, the great king of the Sumerian city state of Uruk, who described in detail the reason, impact and the consequence of the great flood, it also talks about the Annunaki a breed of aliens the Sumerians called gods and when translated means "from heaven the come". To the Sumerians they were genetically engineered by them and then taught them how to plough, irrigate, calculate, everything they knew was handed to them by the gods.

We will consider one tablet. A cuneiform clay tablet that was recovered in the late 19th century from the underground library of King Ashurbanipal in Nineveh, Iraq by Sir. Henry Layard has puzzled scientists for over a hundred years.

And this is the British museum translation

I have to disagree with the translation in the circle because Enlil is one of the Sumerian gods that grants kingship, so this a 2-dimension map that is explaining a 3D event and that is why you see the 4 axes', it is a map of space and the movement of the god Enlil in space, in other words it is a space map of people that lived 6000 years ago.

The second theory comes from Graham Hancock the author of the famous book "finger prints of the gods" which refers to the ancient civilization of Atlantis and presented a lot of evidence to its existence and the supreme knowledge they had, he referred to 2 major points,

1. Plato's "Timaeus-Critias."  Dialogue which is the only ancient mention of the island of Atlantis, written in 360 B.C, he describes the island that it was larger than Ancient Libya and Asia Minor combined, but it was later sunk by an earthquake and became an impassable mud shoal, inhibiting travel to any part of the ocean. The Egyptians, Plato asserted, described Atlantis as an island consisting mostly of mountains in the northern portions and along the shore and encompassing a great plain in an oblong shape in the south "extending in one direction three thousand stadia [about 555 km; 345 mi], but across the center inland it was two thousand stadia [about 370 km; 230 mi]." Fifty stadia [9 km; 6 mi] from the coast was a mountain that was low on all sides ... broke it off all round about ... the central island itself was five stades in diameter [about 0.92 km; 0.57 mi]. Ruled by Poseidon and had vast knowledge and technology
2. It was at the end of the last ice age that a great comet landed in the Atlantic Ocean creating title waves and heat allowing all that ice on North America and Europe to melt thus the story of the great flood, which in turn drawn Atlantis, and that happened at 10,500 BC which matches the date written by Plato after knowing it from the Egyptian priest. And he presented this map before and after the deluge

The third theory comes from Stan Deyo whom is a believer of Atlantis and gave evidence of its existence through the use of satellite imaging that it was located on the Eastern side of Saudi Arabia

And the satellite image shows the rings of Atlantis marked in a red circle

Let's not forget Plato's description which draws an image of Atlantis having rings with water channels like this animation

 

The fourth theory is the most interesting, and it was delivered by Dr. David Rohl the author of the famous book " Legend: The Genesis of Civilization" and the presenter of the famous documentary " Egyptian Genesis", he explains the pre-dynastic Egyptian era and that it came from Sumer, he goes on to explain that the Sumerians managed to carry their ships through the desert from the Red Sea to the Nile and they conquered the land of Egypt. He shows pictorials on the stones at the middle of the desert in the year 3500 BC

The strange thing is not only that these are in the middle of the desert only but these ships design is of a Mesopotamian high prow type.

The temple of Edfu south of Cairo, have further evidence on its walls showing depictions of the Shebtiu "the gods that came from far"

Inside the temple, you see the gods seated behind each other with the falcon that represents Horus, but the most interesting is the third one that could be Thoth the god of writing and the scribe of the underworld. The temple had the name of the "sailor" or navigator god which might explain the Mesopotamian connection and the crossing of seas

The overall wall looks like this

Dr. Rhol's theory explains how the followers of Horus came about and how they are related to the Sumerians.

Now if we accept this theory then it explains how the Egyptians suddenly came to the scene of history with such vast knowledge, wisdom and set of beliefs especially of the afterlife which has Mesopotamian origins.

For the Sumerians origins, well this is my theory which is a combination of the first four, it accepts the Atlantis theory as explained by Hancock and the location of that great civilization as explained by Deyo simply because of the geographic location in the Western side of the Gulf which is not far off the location of Sumer in South Iraq in fact it is exactly 365 miles apart, and to put it simply they followed the rivers on the map of after the flood and that is why they headed North. My theory explains the knowledge the Sumerians had, especially of the flood and other technological sciences, through the survivors of the flood whom managed to reach Mesopotamia and used the old knowledge of Atlantis.

Remaining is where the Atlanteans got their knowledge from? and that could only be explained by the Sitchin theory which explains the narratives found in Sumer explaining that all knowledge came from the gods that descended from heaven

I gathered several different theories that might be applaudable and as you have seen that the early civilizations were all tightly linked together. It is a good lead to the reader, to start with these theories to explore and build your own idea.