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

Thamudic Scripts

Yeha altar at the Almaqah temple was built in the 8th to 6th centuries BC.

The "monumental script" on the Almaqah altar found near the city of Wuqro in the region of Tigray, Ethiopia has been identified as Thamudic (Giovanni Garbini, 1976).

Connections have been made between the ancient Thamudic scripts found from Syria to Yemen and the ancient Afro-Asiatic languages. Approximately 11000 Thamudic inscriptions have been found scattered from Syria to Ethiopia. Most are found in Yemen. These are often accompanied by petroglyphs of humans and oxen with circles and spirals. Similar marks have been identified along the Nile in Sudan and in the 6th century Kok Turki runes (Orkhon script) of the pre-Islamic Turkic people of Northern China.

Thamudic scripts are found on ancient rock etchings and paintings. These often show a human-ox head bucranium with or without horns, and sometimes associated with a symbol such as circles with internal radial lines. Such images also have been found in Sudan.

3000 BC rock carving in Sudan along the Nile
Credit: Tim Karberg/Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster

Related reading: Early Written Signs; The Writing System of Menes; Enigmatic Petroglyphs of Saudi Arabia's High Plateau; Proto-Elamite Script; The Urheimat of the Canaanite Y; Thamudic and Nabataean Inscriptions from Umm Al-Rasas by M.C.A. Macdonald; Old North Arabian Scripts; The Dispilio Tablet

In the article that follows, the cultural anthropologist Ahmed Achrati provides an argument for a wide diffusion of Thamudic scripts among different populations from the Neolithic period to the Islamic Middle Age.

"Thamudic traces: some remarks on 'Regarding the thamoud' by G. Lombry"
By Ahmed Achrati

G. E. Lombry's comments are a welcome reminder of the importance of the pre-Islamic Arabian archaeological heritage and the need to improve the focus and orientation of our research in this area. He re marks that' The "Thamoudian style" is a common but indistinct term to refer to a badly defined period of time; some of the petroglyphs attributed to it belong to different cultures, even to the Neolithic or the Islamic Middle Age. These remarks capture the essence of the problem involved in the study of the Arabian inscriptions, including publication, interpretation and chronology. The following note is intended to amplify some of the ideas in these remarks, albeit within the broad ethno-linguistic framework of what is often referred to as the Near East.

1. Ethno-linguistic framework

A. Thamudic script
The names used for the designation of ancient scripts are sometimes purely taxonomic inventions, with no known connection to the referent ethnic group. The vexing question of identifying the people who used a given script is further complicated by the fact that people who use a script do not necessarily speak the language of that script. As a classificatory device, the term 'Thamudic' was coined by Mark Lidzbarski (Van den Branden 1966:16), but what is comforting about it, as A. F. L. Beeston has indicated, is that it enjoys an internal structure resting on a large and diverse quantity of inscriptions and a wide spatial distribution.

Thamudic also benefits from considerable external validation (Beeston 1984). S. Jamme and van den Branden even argue for the unity of the Thamudic script (van den Branden 1966), although this is resisted by J. Ryckmans (1984: 74-75) and MacDonald (2000: 32).

What is referred to in the literature as Thamudic consists of approximately 11000 inscriptions found scattered all around the Arabian Peninsula from Syria to Yemen (MacDonald 2000: 44). The bulk of the Thamudic texts, about 9000 of the inscriptions, were collected by the Philby-Ryckmans-Lippens expedition in central Arabia. The remaining Thamudic inscriptions come from north-west Arabia. These have been divided by Winnett into three groups: Thamudic B, C, and D. A fourth group E has been added by G. King.

B. Thamud
Within the corpus of the Thamudic inscriptions, the narre tmd occurs four, possibly six, times (in Thamudic B and D). Two more instances occur in Safaitic (MacDonald 2000:66, n. 39; also Dhayyeb 2000: 3). A variation of this tenn is also thought to exist in South Arabic texts (Dhayyeb 2000: 5).

Not much is known about the Thamud, but, as Lombray said, tribes by that name are referred to in the Assyrian records of Sargon II (722-705 B.C.E.). Arab tribes and people are also referred to in the Assyrian records, but in one of a set of letters coming from southern Mesopotomia and dating back to about the sixth century B.C.E., a person is called te-mu-da-a arba-a-a, which has been translated as the 'Tamudean', the 'Arab' (Retso 2003:190-1). The letter also mentions Tayma, an oasis in central Arabia. Thamud is also found in Classical sources. In Diodorus and Strabo, for example, we find the Thamud referred to as Tamoudenoi, and in Expositio Totius Mundi (c. 357 C.E., author unknown), they are called Thamudeni. In the Qur'an, 'Thamud' is mentioned twenty-six times, and Muslim exegetes and historians have commented on them extensively (e.g. Ibn Hisham, al-Tabari and al-Tha'alibi).

C. Chronology
Some of the Thamudic texts are dated or datable, but most of them are chronologically indeterminate. While dating the Thamudic script is important, the issue of chronology is not particular to this script. In fact, as G. Mendenhall (1984) has indicated, what is needed is a chronological framework that encompasses all the Arabian scripts, which raises the question of the development of alphabetic writing itself, and also calls for a greater integration of parietal, epigraphic and linguistic knowledge in the archaeological research.

The chronology and development of the pre-Islamic Arabian scripts is yet to be firmly established but we know that the Arabian and the North-West Semitic (Phoenecian, Canaanite) alphabetic traditions are the two great alphabetic systems of the ancient Near East. Each with its own alphabetic order, the Phoenecian 'bgd and the Arabian hlhm, these two alphabetic traditions are thought to have originated from a common source in the Syro-Palestinian region and separated sometimes in the Bronze Age (Mendenhall 1984; MacDonald 2000). Features of these two alphabetic traditions are found in the older (cuneiform alphabet) of Ugarit texts and also in the much older syllabic texts of Ebla (2500) and Byblos. This indicates that 'both letter orders were in use before the beginning of the twelfth century B.C.' (MacDonald 2000: 32). What is remarkable, though, is that whereas the North-West Semitic lost some of the old phonetic features, many of these are retained only in the Arabian, including most of the Ugarit 30 consonants system, in contrast to only 22 Phoenician letters, as well as a set of differentiated emphatic consonants (Owens 1998: 53; MacDonald 2000: 32; Mendenhall 1984: 98; also Lipinski 1997: 150; and Gordon 1997: 102). Moreover, although sources of Classical Arabic go only to the seventh century C.E., this relatively young language still contains most of the older inventory of Semitic phonological, morphological and lexical elements (e.g. the independent personal pronouns of Ugarit, and also the personal pronoun suffixes; see Moscati 1964: 106; Rabin 1984: 291). In fact, as J. Owens has pointed out, so much of the older Semitic phonological inventory is presenved in Arabic, that in relation to the old Akkadian, 'one can say that Arabic is "older" ' (Owens 1998: 53). Lexically, Al Yasin also thinks that the Arabic of the seventh century C.E. contains more of the Ugaritic cognates of 1400 B.C.E. than does the Hebrew Old Testament (in Hayes 1991: 610).

What all this means is that 'a thorough re-examination of the history and relationship of the Semitic languages is now in order', as Mendenhall (1984: 95) has pointed out. 'The basis of this re-examination', he added,' cannot be a mere evolutionary theory, but the much more solid foundation of historical linguistic evidence on the one hand, and archaeological evidence of population centres of diffusion, on the other'. This leads to a broader question of socio-cultural origin.

D. Afroasiatic roots
Ancient speech may be impossible to excavate but language is an important indicator of ancestry and population movement (Ruhlen 1994a: 149 and passim, 1994b: 18). In Africa, the linguistic affinities among Berber, Ancient Egyptian, Coptic, Chadic, Semitic and Cushitic (Befa) have been understood to imply a single origin, leading to their inclusion in a single family, called Afroasiatic, instead of the racially-tainted 'Hamitic'. For a long time, it was thought that the origin of Afroasiatic was in the Levant. Accordingly, groups of Eurasian populations are believed to have 'backtracked to Africa, giving rise to the Afroasiatic family' (Ruhlen 1994a: 193). This view, however, has been rejected by many linguists, including C. Ehret (1995), Allan R. Bomhard (1988, 1996), Daniel F. McCall (1998). These linguists distance themselves from the traditional views that favour Semitism (Ehret 1995: 5). Thus, for example, Ehret believes that pre-Proto-Semitic roots are closer to the Proto-Afroasiatic, making consideration of the Semitic etymology secondary rather than a prerequisite for reconstructive work (ibid. 3). And A. R. Bomhard decries the fact that'many Semiticists stubbornly cling to the reconstructivn' of Proto-Semitic alone without taking into account phonological data from other Afroasiatic phyla (Bomhard 1988:113).

2. Rock art
There is an imbalance in the archaeological research and publication in favour of the monumental, the literal, and the settled coasts of the Arabian Peninsula. Nomadic life is often brought in only for the purpose of filling the archaeological gaps between urban/ settled agricultural periods. Sometimes they are even presented as the agent of urban decline/destruction. For example, espousing Dostal's theory of camel domestication, P J. Parr thinks 'it is hard to resist the temptation to speculate on the possible connection between this breakdown of urban conditions and the rise of camel nomadism' (Parr 1984: 47). But Parr's idea of periods of 'archaeological blanks' in the east and the centre of the Peninsula does not account for rock art, and the lasting record of the most perennial phenomenon of Arabia, nomadism.

3.'Idolatress', scripts and scriptuae
In his comments, Lombry refers to a statement by M. Abu Murwah al Qahtani that 'the term thamoud [sic] should be considered as meaning "idolatress", Le. "unknown to Islam-. It has been difficult to check this source, but leading aside the possible religious (even misogynist) tenor of the term 'idolatress', it is clear that such a scriptural or exegetic reference is merely a confirmation of antiquity of the Thamud, not the endorsement of an established religious/theological view of history, a sin that has particularly afflicted the Near-Eastern archaeology for a long time. Indeed, as pointed out by D. Potts, archaeology has been driven by a need to find Biblical parallels, leading to an excessive focus on Mesopotamian religious and literary aspects of the Near East (see Potts 1997: 303).

Perhaps the best approach to the Islamic texts as they relate to Thamud is to recognise their theological and historiographic nature and to limit their impact on empirical research, which Dhuyayb (2003) tries to do in his study of the Thamudic script. The best yet, regarding scriptural and exegetic references to Thamud, is J. Stetkevych's approach. In his brilliant study of the Thamudean legend of the Golden Bough, Stetckovysh combines literary, mythological, philosophical and archaeological information to read this Thamudic narrative as a mythopoeia, but one that is 'integrated into the decline and fall of sendentism and the growth of nomadism in Arabia' (Stetkevych 1996: 61).


REFERENCES

ACHRATI, A. 2006. The story of the Arabian rock art: a Thamudic 'informant'. Rock Art Research 23: 153-164. [WP]

AGHALI-ZAKARA, M. 2003. Messages graphiques et gravures rupestres. La Lettre du RILB 9: 3-4. [WP]

AGHALI-ZAKARA, M. 2005. Retour sur l'association des gravures et inscriptions rupestres. La Lettre de l'AARS 28: 11-14. [LQ]

AGHALI-ZAKARA, M. and J. DROUIN 2007. Inscriptions rupestres libyco-berberes. Sahel nigero-malien. Sites d'Iwelen et d'Adar-en-Bukar. Moyen et Proche-Orient 3, Droz, Geneva. [LQ]

ARNAIZ VILLANA, A. and J. ALONSO GARCIA 2000. Egipcios, Bereberes, Guanches y Vascos. Editorial Complutense, Madrid. [WP]

LIFINSKI, E. 1997. Semitic languages. Outline of a grammar. Peeters Publishers and Department of Oriental Studies, Leuven. [AA]

MACDONALD, M. C. A. 1998. Kilroy in the desert. A database of Bedouin graffiti. CSAD Newsletter 6: 3-4. [WP]

MACDONALD, M. C. A. 2000. Reflections on the linguistic map of pre-Islamic Arabia. Arab Archaeology 11: 28-79. [AA]

MCCALL, D. F. 1998. The Afroasiatic language phylum: African in origin or Asian? Current Anthropology 39: 139-140. [AA]

MENDENHALL, G. E. 1984. The Bronze Age roots of pre-Islamic Arabic. In A. M. Abdella, S. Al-Sakkar and R. Mortel (eds), Pre-Islamic Arabia. Studies in the history of Arabia, pp. 95-102. King Saud University Press, Riyadh. [AA]

MOSCATI, S. (ed.) 1964. An introduction to the comparative grammar of the Semitic languages, phonology and morphology. Otto Harrassowitz-Wiesbaden, Wurzburg. [AA]

OWENS, J. 1998. Case and froto-Arabic, Part I. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 61: 51-73. [AA]

PARR, P. J. 1984. The present state of archaeological research in the Arabian Peninsula: achievements of the past, and problems for the future. In A. M. Abdella, S. Al-Sakkar and R. Mortel (eds), Pre-Islamic Arabia. Studies in the history of Arabia, pp. 43-53. King Saud University Press, Riyadh. [AA]

PICHLER, W. 1996. Libysch-berberische Inschriften auf Fuerteventura. Almogaren 27: 7-83. [WP]

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Codex Climaci Rescriptus Touring USA

Two years ago Westminster College auctioned off the Codex Climaci Rescriptus with the help of Sotheby's. The Codex is a 6th century document and an important manuscript witness to the Greek text of the Gospels. It includes a Palestinian Aramaic Bible and Syriac works by St. John Climacus (John of the Ladder).

The codex is a 137 leaf remnant of eight separate manuscripts, six of which are in Aramaic, which have been dated to the sixth century AD.; and two of which are in Greek, which have been dated to the seventh or eighth century AD. The Aramaic sections contains significant parts of the four Gospels, as well as the Acts and Epistles, and the remains of a large volume of the Old Testament in Aramaic.

The Codex will be touring Oklahoma City, New York, and the Vatican. See the official website here:
Passages: A Worldwide Traveling Exhibition
http://explorepassages.com/

Aramaic was spoken in Palestine in Jesus' time, as was Greek. Jesus was an Aramaic speaking Palestinian.  Aramaic is closer to Arabic than to Hebrew.  It is a very old language. Compared to Arabic and Aramaic, Hebrew is a relatively new language.  All three are in the Afro-Asiatic language family.  Kushitic and Chadic languages such as Amharic and Hahm are also in this language family.

This is why one must look at both Hebrew and Arabic when studying the Old Testament.  Many misinterpretations of Old Testament passages are due to overlooking the older Arabic roots when doing translation. An example is the story of Noah's ark landing in Armenia.  The actual location is Har-Meni which is Mount Meni or Meru in East Africa. This was noted in 1874 by Godfrey Higgins in his monograph Anacalypsis: An Inquiry into the Origins of Languages, Nations and Religions. Higgins recognized that "Armenia" could mean "mount of Meru… that is, Ar or Er-Meni-ia, the country of mount Meru or Meni."  Further the word ararat is an Arabic word. It is Har-arat, meaning Mount of Vehemence, a reference to the intensity of divine judgment.

Noah lived in Africa during the late Halocene Wet Period, in the region of Lake Chad. During Noah's time, the waters of Mega-Chad extended many miles beyond the present boundaries of Lake Chad, flooding an area approximatley the same square miles as the modern nation of Sudan, Africa's largest country. Bor-nu, on the southwestern rim of the Chad Basin, means "Land of Noah." This is the only place on the surface of the Earth that claims to be biblical Noah's homeland.



Hat tip to The Ebb and Flow of Consciousness