History?

[Arpa]

History??

Says who?

There may still be some among us that will defend that 'Book of Lies" that some call the Bible. Their argument may be that if nothing else the Bible is a source of "history".

History?

Says who?

What kind of history?

We know that people write hsitory to fit their own agenda. Armenians are not altogether innocent in that department either. And now there is another people who are rewriting "history" to fit their own agenda. We will not say who they are, neither will we say where they are getting their lessons of histiography.

In that Book of Lies there is no mention of the Phoenicians, understandably, since the Phoenicians never called themselves that, the term was coined by the Greeks, "phoinikoi", the red people, (see below), in that book they are called "Canaanites" and their land -"Canaan", the land that spread from Sidon in the north to Gaza in the south ( the Gaza of today is what that book calls Philista, the Philistines)

 

I just came home and I caught part of a show on the Educational Network, a program about the Phoenicians. I found most of it a repetition of the cover story of the Natuonal Geographic feature.

Finally!

About time histoy is being treated scientifically rather than taking some peoples' biased mythological "word". I placed the preceding word in quotations to evoke : "I sksban er bar@/In the beginning was the word". Whatever that idiotic sentence is supposed to mean?

Yea!

In the beginning was the word.

Whose word?

Mine or theirs?

 

Taros@ mer patmagrutyan!!!

 

See below;

 

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature2/

 

 

We know they dominated sea trade in the Mediterranean for 3,000 years. Now DNA testing and recent archaeological finds are revealing just what the Phoenician legacy meant to the ancient world—and to our own.

 

 

 

Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.

 

"I am a Phoenician," says the young man, giving the name of a people who vanished from history 2,000 years ago. "At least I feel like I'm one of them. My relatives have been fishermen and sailors here for centuries."

 

"Good, we can use some real Phoenicians," says Spencer Wells, an American geneticist, who wraps the young man's arm in a tourniquet as they sit on the veranda of a restaurant in Byblos, Lebanon, an ancient city of stone on the Mediterranean. The young man, Pierre Abi Saad, has arrived late, eager to participate in an experiment to shed new light on the mysterious Phoenicians. He joins a group of volunteers—fishermen, shopkeepers, and taxi drivers—gathered around tables under the restaurant awning. Wells, a lanky, 34-year-old extrovert, has convinced Saad and the others to give him a sample of their blood.

 

"What will it tell you?" Saad asks.

 

"Your blood contains DNA, which is like a history book," Wells replies. "Many different people have come to Byblos over the centuries, and your blood carries traces of their DNA. It's going to tell us something about your relationships going back thousands of years."

 

Wells has no doubts about the power of the new genetic techniques he is bringing to our understanding of ancient peoples. Nor does his bespectacled colleague standing beside him on the veranda, Pierre Zalloua, a 37-year-old scientist with a dark goatee and an intense passion for his Lebanese heritage. The two men hope to find new clues to an age-old riddle: Who were the Phoenicians?

 

Although they're mentioned frequently in ancient texts as vigorous traders and sailors, we know relatively little about these puzzling people. Historians refer to them as Canaanites when talking about the culture before 1200 B.C. The Greeks called them the phoinikes, which means the "red people"—a name that became Phoenicians—after their word for a prized reddish purple cloth the Phoenicians exported. But they would never have called themselves Phoenicians. Rather, they were citizens of the ports from which they set sail, walled cities such as Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre.

 

The culture later known as Phoenician was flourishing as early as the third millennium B.C. in the Levant, a coastal region now divided primarily between Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. But it wasn't until around 1100 B.C., after a period of general disorder and social collapse throughout the region, that they emerged as a significant cultural and political force.

 

From the ninth to sixth centuries B.C. they dominated the Mediterranean Sea, establishing emporiums and colonies from Cyprus in the east to the Aegean Sea, Italy, North Africa, and Spain in the west. They grew rich trading precious metals from abroad and products such as wine, olive oil, and most notably the timber from the famous cedars of Lebanon, which forested the mountains that rise steeply from the coast of their homeland.

 

The armies and peoples that eventually conquered the Phoenicians either destroyed or built over their cities. Their writings, mostly on fragile papyrus, disintegrated—so that we now know the Phoenicians mainly by the biased reports of their enemies. Although the Phoenicians themselves reportedly had a rich literature, it was totally lost in antiquity. That's ironic, because the Phoenicians actually developed the modern alphabet and spread it through trade to their ports of call.

 

Acting as cultural middlemen, the Phoenicians disseminated ideas, myths, and knowledge from the powerful Assyrian and Babylonian worlds in what is now Syria and Iraq to their contacts in the Aegean. Those ideas helped spark a cultural revival in Greece, one which led to the Greeks' Golden Age and hence the birth of Western civilization. The Phoenicians imported so much papyrus from Egypt that the Greeks used their name for the first great Phoenician port, Byblos, to refer to the ancient paper. The name Bible, or "the book," also derives from Byblos.

 

Today, Spencer Wells says, "Phoenicians have become ghosts, a vanished civilization." Now he and Zalloua hope to use a different alphabet, the molecular letters of DNA, to exhume these ghosts.

 

Get the whole story in the pages of National Geographic magazine.

[Johannes]

Ըստ հին կտակարանի (Արփա՛, տես դարձեալ կը դիմեմ այդ գիրքին), Իսրայէլի ժողովուրդին խոստացուած Աւետեաց երկիրը քանանացիներու երկիրն էր: Եբրայեցիք* իրապէս եկան եւ նուաճեցին Քանանու երկիրը: Կային հողագործ քանանացիներ (ծովէն հեռու վայրերուն մէջ), կային եւ ծովագնաց (նախապէս՝ ձկնորս) քանանացիներ: Ծովագնացները հրչակեցան փիւնիկեցի անունով (Արիզոնայի Pheonixը Փիւնիկէ անունէն է, չէ՞): Մնալով պատմութեան սահմաններուն մէջ (առանց քաղաքականացնելու) Լիբանան անունով ճանաչուած երկիրը ճանչցուած էր որպէս Սուրիա (Սուրիայի մաս): Լիբանանը սոսկ լեռան (լեռնաշղթայի անուն էր, թէ՞ սխալ եմ): Այժմեան Սուրիայի տարածքին յայտնի քանանական (փիւնիկեան) նաւամատոյց քաղաք-չետութիւններ էին՝ Ուգարիտը Ugarit, Ամրիտը Amrit, Առադոս-Արուադ Arrados եւայլն.

 

Այժմեան Մալտացիներու լեզուն, գուցէ հին քանանացիներու լեզուէն մնացած տարրեր ունի իր մէջ:

 

*Ծանօթ.-արաբ լեզւով եբրանի կը նշանակէ՝ անցնող, այսինքն ծովը անցնող: