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TITLE OF PHŒNICIAN IN INSCRIPTION

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also calls himself by the title of Briton and Scot, and " Hittite," "Silurian" and "Cilician," by early forms of these names, and records as the place of his nativity a famous well-known old capital and centre of Sun-worship in Cilicia. We shall now identify these names and titles in this uniquely important historical British inscription in detail.

His title of "Phænician" first calls for notice. Its spelling of "Poenig" in this inscription equates closely with the Greek and Roman and other still earlier forms of that title. Thus it is seen to equate with the " Phoinik-es" of the Greeks, the "Phanic-es" of the Romans, the Panag Panasa and Fenkha of the ancient Egyptians1 (which latter sea-going people are referred to in the records of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt); the Panag of the Hebrews,' and "The able Panch" of the Sanskrit Epics and Vedas. These different dialectic forms of spelling the name Phoenic-ian thus give the equation:

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The omission of this title in the Ogam version is obviously due to want of space, as that cumbrous script had already overrun the edge of the stone (its usual place) on to the face of the stone.

This title of " Poenig" or Phanic-ian possibly survives locally at the Newton Stone in the name "Bennachie," for the bold mountain dominating the site of the monument, and celebrated along with the Gadie river in the old song already referred to. "Ben," of course, is the Cymric and Gaelic name for "mountain," but there seems no obvious Gaelic or Celtic suitable meaning for " Nachie" or " Achie." On the other hand, the letters P and B are always freely interchangeable dialectically, and as a fact " Phoenix" and Phoenicos" were names for several mountains at Phoeni

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1 See B.E.D., 982a, wherein the affix bu of Panag-bu merely means place of" (see ibid., 213); and for Fankh or Fenkh, see ibid., 9956, and H.N.E., 159 and 276.

Ezekiel, 27, 17.

cian sites, such as in Caria (an early Phoenician colony) and in Lycia adjoining Cilicia, and in Boeotia in Greece. It thus seems not impossible that Bennachie mountain may preserve the title of the famous "Pœnig" king who first civilized this part of Britain and erected his votive pillar at its foot, and who presumably was buried beside it under the shadow of the beautiful Bennachie. Or there may have been a Sun-altar on its topmost peak or at its base, dedicated by this Phoenician king or his descendants to the "Phoenix" Sun-bird emblem of Bil or Bel. (See later).

In this regard also, the name of " Bleezes" for the old inn at the foot of Mt. Bennachie (now a farm house) is suggestive of former Bel Fire worship here. "Bleezes," "Blaze," Blayse, or Blaise, was the name of a canonical saint introduced into the Early Christian Church in the fourth century, from Cappadocia, like St. George, and, like the latter, has no authentic historical Christian original, but is evidently a mythical incorporation of the Bel Fire cult introduced for proselytizing purposes. He was made the patron-saint of Candlemas Day, 2nd (or 3rd) February—the solar festival of end of winter and beginning of spring, mid-way between Yule or Old-time Christmas, the end of the solar year and the spring equinox; it is still the common name for the beginning of the Scottish fiscal year. He is represented in

art as carrying "a lighted taper, typical of his being a burning and a shining light." So popular was his worship in Britain in the Middle Ages that the Council of Oxford in 1222 prohibited secular labour on that day. It was till lately the custom in many parts of England to light bonfires on the hills on St. Blazes' night." Norwich still observes his day, and at Bradford in Yorkshire a festival is held every five years in honour of St. Blaze.' He was specially associated with the text in Job v., 23 "thou shalt be in league

'Strabo, 410; 651; 666.

• The traditional place of his massacre was at the old Hittite city of Savast. Y.M.P., 1, 43.

On a "Candlemas Bleeze" tax, cp. H.F.F., 85.

B.L.S., Feb., 49.

• Ib. 48.

Ib. 48; and Percy, Notes on Northumberland, 1770, 332.

'B.L.S., Feb., 48.

HIS TITLE "CILICIAN "

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with the Stones of the Field," which is perhaps a reference to the sacred stones of natural boulders, such as were used in the Bel Fire cult; so that this local name of "Bleezes," under Bennachie and in sight of our monument, may preserve the tradition of an ancient Phoenician altar blazing with perpetual Fire-offering to Bel.

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His title of "Cilician" occurs in two forms of spelling. In the Phoenician script it is spelt " Sssilokoy," and in the Ogam, which possesses fewer alphabetic letters, it is written Siollagga." This clearly designates the "Cilicia" of the Romans, the "Kilikia" of the Greeks and the "Xilakku" or "Xilakki" of the Babylonians, the maritime province of eastern Asia Minor bordering the north-east corner of the Mediterranean (see map). Situated on the land-bridge connecting Asia Minor and the west with Syria-Phoenicia, Egypt, Mesopotamia and the east, and of great strategical importance, it was early occupied by the Phoenicians, and contained one of their early seaports, namely Tarsus, the "Tarshish" of the Hebrew Old Testament, famous for its ships. That city-port was also significantly named" Parthenia" or Land of the Parths," that is, as now seen, a dialectic variant of the Phoenician eponym "Barat," in series with the " Prat" on our Newton monument. Significantly also it was an especial centre of Bel worship, and was under the special protection of the marine tutelary goddess Barati who was, as we shall see, the Phoenician prototype of our modern British tutelary "Britannia."

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So intimately, indeed, were the Phoenicians identified with Cilicia, that later classic Greek writers, when the exact relationship of Cilicia to the Phoenicians had become forgotten, still make the Cilicians to be "the brothers" of the Phoenicians. Phoenix and King Cadmus-the-Phoenician

! Ib., 48.

See M.D., 314.

Tarshish is generally arbitrarily which was also a Phoenician colony. to identify it with Tarsus in Cilicia, shows later.

R.C.P., 135.

identified with Tartessus in Spain, But Rawlinson (R.H.P., 98) inclines and rightly so, as my new evidence

'Cilicia was occupied later by the Parthians (S., 669), who, we shall find, were a branch of the Barats.

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called the sons of Agenor, the first traditional king of the Phoenicians, and their brother was Kilix,1 that is the eponym of Cilicia, the "Kilikia" of the Greeks. And the ancient Phoenician colonists from Cilicia proudly recorded their Cilician ancestry, like the author of our monument, and like the apostle Paul who boasted, saying "I am a Jew of Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city." They thus not infrequently recorded their "Cilician" ancestry on their sacred monuments and tombstones in foreign colonies, but also transplanted their cherished name "Cilicia" to some of their new colonies.

Cilician colonists, like the author of our Newton inscription, were in the habit of not returning to their native land, Strabo tells us; and patriotically they sometimes transplanted their homeland name of "Cilicia" to their new colonies. Thus they name one of their colonies on the Ægean seaboard of the Troad, south of Troy, "Cilicia." This now leads us to the further discovery of an early-Phoenician Cilician seaport colony in South Britain, at Sels-ey or

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Just as some of the historical Briton kings were in the habit of occasionally adopting the Sun-God's title of Bel as a personal name (S.C.P., 15, 16, and 434), so their Phoenician ancestors had previously often called themselves after Bel, and sometimes adding the locality of his chief centre of worship, presumably because it was their own native home. Thus Bel was sometimes called "Bel Libnan (Bel of Lebanon), “ Bel Hermon ” (Bel of Hermon), and similarly "Bel of Tyre, Sidon, Tarsus," etc. (cp. (R.H.P., 325). In this way Bel Silik" or " Bel of Cilicia' was a not uncommon personal name recorded on the tombstones and votive monuments to Bel in Phoenician colonies outside Cilicia, and presumably by Phoenicians of Cilician ancestry. Thus in Phoenician tombstones in Sardinia, where we shall find one of the deceased bears the title of " Part" or " Prat" (i.e., as we shall see," Barat or " Brit-on "), another is recorded as " Son of Bel of Silik" (C.I.S. No. 155 and L.P.I. No. 1); and a trilingual inscription gives the Grecianised form as Sillech" (C.I.S. Vol. I, 72). This same name, I observe, is borne by many other Phoenicians on votive monuments and tombs in Carthage (ib. Nos. 178, 205, 257, 286, 312, 358, 368); and "Silik," in combination with the divine Phoenician title of Asman, is borne by Phoenicians in Cyprus and Carthage (ib. Nos. 50, 197). Here and elsewhere, the name of the Phoenician Father-god when occurring, in the "Semitic "Phoenician I transliterate " Bel," as the middle letter is a solitary "ayin," which is often rendered e, though with unwarranted licence it is usually rendered in this word aa, and arbitrarily given the form "Baal," to forcibly adapt it to the Hebrew "Baal." S. 673, 14, 5, 13.

S. 585: 13, 1, 17, etc.

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CILICIANS IN EARLY BRITAIN

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"Island of the Sels." A hoard of pre-Roman coins of Ancient Britain, mostly gold, were found on the sea-shore between Bognor and Selsey, the latter being the name of the ancient Briton sea-port town of the peninsula offlying the Briton "Caer Cei" city, the Chichester of the Romans. These coins are of archaic type with solar symbols (see later) and bear an inscription hitherto undeciphered, and described by the leading numismatist as" a number of marks something like Hebrew characters, which is, however, undecipherable."

Now, this inscription on these Ancient Briton coins from Selsey (see Fig. 9) is, I find, stamped in clear Aryan Phoenician writing, with letters generally similar to those of the Newton Stone, and, like it, reads, in the usual Aryan or non-Semitic direction. It reads "SS(i)L," which seems a contraction

Fig. 9. Phoenician Inscription on Early Briton Coins
found near Sels-ey.

(After Evans.)

Note Inscription reads “SS(1)L," a contraction for "Cilicia."

for the fuller" Sśsilokoy" or "Cilicia" of the Newton Stone Phoenician inscription; for it is the rule in Early Briton coins, also followed in modern British, to use a contracted form of place and other names for want of space. Topographically, this Sels-ey was precisely the sort of island

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The ey, or ay or ea affix in British place-names such as Chelsea or Chelsey, Battersea, Rothesay, Orkney, Alderney, etc., is admittedly the Gothic and Norse ey an island (cp. V.D. 134). And significantly the Phoenician word for island" or "sea-shore" was ay (Hildebrand), a word also adopted by the Hebrews in their Old Testament for "Isles of the Gentiles" and places beyond the sea.

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'C.B., i, 267; and B.H.E., 13.

• E.B.C., 94-5.

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This direction is clearly indicated by the third or last letter, which is turned to the left, i.e. in the opposite direction to the retrograde "Semitic Phoenician letter L.

' E.B.C., pl. E., Fig. 10.

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