Things are getting really exciting. In Part 1, we found Atlantis. Plato goes out of his way to clarify that the story originated in Egypt, and that the names were translated into Greek according to their meanings. So we tracked down Atlantis’ Egyptian version, and discovered that the story of the island-kingdom was the story of Egypt’s mythological homeland, which they locate in the Atlantic near the Strait of Gibraltar.

More often than not, mythology has a kernel of truth, therefore, in Part 2 we took a look at some potential evidence that would confirm Egypt’s recollection of its ancestry. Such evidence is provided by a humble cave located on the southwest Atlantic coast of Spain overlooking precisely the Strait of Gibraltar. Its enigmatic rock art, dated several hundred years earlier than the rise of ancient Egypt, contains imagery I claim is consistent with future Egyptian iconography and hieroglyphs.  

So, if I unraveled the secrets of Atlantis and changed the historical dawn of civilization to another place and time, what could possibly be left to accomplish?  

A lot! I’m just getting started. In this post, I’d like to complete the study of the cave’s rock art. Aside from solidifying my Atlantis hypothesis, it provides precious insight into the inception of a great civilization. But this cave is by no means the only remnant of Egyptian ancestry on the Atlantic seaboard. We’ll address some other fascinating evidence in combination with recent archaeological discoveries, all of which will add up to yet another awesome historical surprise.

AN ANCIENT STORY UNRAVELS

Imagine living several thousand years ago and stumbling upon a modern book of Romeo and Juliette. English did not exist nor the alphabet we know today. You’d look at the squiggles on the pages, probably with a blank face, unable to fathom for a moment the intense love story they tell. The same applies to the strange strokes on the walls of Laja Alta Cave. Dated to ca. 4000 BC, it’s difficult for the untrained eye to gauge the extraordinary story they tell; that of peoples who had mastered the waves and winds, who pondered about life and death, able to organize for elaborate funerary rituals, and build temples. But most impressive of all, we know this because they developed a time machine, a code of communication able to transmit information through a time-tunnel 6000 years-long; the same code that would become one of the most enthralling archives of human historical records, the Egyptian Hieroglyphs; and the precursor to the precise alphabet that one day would bring Romeo and Juliette to life. Thus is the vital importance of this unassuming cave.

In Part 2, we focused on the boats. We learned they looked a whole lot like future Egyptian papyrus boats, and that they seemed to be performing a religious or funerary procession, as would become common practice later in Egypt. We also discovered that the square with the flag on its corner, image #29, was suspiciously identical to the future temple-hieroglyph, and that Egyptian temples indeed housed sacred boats (sacred barks), like image #30, in their inner sanctuaries.

Now, let’s find out if this iconography is merely a cosmic coincidence or a solid pattern of evidence.
​
IMAGE #1 – THE CELESTIAL FERRYMAN

Now, if like me, you look at it from an Egyptian perspective, its intended message suddenly becomes vaguely comprehensible.

In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a person holding something can represent, among other things, an occupation or a task defined by the item or tool being held. A good example would be a man holding an oar, which defines a sailor or the action of sailing. It makes sense; there is a logical link between the image and what it signifies. However, there are other hieroglyphs that evolved into codes; symbols that represent ideas (ideograms), words (logograms) or sounds (phonograms) beyond or unrelated to its image. For example, a quail chick does not represent a quail chick but rather the semi-vowel w/u. The two types of hieroglyphs coexisted.

So going back to image #1, we see that the human figure is not a “realistic” image, nor is it actually holding the item. Rather the composition seems to have evolved into a schematic construct with the focus on the arm, purposely positioned to overlap the item. This evolution is not yet complete though. Let's take a look at the finished product.

​I must stress the extreme importance of this detail and what it implies. On one hand, if I’m right, it would be a priceless piece of archaeological evidence of the birth of an Egyptian hieroglyph. Second, let’s put it in chronological perspective: Egyptian hieroglyphs were considered a comprehensive written language as of ca. 3100 BC, whereas image #1 is dated to ca. 4000 BC. This not only relocates the birth of hieroglyphs to the other side of the Mediterranean, which we have already discussed, but furthermore, it actually confirms they developed earlier and independently from the Sumerian cuneiform script. And this is beyond priceless, it’s huge! You see: Both Egypt and Sumer (Mesopotamia) are considered the cradles of civilization in the traditional sense*, largely due to their invention of writing. Though hieroglyphs and the cuneiform script are very different, both appeared roughly at the same time in relatively close geographical proximity. Consequently, it is inevitable to suspect that one influenced or, at least, inspired the rise of the other.

​Note: Evidence of proto-writing, in general, understood as a physical form of a language, has been around for tens of thousands of years. It consisted largely of markings displaying some basic patterns repeated across different supports such as cave paintings or mobile artifacts like carved bones. To date, the oldest of such ‘painted markings’ has been found in Spain in the Cave of the Castle, in Cantabria and is dated to 40,000+ years ago. The oldest engraved marking is 70,000+ years old from Blombos Cave, South Africa. I recommend anthropologist Genevieve von Petsinger’s book, The First Signs, on this subject.

Back to image #1, what might it mean? Since it is in a transitional phase, there’s a good chance the meaning is still somewhat related to the image, and in keeping with the cave’s funerary boat theme, I think it is reasonable to identify the mysterious item as an oar or a rudder. Consequently, the human figure would be a sailor or steersman. However, its evolved construct tells us there has to be more to it, otherwise a realistic depiction of a human figure holding an oar would have been sufficient. Let’s cut to the chase, I think I know what it is:

In Egyptian funerary lore there is an important figure that fits the bill: the Celestial Ferryman. He was the steersman of the papyrus boat that carried the dead to the afterlife. In later Egyptian funerary texts, the journey became somewhat complex with a list of spells that had to be uttered for save passage. In this more ancient cave, his presence might simply be a symbolic well-wish of safe travel to the deceased for whom the boat procession is being performed. 

MORE HIEROGLYPHS AND SOME ENIGMATIC FINDINGS
​
Don’t worry; we will not be interpreting every stroke, circle and dot on the cave wall. I’ll leave that for the book. For the remainder of this post, I’ve selected three more images, #5, #6 & #7, because I think they make excellent samples of the tremendous amount of information a stroke, circle and dot can contain. Found together in the upper, right side of the cave, at first sight they seem to be placed side-by-side intentionally to form a grouping of sorts, but they weren’t, at least not initially. You see, technology is a wonderful thing. Dr. García Alonso’s team, when dating the cave, also performed a spectroradiometric analysis on 34 of the figures in order to obtain a spectral signature of their pigment and its binder.

Figures #5, #6 and #7 present different signatures. In fact, it’s evident at plain sight. If you take a close look at the real picture, you’ll notice the arrow’s pigment, image #7, clearly differs from the other two. Interestingly, what the spectral analysis also tells us is they each match up with other figures in the cave, making their interpretation all the more interesting.

IMAGE #5 – GOD ATUM?

I admit this one is a little uncertain. Its spectral signature pairs the sun up with boats #22, #23 and #30. Curiously, of all the boats, these three happen to be the most faithful representations of a sacred bark. #22 is an accurate reproduction of a papyrus boat (the traditional depiction of a sacred bark); #23 depicts a sacred bark ferried as one would be in a procession, and #30 was framed —at a different time— with a temple hieroglyph, converting it into to the ultimate sacred bark. 
​

So how does the sun add value to this iconography? Here is my hunch: If you recall, according to Shu’s version of Creation, his father, God Atum, rises (as if Poseidon) from the waters of chaos (the Atlantic Ocean) to stand upon the original mound (Atlantis?) to birth his first pair of twins, the eldest being Shu (as was Atlas). God Atum happens to be a solar deity, and the oldest Egyptian one at that. The Egyptian religion was eminently a solar religion, and over time the sun was worshiped under several aspects. God Ra, competing with Amun, Khepri, and Aten, eventually took over as the more prominent solar deity representing the sun born anew in the East and/or high in the sky at noon. Atum, however, retained for himself without competition an exclusive relationship with the West as the setting sun. Over three thousand years of Egyptian history, that is quite an accomplishment, denoting the profound meaning this must have borne. 

However, I should also point out that Atum was never depicted in the form of an actual sun as we see in the cave, but rather in a human form with the traits of a king (more like Poseidon was in Atlantis). Could this mean that the sun evolved into an anthropomorphic royal figure a thousand years later? Or is the cave depiction of the sun something else altogether? This one, I can’t answer yet.  

Let’s move on to the next image. It is more conclusive and exciting, to say the least.  

IMAGE #6 – GOD’S HOUSE
​
I love this one. Not only because it is clearly another priceless proto-hieroglyph, but because it should erase any doubts still harbored they are precursors to future hieroglyphs.

​So what we have in Spain are two synonyms for “temple” depicted exactly as both would also be depicted hundreds of years later in Egypt! That can be no coincidence.  

IMAGE #7 - MYSTERIOUS ARROWS EVERYWHERE

Let’s remember what I’m attempting to do here. I am trying to prove that Atlantis existed, that it was located on the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula, and that its peoples may have been the ancestors of ancient Egypt. With this in mind, please note what Plato tells us about the vast geographical domain of the ‘mythical’ Atlantis:

“Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.” -Timaeus

If you recall from Part 1, the term ‘Island’ (nesos) in Greek could mean any land surrounded totally or partially by water, so the reference to ‘the whole island’ in this instance could be referring to the whole Iberian Peninsula for all we know (e.g.: Peloponnesus, Island of Pelops, is a Greek peninsula). Think about it, this passage makes more sense if it read: “... this island of Atlantis... which had rule over the whole peninsular... and over parts of the continent (rest of Europe)...”

Please bear in mind that this confusion with the term ‘island’ seemed to be a common thing in those days. In Egyptian, ‘island’ could even stand for foreign land, and the same applies in Hebrew. In the Bible, the term ‘isles’ is translated as ‘islands’, ‘coasts’, or ‘nations’ depending on the passage.  As for Libya, in those days it referred to the entirety of North Africa from Egypt to the Atlantic, and Tyrrenia meant Italy.

In sum, Plato is telling us that Atlantis dominated a large part of the European continent, and its tentacles reached well into the Mediterranean (within the columns of Heracles=Strait of Gibraltar) as far east as Egypt to the south and Italy to the north. This information is of extreme importance and relevance to our cause, because there is indeed a mysterious Atlantic civilization that fits this geographic description exactly, and the link between it and Atlantis is provided to us by our unsuspecting arrow, image #7. It’s amazing the amount of information a simple arrow can pack!

​There is an ample variety of schematic figures, but regarding the anchors specifically, and despite their abundance, little is known about them other than they tend to appear in a funerary context coinciding with the rise of the megalithic culture (builders of massive stone structures) in Western Europe. 

​This map is part of a paper published by Dr. Bettina Schulz Paulsson as recently as February 2019. It is the result of a comprehensive ‘statistical’ study of 2,410 European megaliths (out of 35,000+); a praiseworthy enterprise that was way overdue. A few things were surmised from it. These peoples had a cohesive culture since the settings and designs of the megaliths were similar when not identical, but distinct from the Near East tradition. They must have been knowledgeable seafarers with a vast trade network. And Brittany, France, was identified as the original source due to the high concentration —in numbers and age— of megalithic and pre-megalithic structures in the region. With this last conclusion, I respectfully digress. The purely ‘statistical’ analysis warps a fundamental fact: The oldest megaliths are not in France. There are, in general, three types of stone monuments —the single standing stone (menhir or monolith); circles of standing stones (cromlech); and burials made of massive stones (dolmens)—, and it just so happens that the oldest one of each type is found on the southwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula. A menhir in Portugal is older than the oldest French ones by three thousand years (that’s three zeros, three times over). 

*Update 05/03/2019 – According to a paper published on June 12, 2018 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), genetic studies indicate that there was either a population replacement or an important genetic influx into Morocco from Iberia through the Strait of Gibraltar between 5000 and 3000 BC.

Until now we’ve studied evidence located in the west that foreshadowed the advent of another great civilization in the East. And trust me, there is plenty more, but I’ll be wrapping it up with evidence located in the East. 

​The pictures on the left were taken in two other caves not far from image #7 on the Mediterranean side of the Strait of Gibraltar. As mentioned earlier, anchor-forms proliferated on the Iberian Peninsula as of the 5th millennia, usually in a funerary context, and more often than not near or engraved in dolmens.

The image on the right belongs to a dolmen found as recently as 2015 on the other side of the Mediterranean, in the Golan Heights of Israel. There are hundreds of them in the Middle East, most dated around 2000 BC, and believed to derive from the regional stone tradition. But this one dolmen has stabbed a wrench into the traditional thought. It is the only one in all the Middle East containing art, and that art just so happens to be a bunch of anchors engraved on the stone lid. But there’s more.

​I trust you have picked up on how recent most of the archaeological findings are. And just today, I read of yet another exciting discovery that furthers my case.  Stay tuned, there is much more to come!

In part 1, we succeeded in taking the first step to resolving a basic yet fundamental clue to finding Atlantis. According to Plato, its story originated in Egypt, where his ancestor Solon heard of it from Egyptian Priests. Solon took note, but in doing so translated the names from Egyptian to Greek according to their “meaning”. So knowing that Atlantis Nesos means ‘Island of Atlas’, we reverse-translated it back to an equivalent meaning in Egyptian with hopes of tracking down a more familiar alternate place-name in ancient texts. 

We succeeded, but first we were confronted with a disconcerting realization: While the Greek God Atlas indeed has an Egyptian counterpart, God Shu, who does in fact give name to a certain place, it became abundantly clear that the story of Atlantis shared many key elements with the story of Shu beyond his name.  And since Shu is one of ancient Egypt’s gods of Creation, Atlantis turned out to be —at least in part— the Greek version of one of Egypt’s most important Creation stories; meaning in sum, that for the Egyptians, Atlantis was the mythological homeland of their divine ancestors.

Despite this hiccup, we curtailed our discouragement. It wouldn’t be the first time a “real” place was anointed with mythical trappings. Therefore, we pushed forward with our translation and found that ‘Island of Atlas’ equated in meaning to ‘Divine Land of God Shu in the Great Waters of the West’, otherwise pronounced Ta.Shu.sh. We also found that the translation produced a domino effect: The Egyptian Ta.Shu.sh converted accurately to the Phoenician Tarshish, which in turn is believed to be related to the Greek Tartessos. In other words, we found, not one, but two more familiar alternate place-names to Atlantis. Our reverse-translation had provided us with the missing link --Ta.Shu.sh-- that connected them all and, additionally, pinned them down to the Atlantic coast of southwest Spain. 

Still, the enigma is not entirely resolved. Was an island or land mass off the Atlantic coast of Spain named after Egypt’s mythological homeland because the “real” location matched the “mythological” one, or was this Atlantic location truly the land of Egypt’s ancestors remembered through mythology? 

My task in this Part 2 delivery will be to supply evidence toward supporting the latter: That Atlantis did exist and that it was indeed an advanced civilization who spread its influence eastward contributing, maybe-possibly, to the rise of Egypt.

ATLANTIS BY ANY OTHER NAME…

Consolidating the archaeological Tartessos with the mythical Tartessos (aka Atlantis) will be a challenge, despite the fact that Tartessos has been a leading candidate for Atlantis from the beginning. The region has only been under serious scientific scrutiny for a few decades, and what has been uncovered so far limits the scope of its evidence to the peak period of Phoenician presence in the area (8th - 5th century BC). Aside from the awkwardness of a Greek name defining a Phoenician period, what is truly a shame is that this narrow scholarly image of Tartessos conflicts sharply with the more grandiose picture described in early historical texts. You see, in addition to the Egyptian mythological view, for the Greeks and Romans Tartessos was a legendary, wealthy and advanced land full of wonders; for the Phoenicians and Assyrians it was a trade goldmine, while in the Old Testament, Tarshish is repeatedly referenced as a political and religious haven.

I feel we have a naming problem that is thwarting Tartessos’ full potential, especially when most archaeologists don’t want to hear about its mythical side. Maybe they should rename their line of research the “Phoenician Period” to allow the legendary Tartessos space to be discovered. It is going to need it. Every day new amazing findings upend what was known until the day before, and if what I will show you next is accurate, history is about to change dramatically.

Be as it may, I will not keep you waiting any longer. As promised in Part 1, I present you…

THE “WELCOME TO ATLANTIS” SIGN

​It’s a cave painting, and in it we will find the clues that certify the region as the land of Egypt’s origins, Atlantis.

Not impressed? Please bear with me. The real panel is extremely weathered, so I will be working off this sketch for convenience. However, you will get a chance to appreciate the real images as I talk you through them, and once I’m done, I promise you’ll be blown away!

About the Cave Panel

Therefore, the cave panel is “technically” located on the spot where the Western Pillar of Shu would have stood (otherwise known as the Pillars of Heracles by the Greeks, Pillars or Melqart by the Phoenicians, and Pillars of Hercules by the Romans). Leaving aside the crucial importance of its location in relation to our quest, if there is one thing I want you to remember is that this cave art has been dated to ca. 4,000 BC, meaning it is at least 6,000 years old, on the minimum side. To put this in perspective, please note:

1. When we think of ancient Egypt, we think of the United Kingdom that dawned as a state under King Narmer (1st Dynasty) in 3,100 BC. The above cave art is almost a thousand years older.
2. Also, the oldest hieroglyphs found so far (in a tomb in Abydos, Egypt), are dated to 3,250 BC. So, let’s say I was to identify hieroglyphs in the cave panel… they would be at least 700 years older. 

You see where I’m going? This —at first— not-so-impressive cave art is located 2,265 miles away on the other side of the Mediterranean exactly where Egyptian mythology locates their original land, Atlantis, and it just so happens to contain ‘Egyptian’ iconography that predates Egypt itself by hundreds, if not thousands of years*...

*Most of the figures are red, while a few are black. Only the black ones had enough traces of organic material for carbon-dating, and since they were found placed over the reds ones, it is logically surmised that the red images are older. How much older is hard to say. The project was led by Dr. Eduardo Garcia Alonso in 2013-2014, while his paper, linked here, was publish as recently as 2018. So somewhere a scholar is just now connecting the same dots I am, because until this stunning dating, this cave art was thought to belong to the “Phoenician Period” (three thousand years later!). As I said earlier, every day there are new discoveries that upend what we knew the day before. 

To us what matters —for now— in our search for Atlantis, is what the different images mean, and it’s implication in view of its relative dating with regards to ancient Egypt. We’ll start with the centerpiece of the composition:

​The Boats

There are 8 boats, maybe 9 (#23 looks like two?). Concentrated in the most prominent spot of the cave, their variety in style is phenomenal for its time, chiefly because the new dating makes the 6 ones with sail the oldest sailboat depictions in the world! (Please let that sink in.)

To be clear, humans have been navigating for tens of thousands of years all over the globe using canoes, rafts, whatnot. Heck, even ants know how to use a leaf to cross a river. So conquering bodies of water, large or small, is not the feat. Building sails and their associated technical structures, understanding winds and finding evidence of it —in the least expected place— is the feat. Until now, the invention of the sail was conscribed to the East around the late 4th millennia BC; some credit the Sumerians, others credit the Egyptians. So this unassuming panel proves that sails were well in use much earlier, by hundreds of years, elsewhere: the far West. And they are not the only ones. The Iberian Peninsula is spotted with many rock paintings or petroglyphs depicting sailboats. In fact, there is a particular scene in another cave dated even earlier than the one analyzed here, which I believe contains sailboats. (I’ll share it with you in due time, and trust me, it will blow your mind for good reason.)

For now, I’ll focus on two crucial elements seen on the boats of this cave: one is their high curled stern, common to all them, and the other is the flagged-square frame #29, unique to boat #30.

Again, their variety is impressive: some have sails, others have oars, and three have both. But the one thing they all have in common is the elevated stern. That common feature telltales a few things: One, they pertain to a particular group of people, not an international port (unless everyone was a copycat – could be). Also, since all the boats are painted with the stern on the right (except for maybe #28), it would seem to indicate they are headed in the same direction as if in a procession. Finally, it also helps identify a specific group of people via association... For there is one other place with depictions of that same style of boat… in a procession formation… and squares with flags: Egypt.

Egypt’s way of life, and sheer survival, revolved around the Nile river, so as early as the 4th millennia (3,500 BC-3,100 BC), on its shores, a variety of watercrafts start to pop up in petroglyphs, tomb paintings and pottery. The scenes appear to be funerary or religious in nature. Interestingly, the oldest Egyptian tomb painting (ca. 3,200 BC – Pre-dynastic) is precisely a religious boat procession:

The boats on this mural are believed to be symbolic ritualistic river boats. You’ll notice one stands out in color and shape: the black boat with a high stern. It’s understood to represent the deceased’s sacred bark. The lack of other means of transportation at the time (no chariots yet), and their dependence on the Nile, had ancient Egyptians believe that gods travelled in boats in the afterlife, and that their leaders required one to join them there. Such boats were known as sacred barks, and real models were made for temples and tombs during later periods.
​
As for everyday transportation or fishing, boats were initially made of papyrus reeds raised and bound together at the ends. Their hulls were fragile, thus limited to the Nile at first, but there is evidence of sails added as early as the late pre-dynastic period. This is the type you see in the Spanish cave. If you take a close look at sailboat #22 below, you’ll notice vertical lines on the hull, redolent of bounded reeds. 

​This beckons the question: How is it then possible to find similar boats performing a similar ritual in a cave, on the other side of the Mediterranean, and dated hundreds of years earlier? And how can I be sure they are related specifically to Egypt in the first place? After all, Sumerians built reed boats as well, and there is some tentative evidence they were sailing the Arabian Sea sooner than the Egyptians ventured into the Red or Mediterranean Seas.

​​This is where item #30, the square frame with the flag on its corner, comes in.

In the following illustration, I provide an example of Goddess Hathor’s hieroglyph, which is in reality a combination of two. 

However, please notice how, rather than placed side-by-side, the hieroglyph of Horus was put inside the temple-hieroglyph, in staying true to how images of gods and goddesses were indeed found in shrines, inside temples. Since Hathor was the name of a goddess, the hieroglyphic construct was fitting.
​
In line with this symbolic construct, going back to figures #29 and #30, I identify a sacred bark inside a temple. Particularly, regarding the flagged-frame, in Egypt, flagpoles (netjer) were symbolic of the divine and stood at the entrance of temples (hut). Consequently, a temple was more specifically known as hut-netjer, “divine enclosure” or “god’s palace”, and its hieroglyph was just that: the enclosure-hieroglyph plus the flagpole-hieroglyph.

Then, as for the boat inside the temple, we also saw earlier how gods were believed to travel in the afterlife on sacred barks. For this reason, models of sacred barks were placed in the most holy space within the temple, the holy-of-holies, next to the shrine of the god. So, in essence, what I see in our humble cave is a symbolic and/or proto-hieroglyphic image of a temple with its divine flag to denote it is in fact a temple, and containing the scared bark just as real Egyptian temples would hundreds of years later.
​
It’s difficult to know if the rock art portrays a real temple near the strait. What I can say is that, coincidentally, “Gades (Gadir)” just so happens to means “enclosure” and was purportedly founded and named by the Phoenicians (ca. 1100 BC) who are credited with building a renown temple there (legend has it that even Julio Caesar visited it once). I just wonder if the temple was already there long before the Phoenicians set up shop... 

​But there’s more: Let’s not forget the Egyptian-like boat procession next to it.​ Sacred barks were indeed carried out into the public during annual religious celebrations.

* There is another image I also identify as a proto-hieroglyph —discussed in Part 3— that may confirm it is indeed the Celestial Ferryman. ​

​To finish up, I’d like to share one more example of a boat procession, but this time related to a deceased Pharaoh. We earlier saw a similar representation in Tomb 100 believed to belong to a pre-dynastic leader. The following picture is that of a subterranean enclosure found recently in Egypt that held a real-life model of a sacred bark. The royal boat burial is part of a large complex where there was also a mortuary temple. Dated to 1850 BC, its walls were engraved with hundreds of boats; some with sails, others with oars, and some with both... 

​The similarities between the two Egyptian tomb scenes and the Spanish cave art are remarkable. Can it be a mere coincidence? And what if I told you that scenes like these with several boats in procession were rare? So much so, that the three I have shared with you on this post are the only three known to exist. That’s it. No more like them in other Egyptian tombs or in other Spanish caves, or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

Think about it, the two Egyptian scenes were concealed out-of-sight in royal tombs. And please bear in mind that hieroglyphs were the exclusive domain of professional scribes. Yet we have a much older scene on the other side of the Mediterranean foreshadowing such elite iconography with uncanny accuracy, while at the same time containing glyphs suspiciously similar to future hieroglyphs…
​
Well, this was but a teaser. In Atlantis, Lost in Translation - Part 3, we'll see more hieroglyphs, unravel some of the other intriguing images, and discuss more recent archaeological findings which, when brought together, will draw a historical surprise you can’t even begin to imagine…

The whereabouts of Atlantis has been debated for over 2,400 years, and every single one of its tantalizing descriptors have been analyzed inside out to confirm or deny its existence or, more conveniently, have been cherry-picked, tweaked or neglected to suit a potential location. The result is an army of true believers devoted to scouting every corner of the Earth to find it; a number of authors who make up nonsense because it sells; and then there are the exasperated scholars who roll their eyes at its sole mention.

So what possibly could I add to the discussion?

How about a translation that will settle the whole thing once and for all? Indeed, Plato tells us that the story of Atlantis originated in Egypt, and all the names except for one (major clue!) were translated from Egyptian to Greek.

Consequently, for all the hoopla around Atlantis, all it takes is a reverse-translation of its name, and --bingo!-- you have a more familiar name of a real place that was right there all along. You’d be shocked how few have tried…

INTRODUCTIONS FIRST: ATLANTIS ACCORDING TO PLATO 

Plato was a Classical Greek philosopher*. Esteemed pivotal thinker of Western science and politics, it’s believed he was born around 425 BC in Athens to a rich and influential family. Plato was a student of one of the greatest sages of his time, Socrates; a follower of a logic-based genius, Pythagoras; and teacher to an equal brainiac, Aristotle.

*Until Greek philosophy came about, the world was generally understood in terms of mythology, that is, gods explained everything. Even when brilliant astronomical observations were being made by the likes of the Sumerians, or geometry and medicine mastered by Egyptians, there was always a heavy divine or magical component to it. The greatest contribution of the Greek philosophers was to create a new frame of thinking by which the natural world could also be understood in terms of logic. That is not to say they detached themselves from the divine overnight —far from it—, but they did pave the way to the scientific method. In Plato’s case, though he first and foremost favored logic, he also embraced the value of story-telling for educational purposes. Sometimes he resorted to existing mythological traditions and other times he outright made stories up, yet he was rarely deceptive about it. Regarding Atlantis, Plato insists repeatedly he did not make it up. Scholars argue he did.

Plato generally presented his philosophy in the form of a dialogue among real-life characters who layout their thinking in a discussion that ultimately combine to define his own.

One of the philosopher’s most recognizable and acclaimed dialogues is the Republic, written around 380 BC, in which —through Socrates— Plato lays out the ideals of a perfect social organization and state. Approximately 20 years later, he follows-up with a three-part dialogue in which he attempts to make the case for his ideal state by presenting a real-life example that showcases how, when confronted with a conflict, his perfect social organization efficiently prevails. The conversation is envisioned as if taking place the next day to the Republic between four participants: Socrates on one hand, whose role is now to listen as the wise teacher and, on the other, Timaeus, Critias, and Hermocrates, who do all the talking. 

Accordingly, the primary sources of Atlantis are Plato’s Timaeus and Critias. All other mentions thereafter are in reference to these two dialogues.

Note: Prior to Plato there are a few instances in Greek literature in which the word Atlantis is used, since it means ‘of Atlas’. For example, in Greek mythology, the god Atlas has seven daughters, the Pleiades, who are referred to as the daughters ‘of Atlas’. Plato employs the term in conjunction with island, Atlantis nesos, thus coming to mean ‘Island of Atlas’.

So what does Plato tell us about Atlantis?

Summarizing greatly, he describes a sort of island or land surrounded by water, located somewhere on the Atlantic side of the Pillars of Heracles (Strait of Gibraltar). The land initially belongs to the God Poseidon, who builds two navigable, concentric moats to protect the central section, which results in the iconic target-like island we’ve come to associate with the lost kingdom. Poseidon reserves the central portion for his lovely human-wife Cleito and himself, and builds upon it their palace and temples. Together they have five sets of male twins who eventually inherit the land and go on to create an advanced, wealthy, and satisfied civilization. But over time —as their divine DNA dilutes away— their descendants degenerate into a greedy confederation until, sometime around 11,000 years ago, it tries to take over the Mediterranean. Athens, standing valiantly alone for all “who dwell within the pillars”, puts an end to that. Finally, a series of “violent earthquakes and floods” has Atlantis sink into the waters of bygone, leaving behind an “impassable and impenetrable]…[shoal of mud” where it once stood.

Without even going into the rest of extravagant details that contribute to Atlantis’ appeal, already, if only because of the mythology and the extreme dating, you can see why serious scholars roll their eyes. But then, in the same breath, Plato also says that Athens was founded at the same time by the Goddess Athena, and no one doubts Athens exists. The reality is that everyone in ancient times (and one could argue still today), claimed to descend from the gods, and resorted to exaggeration and embellishment to exalt their nation’s power and the deeds of their leaders. Not to mention… one is all the greater in victory, the greater the enemy.

In any case, this portion of Critias where Atlantis is described, together with the part specific to its introduction in Timaeus, are the narrow focus of anyone interested in finding the lost island. Timaeus’ creation and nature of the world is discarded as distinct and irrelevant. That is a gross error, and later we’ll see why.

First, the name translation…

CRITIAS PROVIDES THE CRUCIAL CLUE

​The title character of the second dialogue, Critias, was a relative of Plato from his mother’s side. It is not clear which one, since there are three generations of uncles who carried the same name. Regardless, the point is that, through Critias, Plato is telling us he heard the story of Atlantis from his family. It turns out that the philosopher was related several generations back to none other than Solon, one of the Seven Sages of Greece and reputed statesmen who set the foundations for democracy. Plato tells us that it was his ancestor Solon who visited Sais in Egypt and learned of Atlantis from Egyptian priests there. Since Athens is the heroine of the story, for obvious patriotic reasons, Solon took interest in the tale and intended to share it back home in one of his poems. He never got around to it, but the notes he took were purportedly handed down through the family until reaching Plato.

Scholars agree it is indeed likely Solon traveled to Egypt around 590 BC. It was in fact common for educated Greeks to do so, because roughly between 1200 BC and 800 BC, Greece went through a tragic Dark Age as part of the Bronze Age Collapse that affected all the civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean. Greece was one of the hardest hit, and its collapse was so severe, that the once great Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC regressed pretty much back to illiteracy. Only Egypt survived, becoming the repository of history and knowledge for the region. (Mesopotamian wisdom also survived, though overshadowed by internal regional turmoil). Therefore, when Greece bounced back into writing around the 8th century BC, it looked to Egypt to relearn everything, including its own history. This is precisely the reason that, apart from Solon, renowned philosophers such as Pythagoras (and maybe even Plato) scheduled a trip to Egypt in their lifetime. It also explains why Greece’s philosophy and mythology are for the most part rooted in that of Egypt; though please note there is ample Mesopotamian influence too. The wise men of Greece were like human sponges absorbing all the knowledge they could, and then regurgitated it in an enlightened form.

​But back to Atlantis: In the dialogue, when Critias, following the description of ancient Athens, moves on to dissect the marvels of Atlantis, he starts by telling us something extraordinary in the sense of how vital it is to truly understanding the enigma of the lost kingdom in the first place: 

The crucial clue is that Solon didn’t simply adjust a foreign name to Greek pronunciation, like say ‘London’ becomes Londres in Spanish. He enquired about its meaning, and then translated the meaning into Greek. It’s no wonder we can’t find Atlantis in other historical records. Take my name for instance: If you were to translate its “meaning” into English, it would be Expensive Victory. Good luck finding me online under that author name.

So let us give it a try. We’ll start by reversing Atlantis’ name back to an equivalent Egyptian meaning, and see from there if we can identify a more familiar name. 

FROM GREEK BACK TO EGYPTIAN

Atlantis means ‘of Atlas’, and it was so named because, when Poseidon partitioned his territory into 10 portions to distribute among his 10 twins, Atlas, being the eldest, received the central island or capital, which then was named after him. Interestingly, this means that of the three rings we’ve all come to envision as Atlantis, in reality, only the central section was. The rest went to Atlas’ brothers, and only one other portion is referenced by name, that of Atlas’ twin Gadeirus, who receives:

“…the extreme of the island towards the pillars of Heracles, facing the country which is now called the region of Gades in that part of the world,”

​This is probably a good time to confess that we actually do not need to translate anything in order to know the location of Atlantis. Plato tells us short of providing GPS coordinates, which you wouldn’t know from all the scouting going on. You see, as with Atlas, his brother’s lot was also named after him, but, unlike with Atlas, his brother’s name went on to identify the adjoining region ‘in that part of the world’. Gades is therefore the only name not translated, since Plato clarifies that the region is “now called” by that name. Let’s cut to the chase: There is indeed a well-documented Gades in that part of the world. Gadeirus/Gades is the Greek/Roman name for Gadir, a trade post turned colony, founded by the Phoenicians around the 11th century BC. Today it is known as Cadiz, a city-capital on an island in the south of Spain, located on the Atlantic side of the Strait of Gibraltar. 

Could Plato have been any more specific? He places Atlantis outside the Pillars of Heracles next door to Gades. In other words, on the Atlantic coastline of southwest Spain; a region that was well-known for centuries, if not millennia before Plato for its wealth in metals. The Phoenicians knew the area as Tarshish, while the Greeks knew it as Tartessos. Curiously, the “historical” Greeks did not setup their shop in the vicinity until shortly after Solon’s visit to Sais, at which time Tartessos started to pop up in their records. By Plato’s time, the Carthaginians had overtaken the Western Mediterranean, kicking Tartessos off the records. This may explain why neither Solon nor Plato made the connection between Atlantis and Tartessos. Personally, I think there is another reason, which I address later. 

Be that as it may, Tartessos has been a prime Atlantis contender from the beginning, and recent geological and archaeological findings support it:

• The coastline has suffered some serious size earthquakes and tsunamis resulting in massive sediment changes. For instance, the large and once navigable lake/harbor Lacus Ligustinos (see map) no longer exists. It is now an “impassible and impenetrable” natural reserve of protected marshes and sand dunes (shoals of mud) called Doñana National Park. Unfortunately, due to its wetland nature, it presents insurmountable challenges for archaeological excavation with current technology.
• The area is also spotted with some of the world’s most ancient megaliths and stone structures, some laid out in concentric formations understood to be sophisticated calendars, which would underscore the association of its inhabitants with concentric rings and an advanced civilization, while supporting Plato’s extreme dating of Atlantis. 

What has not yet been found is a slam-dunk, smoking-gun piece of evidence akin to a Welcome to Atlantis sign… Until, that is, I came along. I, in fact, have two amazing pieces of evidence, maybe even three… 

​​Since the translation is one of them, let’s get back to it.

​In Greek mythology, Atlas was a titan punished to hold up the heavens for attempting to take over the dominion of the universe. 

It’s important to remember that we are translating meanings not sounds, and by identifying Atlas’ counterpart in Egyptian mythology, the hope is to find a land named after Shu that will ring familiar. Unfortunately, we get more than bargained for. In taking a look at Shu’s story, we discover that beyond the gods, many of the elements in the Atlantis story also equate suspiciously with many of the elements in Shu’s story. Not an auspicious sign if you are hoping to find a real place. I’ll show you what I mean:

Shu was one of the primordial gods of Egypt, meaning he was one of the initial gods of Creation. Each major Egyptian city had its own tweaked version of Creation, but in general it went something like this: In the beginning there was nothing but the primeval waters of chaos (identified by the Egyptians as the Atlantic Ocean) from which rose the first mound (Atlantis?). On this mound, the first creator god (like Poseidon), seeking order, went on to have a line of descendants formed by pairs of twins to help him. Shu (like Atlas) was the eldest and personified the air, while his twin sister Tefnut personified moister/water. Together they had a pair of twins of their own: Geb, the earth, and Nut, the sky, who loved each other so much they lived in a perpetual embrace. (Geb and Nut had two sets of twins: Osiris and Isis, Seth and Nephthys). However, for there to be human life on earth, Shu (air) separated Nut (the sky) from her brother Geb (the earth) by raising her body up, forming a dome of sorts, the starry heavens. ​

Sometimes, Shu was assisted in holding his daughter up by pillars, the Pillars of Shu, and like Atlas, stood in the far west as denoted by the emblem of the west seen in above illustration (in the white ovals). In fact, Shu’s association with the west was so strong his feather was incorporated into the emblem of the west itself (remember this).
​
For now we are confronted with an uncomfortable question: Is Atlantis no more than Plato’s fanciful Greek version of Egypt’s cosmogony (creation of the world)? Before I answer this question, it gets worse. You see, here is where Timaeus’ creation of the world comes in, and why earlier I said it was a gross error to regard it irrelevant in relation to Atlantis. Plato’s idea of Creation, as told in Timaeus, sounds a whole lot like the ‘logical’ version of Shu’s story. It’s almost as if Plato took the Egyptian mythological Creation and split it into two versions: a logical ‘logos’ version for Timaeus, and a story-telling ‘mythos’ version for Critias. 

​As a true follower of Pythagoras, who believed that nature could be understood in mathematical terms, Plato imbues his creation story with a lot of very complicated geometry, which I will spare you. 

Let me just say as an example, he believes that the four elements are made of atom-size triangles, and in how the elements relate to each other with regards to their geometrical composition is suspiciously similar to how Shu (air) and Tefnut (water) relate to their father Atum (fire). We’ll leave it there, but I trust you get the picture.

There is a silver lining, however. The correlations between Timaeus’ Creation and Critias’ story of Atlantis would seem to confirm that Plato did not make it up, but rather received it as part of a much larger package of Egyptian lore. 

To further make this point —this is important— let me share one more piece of notable coincidence. Egypt’s divine creators are chiefly associated with the sun except for one, who rises above the rest as the demiurge par excellence: a woman, the Goddess Neith, who weaves creation into being. She also happens to be the patron goddess (and founder) of Sais where Solon heard the story of Atlantis. Goddess Neith was one of the most ancient gods of Egypt, and since Sais was the capital of Lower Egypt, her symbols (the bee and the red crown) were incorporated into the iconography that went on to represent the United Kingdom of Egypt as well. In other words, she is not just any Goddess. Well, coincidently again, her Greek counterpart just so happens to be Athena, as in the patron goddess (and founder) of Athens; a connection strongly emphasized in Timaeus, by the way. It makes one wonder how much of Athens’ victory against Atlantis wasn’t in reality another ‘name-meaning-translation’ of a victory belonging to Sais. Because, coincidently yet again, it was Egypt who valiantly stood alone to save the Mediterranean in a battle against a formidable confederation of Sea Peoples that brought the Eastern Civilizations to their knees… leading to the infamous Bronze Age Collapse and Greek’s Dark Ages. Egypt left us an iconic image of its greatest battle known as the Battle of the Delta; the Delta being where Sais is located.

There is a good historical possibility that Plato visited Heliopolis in Egypt (the go-to education center in his time) as did Pythagoras. Heliopolis is also the center for Atum-Shu’s version of Creation. My personal hunch is that Plato picked up on its similarities with Atlantis and that’s why he did not bother to connect the mythological Atlantic kingdom to the very real Atlantic Tartessos.

What Plato may not have realized is that Egypt’s Creation story in the far western primeval waters may well be based on a kernel of truth (as it pertains to Egypt’s origins). And then several thousand years later, Sea Peoples from that same Atlantic primeval mound ventured aggressively into the Mediterranean.
​
I can make the case for both, so let’s continue with the translation.

FROM ‘ISLAND OF ATLAS’ TO ‘ISLAND OF SHU’?

In essence, if it were true that Solon received the Atlantis story from Egyptian Priests and adopted for it an equivalent Greek “meaning”, the simple and straight forward reverse-translation of ‘Island of Atlas’ would reasonably be something as simple as the ‘Island of Shu’.

Of course, it’s not that simple. Translations never are. On one hand, the word ‘island’ in Greek entails some complications, and then Egyptian hieroglyphs, due to their own complicated nature, have some convention challenges we will need to consider, as well.

The Greek term nesos, though generally translated as 'island', would seem to have a broader meaning, something more in line with ‘dry land surrounded partly or wholly by water’. Consequently, the term was also applied to a peninsular, a coastline, an archipelago and more. As you can imagine, this is one of those facts that has been conveniently used to justify Atlantis’ location pretty much anywhere on the globe, even if in the middle of a desert (lookup the Eye of Mauritius, it’s pretty cool).

However, Egyptians did not like to be vague: Since some hieroglyphs can have several functions and meanings, scribes employed other hieroglyphs as determinatives or clarifiers. It was the canon.

Naturally, over 3,000 years of written history, Shu’s name came to be represented in several ways. 

But we see two more determinatives, which at first would seem to work as sound clarifiers. On one hand we have the rectangle. It is a pool that functions as such when a logogram, but also as the sh-sound when a phonogram because that is how you pronounce pool. Lastly, there’s the cute little bird, a quail chick, which represents the semi-vowel sound w/u. The result, I initially thought, was: God (not pronounced) + feather (Shu) + quail (u-sound clarifier, not pronounced) + pool (sh-sound clarifier, not pronounced). 

​It’s a good thing I paid attention to my nagging feeling that something was off with the clarifiers. To an extent, their sound redundancy wasn’t all that unusual. Generally only consonants where written, so the quail could be meant to ensure the right vowel was pronounced in relation to the feather (don’t want to offend the god). What hit me as odd was the order of the hieroglyphs. Egyptian writing canon requires, not only that the name of the god or goddess be placed first within a sentence, but that his or her hieroglyph be placed first before any determinatives within the name grouping as well. So, why was the pool, a mere sh-sound clarifier, placed in front of Shu’s feather?  

Consequently, what that little innocent rectangle, the pool, does for us is twofold: One, it expands on the god’s identity, as in Shu, God of the Great Waters of the West, whose pillars were also understood as the Gates to the Afterlife. This explains why in Greek mythology the Atlantic Ocean was named specifically after Atlas, and why the Pillars of Heracles were also known as the Gates of Gades. Then, two, it also tells us that, since it is not merely a sound clarifier, but an integral part of Shu’s identity, the pool must be pronounced. 

With Atlantis’s reverse-translation settled as Shu.sh, let’s turn to nesos. As mentioned, nesos can be loosely translated back to several types of land touched by water, so it is difficult to know what Solon started with.

​With all this in mind, I present you my suggestion for the reverse-meaning of Atlantis in Egyptian: 

Okay, fine, I realize that at face value, Atlantis reversed back to Egyptian hieroglyphs does not ring the bell we were hoping for. But what about its pronunciation (read right to left): ta.Shu.sh? If you have been paying any attention, it should sound at least familiar… like Tarshish, wouldn’t you say?

I say we are on the right track, but let’s make sure.
​
FROM EGYPTIAN TO PHOENICIAN

​Fun Fact: Canaan was an Egyptian province for hundreds of years up until the collapse. That’s why the Phoenicians, though Semites in nature, simplified the Egyptian hieroglyphs rather than the cuneiform script.

It also appears on an Assyrian tablet dated to the 7th century BC on which Esarhaddon boasts triumph over the Egyptians and the Phoenician for domain of the Mediterranean “as far as Tarshish”:

“All the kings from the lands surrounded by sea —from Iadanna (Cyprus) and Iaman (Ionia), as far as Tarshish, bowed to my feet.”

​But we are not fully done yet. We are left with tying Tarshish to Tartessos. To avoid making this post any longer than it already is, let’s just agree (you can look it up) that in the midst of much ongoing debate, most scholars concede they are one and the same. What is not so unanimous is which one came first. In historical records, there is no doubt that Tarshish appears first (Nora Stone), so Tartessos could be understood as the Greek adaptation of Tarshish (the Greeks also adopted the Phoenician alphabet, and that is how they bounced back into literacy). However, it is not quite that clear, of course. 

So there you have it, mission accomplished, we have a translation: Atlantis is Tarshish/Tartessos. The downside is that the translation doesn’t necessarily prove Atlantis real, but rather the name of a mythical place associated with the west that Egyptian sailors or other trade-mariners could have applied to a real place in the west… unless we can prove it was indeed the original “mound” of the ancient Egyptians, with its concentric rings and advanced (godly) ancestors remembered through mythology. 
​
Here is where my amazing second piece of evidence comes in, and our exciting journey in search of Atlantis truly begins; because what if I were to supply you with an actual Welcome to Atlantis sign instilled with Pre-dynastic Egyptian iconography and hieroglyphs? I tell you all about it in Part 2 of Atlantis, Lost in Translation.

In Part 1, we resolved one of the two mysteries in the ancient legend of Solomon’s Table: The table. We discovered its Egyptian roots and decoded its most sacred secret.

Now let’s proceed to unravel its other mystery: Solomon.

The Bible tells us that King Solomon was the third and last king of the rich and powerful United Monarchy of Israel. He was the wisest of men, a sublime judge, author of sacred texts, and the builder of a cherished Temple. However, from a historic and archaeological point of view, there is no evidence he ever existed, nor would it seem to matter to understand the table from what we learned in Part 1. But I love enigmas and King Solomon is one of the most renowned and intriguing. Besides, I would not have resolved the mystery of the table if I did not pay attention to detail, especially the ones that make no sense:

The legend of Solomon’s Table comes to us from the Jewish Kabbalah, which shares strong elements with the Egyptian belief system. Thus, knowing that the table and its secret are eminently Egyptian in nature, are we to conclude that Jewish sages one day simply took these two elements and randomly associated them to their most glorious king?  It doesn’t make sense to me. In order for the esoteric association between the table and Solomon to make sense, Solomon, or the person he is inspired on, has to be necessarily Egyptian too; meaning, that to me it makes more sense that the Jewish sages adopted the complete package… At least, that was my logic when I started to investigate. What I didn’t expect was to find a real flesh-and-bone king who truly ruled over Jerusalem and built a temple there with table and all.

How is this possible in the face of total absence of evidence? As soon as I tell you the details your jaw will drop, so let’s get to it.

To resolve the enigma, we need to tackle it from two temporal fronts. We’ll start with the historical framework during which Solomon supposedly lived and ruled, the 10th century B.C., and we’ll follow with the historical framework during which his story was written down and edited, the 6th century B.C.

THE 10TH CENTURY B.C. – A DARK AND MYSTERIOUS TIME

I’ll insist once more, there is no written -outside the Old Testament- or archaeological evidence that Solomon existed. Period. And this extends to his rich and powerful empire. As it stands for now, the general consensus is that Jerusalem in the 10th century was a humble village, and the region of Judah  was occupied by dispersed populations, mostly nomadic shepherds.

However, this should not deter us, because what is truly fascinating about the whole thing is that the void of information or evidence is not limited to Canaan. All of the Middle East, the Aegean, the Caucasus, the Balkans, and the Eastern Mediterranean in general suffered a historical blackout between the 13th and 8th centuries B.C. due to yet another mystery: The formidable collapse, around 1,200 B.C., of all the great civilizations of the time. Entire cities were razed and prosperous cultures disintegrated back to illiteracy; thus the lack of information that has scholars perplexed. I’m not exaggerating. In Greece, for instance, following the Minoan-Mycenaean collapse, writing would not reappear until the 8th century B.C. As for Egypt, though it survived, it was hit hard enough to lose control of Canaan and never fully recover.

And here is where I begin to drool, because now the clues that guided me to success start to appear.

MERNEPTAH’S STELE
​
The enigmatic Sea Peoples first attacked Egypt during the reign of Ramesses II (1,279 A.C. – 1,213 A.C.), and then again while his son, the Pharaoh Merneptah, was on the throne (1,213 A.C. – 1,203 A.C.). The latter was able to beat them as he boasts in four inscriptions: The Great Karnak Inscription, the Cairo Obelisk, the Athribis Stele, and the text we care about, the highly celebrated Merneptah Stele. 

Two items set this stele apart. On one hand it contains the oldest, non-biblical reference to a nomadic group of peoples (not a country) named Israel. (Some scholars read "Jezreel", instead of "Israel".)  Then, while it celebrates the pharaoh’s victory over the Sea Peoples, at the end it inserts something that does not seem to belong there: A reference to a successful military campaign in Canaan.

Some experts argue that this final passage should not be understood as a military victory of Merneptah in Canaan, but rather a celebration of the peace he brought to the region as a result of defeating the Sea Peoples. You see, at the time Canaan was a province of Egypt and therefore fell under its veil.

Fine, but what does this have to do with Solomon? A lot. Egypt exercised influence over Canaan for thousands of years, but particularly in the period just before the Late Bronze Age Collapse, Canaan was, I repeat, an Egyptian province. Therefore, the impact of Ramesses II and Merneptah in the region was of special significance and explains their contribution to biblical narrative (as highlighted in Part 1).

If you recall, Ramesses II is the same pharaoh who, aside from carrying Moses in his name, had a battle tent with a portable throne identical to the Tabernacle and its Ark of the Covenant, leading many to suspect he may have inspired much of the Exodus. This includes plenty of parallelisms between Ramesses II’s battles in Canaan and Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land, Ark included. And the coincidence that his son Merneptah mentions the nomadic people of Israel, redolent of the 40 years of wondering, only strengthens above suspicions.

All this is already known and suspected. Now I’ll move on to what I figured out and suspect.

I imagine you have paid attention to Merneptah’s name, knowing as we do the importance of names in Jewish-Egyptian beliefs.  While in his father’s name we find Moses, in his we find God’s secret name, Ptah. At first this may seem a silly detail, for he wasn’t the first or would be the last to carry Ptah in his name, but considering the above, I thought I’d look a little into Merneptah’s biography… And how right I was to do so!
​
I found out that his birth name was Merneptah Hotep-Her-Maat. So, not only does he carry God’s secret name, Ptah, he also carries the table, Hotep, and this isn’t even the interesting part. When I checked out the translation of his full name, Beloved by Ptah, Pacifier, I said to myself: “Hey, just like Solomon!”

That’s right. Did you know that Solomon had two names as well? According to 2 Samuel 12:25 the Prophet Nathan named him Jedidiah, which means Beloved by the Lord. And we know that Jews use Lord instead of God’s name because they’re not allowed to pronounce it.

As for the name Solomon it means Peaceful. According to the Old Testament, God chooses him to be king because his hands were clean of blood, which contributed to his realm being the most peaceful and prosperous in Israel…. Like the peace Merneptah brought to the region, perhaps?

Obviously, following this interesting name coincidence, I continued to dig.

Merneptah was the 13th child of Ramesses, from his second wife. I said to myself again: “Hey, almost like Solomon”. The Wise King was the 10th child of David, also from a second wife, and both ended up inheriting the throne from their powerful fathers despite the many brothers ahead in line.

Okay, so far we have two interesting coincidences which, to be honest, are quite normal for the time. But it does start to highlight the similarities between the Jewish monarch and an Egyptian pharaoh. Also, bear in mind that Solomon was said to be the king of a rich and powerful United Monarchy. Well, it just so happens that Egypt was indeed the rich and powerful United Monarchy par excellence (the sum of Upper and Lower Egypt). But, if this is not enough, there is a detail in the Bible that makes it clear:

“And Solomon became allied to Pharaoh king of Egypt by marriage, and took Pharaoh’s daughter, and brought her into the City of David, until he finished building his palace, and the house of the Lord, and the wall of Jerusalem round about.” – 1 Kings 3:

Of the 700 wives that Solomon supposedly had, the only one mentioned, though not by name (important detail), is “the pharaoh’s daughter”. This is an in-your-face clue if there ever was one, because it would have been impossible for Solomon, a foreign king, to marry a daughter of a pharaoh. In Egypt, they never allowed the “pharaoh’s daughter” (a title onto itself) to marry anyone outside the family, let alone a foreigner, because it was she who transmitted legitimacy to the throne. Consequently, for any pharaoh to be legitimate, he had to necessarily marry a “pharaoh’s daughter”. It assured the throne always remained within the family and, more importantly, in Egyptian hands, explaining why pharaohs married their sisters.

So, if in the above passage we substitute Solomon with Merneptah and David with Ramesses, we get a historical reality: Indeed, Merneptah married the “pharaohs daughter”, his sister, and took her to the City of Ramesses (Pi-Ramesses) until building his own palace in Memphis next to the Temple of Ptah (the one that gave name to Egypt).

To end, one more coincidence: Upon Merneptah’s death two of his sons fought for the throne resulting in the division, though temporary, of the United Kingdom of Egypt… that is, “hey, just like happened with Solomon!” Following his death, Israel was divided into the Kingdoms of Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

Could Merneptah have been the historical inspiration for Solomon? No. I dare to go a step further. I will provide evidence to suggest that Merneptah was Solomon.

WHAT IS AN EGYPTIAN TEMPLE DOING IN JERUSALEM?

Between the 15th and 12th centuries B.C., that is, for 300 years approximately, Canaan was an Egyptian province. Its extension covering today’s Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel was almost equivalent to what the Bible claims was the expanse of the United Monarchy. To control the area and collect tributes, Egypt setup administration centers and garrisons with their relevant residences and temples. For example, some ivories found in Megiddo and dated to the 13th century B.C. mention “Ptah of Ashkelon” (city also mentioned in Merneptah’s Stele), denoting that there was a temple or shrine dedicated to Ptah in the Canaanite city.

Now for the big surprise: Investigating, I discovered there are little-known archaeological remains of an Egyptian temple dating back to the 13th century precisely in Jerusalem, thanks to an article titled What is an Egyptian Temple doing in Jerusalem? by the prestigious archaeologist Gabriel Barkay.

Barkay tells us that the temple was found in 1882 by the Dominican Friar Pere M. J. Lagrange, who also reports about it in his French book Saint Etienne et son sanctuaire a Jerusalem.  Among the remains, he found a funerary stele with 17 hieroglyphs, a couple of typical Egyptian capitals decorated with lotus flowers, what seemed an offering table (oh my, could it be the actual table of Solomon?), and other items. Unfortunately, no one thought much of it, so they covered it up and built the Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Francaise and the Saint Etienne Dominican Monastery on top.

Gabriel Barkay, after reading the document, had the presence of mind to recover the mentioned artifacts along with others, such as some vessels and more fragments with hieroglyphs. Since then, experts like Peter van del Veen, have continued in this line of research and have found a number of Egyptian artifacts dated to the 13th century B.C. scattered around in museum basements and private collections. Among them, I’d like to mention two:

1. A red granite statue of an Egyptian queen from Merneptah’s period. Could it be “the pharaoh’s daughter”, his sister and spouse?
2. A sitting statue missing the head, which Barkay believes may be Ptah. Of all Egyptian gods, could this temple have been dedicated to Ptah?

Summarizing, it would seem that the Egyptian presence in Jerusalem was greater than traditionally thought, confirming the direct rule of a pharaoh over it. Yet this is not enough. For my hypothesis to stand, I need a direct link between Merneptah specifically —not just any other pharaoh of the 13th century— and Jerusalem.

Barkay handed me the solution on a platter. In his article, among the examples he lists to highlight Egyptian presence in Jerusalem, he references a paragraph from the Bible, Joshua 15:9, in which the Waters of Nephtoah are mentioned. Experts (Wilson 1969, p.258) interpret this name to be Me-nephtoah, that is, the Waters of Merneptah, an Egyptian control post also mentioned in non-biblical texts such as the Egyptian papyrus Anastasi III. Bingo! He, Merneptah, had a control post in Jerusalem.

How wonderful to discover that there was indeed a real-life monarch, who ruled over a rich and powerful Unified Kingdom, married to the “pharaoh’s daughter”, and who most probably was the builder of a temple in Jerusalem with its relevant table.

Now, let’s pause a minute to clarify something: It’s true that Merneptah lived 200 years before Solomon. However, it is also true that Solomon’s dating to the 10th century is only a guess. Not even the Bible gives us a date. His ruling is roughly calculated counting backwards from other biblical dates without an independent historical reference to corroborate it. Bearing in mind that after Merneptah the whole region went silent due to the information collapse until the 8th century, there is a good chance that this chronological gap is not being accounted for.

So mystery solved? No, not yet. We have one loose end to take care of… How did the legend of the Wise Jewish King come about as we know it today?

THE 6TH CENTURY – THE FIRST BOOK OF KINGS AND THE WISE KING UTOPIA

Everything we know about Solomon comes to us from one-single-exclusive source: The Old Testament, specifically chapters 1 to 11 of the First Book of Kings. In it the author cites, in turn, as his source a lost text titled the Acts of Solomon (acts are historical records):

“As for the other acts of Solomon’s reign, and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon?” – 1 Kings 11:41

Jewish sages grant the authorship of the Book of Kings to the prophet Jeremiah. There are two details about him I’d like to bring to your attention:

1. Jeremiah lived in Jerusalem towards the end of the 7th century at the time of King Josiah’s reign and was his trusted prophet. Coincidentally, this is the same king who purportedly found historic records in the Temple of Jerusalem during its refurbishing. These records where entrusted to Jeremiah and are the basis for Israel’s history as told in the Deuteronomy, which includes the Book of Kings. If Solomon’s Temple was that of Merneptah, it would seem reasonable that among the documents found would be the Acts of Merneptah, translated as the Acts of Solomon (remember, they have the same names).
2. Jeremiah also witnessed the fall of Jerusalem -and the Temple’s destruction- to Babylon in the year 586 B.C. Curiously, rather than being exiled to Babylon with the other prophets, guess where Jeremiah ended up? … In Egypt!

The truth is that there is no direct evidence that Josiah or Jeremiah existed, however historical references related to their lives seem to indicate it is highly likely they did. In any case, whoever the author of the Book of Kings may have been, the consensus is that the text does date to the 6th century B.C. with clear elements of the Book of Deuteronomy.

Therefore, and unless archaeology proves otherwise, I can imagine Jeremiah, exiled in a distant land, hurting for a devastated and lost home, pressing against his chest what is left of his city, the historic documents entrusted to him by his king. Determined to leave a written record, maybe somewhat idealized of his people, he had the Acts of Merneptah translated to Hebrew, name and all. Later, when the translation was incorporated to the 6th century Babylon Bible (the Old Testament we know today), the memory of the ancient king was reedited to match the ideals of the wise king so prevalent precisely in Babylon lore. 

And that is how the legend of a very real king is born: Solomon.

...So, who were those mysterious Sea Peoples who brought the great civilizations of the Mediterranean to their knees? I have a hunch, and it is pretty amazing...

King Solomon was source of many legends. One, greatly overshadowed by the Ark of the Covenant, is that of another Temple relic, the gold-plated Table of the Presence. The legend tells us that the Wise King engraved upon it a mysterious code containing the secret name of God. Why secret? Because according to Judaism’s mystical branch, Kabbalah, its knowledge gives access to God’s power. 

Today, the legend is gaining popularity because historians and treasure hunters alike are searching for the precious Table in Spain, where historic clues trace its trail to the city of Toledo.

I stumbled on it while researching for my novel Mary’s Apostles, and even incorporated it into the story, but couldn’t leave it there. I was curious to know if there was any rational or historical kernel of truth in it and set out to find it. To my surprise, there was.

So, stick with me as I tell you how I found Solomon’s Table and decoded its sacred secret... You won't be disappointed.

FIRST, A LITTLE BACKGROUND

Though not as popular as the Ark of the Covenant in mainstream lore, Solomon’s Table has been around for thousands of years and mentioned in a variety of Jewish, Christian and Muslim texts.

At this point Muslim historians take over to explain that Musa and Tariq, conquerors of the Iberian Peninsula in the 8th century A.D., knowing of its immense value, compete to get their hands on it first. As the story goes, Tariq succeeds, but then different tales conflict regarding its final whereabouts. Though the general consensus is that it stayed hidden somewhere in Toledo, some say Tariq took it to Damascus, others say it got lost in Jaen (a city in the south of Spain) on its way to Damascus, and then there is a miscellaneous group of hopeful treasure hunters looking for it in a variety of quaint locations sprinkled across Spain.

The problem is that all these seekers neglect one tiny but important detail: The table that Titus captured was not the one Solomon made, nor did he find it in Solomon’s Temple. The First Temple of Jerusalem was looted repeatedly over centuries until destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II in 587 A.D. The Temple that Titus plundered was the second one built by Zerubbabel in 515 A.D., though better known as Herod’s Temple, for he enlarged it and refurbished it. 

It is far more likely that the future Roman emperor captured the gold-gem-rich table that Pharaoh Ptolemy II gifted to the Second Temple in a show of goodwill to replace precisely the one Solomon built, as stated in the Letters of Aristeas of the 2nd century B.C.

SOLOMON’S ORIGINAL TABLE

With all the respect due to the historical and material value of the table that may have reached Toledo, the one I’m interested in is the one Solomon built for his First Temple, the one on which he supposedly engraved God’s secret name.

Yet now we are confronted with another tiny, little detail we can’t ignore: As of today, there isn’t a single piece of evidence that Solomon ever existed. No stamp, no pottery sherd with his name, no mention in any historical register, nothing. Not even Solomon’s powerful neighbors who, well versed in writing and documenting their every move, blink and breath, mention him or his empire. Zero. Zilch. Zip. Nada. 

Then, how in the world did I find the table and its sacred secret? Doing what every good detective does: I got lucky!

THE TIP OF THE STRING

My research started with Moses. Why? Well, because according to the Bible, specifically the Exodus, it was Moses -following God’s instructions- who built the first table alongside the other items for the Tabernacle that Solomon would later replicate for the Temple. Additionally, it was Moses who God revealed his name to in the first place. According to Kabbalah, the name was then handed down from High Priest to High Priest, until it reached King Solomon. Therefore, Moses seemed a good starting point to me. 

The challenge was considerable. Like Solomon, there is no evidence that Moses ever existed either. All that is known with some degree of certainty is that his name Moses existed and etymologically is Egyptian. It means “born of…” or “son of…” and was enormously popular among pharaohs who used it in association with a god, like, for instance, Ramesses (Son of Ra).

Indeed, the Exodus tells us that Moses was born in Egypt. While still a newborn, to save him from a killing, his mother places him in a basket, and then put the basket in a river. The current will carry Moses to the hands of an Egyptian princess who chooses to raise him in palace.

Therefore, in our search for the table, Moses, or better said his name, points us to Egypt. We will be successful quickly for without much effort we’ll discover that the name is not the only thing Moses shares with the pharaohs. The Exodus is a story that seems to have borrowed many elements from pharaonic literature. I’m not going to go into the whole list of correlations because there a plenty of essays out there you can consult, but I will share the following example since it is relevant to the subject at hand.

THE TABERNACLE

Moses, like a pharaoh, takes on the functions of moral, legal and spiritual leader of his people, and is chosen by (born of…) God to be his intermediary. To do so, he must build a temple (the prime duty of a pharaoh), the Tabernacle, where God can dwell among His people.

​But let’s narrow in a little further. In Egypt the portable residence of the pharaoh on the battle field was a tent designed as a temple, and was represented as such on reliefs with his throne inside to exalt the pharaoh’s godly nature.

Take a close look at the picture on the left. It shows a cutout of the tent of Ramesses II during the Battle of Kadesh (in Canaan). In it you can see his throne represented by his cartouche flanked on both sides by God Horus’s stretched out wings. The similarities of this iconography with those of the Ark of the Covenant on the right are uncanny. The Ark, according to the Bible, functioned as a chest for the tablets of the Ten Commandments and as a throne for the Presence of God, upon which were two cherubim with extended wings towards the center.
​
To finish, a couple more pictures, one of a portable shrine and the other of an ark or chest, both Egyptian, comparable in purpose and style to the Ark of the Covenant.

Now back to Solomon and his table…

THE TABLE OF THE PRESENCE

At first, one would think that there is nothing particular about an offering table. It is what it is, a table placed in a temple to hold the offerings to the gods. In the case of Judaism, the table that God instructed Moses to build was called the Table of the Showbread or Bread of the Presence. On it, two piles of six breads were placed to represent the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

What caught my attention about this whole table thing was: Why would Solomon choose a mere piece of furniture like a table to engrave something as precious as the access to infinite power? To me, an elaborate golden plaque or a jewelry box with a coded, puzzle lock made more sense as the container of such an extraordinary content.  In trying to make sense of this oddity is when I struck gold!

To understand it, we must turn back to Egypt.

Please bear in mind that ancient Egypt was around for over 3,000 years (let that sink in) with all its changes, up-and-downs, and evolution. So the extreme summary I will attempt here below with regards to their religion is so succinct it is almost grotesque but necessary in the name of brevity.

​With regards to the offerings, these were varied, from meats and beer to fruits and wine. But the original, most simple and, ultimately, most symbolic offering was a bread on a mat, because in its inception breads were placed on mats at the feet of the gods. That is how the hieroglyph for offering table, (htp) came about. (In Egyptian writing, as with the Hebrew, vowels were not used. Htp is pronounced hotep.) The offering table could be represented simply with this ideogram or, for grammatical and aesthetic reasons, it was often accompanied by the hieroglyphs for the letters t and p. Coincidentally, or not, t is represented by a bread and p by a mat. The ending result is a redundant hieroglyph.

​Over time the mat was replaced with an elaborate stone table, symbolically carved to look like a mat, sometimes elevated as if an altar. And on its surface, symbolic images of bread and other offerings were engraved.

I chose the left image because coincidently the bread is laid out in two piles of six breads as the Jewish table required.

The table’s symbolic value as appeaser of the gods resulted in the word hotep expanding its meaning to signify “to be satisfied”, “to be in peace”, or simply “peace”, and as such was incorporated into the names of pharaohs and high ranking officers, like Amenhotep (Amun is satisfied) or Imhotep (he who comes in peace).

In conclusion, it turns out that the offering table is not a mere functional piece of furniture, but rather a central and sacred element of great transcendental and symbolic value, on which, indeed, images were engraved. The legend of Solomon’s Table, thus far, stands to scrutiny.

That’s well and all, but did Solomon’s Table exist and what is that about God’s secret name?

THE SHEM HASHEMAFORASH

To understand God’s secret name we are going to enter the esoteric world of Jewish Kabbalah, source of the legend of Solomon’s Table.

According to Jewish tradition, Hebrew is a sacred language for its words contain the essence of the concept they describe. This is so because God created the world using the Divine Word (Sound familiar?), that is, God said: “May there be light,” and since the word light carries the vital energy of light, light was. Us mere mortals do not have this power… unless, it would seem, we acquire it through study. Kabbalah sages spend their lives studying the Torah with hopes of reaching its highest level of esoteric knowledge. The illuminating process consists in climbing through four levels of word interpretation: literal, metaphorical, combination of relevant words or even rearranging the order of their letters, until reaching their most intimate comprehension or vital power.

The problem is that if this power is at the reach of any dedicated sage, the wrong person with the same dedication could ultimately have access to the essence and power of God by simply knowing His name. It was therefore decided to limit its knowledge solely to the High Priest.

Ancient Egyptians believed the same thing. It’s more, they were so afraid of an enemy doing black magic with their name (akin to voodoo), that their real name was kept secret and only revealed upon death to be recognized by the gods. Also, Egyptians, too, thought their writing was sacred, and this is precisely the reason why the Greeks named it hieroglyphs, because in Greek it means exactly that, sacred writing. Over time, the word hieroglyph came to signify also “hidden, mysterious or esoteric idea” (probably because we forgot how to read them until Champollion came along), and it is with this latter meaning that Kabbalah used it, though applied to Hebrew, to describe how Solomon engraved God’s name on the table.

Per historian Eslava Galan:

Now hold on to something, for we approach the eureka moment. It was around this point when I had a silly thought that no one else seems to have had. In seeing that the elements of our Jewish legend sink their roots in Egypt, rather than interpreting hieroglyph from the Jewish esoteric point of view, why not do it returning to the Egyptian literal interpretation? The result was: Bingo!

LET’S DO MAGIC

As I said, bingo! The offering table’s hieroglyph is in reverse a god’s name, but not just any god, the God of Creation, the one who created the world using the Divine Word.

Now, let’s make believe we are Kabbalah sages and climb the four levels of understanding to reach the ultimate essence of God’s name… and his power!

1. Literal Interpretation: Ptah, the Creator God’s name. The god who, according to Memphite Theology, created himself and then the rest of the gods and creation. The first to Be after he said “I am”. Sound familiar? Exodus 3:14: “I am” is what God answers when Moses asks the burning bush what His name is. In Hebrew it is the bases for YHWH.
2. Metaphoric: By association, ptah is also used as several verbs: to create (since Ptah is the Creator and thus created), to engrave (in the sense of engraving the Divine Word), and to occupy the throne (due to his presence in the temple).
3. Combining the letters in his name: If you remember, I explained previously that the table’s hieroglyph is redundant. It is made up of an ideogram of a bread on a mat, and then accompanied by a bread and a mat which are the logograms for t and p. Well, since the letters p and t are in Ptah, God’s name in turn contains the offering table too. The fact that Ptah and Hotep contain each other, is of profound transcendental significance, because Ptah created order -peace- while at the same time containing in his name the sacred element -Hotep- that conserves it, which in turn happens to mean peace as well. It all ties in. 
4. More combinations. The letters p and t also form the word pt (pet), meaning sky, heaven, or God’s Realm.

​We could keep doing this until completing the Book of Genesis, but at the end, God’s secret name illuminates us with a message as humbling as it is beautiful, and perhaps the fragile memory of time had the Jewish sages forget that the real danger resided in prohibiting its knowledge.

Where does this leave Solomon? That too is a fascinating story, and I tell you all about it in Part 2 of Solomon’s Table Decoded… By the way, did you know Solomon means 'peaceful', and that Jerusalem means 'The City of Peace'?

In my previous post, The Hopi Chariot Puzzle, I centered on the mystifying petroglyph that the Hopi hold dear: a 3,000 year old Tartessian chariot. In Tartessos in America, I highlight how, at the same time and alongside the chariot, they also honor the likeness of the Lady of Elche, an ancient Iberian statue of mysterious identity.

What if I told you that the Tartessian chariot and the Iberian Lady are one and the same? And not only that… Would you believe me if I told you she is also the Face of God?

Before you conclude I’ve gone mad, please let me explain… It will all make sense at the end and it is truly fascinating!

THE ENIGMATIC LADY-CHARIOTS OF SPAIN

The problem is that these elements, though common and extended throughout the Mediterranean during the first millennia B.C., make no sense combined as they appear with these statutes.

Let’s take a quick look at them, because each one is a clue toward their identity. We’ll start with the one conspicuous element that tipped me off.

The answer is quite simple, really, and if you bear with me through the necessary explanations, it might even blow your mind.

In The Hopi Chariot Puzzle I explain that several thousand years ago war chariots were regarded highly symbolic artifacts associated with gods, leaders and heroes. On reliefs and rock art, its wheel alone came to represent the whole (as we saw in Utah, Tartessos in America). And in some funerary contexts, the chariot became a divine vehicle that carried the deceased safely to the afterlife escorted by the protective supervision of a goddess. 

Consequently, the Hopi Chariot and the Lady of Elche are in fact one and the same, that is, both are symbolic of a divine chariot, which adds more fire to the burning question we left hanging in the previous post: Why? Why would the Hopi pay homage to a chariot —and in a dual form— for so long? It turns out there is a need for such duality, for each symbolic representation holds a clue of its own. That of the Lady-Chariot provides the answer to her identity, which I will reveal in this entry. As for the Hopi Chariot, a hint about its secret will be provided in my next post Solomon's Table Decoded. 

WHO IS THE LADY-CHARIOT

I advanced in the introduction that I believe she is the Face of God. In order to prove this to you, I need to clarify something very important first: The Bible was not written in English. More precisely, the Old Testament, which holds the key to our ladies’ true identity, was a collection of texts written in a form of archaic Hebrew compiled and edited around the 6th century B.C. Also, please remember that until Gutenberg (15th century A.D.) there were no printing machines (or copiers for that matter) to keep all copies identical and consistent. This means that the Bible you read today (if you do at all) is one of many versions (Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox…), and was translated into English from Latin, which in turn was translated from Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew, all the while it was edited, adapted and re-adapted over thousands of years to suit the personal touch, liking, bias and point of view of the relevant scribe. Luckily, many ancient texts have survived that allow us to have a glimpse of the original wording. And some modern-day versions of the Bible are reintroducing them. 

One of the text corruptions that occurred over the two millennia has to do precisely with our traditional understanding of what God looks like.

The Judeo-Christian God is in reality unknowable; He is infinite, has no physical form and therefore no discernible gender. However, when interacting with us mere humans, for our benefit God takes on  a more accessible presence, anywhere from light or brilliance to fire or a cloud form, that is, until the Prophet Ezekiel came along. He was granted the exclusive privilege to see God come to him in the likeness of a man, and thus the father figure stuck:

“…and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it.” --Ezekiel 1:26 (King James Bible).

The thing is, when you consult the original text, Ezekiel never said he saw a “man”. Today, this error has been somewhat corrected in a few updated Bible versions like the English Standard or the International Standard, where “man” is replaced with “human”. Yet this is not entirely correct either. In the original Hebrew version, the term employed was kavod, a word difficult to translate. It seems to mean something like ‘heavy’ in the sense of ‘worthy of respect or honor’. Thus, picky scholars champion “glory” as a more fitting translation:

“… and upon the likeness of the throne, was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh.” 

The point is that the Old Testament does not say anywhere that God appears to be male; if anything, according to ancient Jewish tradition, God’s “divine presence” among us is in fact female. Don’t take my word for it; it’s the Jewish sages who say so.

You see, the word kavod merely describes an attribute of God —“Its” manifestation is “heavy” in the sense of “respect worthy” and “honorable”—, but it does not define the “divine presence” per se. 

Therefore, in the 1st century, Jewish sages struggled to interpret this aspect of the sacred texts and resolved to coin a term themselves: Shekinah. While kavod is a descriptor of an attribute, Shekinah was meant to be understood as an integral part of God, “Its” divine presences as “It” dwells among “Its” people (usually in relation to the Tabernacle or Temple). You should know that for the Jews, Hebrew is a sacred language and nothing in it happens by chance. They have a whole esoteric branch, Kabbalah, which revolves around studying the inner mystical secrets of the language. The point is that the word Shekinah is feminine and it was chosen on purpose by the sages to honor a longstanding tradition: While the infinite God is both masculine and feminine, it is “Its” feminine side that we “see”. The Old Testament implies as much but you wouldn’t know it due to another term corruption: Asherah.

Asherah, a Canaanite mother goddess, was worshiped as the Face or feminine side of Yahweh in Jerusalem until the 6th century more or less. Hundreds of Asherah figurines dug up in archaeological sites across the region attest to it. And according to the Bible, her image was present in Solomon’s Temple. But then, in the 6th century, Jerusalem was invaded by the Babylonians, the Temple destroyed and the priests exiled to Babylon. Among them was Ezekiel, a patriarch rabbi who believed along with the other fathers of the Old Testament that Jerusalem was being punished for worshiping other gods. Since Asherah was the most popular, she received the full brunt of their wrath, and was portrayed as an abdominal idol in what came to be the Old Testament as we know today. To further her disregard, over time her name was eliminated from the Bible all together. If you are curious, look up 2 Kings 23:6*: One of Asherah's symbols was the Tree of Life referred to as the asherah pole or simply the asherah. In the King James’ Bible this tree or pole is referenced as a “grove”, while updated versions, like the New American Standard, have reinstated her name. 

*On a side note: Patriarch devotees were called to eliminate Asherah by burning her image or smashing it into pieces as stated precisely in 2 Kings 23:6. Sound familiar?

SO WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE SPANISH LADIES?

Everything! It was Ezekiel himself who made the connection when describing the vision of God coming to him (Ezekiel 1). In short, he describes how God appears upon a peculiar chariot the likeness of a throne preceded by four winged beings (cherubim), each with four faces (that of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle), while the wheels of the chariot —for some reason detached from it— move in step with the cherubim, one on each side.

All these elements converge on our Lady-Chariots:

It is believed that the bust of the Lady of Elche originally sat on a throne, but was removed from it when buried. In fact, to support this, there is yet another lady, the Lady of Baza, who was found in 1971 intact on her “winged” throne. Please note, that though thrones and chariots were common features associated with kings, gods and warriors, when combined together they were identified with a Mother Goddess.

Then, alongside the Ladies, animals and mythological creatures akin to the four faces Ezekiel describes were also found: sphynx (human head, body of a lion), griffins, (half eagle, half lion), bulls and lions.

However, the argument could be made that since all this imagery was common and widespread, it is a stretch for me to imply that Ezekiel was describing specifically a Spanish Lady-Chariot. For one, only our Spanish Ladies have wheels —detached from a chariot— on each side of their heads that would presumably move in step with them. Yet beyond this exclusive detail, I make the connection because Ezekiel says so. To prove this, again we must revert to the original text:

“…and the appearance of the wheels was like the gleam of a Tarshish stone.” —Ezekiel 10:9 (New American Standard Bible.)

This is an updated version; others invariably refer to the strange stone as a beryl, jasper, a topaz and what not. Scribes probably did not know what a Tarshish gem was so chose one familiar to them when translating. Be as it may, the original Hebrew term was indeed “Tarshish”. And what is a Tarshish stone? It is a gem from Tarshish, and Tarshish is Hebrew for… Tartessos! That’s right; Ezekiel saw wheels from Tartessos, the same wheels that just so happen to be the most prominent feature of our Tartessian Lady-Chariots (along with everything else he saw that also define them).

Is it possible that what the prophet was trying to say is that God’s divine presence was coming to him from Tartessos? Yes, yes it is! And if you are not stunned yet, get ready…

WHAT IS GOD DOING IN SPAIN?

There is ample archaeological evidence that the Mediterranean Sea was a busy highway as far back as the Neolithic. It may not seem intuitive, but sailing dangerous waters was preferable to crossing dry land for many reasons: it was faster, more direct and perhaps more importantly it didn’t belong to anyone. Therefore, the far west (Tartessos), on the edge of the known world, was frequently visited, when not settled, by the eastern civilizations. For the Phoenicians, it was a trade mine; for the Greeks, it was the land of Gods and Atlantis; for the Egyptians, it was Paradise, and for the Assyrians, its control equated to power. This fascination for the distant land transpires in the Bible where Tartessos (Tarshish) is hailed the source of King Solomon’s gold, gems and other luxury items to the extent that he had a fleet of ships solely for this purpose, the Ships of Tarshish. Yet beyond the splendor, what the Old Testament seems to be fixated on is Tartessos’ quality as a safe haven for anyone trying to flee. Here are a couple of examples:

“But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” —Johan 1:3 (Any doubt where he was going? Why the rehashing?)

“Pass over to Tarshish; wail, inhabitants of the coastland.” —Isaiah 23:6 (Tyre, in Canaan, has been invaded by Assyria, so its people are fleeing to Tartessos.)

So it should be no surprise that when Jerusalem is invaded and the Temple destroyed that a sizable group would flee to Tartessos:

“… And the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad will possess the cities of the South.” —Obadiah 1:20

Sepharad is the Iberian Peninsula, and Obadiah is prophesying the return of the exiles. I should point out that it was these Sephardi Jews who develop Judaism’s esoteric branch, Kabbalah, you know, the same sages that coined Shekinah. Coincidence? Regardless, there is definitely something special about them. Even Isaiah claims they will lead the return:

“…And the ships of Tarshish will come first, to bring your children from afar, their silver and their gold with them…” —Isaiah 60:9

Why would they lead the return? To answer this question, ask yourself: If Solomon’s Temple was destroyed when Jerusalem was invaded, where did God’s divine presence, Shekinah, dwell in the interim?

SOLOMON’S TEMPLE IN SPAIN

To recap, in the 6th century, Babylonia invades Jerusalem and destroys Solomon’s Temple. The Prophet Ezekiel, along with the other patriarch rabbis, is exiled to Babylon, while a sizable group of Jewish people flee to Tartessos, or so says the Bible. Then comes archaeology and finds a mysterious temple in Badajoz, Extremadura (Tartessos territory), built around that time or shortly thereafter. It’s known as the Sanctuary of Cancho Roano, and what I find truly remarkable about it is its uncanny resemblance to the description that Ezekiel lays out for the New Temple he claims will replace Solomon’s (Ezekiel 33-48):

They are identical! Same layout, same orientation, same furnishings, same purpose for each room…

I wonder if Ezekiel, when describing his vision, is simply relaying what his exiled peers are reporting from Tartessos. The prophet’s description of the New Temple is extremely detailed down to the pavement of the halls, more than would seem reasonable for a vision. I even wonder if he visited the place for himself. In any case, if indeed a makeshift temple of sorts was built in Tartessos by the exiled Jewish community, it naturally follows that Ezekiel’s God would be “dwelling” in Tartessos as well. Could this explain why suddenly Lady-Throne-Chariots started to proliferate across the south of the Iberian Peninsula “coincidently” around the same time?

To round it all off, allow me to share one last piece of interesting evidence. While researching the Sanctuary Cancho Roano, I came across a peculiar administrative stamp found there. It is a cube and its four engraved sides unite in one place all four symbolic elements discussed above: Ezekiel’s dream, Asherah, Solomon’s Temple, and the Lady Chariots. 

The first face on the left depicts an ox, a bird (eagle?), a man (its body part makes it clear), and two lions with long necks, serpopards, frequently depicted (for example, in Egyptian art) with the necks intertwined. These match the four faces of the cherubim in Ezekiel’s throne-chariot vision.

The second smaller face of the cube shows two facing goats, somewhat rampant, symbolic of Asherah and her sacred Tree of Life. Usually, the two rampant goats would have their front legs leaning on the tree. 

On the third side we see two cherubim facing each other with their wings pointing to the center as they were said to appear on the Arc of the Covenant, and are thus symbolic of King Solomon’s Temple.

Finally, the fourth face, highlighted again below the others, presents a scene with a funerary chariot carrying an urn of ashes escorted by a goddess (clearly a woman – I find myself having to clarify this because the book I got the image from seems to think it is a man). 

So there you have it, pretty “heavy” stuff, wouldn’t you agree?

Now, one final question: If Cancho Roano came to replace Solomon’s Temple in exile, could it have harbored some of the relics too? A possible answer is provided in Mary’s Apostles… Meanwhile, onto my next post Solomon’s Table Decoded which will contain a crucial clue to the Hopi Chariot’s secret…

In Arizona, perched on three mesas that rise above a beautiful desert of red sands, live the Hopi, a deeply spiritual tribe who holds a puzzling petroglyph as sacred: A chariot; but not just any chariot, one suspiciously similar to those of the Iberian Peninsula in the 1st millennia B.C.

If you have read my previous post, Tartessos in America, you already know there are many petroglyphs and cultural elements that display uncanny similarities between the Hopi and the Tartessian. The magnitude of their number and quality challenges any attempt to reduce the equivalencies to a mere coincidence. Instead, it transpires an important and prolonged —though forgotten— contact between the two peoples. 

Prominent among the findings in the Southwest were the chariots. Here, I will focus on one in particular. Aside from the fact that it is a chariot on a continent that had not seen a horse until the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th century, of all the commonalities, this chariot stands out as the most sacred to the Hopi. Why? What secret does it hide for it to be worshiped unchanged with such devotion for 3,000 years?

In its strokes we may find the key…

The Hopi Chariot in the Eyes of the Hopi

The Hopi tribe is a sovereign nation located in Arizona, though their ancestors, the Ancient Puebloans, occupied an area that spanned across the Four Corners to include New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. One of their more defining traits is the Hopi’s unwavering commitment to protecting their old customs and values. Convinced they are the guardians of peace as mandated by the Great Spirit, their rituals are performed to preserve the balance of the universe, not only for themselves, but for all of humanity. This mission is so ingrained in their being that their name “Hopi” means precisely that, The Peaceful Ones. This was already apparent to the 16th century Spanish explorer and castaway, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, who was the first European to encounter the Hopi. During his harsh eight-years of captivity and enslavement by a more aggressive tribe, the Spanish explorer exalted the Hopi for their kind and peaceful nature.

The Hopi's embrace of harmony between man, nature and the universe is at the heart of their petroglyph, which is carved on a boulder named “Prophecy Rock”. The elders interpret the composition as follows:

The two central elements are two lines referred to as the paths of life. The bottom path is straight to symbolize harmony between man and nature, and is the one that the Great Spirit, seen on the bottom-left, encourages us all to follow. The upper path, jagged at the end, is corrupted by the greed and materialism of the white man, seen holding hands as they walk towards destruction. Yet not all is lost. They still have a last chance to correct course if they choose to take the connecting path at their feet. You’ll notice the Path of Harmony is dotted by two circles. These represent the two World Wars, and are followed by an arch or the start of a third circle that forebodes a third war if man does not amend his ways.

The Hopi Chariot in the Eyes of a Spaniard

I had the opportunity to visit the Hopi Reservation in the summer of 2016 to see Prophecy Rock near Oraibi.  Founded in the 10th century, Oraibi is the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the United States. I was, indeed, recipient of their renowned kindness and hospitality, but was also witness to how protective the Hopi are of their heritage, especially their revered petroglyph. Access to Prophecy Rock is only granted prior request and accompanied by a Hopi guide who belongs specifically to one of the Oraibi clans. 

For me, an innate skeptic, the experience was almost spiritual since I had finished the draft of my book and new well what was before my eyes.

I will explain it shortly, but first some historical background to better understand: The chariot as a transport vehicle pulled by load animals appeared around 6,000+ years ago in the Eurasian steppes. More or less at the same time, in Mesopotamia, the horse —a more agile and speedy animal— was domesticated, so it didn’t take long for the chariot to be repurposed for war. Its great advantage on the battlefield had the chariot become symbolic of a victorious and powerful warrior, and as such was depicted in illustrations and reliefs across the Middle East and the Mediterranean carrying divinities, royals and pharaohs alike. 

​The tombs of the elite adopted the chariot as a prestigious funerary object, so was buried next to its owner alongside an array of military regalia (spears, bows, shields) and a diverse range of status goods (combs, mirrors, lyres). Meanwhile, in more modest graves, the deceased had to make do with a miniature chariot or a stele engraved with the mentioned glorifying artifacts. 

On the Iberian Peninsula, at the time of the Tartessian (11th - 6th century B.C.), the chariot appears to have had a purely ceremonial o symbolic purpose since no war chariot has been found as of yet. What has been found are hundreds of warrior stelae (as seen in the previous post), that depict the deceased with or without a helmet and surrounded by his weapons, high-status symbols, and of course the chariot. It is necessary to note, however, that the Tartessian warrior stelae have rarely appeared near a grave, which make experts wonder if they were intended as territorial markers. 

​Be that as it may, there arises another oddity in Iberia. While no “war” chariot has been uncovered, some princely graves have been found to contain “funerary” chariots. Their symbolism is different in that they are meant to carry the deceased safely to the afterlife rather than to denote status. Additionally, they also differ in that the funerary chariot has a square and heavy box while the war chariot is lighter with a D-shaped carriage. This discrepancy between the grave chariot and the chariot depicted on the stelae is extremely important since it is a local peculiarity that pertains specifically to the Tartessian.

Please note the dancing figures holding hands by the chariot at the bottom of the Ategua Stele. I will refer back to them later. 

Finally, there is a third type of chariot, the votive one, which I touched upon earlier. As I mentioned, due to their high symbolic value, chariots, already in Sumer, were miniaturized to serve as a votive offering or grave good. As such, it became a support, or stage if you will, for scenes themselves of symbolic content as well. In Tartessos there is an exquisite example made in bronze dated to the 6th century B.C. (see illustration below). I also referred to it in my previous post, so I hope you can now further appreciate its symbolic relevance with regards to its equivalent scene in Utah. Found in Merida, the chariot supports a hunting scene, divine in nature due to the presence of the wild boar. In Monte da Costa Figueira, Portugal, another chariot appeared (also seen below), dated a little later to the 4th century B.C. It was recovered in a bad state, but seems to support a funerary scene involving an animal sacrifice. One can make out a procession of priests, men, women and a flute player together with the animals that will be sacrificed.

So now that we know a little about the three types of chariots found at the time of the Tartessian, let’s proceed to do magic…

If we combine the elements of the Tartessian stelae (the warrior with bow and shield of greater size than the rest standing next to his chariot, and the dancing figures from the Ategua Stele), with the elements of the Tartessian funerary chariots (the square box), and the elements of the Tartessian votive chariots (stage for symbolic scenes), what do we get?
​
We get the Hopi Chariot as only a Tartessian could have envisioned it 3,000 years ago:

Indeed, that is what my Spanish eyes saw: a Tartessian chariot… but they also saw something else.

Allow me to ask again: What is so special about this chariot that would have the Hopi Tribe honor it so loyally, with such devotion, for so long?
​
The answer is found in its strokes, which hide a secret in plain sight; a secret rooted in legend and related to King Solomon himself. But I can’t tell you here. For the secret to reveal itself, you must join two Hopi sisters on a journey of enlightenment (in Mary’s Apostles) as they hunt for the historical clues that piece it together. Only then you'll be able to truly see it. I can, however, advance two jaw-dropping hints: One will be provided in my next post God's Spanish Face, while the other will follow in Solomon’s Table Decoded. 

For the longest time, Tartessos was the faint memory of a legendary land with many faces. Depending on your ancient source, it was either a wealthy biblical civilization with commercial ties to King Solomon or a mythical land where the demigod Hercules succeeded to accomplish three of his labors. Today, some archaeologists regard the Tartessian peoples as idealized natives of the Iberian Peninsula who joined the civilized world thanks to Phoenician traders, while others see in them the cultured survivors of the fabulous Atlantis. Regardless of such divergent views, what is no longer in doubt is that they existed, and not a day goes by in which new exciting evidence, ever more impressive, appears.

As if their aura was not wondrous enough, I will attempt to prove that these enigmatic people, who lived around 3,000 years ago, may well have crossed the Atlantic and settled in the United States of America.

It all began during a family trip to the Grand Canyon in Arizona a few years ago. I was working on my third novel and wanted it to be different from the two prior ones, something more adventurous like resolving secret codes and searching for long-lost treasures, when my attention was drawn to the picture of a young Hopi woman displayed in a souvenir store. I am Spanish, so it was not lost on me that her hair was tied up in two whorls, one on each side of her head, very much in the style of the Lady of Elche, an ancient statue of a mysterious Iberian goddess and Spanish icon. I took it as a wonderful coincidence, perfect for the plot I had in mind. But then, as I proceeded to research, I was shocked to discover it was anything but a coincidence or the only one... I found hundreds of petroglyphs across the Southwest of the USA that shared uncanny similarities with the Tartessian steles of the southwest of Spain… and the equivalencies did not stop there.

LET’S CHECK OUT THE EVIDENCE

We’ll start with the stelae; they are one of the most identifiable artifacts we have of the Tartessos. Hundreds have been found and more keep popping up every day. Dated between the 11th and 6th century B.C, there are two overarching types based on the central character depicted, either a male warrior or a woman wearing a diadem, with two notable exceptions in which both characters were found on the same stele.​

The earlier warrior stelae usually contain one or more figures attired with helmets and carrying weapons (swords, shields, bows and arrows). Later, following Greek and Phoenician influence, they started to incorporate status elements such as chariots, combs, handheld mirrors, and musical instruments.

With regards to the diadem stelae, its character has been interpreted as a protective divinity that sometimes appears as a schematic figure, while in others she is more elaborated and adorned with belts and jewelry. In any case, the focal point of the composition is always the diadem.

Lastly we have the rare hybrid stele, like the one from Almaden de la Plata. It depicts the warrior and the diadem lady, both of equal size, implying they are also of equal relevance. 

It is still unclear what the purpose of these stelae was. Perhaps they were meant to represent a ruling authority or a divinity, a deceased, a combination thereof, or were simply territory markers. Be as it may, what is truly remarkable is that I have recognized these same symbolic representations, in all three variations, amidst Native American rock art.

To highlight their extraordinary prevalence, I selected a collection of stelae specifically from one region in Spain (top row), to compare with petroglyphs from one specific region in the United States (bottom row), thus limiting the possibility of random coincidence. But please do remember there are many, many more.​

These characters wear the same horned helmets and ball-earrings, carry the same weapons (spears and concentric-circled shields), and are depicted in similar scenes with same postures. The figure in the second image from Utah is even holding a mirror, typical of Mediterranean warrior grave iconography. Take a look at the Spanish equivalent image above: It displays the relevant handheld mirror along with a comb and a harp-like musical instrument to denote the figure’s high status. ​

​Next, I’d like to show you a couple of American equivalencies for the Spanish diadem stelae. 

Despite the high number of diadem stelae found in Spain, what hasn’t been found —yet— is an actual real-life diadem. I borrowed an image of one discovered in a necropolis in France so that you can better appreciate the volutes (swirls) that decorate them, and are clearly reproduced in the New Mexico image. (Remember this. I will refer back to it later.)

More impressive, still, is the image from Coso, California. As I stressed earlier, the stele from Almaden de la Plata, Seville, is unique in that it contains a warrior and diadem combo. Well, the same symbolic combination can be appreciated on the Coso rock where the usual horned-ball-earring warrior with four fingers can be seen covered by a diadem as if a protective veil.

Not impressed yet? Check out the next two spectacular comparatives.​

One of the defining elements of warrior stelae are the war chariots. Represented from an eagle’s viewpoint, you can see the frame of the chariot with its two wheels attached to an axis and the yoke hooked on two very schematized horses. The latter sometimes have their legs oriented toward the center, and others pointing outward.

The chariot, as a status symbol, extended throughout the Mediterranean to the west, across Asia to the east and as far north as Sweden, and sometimes an affluent or powerful leader was buried with a disassembled one… which makes it all the more amazing to recognize a disassembled chariot —perhaps symbolic of a deceased leader buried nearby— on a rock in Utah where, until the 16th century, there were no horses. The same occurs with the Newspaper Rock panel, also in Utah. Here I found up to three chariots. One in the form of a disassembled frame next to the deceased owner, portrayed riding his horse, and just below it a second chariot reminiscent of those found on Tartessian stelae. The third one is of special interest and I share it below.​

When I finished my novel, I returned to the Southwest to visit the petroglyphs I had researched online. I wanted to see them for myself up close and took the pictures you see here. The Newspaper Rock panel is one of North America’s largest known collections of petroglyphs, carved on it over centuries. The “logical” consensus is that the horse and its rider must have been done after the Spaniards arrived in 1492, since there were no horses prior. I obviously disagree. To me the image clearly depicts two Tartessian warriors with their typical horned helmets and a hunting scene with all the “symbolic” elements of the Tartessian votive chariot found in Merida, Spain (chariot wheel, horse riding hunter and even a hunting dog).

To further my case, let me bring your attention to the chariot* in the petroglyph from Albuquerque, New Mexico, on the left. This one came as a complete surprise since I did not know of it before my visit (and still have not found anything about it online). What is extraordinary about it is that it is a profile view (from the side, not from above like the others), and is clearly a 1st millennia B.C. war chariot (not a wagon as Spaniards would have used during the 16th century A.C. settlement). The concentric circles next to it are also found on Tartessian stelae and pottery, and happen to be iconic of geometric Greek art of the 1st millennia B.C. as well. So the point I’m trying to make is that it makes no sense to brush off 1st millennium B.C. iconography as post-Columbus.

*With this we have 4 chariots, yet I found a 5th one in Arizona which is so astonishing it is worthy of its own post.

Considering that I am not an archaeologist, yet came across these amazing findings following a cursory research for my novel, one can only imagine what other Tartessian related art or artifacts can be found in America if a more thorough investigation —with a fresh look— were to take place. (Note: I have since continued this line of research, and plan to further shock you in future posts.)

With this in mind, I wish to share one last comparative, the “coincidence” that started it all. I believe it shows that the Tartessian peoples may not have simply visited America at one point in time, but rather settled and mixed with the locals. Only this would explain their strong presence across the Southwest and the endurance of their memory as seen in how a beautiful Iberian goddess (note the row of volutes in her diadem) is still honored among the Hopi to this day.

​In my next post, The Hopi Chariot Puzzle, I will further address the fascinating affinity between the American Hopi and Spain’s legendary Tartessian.