Siberian Graveyard's Secret (More Redheads)

YEKATERINBURG, Russia In a medieval Siberian graveyard a few miles south of the Arctic Circle, Russian scientists have unearthed mummies roughly 1,000 years old, clad in copper masks, hoops and plates - burial rites that archaeologists say they have never seen before. .

Among 34 shallow graves were five mummies shrouded in copper and blankets of reindeer, beaver, wolverine or bear fur. Unlike the remains of Egyptian pharaohs, the scientists say, the Siberian bodies were mummified by accident. The cold, dry permafrost preserved the remains, and the copper may have helped prevent oxidation. .

The discovery adds to the evidence that Siberia was not an isolated wasteland but a crossroads of international trade and cultural diversity, Natalia Fedorova of the Ural branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences said in an interview in her office in this central Russian city. Among the artifacts discovered at the site were bronze bowls from Persia, dated by style from the 10th or 11th century. .

William Fitzhugh, chairman of the department of anthropology and director of the Arctic Studies Center at the Smithsonian, who in 1997 took part in the first expedition to the site, said the findings filled "a gap we really need to know a lot about." .

The medieval cemetery, named Zeleniy Yar after a nearby village, is at the base of a peninsula called "the end of the earth" by the native Nenets people.
Archaeological surveys in 1976 uncovered ceramic remains suggesting an ancient settlement. On the 1997
expedition, Fedorova, Fitzhugh and their colleagues dug up a male in a wooden coffin with an iron combat knife, a silver medallion and a bronze bird figurine, from the seventh to ninth century. .

Later digs turned up still more graves. Eleven of the 34 remains had shattered or missing skulls and chopped skeletons. This may have been done right after death, "to render protection from mysterious spells believed to emanate from the deceased," Fedorova said in a report, or it may have been a result of ancient grave robbing. .

Another researcher, Dmitri Razhev, said that added evidence of what contemporary societies of the area consider "protective magic" include leather straps wrapped tightly around the bodies, as well as beads or chains and humanoid or birdlike bronze figures broken into pieces at the time of burial. .

The legs of the dead all point toward the nearby Gorny Poluy River, a position that Fedorova said might have had religious significance. Nearly all the graves have traces of coffins made of logs or boat parts. Several were apparently warriors buried with iron knives; others apparently died in battle, as suggested by arrowheads lodged in eye sockets and stab wounds in their backs. .

In 2000, the archaeologists found their first copper-shrouded mummy, a child with a face masked by copper plates. Three more copper-masked infant mummies were found in 2001, each bound with four or five copper hoops two inches wide. In the remains of a metalworking shop, the researchers excavated a wooden sarcophagus with the best-preserved mummy of all, a red-haired man covered chest to foot in copper plate and laid out with an iron hatchet, well-preserved furs and a bronze bear's head buckle. .

The researchers are continuing digs on another Siberian settlement south and west of Zeleniy Yar. .

Niels Lynnerup, director of the Laboratory of Biological Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, who is not connected with the research, said in a telephone interview that the findings were remarkable.
"Archaeology is most important in those places where you don't have good written records," Lynnerup said. "So here, archaeology is terribly important." .

He added: "Often we find skeletons and nothing else. Here we have not only very detailed human remains, but excellent preservation of all their materials." .

Phoenix derived from Phoenicians

Hate to put the damper on those speculations, but the etymology of the word phoenix is as follows:
Middle English fenix, from Old English, from Old French both from Medieval Latin fnix, from Latin phoenix, from Greek phoinix.

The English word Phoenician is derived from the latin word Punic (as in the Punic wars). The Phoenicians didn't call themselves Phoenicians, they were Canaanites, though

from here

The Phoenicians were probably Semitic -- neither Europeans nor Africans Before going into the long and, sometimes, controversial origin of the Phoenicians, two things musts be made clear. The Phoenicians do not have their origin in Europe or in Africa. They were neither European nor where they black Africans. Their origin is probably Semitic though some references trace them back to as far away as India about 10,000 BC. Further, the Phoenician colonies which spread all over the coastline of the Mediterranean and even the Atlantic coasts were inhabited by Phoenician Semitic immigrants. No one can claim that the Phoenicians of North Africa were black or the Phoenicians of Spain, Gibraltar, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta...etc. were European. Statues, bursts, and artwork of the Phoenicians are found all over this website and upon close observation one can clearly see how closely they resemble the inhabitants of the shores of present day Mediterranean. (Note the images of the young Phoenician man and woman below). There are some who use the Bible for genealogical reference and actually believe Biblical characters such as Noah, Shem, Ham...etc. really existed and thereafter the Semites came from Shem and the Hamites from Ham...etc. These claims are categorically rejected and have no basis in purely scientific genealogical studies of ethnic origins and races. The Bible is about religion and many parts of the Old Testament should be looked at in that light. The Bible should not be taken as literally true. It is mostly mythological yet didactic

Here's another marvelous bit of speculation. Haven't really had the time to weigh it's merits, but I'm just tossing this idea into the mix:

Phoenician Origin of the Celts

Note: The excerpts and conclusions which are herewith provided are mere speculations. They are kindly presented by a scholar who wishes to remain anonymous. The author/compiler of this Web site presents them for your consideration. They do not necessarily represent his opinion even when he is open to higher criticism.

There are contradictory leads regarding the 'Celtic connection' to the Phoenicians, and they need to be considered as mere leads even when they may seem confusing to individuals who are already familiar with contradictory leads. There seems to be an ongoing debate, among the experts, regarding the origins and definition of the 'Celts'. Therefore, it is imperative to examine what is herewith presented in this light.Are the Phoenicians and Celts possibly related?

The Phoenicians and the Celts may have originated in the Indus Valley, and also the Knossus Civilization of Crete, circa 2600 BC, plus perhaps the Sumerians, who came by sea to Sumer around 3800 BC. Or... perhaps the Phoenician, but NOT the original "Celts" were from the Indus Valley, and today's Celts are actually a mixture of the Phoenicians plus a "pre-Celtic" group. This and many other related questions remain open.

The following information asserts the above idea and excerpts are presented for debate.

"Today a complete unanimity of opinion among physical anthropologists that the term Celt, if used at all, belongs to the brachycephalic (round headed) darkish population of the Alpine (Swiss) highlands..... totally lacking in the British Isles." -- W.Z. Ripley, Races of Europe. 124, 126, 305.

"....scientific anthropologists and classic historians have proved that the "Celts" of history were the non-Aryan, round-headed, darkish small statured race of south Germany and Switzerland, and that the "Celts" properly so called are "totally lacking in the British Isles." Thus, to speak as is so commonly done, of "Celtic ancestry," the "Celtic "temperament," and "Celtic fire" amongst any section of the natives of these islands, is, according to anthropologists merely imagination. "The term "Celt" or "Celt" is entirely unknown as the designation of any race or racial element of language in the British Isles, until arbitrarily introduced there a few generations ago. Nor does the name even exist in the so-called "Celtic" languages, the Gaelic, Welsh and Irish. It is, on the contrary, the classic Greek and Latin title of a totally different race of a totally different physical type from that of the British Isles, and that the word was only produced there by unscientific phlogistic and ethnologists some decades ago...." -- L.A. Waddell, "Phoenician origin of Britons, Scots and Anglo-Saxons", p 127f.

"It will thus be noticed that this "Celtic" area corresponds generally in Scotland with the area in which the "Picts" suddenly disappeared, and in whose place have suddenly appeared the people called "Celts". In Ireland also the "Celtic" area generally corresponds with that part of the country specially associated with the Bans, Van or Early Feins, who, we have found, were Picts. "This new line of evidence leads us to the conclusion that the early "Celts" or "Kelts" were presumably the early Picts calling themselves "Khaldis" or "Khaltis". They were a primitive people, who, I find from a mass of evidence, were early "Chaldees" or Galat (1) and "Gal (2)" of Van and Eastern Asia Minor and Mesopotamia in the Stone Age." -- L.A. Waddell, "Phoenician origin of Britons, Scots and Anglo- Saxons", p. 139.

History tells us that England was settled by the Phoenicians who sailed to England to mine the tin. The Phoenicians invaded England in 1103 BC and when they arrived they found England to be inhabited by the Picts. Picts were a small people and were considered aborigines. Over a period of time the Phoenicians were assimilated. Today the small descendants of this intermarriage between the Picts and the Phoenicians have been incorrectly termed Celts.

".......the daring Phoenician pioneers were not Semites as hitherto supposed, but were Aryans in Race, Speech and Script. They were, besides, disclosed to be the lineal blood ancestors of the Britons and Scots -- properly so-called, that is, as opposed to the aboriginal, dark Non-Aryan people of Albion, Caledonia, Hibernia, the dusky small-statured Picts and kindred "Iberian" tribes. -- p. vi of "The Phoenician Origin of Britons, Scots and Anglo-Saxons" (1924)

It is incorrect to say "British royalty". The royal line is English. The English are Anglo-Saxons from Germany. They came to England about the 5th Century. The British are descendants of the Britons from Phoenicia.

I believe the Northern Tribes mostly settled in Afganistan/Kurdistan/Pakistan. There are strong linguistic, genetic, and cultural matches between Jews and Parthans (and other groups) in Afganistan/Pakistan. Genetically, Kurds are the closest people to Jews in the world. The remainder of the Norhtern Tribes either returned and assimilated into Judah, or dispersed throughout the nations.

Got to stop you there -- Kurds are most definitely NOT SEmitics -- they're Aryan and related to the Persians and Azeris.

As for Pathans, that has been proven that they are not linked to the Jewish peoples either linguistically or genetically. The most likely candidates for the northern tribes would be either amongs the Judeans themselves or IRAQIS.

Why? When the northern tribes were exiled by the Assyrians, the Assyrian practise was to take the people from one end of the Empire to the other -- and the other end woudl ahve been Babylonia -- and there is proof that Israelis were settled there. Since the locals were also SEmitic, I think the Israelis would have merged with the local population over time. When the Judaens also joined them, some would have come back with them (the Judaens were under capticity for a shorter time so would not have assimilated that easily)

So, your most likely candidates for the lost tribes would be Iraiqis - maybe SAddy had some Jewish blood in him -- would be a good one to spring on him, eh?

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