ANCIENT MYSTERIES :.

THE PHOENICIANS IN BRAZIL

Christian da C. Karam

  Posted May 03.04

contd.....

When Baron von Humboldt, at the end of the eighteenth century, took research trips to explore the Brazilian countryside, he reached the Orenoco slopes and was surprised by the greatness that Maya, Inca and Aztec civilizations offered to anyone's eyes and mind. He verified that the legends about the existence of the Amazon women- whose name was given to the river- were true.

Beuchat cites the important Inca influence in the South American civilization as well as the Aztec influence in Mexico and in Central American societies.

We can still hear about the lost cities in the Brazilian countryside region, the petrified cities such as the one known as "Sete Cidades" (Seven Cities) in the state of Piaui and others in wild zones like the states of Mato Grosso, Goiás and Amazonas.

From São Luis dos Cáceres up to the north in the state of Mato Grosso, there are places that show the existence of buried cities that are the remains of a millenarian civilization very well.

Doctor Peter W. Lund, a great Danish scholar, came up with the theory of a precivilization in Brazil and the Phoenician contribution in its formation.

The Brazilian Indians, known as Carajás and Carajá-ís, have on their names the etymology of the words whose Phoenician origin can be found in today's Arabic language. Some other Brazilian Indian tribes such as the Guaranis, the Tupis, the Guajajaras, the Chambicás, the Anajás, the Carijós, etc., have in their vocabulary thousands of Arabian words whose origin is Phoenician.

Maya and Aztec civilizations differ little from the Phoenicians. Their merchants, governors, administration, clans and their moral education clearly show us the ethnology of their civil way of life.

The Indians who deal with oil, in the north of Brazil, and who still today execute the Marajoaras work perfectly, adopt the same systems used by the Phoenician workers with oil who mixed wood and vine ashes with mud (clay) in order to produce ceramics. The resemblance among these drawings, the pots' shapes, the small statues and other Indian works and the Phoenician artifacts is noteworthy.

The same Phoenician burial ritual -- the one that buried the dead with all the objects that belonged to them -- also was adopted by almost all Brazilian Indian tribes.

The Phoenicians had a factory or a mart in a region, legendarily known as Atlantis that in their language meant -- according to the Phoenician term "Al- Atlantic"--: huge, large, extensive, vast, endless. And in Arabic "Al- Atlantic" means giant, majestic.

When I went on some trips into the Brazilian countryside, I saw some coins that had been found in Brazilian ground whose origin is completely unknown. Making a comparison among these coins and Paraguayan, Bolivian and Peruvian coins their resemblance to coins from Sidon and Tyre is very great.

In the Rio de Janeiro National Museum there exist tombstones with Phoenician, Syriac and Sanskrit inscriptions found in the Brazilian countryside.

Edmund Bleibel, a distinguished Lebanese historian, in his books "General History of Lebanon", published in Beirut, states: "when the Phoenicians were established in Africa, and Gibraltar was the limit of their empire, they planned to cross the huge ocean towards the unknown".

Then Ilu of Jbail (Byblos) and his wife Harmonia (Harmony) prepared a big fleet and navigated the enormous sea looking for the "Eternal Islands" (Canary Islands) but they disappeared forever. It was said that their souls embodied two serpents, which meant that their lives had been renewed by god, Baal's will.

Later it was corroborated that they had crossed the huge ocean and discovered the region where today is South America. So, that happened 3,000 years before Christopher Columbus.

They gave the first new land they discovered the name of "Barr Ilu" which means "The Continent of God". When the nation was formed and its administration was organized, the chosen queen to rule that place was Mirinieh Mirubieh known as "Queen of the Amazones" which means "Queen of the Warriors". That queen was sent to Lebanon to save Ilu of Jbail (Byblos) who was in a critical situation.

The "Queen of the Amazons" called "The Big Ocean" the ocean known before as 'Mirubi Ocean" which today is the Atlantic Ocean. This last denomination was in honour of Atlas, the great Phoenician king of Lybia

Cadmus, the great navigator of Tyre, left his city -- Cadamiat -- on a scientific mission in order to study the Cuchite language spoken in Brazil.

A few historians have been investigating the origin of such a language and they found many evidences that confirm the Phoenician's coming to Brazil bringing with them some Greek workers before any other people. The historian Deodoro told the way they might have arrived here. That fact was confirmed by Plutarch and was mentioned by the great Brazilian historian Rui Barbosa, as well as by other Brazilian poets who sang on their lyres the Phoenician and their monuments on the Brazilian soil.

Each fleet that left Sidon, Jbail and Tyre had 200 or 300 boats that headed to Brazil. The smallest one was used to bring the members of the crew with their support material and equipment. They usually stopped to rest and also to buy supplies in Tunis and at the Canary Islands.

Among the Phoenician civilization monuments in Brazil there is a city that was called "Airo", today completely lost in the admirable immensity of this country. Its ancient inhabitants were proud of belonging to the Phoenician lineage just like the Irish people. They used to say that they were Tyrian descendants who, during King Hiram's time, came to take gold. They took this precious metal to Tyre and to King Salomon of Jerusalem from the land of Ofir, where this mineral was very abundant. It is located in the Amazon River borders.

Finally we verify that truth is clear and positive. I wish the Brazilian honourable governors could help twentieth century dedicated scientists to research, in the Brazilian entrails, for its pre- historic reality, the one of its archaic civilization, and maybe we would have even surpassed the Greek and the Roman civilizations.

References:
Excertos do livro de: Lisboa, Luiz C. e Andrade, Roberto P. "Grandes Enigmas da Humanidade " - Capítulo 5: "Os que antecederam Colombo" páginas 96- 100. Círculo do Livro S.A. Editorial. São Paulo, 1969.

Excerpts from the book by: Lisboa, Luiz C. and Andrade, Roberto P. "Great Enigmas of Mankind" - Chapter 5: "Columbus antecessors" pages 96- 100. Círculo do Livro Press. São Paulo, 1969.

Excertos do livro de: Bastaní, Tanus Jorge "0 Líbano e os Libaneses no Brasil" -Parte oitava: "Indícios da vinda dos Fenícios ao Brasil" páginas 155- 159. Edição independente. Rio de Janeiro, 1945.

Excerpts from the book by: Bastani, Tanus Jorge "Lebanon and the Lebanese in Brazil" -- Eighth part: "Traces of the Phoenician arrival in Brazil" pages 155-159 Independent edition. Rio de Janeiro, 1945.