The Gold of Ophir

Alice C. Linsley


The Bible names two sites from which massive amounts of gold were exported: Havilah and Ophir. Havilah was in Africa (Gen. 2:11) and Ophir was in southwest Arabia, probably Yemen (Biblical Sheba and Ramah). It appears that both mining regions were under Horite control. The peoples of the east African seaboard and Yemen have been linked by archaeologists.

In 2007, archaeologists from the Oriental Institute discovered a 4000 year gold-processing center along the middle Nile in the Sudan. The site is called Hosh el-Guruf and is located about 225 miles from Khartoum. More than 55 grinding stones made of granite-like gneiss were found at the site. The ore was ground to recover the gold and the water was used to separate the flakes from the particle residue. Similar grinding stones have been found in Egypt and at Timnah in southern Israel.The oldest mines at Timnah are at least 6,000 years old and the patron of the miners was Hathor-Meri, the mother of Horus. Her totem was a cow and she is shown at Nile shrines holding her offspring in a manger.

In 1939, the American mining engineer Karl Twitchell led an exploration in southern Arabia where he discovered a mining site of several square miles. Arabs call the place Mahd adh Dhahab, "Cradle of Gold." Between 1934 and 1954, a British company extracted substantial amounts of gold from that site and also discovered fifty-five other ancient mines in the area.

In 1946 an inscribed pottery shard was found at Tell Qasile (Tel Aviv) dating to the eight century BC. The Paleo-Hebrew inscription says, "gold of Ophir for Beth-Horon [...] 30 shekels." This, and other such finds, confirm that gold was exported from Ophir and that it was connected to Horus, the Golden One.


The Horites and Gold

Gold was associated with the sun, the Creator's emblem and with Horus to whom the Horites were devoted.This meant that gold served as a symbol of Horite belief in Ra and Horus.

Horus the Golden

Every three years Solomon received tribute of gold, silver, sandalwood, precious stones, ivory, apes and baboons (some say peacocks) from Ophir. Solomon's navy traveled to Ophir, taking "four hundred and twenty talents of gold from there" (1 Kin. 9:26-28; 22:48; 2 Chr. 8:17-18; 9:10). This gold probably came from the Dedanite and Joktanite tribes of southern Arabia.

I Kings 10:18,19 tells of a great ivory throne with two lions standing beside the arm rests. Golden lions were a common motif found on royal thrones. Even today, the throne of the Coptic Pope retains this symbolism. Often the back of the ancient thrones was an ivory and gold inlay with an image of Horus the Golden.


Ophir of the Jokanites

Ophir is a variant of O-pir. The O-piru are known in biblical and extra-biblical texts as Ha-piru and Ha-biru. The English for Habiru is Hebrew. O-piru and Ha-biru are Horites. Even today Jews refer to their distinguished ancestors as Horim and the Joktanites refer to their distinguished ancestors as Houris.

The homeland of the Dedanites extended the length of the Red Sea to the northern boundary of Ophir. The word Dedan means red and is a cognate to the Egyptian didi (red fruit) and the Yoruba diden (red). The Dedanites probably had a reddish skin tone like their Horite kinsmen the Edomites (Gen. 36).

The homeland of the Joktanites includes Yemen and southern Arabia. Abraham's firstborn son was named Joktan (Yaqtan) after his maternal grandfather, Joktan the Elder.

Horites were dispersed throughout all of Arabia and served as priests at water shrines and shrine cities such as Hazor, Jerusalem and Petra. The Horites were devotees of Horus, after whom they take their name.


Horite Beliefs

The Horites believed that the "Seed" of God would be born of their blood because of a promise the Creator made to their Edenic forefathers (Gen. 3:15). They expected a woman of their Horite caste to be overshadowed by the Sun, the Creator's emblem, and to thereby conceive. This is why the wived of Horite ruler-priests word a solar image on their foreheads. The mark is called a tikla. From this Hindu women developed the custom of the bindi. Here we glimpse the solar imagery of the Proto-Gospel.

The oldest evidence of this is found on the mummy of Amunet, devotee of Hathor-Meri (2160-1994 BC). Hathor-Meri was the virgin mother of Horus. As Abraham and Sarah were Horites, it is likely that the mark on Sarah's forehead in the recent Bible mini-series was like that of Amunet. This mark on Sarah, their Horite beliefs, and the miraculous events surrounding Isaac's birth, suggest that Abraham may have believed Isaac to be the promised Seed.

Christians believed that the Edenic Promise has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Seed/Son of God. He alone fulfills the pattern of Horus, to whom the Horites were devoted.  Jesus' true identity was recognized, not in Jerusalem, but rather in Tyre (Matt. 15:21-28; Mark 7: 24). In Tyre, Jesus "could not pass unrecognized" because the Horus myth was still remembered there.

The rulers of Tyre were kinsmen of David and Solomon. King Hiram and David had a common Horite ancestry, as analysis of the Genesis king lists indicates. This Horite lineage can be traced back to Eden. Hiram (Huram /Horam) sent skilled artisans to help David build a palace in Jerusalem. Hiram is a variation of the names Hur or Hor and refers to Horus or HR in the Proto-Egyptian.

According to Midrashic tradition, Hur was Moses’ brother-in-law. Hur’s grandson was one of the builders of the Tabernacle. I Chronicles 4:4 lists Hur as the "father of Bethlehem", David's city. It was a Horite shrine long before it was taken by the Horite warrior Caleb. I Chronicles 2:51 gives Caleb's son Salma as the founder of Bethlehem. One of Caleb's grandsons was named Korah (I Chron. 2:43), which refers to the Horite priesthood. Moses' half-brother was Korah. The name means "shaved one" as Horite priests shaved their bodies before their time of service.

The Horites were devotees of Horus and his mother Hathor-Meri who conceived miraculously by the overshadowing of the Sun. Horus is the archetype by which Abraham's descendants would recognize Jesus as the promised Seed of the Woman (Gen. 3:15). His authentication was His rising from the dead on the third day, in accordance with Horite expectation. Abraham's ancestors believed in the resurrection of the body and awaited a deified king who would rise from the grave and deliver his people from death.



Related reading: Kushite Gold; The Afro-Arabian Dedanites; Afro-Asiatic Metal Workers; Who Were the Horites?; The Shock of Mohammad Atta's Afterlife

Is Hebrew an African Language?

Alice C. Linsley

I believe the evidence supports the view that many of the languages in the Afro-Asiatic family have words that can be traced back to biliteral roots found in Africa. Some of the figures or marks found in later scripts are found on Proto-Saharan pottery and on petroglyphs in Sudan and Somalia.

Before the Old Testament books - originally all separate clay tablets or scrolls - there were Paleo-Hebrew writings found in the region of Judah and Edom. Mostly these were commercial records, trade agreements, and political records. They were sealed with Paleo-Hebrew bullae/seals, many of which used the Holy Name or variants of the Holy Name like Yah or Yahu. This name was known in ancient Nubia.

The Hebrew Bible has many non-Hebrew words that are derived from proto-languages of peoples who migrated out of the Nile Valley and the Sahara. Hebrew relies on Proto-Canaanite and ancient Egyptian and Proto-Saharan words. The ancient Egyptian signs (hieroglyphs) provide valuable clues to understanding many of the non-Hebrew words that appear in the Old Testament that have a Nilo-Saharan origin. Egyptian hieroglyphs were widely used among the early Semites because Egypt had become very powerful and exercised great influence in Canaan as evidenced by the Egyptian shrines on the ancient Horus road.

Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions have been found in the region of ancient Nubia that date to 1900 BC. Descendants of Proto-Canaanite writing systems include Ugaritic, Phoenician, South Arabian and North Arabian scripts.

Another writing system that is important for understanding non-Hebrew words in the Old Testament is Sumerian. Some Sumerian words like: sahar (sand, dust, black, ashes); eden (steppe land, watered plain), and harran (route, roadway) appear in the oldest material in the Old Testament. Sahar שחר is the Hebrew word for black.

Sumerian marks resemble those of the Nilotic cattle-herding peoples. Here we will find some very ancient marks: V, T, X and the solar symbols O and Y. Many of these appear in the old Oasis North Arabian scripts like Thamudic, Dumaitic, and Taymanitic. The urheimat of the Canaanite Y is the Proto-Saharan cattle herding and boating populations. They are among Abraham's ancestors.

The Akkadian language of Nimrod's empire in the Tigris-Euphrates region, is also important when it comes to understanding material in the Old Testament. Nimrod was the sent-away son of Kush. He represents the Kushite dispersion out of the Nile Valley into Canaan and beyond. It is not surprising that there is an affinity between Akkadian and Proto-Hebrew.

Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew share a common proto-system. Some of the oldest Arabic scripts are called "Dedanite" because the highest concentration of these scripts has been found in the region of Dedan. The Ainu script shares signs with these proto-scripts because the point of origin of the Ainu was the Nile Valley.

All of the scripts I have mentioned are in the same Afro-Asiatic language family, except the Ainu, the origin of which is still disputed. The evidence suggests that it may be related to proto-languages of Turkey and Hungary. The Hungarians called themselves "Magyar" and claim to be descendants of Noah, a Nilo-Saharan ruler. It is also known that the archaic Nilotic rulers moved into Turkey because they built the shrine city Meroe on Mount Silpius overlooking the Orontes River. The fortress on the spur of Mount Silpius was named IO, which means “pillared place dedicated to the Creator.” The O was a solar image. The sun was the Creator's symbol or emblem. Heliopolis (Biblical On) was called “Iunu” which means "place of pillars" because it was constructed with many pillars.

The earliest paleo scripts were used to communicate things like directions for people migrating, forks in trails, bend in rivers, mountains, caves, crossings, direction to go, feeding grounds for herds, etc. Many of the figures used in the later writing systems are derived from these symbols that appear on the walls of caves. See Symbols of Archaic Rock Shelters.


Words related to Horite religion

In ancient Egypt, the three superior planets Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were associated with Horus. Mars was named "Horus of the Horizon" or "Horus the Red." Jupiter was called "Horus Who Illuminates the Two Lands." Saturn was named "Horus, Bull of the Sky." These three superior planets were always depicted with the falcon-head of Horus (Krupp 1979).

The association of the falcon or owl with Horus is the likely source of the Semitic malk or melek, meaning king. In ancient Egyptian the owl was called m-l-k (See Gabor Takacs, Etymological Dictionary of Egyptian, p. 1).

In Hausa, a type of owl is called bambani. The word is related to ba-na, horni and hanu. Here we have a suggestion of the connection between Horus and Hanu or Ainu. (See Dictionary of Hausa, p. 19) Abraham's father bore an Ainu title- Terah, meaning priest.

In Hausa the word for king or ruler is sarki (See Charles Henry Robinson, Dictionary of Hausa, XXIV Preface). Auran saraki refers to the king's minister and is usually rendered chief. The word auran is related to Harun and Aaron, and to the Greek and Latin word for gold which is aurum. Aaron was asked by the Hebrews to fabricate a golden calf. The calf was the totem of Hathor-Meri, the mother of Horus. The oldest know site of Horus worship is Nekhen in Sudan. This appears to be the area where Abraham's ancestors listed in Genesis 4 and 5 originated.

Moses had a Kushite wife, probably his half-sister since Zipporah was his cousin bride.The Kushites were descended from Noah, a great Proto-Saharan chief. His grandson was name Kush and his great grandson Nimrod was a Kushite kingdom builder.

Kush was famous for gold, a fact to which Genesis alludes when speaking of the river Pishon that flowed through the land of Ha'vilah, where there is gold (Gen. 2:11). Another African river is the Gihon which wound through the land of Kush (Gen. 2:13). The high quality of Kushite gold is seen at Nekhen, the oldest known shrine city of Horus. An example is this gold plumed falcon representing Horus.

During his stay in Kano (1895), Henry Robinson persuaded a classical Arabic scholar to translate the Gospels of St. John and St. Luke from Arabic into Hausa, the scholar's first language. Here are some more interesting connections between Hausa, Hebrew and Ancient Egyptian.

The Hausa word for day  is rana. The root is ra, which is the Ancient Egyptian name for the Creator whose emblem was the Sun.

Al and El are synonyms for God. The plural form Allohi in Arabic is also found in Hausa and is equivalent to the Hebrew Elohim.

Atvali - ancestors in Hausa is related to the Hindi sm-atvali. Vali is related to the Arabic Wali, meaning guardian or protector.

Azvha - dawn in Hausa, related to Adah, wife of Lamech (Gen. 4)

Amaria refers to lawful wife, as opposed to a concubine. There may be a relationship to the Amari speakers of Papua New Guinea. The Amari dialect is spoken in 14 villages from the Umi River to the Markham- Ramu Divide, with about 5,300 speakers remaining.

Baban kai - great head in Hausa. Baba is father in Yoruba. The Dravidian word for great head or father is appa. Har-appa means Horus is head or father. The chief priest is sometime referred to as Babalawo. Baba is father and awo means he is a prophet who can see a vision of the future.


Related reading:  Recovering the African Background of Genesis; Abraham's Kushite Ancestors; Fascinating Conversation with Laouali Yahaya; Twin Pyramids and Sphinx in Zinder; Kushite Wives; Hebrew, Israelite or Jew?; Early Written Signs

Kushite Gold

Alice C. Linsley


A Nilo-Saharan ruler by the name of "Kush" (Cush) is first mentioned in the Bible as the father of Nimrod and Ramah. Kush and his sons were rulers who controlled the water ways in their territories. The rivers were used to transport cargo and supplied the necessary water for mining industries. Kush was famous for gold, a fact to which Genesis alludes when speaking of the river Pishon that flowed through the land of Ha'vilah, where there is gold (Gen. 2:11). Another African river is the Gihon which wound through the land of Kush (Gen. 2:13).

For the Kushites gold symbolized the Sun, the emblem of the Creator. The Creator's appointment of rulers is depicted by a solar image on or over their heads, as seen on this bust found in Nigeria.

Hathor is depicted as being overshadowed by the Sun. This indicted that she is appointed to bring forth Horus, the son of Ra. Ra was sometimes referred to as a "mountain of gold." Horus is called the Golden One" and is depicted as a falcon perched on the mast of Ra's solar boat or with golden rays of the Sun on his head. Similar solar imagery is found wherever the Kushites dispersed.

The gold mines of Kush were described by the Greek author Diodorus Siculus. He mentions fire-setting as a method used to break down the hard rock. The same method is used today in Africa to extract gem crystals from the hot rock over which buckets of water are poured repeatedly and in quick succession to cause rapid cooling.

The ore was then ground to a fine powder before washing. The process required a substantial source of water, such a river. Mining operations found in desert areas suggest that there was more water during the time of the Kushite expansion.

Genesis 10 speaks of the migration of the Kushites into Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Bactria where they are called "Kushan." This is one of the later migrations out of Africa, between 4000 and 1500 BC.

Nimrod is noted in Genesis 10 as one of the Kushite kingdom builders. He and his brother Ramah were the sons of Kush. Both moved out of the Nile Valley to establish territories; Ramah in Arabia and Nimrod along the Euphrates in Mesopotamia.

The Kushite rulers were a highly organized and militaristic. They ruled of territories consisting of numerous clans and castes. The marriage and ascendancy pattern of their rulers drove their expansion into new territories. They were skilled in hunting, combat, sailing, astronomy and metal working. Their rulers controlled the major water systems and founded early mining industries along the Nile and in southern Israel.

As Robert Morkot notes in his book The Black Pharoahs, the Upper and Lower Nile regions were first united by sub-Saharan Nilotes. The Subsequent history of Egypt was largely based on the religious and social practies of the Upper Nile. We see this as late as Amenhotep III. He ruled Nubia, Libya, Gaza and Syria in the 18th Dynasty (BC. 1382 -1350).  His name means "peace of Amen." In the Upper Nile,
Amen, a name for God was favored over the name Set, which was favored in the Delta. It was during the 18th dynasty that the title 'King's Son of Kush' was first used.

The first rulers of a unified Nile Valley were Upper Nilotes. The Biblical prophets group Mizraim (Egypt) and Kush (Upper Nile/Sudan/Ethiopia) together because the Lower and Upper Nile regions were first unified by the Kushite ruler Menes (Meni) around 3000 BC. Whether Menes was Narmer or Ahauiti, his unification of the Upper and Lower Nile established him as the founder of a new House/Dynasty. This remained the case even after Mentuhotep II reunited Egypt after the 1st Intermediate Period. Instead of being recognized as the founder of a new House, Mentuhotep II was considered a ruler of the 11th Dynasty.

Another Kushite ruler was called K-ash-ta, meaning "the Throne of Kush." The Saharan origins of the rulers of Egypt has been well documented by the Canadian archeologist Mary McDonald.

Biblical Kush was a vast region that included Egypt, Sudan, Nubia, the coastal areas of the Horn of Africa, and the Afro-Arabian populations living in Ramah, Sheba and Dedan. DNA studies show "genetic unity and linkage" between the Sudanic, Egyptian, Nubian and other Nilotic peoples, as well as some populations of the Horn of Africa. (Yurco (1996), Keita (1993, 2004, 2005) Lovell (1999), Zakrewski (2003, 2007). The Copts are one of the oldest Egyptian populations. This is based on the relatively high frequency of the B-M60 marker, indicating early pre-dynastic colonization of Egypt by Nilotes.


Kushite Mining Operations

In 2007, archaeologists from the Oriental Institute discovered a 4000 year gold-processing center along the middle Nile in the Sudan. The site is called Hosh el-Guruf and is located about 225 miles from Khartoum. More than 55 grinding stones made of granite-like gneiss were found at the site. The ore was ground to recover the gold and the water was used to separate the flakes from the particle residue. Similar grinding stones have been found in Egypt and at Timnah in southern Israel.

The oldest mines at Timnah are at least 6,000 years old. The miners at Timnah recovered turquoise and copper. They followed ore veins underground and created shafts with stone chiseling tools. These galleries spread in all directions, following the ore. The mines were worked by Kushite metal working clans between 2000 to 1500 BC. Ancient rock carvings showing Kushite warriors in chariots, holding axes and shields have been found in the area. A temple dedicated to Hathor was discovered at the southwestern edge of Mt. Timnah by Professor Beno Rothenberg of Hebrew University. In his book Timna, Rothenberg concluded that the peoples living in the area were "partners not only in the work but in the worship of Hathor." (Timna, p. 183)


The Kushites Reflect Proto-Saharan Burial Practices

Workmen clear the surface of a second-millennium cemetery discovered by Geoff Emberling's team. The site is now flooded by a massive dam. 
(Oriental Institute Nubian Expedition)

Geoff Emberling, Director of the Oriental Institute Museum and a co-leader of the expedition that discovered the gold working operation at Hosh el-Guruf, reported that his team also discovered a cemetery with Kushite artifacts at the nearby site al-Widay. These included high-status pottery vessels that appear to have been made at Kerma, about 225 miles away.

Kerma was one of the most important centers of ancient Kush. Excavations at Kerma have uncovered a walled town surrounding a monumental mud-brick temple. In a royal cemetery to the east, four massive grave tumuli contained several hundred human remains. The remains were surrounded by thousands of cattle skulls. This was a common burial practice among to the Proto-Saharan peoples.

The cemetery near Hosh el-Guruf included 90 closely packed stone circles. The covered shafts were circular and lined with stones, a typical feature of the Pan Graves of Proto-Saharan nobility. Pan Grave cemeteries have been found at a number of sites in Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia. These graves are associated with the Beja, an ancient metal working people of the Sahara. The Egyptians called them "Medjayu." They brought gold to Egypt from mines deep in the heartland of Nubia and Kush. At the Temple at Dendur in Nubia the sons of a local Beja chieftain, Pedisi and Pihor, are honored. Ped-isi refers to Hathor who was later called Isis, and Pi-hor refers to Horus.

In the first room of the Dendur temple, reliefs show the ruler praying. The middle room was used for offering ceremonies and the inner most room was the sanctuary of Hathor. The only carvings in these two rooms are around the door frame leading into the sanctuary and on the back wall of the sanctuary. These show Pihor worshiping Isis and Pedesi worshiping Horus.

The Kushite Cities of Kerma, Nekhen, and Akkad

Temple precinct of Kerma

The oldest layer of occupation at Hosh el-Guruf dates to the later Neolithic period (ca. 4000-3000 BC.) and corresponds to the urban center at Nekhen, the shrine city of Horus. His mother, Hathor, was venerated as the patroness of metal workers. The Kushite center at Kerma, by comparison, dates from 2450-2000 BC.

The rulers of Nekhen had access to sub-Saharan the mineral resources of the eastern desert. The high quality of the gold work at Nekhen is evidenced by the discovery of this gold plumed falcon representing Horus.

The mining center at Hosh el-Guruf and the nearby cemetery document the sub-Saharan kingdom of Kush, but the book of Genesis provides the most significant information about the Kushite expansion into Arabia, Canaan and Mesopotamia. It tells us that Kushite rulers moved out of Africa and became established in distant regions. Nimrod, a son of Kush, is mentioned as a specific example. The center of his kingdom was Akkad in Mesopotamia and the script of his kingdom was Akkadian.

Genesis helps us to connect the dots historically.  Unfortunately, many archaeologists ignore such valuable information. The result is a great deal of mis-information such as this statement by Emberling: “The Kingdom of Kush was unusual in that it was able to use the tools of power—military and governance—without having a system of writing, an extensive bureaucracy or numerous urban centers.”

Emberling adds to this distorted picture with this statement: “Studying Kush helps scholars have a better idea of what statehood meant in an ancient context outside such established power centers of Egypt and Mesopotamia.” Statehood would have been a foreign notion to the Kushites.  They were empire builders and the evidence points to the power centers of Egypt and Mesopotamia as owing a great debt to the Kushites.


The Linguistic Connection

The Afro-Asiatic languages have four geographical groups: northern peripheral, northern central, southern central, and southern peripheral. Akkadian and Amorite are in the northern peripheral group. The northern central group includes the ancient Canaanite, Ugaritic, ancient and modern Syriac and Hebrew, Moabite, Old Aramaic, Amorite, and Phoenician and its Punic dialect. The southern central region includes Arabic, Maltese, and the archaic Oasis North Arabian dialects, some of the earliest attested belonging to the group. The southern peripheral region includes South Arabian dialects and the languages of northern Ethiopia.

GOLD

Ancient Egyptian - nub
Akkadian - dahh-ubu
Arabic - dha-hab
Hebrew - za-hab

Gold was associated with Horus, whose emblem was the sun. This is evident in the Babylonian word for gold hur-asu.  The Egyptian hr means "the One on high." The Turin Canon, which provides important information on Egypt's early history, describes the Predynastic rulers as "Followers of Horus" and Horus as the "Ruler of the Two Horizons."

The ancient Egyptians observed the death of Horus (Osirus) in a 5-day festival. The first 3 days were marked by solemnity and fasting, as Plutarch noted in Isis and Osiris, 69.  His death on the 17th of Athyr was commemorated by the planting of grain. On the third day, the 19th of Athyr, there was feasting to celebrate Horus’ rising to life. It is no coincidence that Jesus alludes to the ancient Horite myth when informing his disciples of his impending death.  He said, "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." (John 12:24)  In referring to himself as the "Seed" Jesus alludes to the promise God made to Abraham's Edenic ancestors that the Seed of the Woman would one day crush the serpent's head and restore paradise (Gen. 3:15).

Related reading: A Scienific Timeline of Genesis; The Gold of Kush; Biblical Sheba and East African Settlements Linked; Who Were the Kushites?; The Gold of Ophir; Afro-Asiatic Metal Workers; Osiris and Dionysus Foreshadow Christ; The Religion of Tamar of Timnah; Kushites in Mindanao