Ancient Canaan and the Levant: Affinity with the Nile
The Bible myths are my first source for referencing the origins of the Canaanite and Mesopotamian civilizations. There is always a bit of truth behind myths. The ancient Nubian/Ethiopian Kingdom of Kush is mentioned in the Bible as Cush, Egypt is mentioned as Mizraim (the Hebrew word for Egypt), the Levant as Canaan, and Punt as Put. Cush, Mizraim, Canaan, and Put are all said to be the sons of Ham according to the Bible.
Biblical pseudo-genealogy presents Ham as representing the "Black Race", the curse of Ham being our black skin and subjugation for 400 years. But, if we were to accept this ideology for its geographic significance, interesting TRUTHS emerge.
So if Ham means Black Race, then we know Cush (Nubia and Ethiopia), Mizraim (Egypt), Canaan (Israel, Palestine, Syria and Phoenicia), and Put (The Sahara before it was Desert) are lands of the Africans!!! This is what is implied by that theory. It becomes more interesting when the Scriptures say who the son of Cush was and the legacy that this figure left.
Nimrod is his name and his early centers are the names of the capitals and cultural centers of all of the Mesopotamian empires from Ir of Chaldea to Babylon, Akkad of the Akkadian Empire to Nineveh of the Assyrian Empire. These early cities were all founded by Nimrod son of Cush (Nubia and Ethiopia). So, from Ethiopia up through Egypt further up to Palestine, Israel, Syria, and over to the entire Mesopotamian region we are the children of Ham the Black Race.
A river watering the garden flowed from Eden, from there it was separated into four head waters -Genesis 2:10
The Name of the second head water was Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush-Genesis 2:13
The sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put and Canaan-Genesis 10:16
Cush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty Hunter before the lord-Genesis 10:8
The first centers of his Kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Akkad,and Calneh...Nineveh ,Rehoboth, Ir, Calah and Resin-Genesis10:10-12
"Osiris being come to the borders of Ethiopia, raised high banks on either side of the river, lest, in the time of its inundation it should overflow the country more than was convenient make it marshy and boggy; and made flood-gates to let in the water by degrees, as far as was necessary. Thence he passed through Arabia, bordering upon the Red sea as far as to India, and the utmost coasts that were inhabited; he built likewise many cities in India, one of which he called Nysa, willing to have a remembrance of that in Egypt where he was brought up...he planted ivy, which grows and remains here only of all other places in India..."-Herodotus
"For the people of Colchis are evidently Egyptian, and this I perceived for myself before I heard it from others. So when I had come to consider the matter I asked them both; and the Colchians had remembrance of the Egyptians more than the Egyptians of the Colchians; but the Egyptians said they believed that the Colchians were a portion of the army of Sesostris. That this was so I conjectured myself not only because they have black skins and curly hair (this of itself amounts to nothing, for there are other races which are so), but also still more because the Colchians, Egyptians, and Ethiopians alone of all the races of men have practised circumcision from the first. The Phenicians and the Syrians who dwell in Palestine confess themselves that they have learnt it from the Egyptians, and the Syrians about the river Thermodon and the river Parthenios, and the Macronians, who are their neighbours, say that they have learnt it lately from the Colchians. These are the only races of men who practise circumcision, and these evidently practise it in the same manner as the Egyptians."-Herodotus.
Modern scholarship has also shed light on the relationship between the Nile Valley and the Levant. In his words Robert Deutsch states in his piece Lasting Impressions,
"Egypt probably exerted the strongest influence on Judahite iconography, but elements from other cultures Canaanite, Mycenaen, Assyrian, and Hittite- can be clearly discerned as well. Aramaic and Assyrian motifs are also common in both Judahite and Phoenician Art. Judah was hardly the only ancient culture to borrow iconography from it's neighbors. Phoenician cities including Tyre, Sidon, and especially Byblos were awash in Egyptianized material culture"
William G. Dever is an American archaeologist, specialising in the history of Israel and the Near East in Biblical times. He was Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson from 1975 to 2002. In his 2005 book Did God have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in ancient Israel he states,
"We actually have hundreds of Iron Age amulets mostly from Judean tombs, but again few biblical scholars have paid attention to them. Amulets by definition are magic symbols; used mostly to bring good luck capotropaic (turning away evil). They would probably have been used by many people in ancient Israel and, being amongst their most precious possessions, they were buried with the deceased. The most common ones found in the tombs are Egyptian "Eye of Horus" plaques; figurines of [Egyptian] dieties especially Bes, guardian of the dead."
Dr. William Durant Ph.d, of Columbia University, wrote in his work The Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage,
"The Phoenicians did not create the Alphabet, they marketed it; taking it apparently from Egypt and Crete, they imported it piecemeal to Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and exported it to every city on the Mediterranean; they were the middle men, not the producers, of the Alphabet. By the time of Homer the Greeks were taking over this Phoenician - or the allied Aramaic - alphabet, and were calling it by the Semitic names of the first two letters Alpha Beta: Hebrew Aleph Beth."
