The Huns

The Huns

The Huns were a nomadic pastoral people from Mongolia eastern Asia who invaded Europe circa 370 A.D, and created an enormous empire centered in Germany. They were possibly the descendants of the Xiongnu, a northern people who were frequently at war with the Shang of China. Note, the Turkic, so-called "White Huns" (Hephthalites) had no direct connection with the Huns, these were White tribes who deliberately called themselves Huns, in order to frighten their enemies.

Attila

The historian Priscus (circa 450 A.D.) was a Greek-speaking Roman citizen who often meant with Attila, he described Attila’s personal features in his works, which are now mostly lost. Jordanes was a 6th century Roman bureaucrat who turned his hand to history later in life, he quotes Priscus thusly: When Attila's brother Bleda who ruled over a great part of the Huns had been slain by Attila's treachery, the latter united all the people under his own rule. Gathering also a host of the other tribes which he then held under his sway he sought to subdue the foremost nations of the world---the Romans and Visigoths. His army is said to have numbered 500,000 men. He was a man born into the world to shake the nations, the scourge of all lands, who in some way terrified all mankind by the dreadful rumors noised abroad concerning him. He was haughty in his walk, rolling his eyes here and there, so that the power of his proud spirit appeared in the movement of his body. He was indeed a lover of war, yet restrained in action, mighty in counsel, gracious to suppliants and lenient to those who were once received into his protection. He was short of stature, with a broad chest and a large head: his eyes were small, his beard thin and sprinkled with gray: and he had a flat nose and a swarthy complexion showing the evidences of his origin..

During Atila's reign he was one of the most feared enemies of both the Western and Eastern Roman Empires. He crossed the Danube twice and plundered the Balkans. The Huns invaded the Sassanid Persian Empire. When defeated in Armenia by the Sassanians, the Huns abandoned their invasion and turned their attentions back to Europe. In 440 they reappeared in force on the borders of the Roman Empire, attacking the merchants at the market on the north bank of the Danube that had been established by treaty.

Crossing the Danube, they laid waste to the cities of Illyricum and forts on the river, including (according to Priscus) Viminacium, a city of Moesia. Their advance began at Margus, where they demanded that the Romans turn over a bishop who had retained property that Attila regarded as his. While the Romans discussed turning the Bishop over, he slipped away secretly to the Huns and betrayed the city to them.

While the Huns attacked city-states along the Danube, the Albino Vandals led by Geiseric captured the Western Roman province of Africa and its capital of Carthage. Carthage was the richest province of the Western Empire and a main source of food for Rome. The Romans stripped the Balkans area of forces to use them to defeat the Vandals in Africa, which left Attila a clear path through Illyricum into the Balkans, which they invaded in 441. The Hunnish army sacked Margus and Viminacium, and then took Singidunum (modern Belgrade) and Sirmium. During 442 Theodosius recalled his troops from Sicily and ordered a large issue of new coins to finance operations against the Huns. Believing he could defeat the Huns, he refused Atila's demands.

Attila responded with a campaign in 443. Striking along the Danube, the Huns, equipped with new military weapons like the battering rams and rolling siege towers, overran the military centres of Ratiara and successfully besieged Naissus (modern Niš). Advancing along the Nisava River, the Huns next took Serdica, Philippopolis, and Arcadiopolis. They encountered and destroyed a Roman army outside Constantinople but were stopped by the double walls of the Eastern Roman capital (Constantinople - Byzantium). They defeated a second army near Callipolis (modern Gallipoli). Theodosius, stripped of his armed forces, admitted defeat, sending the Magister militum per Orientem Anatolius to negotiate peace terms. The terms were harsher than the previous treaty: the Emperor agreed to hand over 6,000 Roman pounds (ca. 2000 kg) of gold as punishment for having disobeyed the terms of the treaty during the invasion; the yearly tribute was tripled, rising to 2,100 Roman pounds (ca. 700 kg) in gold; and the ransom for each Roman prisoner rose to 12 solidi.

In 450, Attila proclaimed his intent to attack the Visigoth kingdom of Toulouse by making an alliance with Emperor Valentinian III. He had previously been on good terms with the Western Roman Empire and its influential general Flavius Aëtius. Aëtius had spent a brief exile among the Huns in 433, and the troops Attila provided him against the Goths and Bagaudae had helped earn him the largely honorary title of magister militum in the west. The gifts and diplomatic efforts of Geiseric, who opposed and feared the Visigoths, may also have influenced Attila's plans. However, Emperor Valentinian's sister was Honoria, who, in order to escape her forced betrothal to a Roman senator, had sent Atila a plea for help – and her engagement ring – in the spring of 450. Though Honoria may not have intended a proposal of marriage, Attila chose to interpret her message as such. He accepted, asking for half of the western Empire as dowry. When Valentinian discovered the plan, only the influence of his mother Galla Placidia convinced him to exile, rather than kill his sister Honoria. He also wrote to Attila strenuously denying the legitimacy of the supposed marriage proposal. Attila sent an emissary to Ravenna to proclaim that Honoria was innocent, that the proposal had been legitimate, and that he would come to claim what was rightfully his.

Attila gathered his vassals—Gepids, Ostrogoths, Rugians, Scirians, Heruls, Thuringians, Alans, Burgundians, among others and began his march west. In 451, he arrived in Belgica with an army half a million strong. Aëtius moved to oppose Attila, gathering troops from among the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Celts. A mission by Avitus, and Attila's continued westward advance, convinced the Visigoth king Theodoric I (Theodorid) to ally with the Romans. The combined armies reached Orléans ahead of Attila, thus checking and turning back the Hunnish advance. Aëtius gave chase and caught the Huns at a place usually assumed to be near Catalaunum (modern Châlons-en-Champagne).

The two armies clashed in the Battle of Châlons, whose outcome is commonly considered to be a strategic victory for the Visigothic-Roman alliance. The Albino king Theodoric was killed in the fighting and Aëtius failed to press his advantage, because he feared the consequences of an overwhelming Visigothic triumph as much as he did a defeat. From Aëtius' point of view, the best outcome was what occurred: Theodoric died, Attila was in retreat and disarray, and the Romans had the benefit of appearing victorious.

Attila returned in 452 to claim his marriage to Honoria anew, invading and ravaging Italy along the way. The city of Venice was founded as a result of these attacks when the residents fled to small islands in the Venetian Lagoon. His army sacked numerous cities and razed Aquileia completely, leaving no trace of it behind. Legend has it he built a castle on top of a hill north of Aquileia to watch the city burn, thus founding the town of Udine, where the castle can still be found. Aëtius, who lacked the strength to offer battle, managed to harass and slow Attila's advance with only a shadow force. Attila finally halted at the River Po. By this point disease and starvation may have broken out in Attila's camp, thus helping to stop his invasion.

Emperor Valentinian III sent three envoys, the high civilian officers Gennadius Avienus and Trigetius, as well as the Bishop of Rome Leo I, who met Attila at Mincio in the vicinity of Mantua, and obtained from him the promise that he would withdraw from Italy and negotiate peace with the Emperor. After Attila left Italy and returned to his palace across the Danube, he planned to strike at Constantinople again and reclaim the tribute which Marcian had stopped. (Marcian was the successor of Theodosius and had ceased paying tribute in late 450 while Attila was occupied in the west; multiple invasions by the Huns and others had left the Balkans with little to plunder).

Attila died in the early months of 453: The conventional account, from Priscus, says that at a feast celebrating his latest marriage to the beautiful and young Ildico (if uncorrupted, the name suggests she was Albino) he suffered a severe nosebleed and choked to death in a stupor. An alternative theory is that he succumbed to internal bleeding after heavy drinking or a condition called esophageal varices, where dilated veins in the lower part of the esophagus rupture leading to death by hemorrhage.

Jordanes says: "The greatest of all warriors should be mourned with no feminine lamentations and with no tears, but with the blood of men." His horsemen galloped in circles around the silken tent where Attila lay in state, singing in his dirge, according to Cassiodorus and Jordanes: "Who can rate this as death, when none believes it calls for vengeance?" Then they celebrated a strava (lamentation) over his burial place with great feasting. Legend says that he was laid to rest in a triple coffin made of gold, silver, and iron, along with some of the spoils of his conquests. His men diverted a section of the river, buried the coffin under the riverbed, and then were killed to keep the exact location a secret.

Black Civilizations of Eastern Europe

The site of Sungir (26,000 B.C.), discovered during clay extraction operations in 1956, was excavated by Otto Bader from 1956 to 1977. Excavations were re-opened by Bader's assistant Ludmilla Mikhailova and Bader's son Nicolai in 1986, and continue today. Sungir is an enormous early Upper Paleolithic living site located on the outskirts of the city of Vladimir, 192 km from Moscow in the Russian Republic.

While inhabiting Sungir, at least five of the site's occupants perished. According to Russian physical anthropologists, these consisted of a 60 year-old man, a 7 to 9 year-old girl, a 13 year-old boy, an unsexed headless adult and an adult female skull.

The two adolescents and the adult male were buried in two shallow graves three meters apart, dug into the permafrost beneath the living surface of the site. All three of the corpses were laid on their backs with their hands folded across their pelvises. The fourth individual was represented by an isolated and poorly preserved female skull placed beside a stone slab in an area stained with red ochre, and was found overlying the man's burial (a person sacrificed to serve as a protector in the afterlife?). The fifth skeleton, that of a headless adult, was so poorly preserved as to be practically unrecoverable. It was found immediately on top of the two adolescents, (a person sacrificed to serve as a protector in the afterlife?), who were buried together in a head-to-head fashion in the middle of an apparently abandoned circular dwelling structure.

Each of the three intact individuals were lavishly decorated with thousands of painstakingly prepared ivory beads arranged in dozens of strands, perhaps basted to their clothing. Although it is almost certain that the three individuals buried intact at Sungir were members of the same social group, there are remarkable differences among them in details of body decoration and grave offerings. The man was adorned with 2,936 beads and fragments arranged in strands found on all parts of his body including his head, which was apparently covered with a beaded cap that also bore several fox teeth.

His forearms and biceps were each decorated with a series of polished mammoth-ivory bracelets (25 in all), some showing traces of black paint. They were thin, flat strips of mammoth-ivory, cut longitudinally along the tusk. They were pierced at each end, some with one hole, others with two, apparently to keep the ivory bent into a circle. What appear to be brush strokes from the application of pigment are visible on at least one specimen. Around the man's neck, he wore a small, flat schist pendant, painted red, but with a small black dot on one side.

In the book "The Mind in the Cave" David Lewis-Williams cites Sungir as evidence that humanity's natural state is subject to a ruler. He cites this as one of the cognitive "advantages" we enjoyed over Neanderthals, leading to our success and their failure. But if the human condition is so amenable to rulership, why is the royal burial at Sungir so exceptional? Why have we not found more burials like it?

Lewis-Williams himself unwittingly offers us the reason why. Sungir was situated along the mammoth migratory routes. There was such a glut of mammoth meat once a year, that these foragers could afford to remain stationary. Thus they developed a complex society, including royalty.

The Site of Mal'ta (Siberia) Russia

The vast territory of North and Central Asia represents a poorly understood region in the prehistoric era, despite intensive excavations that have been conducted during the past century. The earliest human occupation in this region, probably began sometime around 40,000 years ago. Small groups of big-game hunters likely migrated into this region, as a result of the second out of Africa (OOA) migration. They confronted a harsh climate and long, dry winters. By about 20,000 B.C., two principal cultural traditions had developed in Siberia and northeastern Asia: the Mal'ta and the Afontova Gora-Oshurkovo cultures.

The Mal'ta tradition is known from a vast area spanning west of Lake Baikal and the Yenisey River. The site of Mal'ta, for which the culture is named, is composed of a series of subterranean houses made of large animal bones and reindeer antler, which had likely been covered with animal skins and sod to protect inhabitants from the severe, prevailing northerly winds. Among the artistic accomplishments evident at Mal'ta are remains of expertly carved bone, ivory, and antler objects. Figurines of birds and human females are the most commonly found items.

Note: It should be noted that the Mal'ta Culture may more correctly be associated with the "Eastward" second wave of migration out of southern Africa that occurred about 55-50,000 B.C. However, lacking similar type figures from China, we associate the Mal'ta Culture with Grimaldi.

Note: The Paleolithic art of Europe and Asia, falls into two broad categories: mural art and portable art. Mural art is concentrated in southwest France, Spain, and northern Italy. The tradition of portable art, predominantly carvings in ivory and antler, spans the distance across western Europe into North and Central Asia. It is suggested that the broad territory in which the tradition of carving and imagery is shared, is evidence of cultural contact and common religious beliefs. Some of the most well known examples are the so-called Venus figurines. One such figurine, illustrated here, is from the site of Mal'ta and dates to around 22,000 B.C. It is carved from the ivory of a mammoth, an extinct type of elephant highly prized in hunting that migrated in herds across the Ice Age tundra of Europe and Asia. Like most Paleolithic figurine carving, the image is carved in the round in a highly stylized manner. Typically, there are exaggerated characteristics such as breasts and (steatopygia) buttocks, which may have been symbols of fertility.

The Kostenki Sites, Russia

The Kostenki - Borshevo sites (34,000 B.C.) are a group of more than twenty settlements from the same culture, on the right bank of the Don River, south of Voronezh. The basic excavations were conducted in the 1920s - 1930s by P. Yefimenko, and in the 1940s - 1960s by A. N. Rogachev.

The villages of Kostenki and Borshevo contained five cultural layers. In the upper layer were preserved the remains of dwellings with hearths located along the central longitudinal axis of the dwellings, together with storage pits. Flint tools and hoes made from mammoth tusks, bone digging implements, a baton from deer horn, and about forty female statuettes made from both ivory and marl/limestone, figurines of a bear, cavelion and anthropomorphous marl heads. Triangular flint tools are found in the lowermost layer with a concave base, retouched with a pressure process.

At Kostenki II (Zamyatnina site) were found the remains of a round dwelling made of mammoth bones, seven or eight metres across, with the fireplace in the center.

At Kostenki IV (Aleksandrovka site) there was preserved in the upper of two cultural layers, the remainders of two round dwellings approximately six meters in diameter with the hearth at the center of each. Among the findings here were ground, drilled disks of slate. In the bottom layer there were two long dwellings, with a length of 34m and 23m, and a width of 5.5m, in which were found flint leaf-like tips processed by pressure retouching. In the second layer were found fragments of human bones, partially burnt, as well as flint miniature plates (microliths?) and needle shaped points (burins?).

Kostenki XI contained not less than five cultural layers. In the upper layer the remains of a round dwelling 9 metres in diameter made from large mammoth bones were discovered. In the lower layers there were interesting findings of triangular flint tips, analogous to those found in the lower layer of Kostenki I.

Kostenki XIV (Markina Mountain, Markina Gora), contained four cultural layers.

At Kostenki XV (Gordocovskaja site) the ochred burial of a child of about six years was found. With this burial were flint and bone tools, and over 150 drilled teeth of the Arctic Fox.

Borshevo II contained three cultural layers, dated from the end of the late Palaeolithic through to the Mesolithic. In the top layer, the camp of a temporary settlement of horse hunters, mammoth bones were absent, but there were reindeer bones. The flint tools were of the microlith type, which could have been used for arrow heads.

The Kostenki - Borshevo sites (34,000 B.C.) are a group of more than twenty settlements from the same culture, on the right bank of the Don River, south of Voronezh. The basic excavations were conducted in the 1920s - 1930s by P. Yefimenko, and in the 1940s - 1960s by A. N. Rogachev.

The Real Moors

Early inhabitants of the central Maghrib have left behind significant remains. Early remnants of hominid occupation in North Africa, were found in Ain el Hanech, near Saïda Algeria (ca. 200,000 B.C.). Later, Neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (ca. 43,000 B.C.) similar to those in the Levant. According to some sources, North Africa was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic flake-tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 30,000 B.C., are called Aterian (after the site Bir el Ater, south of Annaba) and are marked by a high standard of workmanship, great variety, and specialization.

The amalgam of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers. Distinguished primarily by cultural and linguistic attributes, the Berbers lacked a written language and hence tended to be overlooked or marginalized in historical accounts. Roman, Greek, Byzantine, and Arab Muslim chroniclers typically depicted the Berbers as "barbaric" enemies, troublesome nomads, or ignorant peasants. They were, however, to play a major role in the area's history.

When you think of European culture, one of the first things that may come to your mind is the renaissance. Many of the roots of European culture can be traced back to that glorious time of art, science, commerce and architecture. But did you know that long before the renaissance there was a place of humanistic beauty in Muslim Spain? Not only was it artistic, scientific and commercial, but it also exhibited incredible tolerance, imagination and poetry. Moors, as the Spaniards call the Muslims, populated Spain for nearly 700 years. As you'll see, it was their civilization that enlightened Europe and brought it out of the dark ages to usher in the renaissance. Many of their cultural and intellectual influences still live with us today.

Way back during the eighth century, Europe was still knee-deep in the Medieval period. That's not the only thing they were knee-deep in. In his book, "The Day The Universe Changed," the historian James Burke describes how the typical European townspeople lived:

"The inhabitants threw all their refuse into the drains in the center of the narrow streets. The stench must have been overwhelming, though it appears to have gone virtually unnoticed. Mixed with excrement and urine would be the soiled reeds and straw used to cover the dirt floors.

This squalid society was organized under a feudal system and had little that would resemble a commercial economy. Along with other restrictions, the Catholic Church forbade the lending of money - which didn't help get things booming much. "Anti-Semitism, previously rare, began to increase. Money lending, which was forbidden by the Church, was permitted under Jewish law." (Burke, 1985, p. 32) Jews worked to develop a currency although they were heavily persecuted for it. Medieval Europe was a miserable lot, which ran high in illiteracy, superstition, barbarism and filth.

During this same time, Arabs entered Europe from the South. ABD AL-RAHMAN I, a survivor of a family of caliphs of the Arab empire, reached Spain in the mid-700's. He became the first Caliph of Al-Andalus, the Moorish part of Spain, which occupied most of the Iberian Peninsula. He also set up the UMAYYAD Dynasty that ruled Al-Andalus for over three-hundred years. (Grolier, History of Spain). Al Andalus means, "the land of the Vandals," from which comes the modern name Andalusia.

In Iberia, many of the ousted White nobles took refuge in the unconquered north Asturian highlands. From there they aimed to reconquer their lands from the Moors: this war of reconquest is known as the Reconquista. It began in about 900 A.D. when a small Christian enclave of Visigoths in northwestern Spain, named Asturias; initiated conflicts between Christians and Muslims. Soon after, Christian states based in the north and west slowly; in fits and starts, began a process of expansion and reconquest of Iberia over the next several hundred years. The end for the Moors came on January 2, 1492: the leader of the last Moorish City "Granada" (located in southern Spain) - surrendered to armies of a recently united Christian Spain (after the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile). This ended the 800 year reign of the Moors in Iberia.

 By some historical accounts: In 1491, Muhammad XII was summoned by Ferdinand and Isabella to surrender the city of Granada, and on his refusal it was besieged by the Castilians. Eventually, on 2 January, 1492, Granada was surrendered. In most sumptuous attire the royal procession moved from Santa Fe to a place a little more than a mile from Granada, where Ferdinand took up his position by the banks of the Genil. A private letter written by an eyewitness to the bishop of León only six days after the event recorded the scene.

With the royal banners and the cross of Christ plainly visible on the red walls of the Alhambra: …the Moorish sultan with about eighty or a hundred on horseback very well dressed went forth to kiss the hand of their Highnesses. According to the final capitulation agreement both Isabel and Ferdinand will decline the offer and the key to Granada will pass into Spanish hands without Muhammad XII having to kiss the hands of Los Royes, as the Spanish royal couple became known. Muhammad XII indomitable mother insisted on sparing his son this final humiliation. The Moorish sultan was received with much love and courtesy and there they handed over to him his son, who had been a hostage from the time of his capture, and as they stood there, there came about four hundred captives, of this who were in the enclosure, with the cross and a solemn procession singing the Te Deum Laudamus, and their highnesses dismounted to adore the Cross to the accompaniment of the tears and reverential devotion of the crowd, not least of the Cardinal and Master of Santiago and the Duke of Cadiz and all the other grandees and gentlemen and people who stood there, and there was no one who did not weep abundantly with pleasure giving thanks to Our Lord for what they saw, for they could not keep back the tears; and the Moorish sultan and the Moors who were with him for their part could not disguise the sadness and pain they felt for the joy of the Christians, and certainly with much reason on account of their loss, for Granada is the most distinguished and chief thing in the world…

 Muhammad XII was given an estate in Láujar de Andarax, Las Alpujarras, a mountainous area between the Sierra Nevada and the Mediterranean Sea, but he soon crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Fez, Morocco. The Spanish royal secretary Fernando de Zafra mentions in his letter of 9 December 1492 that Muhammad XII and his followers leave Andarax which left one month to go to Tlemcen, where he stayed little longer. He left in September or October 1492. He explained that his wife died in Andarax and was buried in Mondújar.

The remaining Muslims and Turkish Khazar Jews (not Hebrews) of Iberia were forced to leave Iberia or die; or convert to Roman Catholic Christianity. Many of the Khazar Jews who were expelled from Spain and Portugal immigrated to Holland, where they set up the Dutch West Indies Company, a prime mover in the Atlantic slave trade. Ironically, eight months after the last Moorish city fell: it was in the nearby town of Palos, on the evening of August 3, 1492. That Christopher Columbus would depart from Palos on his journey to the Americas. One result of which, would be the Spanish and Portuguese Atlantic Slave trade.

The story of Black slavery in the Americas, of course begins with Christopher Columbus. It is alleged that his voyage to the Americas was not financed by Queen Isabella, but rather by the Khazar Jew Luis de Santangelo, who supposedly advanced the sum of 17,000 ducats to finance the voyage. Columbus was accompanied by five 'Maranos' (Jews who had forsworn their religion and supposedly became Catholics) Luis de Torres - the interpreter, Marco - the surgeon, Bemal - the physician, Alonzo de la Calle and Gabriel Sanchez, and a Black navigator, Pedro Alonso Niño (1468 – 1505). It is not known if Pedro Alonso Niño was a Moor or a native Gaul of Iberia. While in the Americas, it was Gabriel Sanchez, who convinced Columbus to capture 500 American Indians and sell them as slaves in Seville, Spain.

After the Moors were gone; In 1480, Isabella and Ferdinand instituted the Inquisition in Spain, as one of many changes to the role of the church instituted by the monarchs. The Inquisition was aimed mostly at Jews and Muslims who had overtly converted to Christianity but were thought to be practicing their faiths secretly — called respectively marranos and moriscos. The Inquisition also attacked heretics who rejected Roman Catholic orthodoxy, including alumbras (native people) who practiced a personal mysticism or spiritualism. They represented a significant portion of the peasants in some territories, such as Aragon, Valencia or Andalusia. In the years from 1609 to 1614, these people were systematically expelled from the country. However many of them were converted to Christianity. This is clearly indicated by a "high mean proportion of ancestry from North Africa (10.6%)" that "attests to a high level of religious conversion (whether voluntary or enforced).

At the end of the Reconquista, it is estimated that about a third of the Moorish population had been killed or enslaved, another third immediately left; while a third tried to live in Christian Spain. However, for most Moors, the persecution and forced conversion to Catholicism of the Muslim population during the time of the Christian Reconquista, caused a mass exodus. Many found life under Christian rule intolerable and passed over into north Africa. This is considered the main reason why the number of Muslims had shrunk to a relatively small fraction of the total population by 1500.

The Berbers have since fallen on hard times, even to loosing their identity; for today, as is the case with all of the ancient Blacks, the mixed-race people, and even the Whites, now call themselves Berbers. So here are the "Real" Berbers. 

Iberia

The Iberian Peninsula because of its close proximity to Africa, has been inhabited for at least 1,000,000 years. At about 45,000 B.C. the Khoisan type African “Grimaldi,” became the first “Modern Man” to enter Europe; as he crossed the Gibraltar straits and started his journey across Europe. (Europe and Africa are NOW separated by 7.7 nautical miles - during glacial periods it was much less).

During the Neolithic expansion, various megalithic cultures developed in Iberia. An open seas navigation culture from the east Mediterranean, probably from Crete, called the Cardium culture, also extended its influence to the eastern coasts of Iberia, possibly as early as the 5th millennium B.C.

In the Chalcolithic or Copper Age (c. 3000 B.C. in Iberia) a series of complex cultures developed, which would give rise to the first civilizations in Iberia and to extensive exchange networks reaching to the Baltic, the Middle East and North Africa. At about 2150 B.C. the Bell Beaker culture intruded into Chalcolithic Iberia, being of Celtic origin.

Around 1100 B.C. Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz) near Tartessos. In the 8th century B.C. the first Whites arrived, the Greeks established colonies such as Emporion (modern Empúries), these were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the East, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks are responsible for the name Iberia, after the river Iber (Ebro). In the 6th century B.C. the Phoenician Carthaginians arrived in Iberia while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern day Cartagena).

In 219 B.C. the first Roman troops invaded the Iberian Peninsula, this during the Second Punic war against the Carthaginians. After two centuries of war with the Celtic and Iberian tribes, and also the Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian colonies, Rome annexed it under Augustus, resulting in the creation of the province of Hispania. It was divided into Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior during the late Roman Republic, and during the Roman Empire, it was divided into Hispania Taraconensis in the northeast, Hispania Baetica in the south and Lusitania in the southwest.

In the early 5th century A.D. new Whites invaded, these were Germanic tribes from Eastern Europe, namely the Suevi, the Vandals (Silingi and Hasdingi) and their allies, the Sarmatian Alans. Only the kingdom of the Suevi (Quadi and Marcomanni) would endure after the arrival of another wave of Germanic invaders - The Visigoths; who had earlier established their own kingdom with its capital at Toulouse France. They slowly extended their authority into Hispania, displacing the Vandals and Alans. The Visigoths, subsequently conquered all of the Iberian peninsula and expelled or partially integrated the Vandals and the Alans. The Visigoths eventually conquered the Suevi kingdom and its capital city Bracara (modern day Braga) in 584-585 A.D. They would also conquer the province of the Byzantine Empire Spania, in the south of the peninsula and the Balearic Islands.

The Real Etruscans

Etruria is probably the best example of the White Mans attempts at creating a false history for himself, and in that process, obliterating actual history. In its traditional foundation myth, Romulus and Remus are Rome's twin founders . They are descendants of the Trojan prince and refugee Aeneas, and are fathered by the god Mars or the demi-god Hercules on a royal Vestal Virgin, Rhea Silvia (also known as Ilia), whose uncle exposes them to die in the wild. They are found by a she-wolf who suckles and cares for them. The twins are eventually restored to their regal birthright, acquire many followers and decide to found a new city - Rome. The Romans are also known as Latin's: But the Latin's (or Latini, as they called themselves) were an "Original" people of ancient Italy. Quite different from the White invaders from Central Asia.

The most common hypothesis is that the Italic peoples migrated into the Italian peninsula from Central Asia, sometime during the Italian Bronze Age (ca. 1800-900 BC). The most likely route for the "so-called" Italic migration was from the Balkan peninsula along the Adriatic coast. But it is already accepted that the original Europeans were Black people (and no, they did not turn into White people because of vitamin D deficiency). The Latin's already existed in Italy BEFORE the White people we erroneously call Romans arrived - thus the people we call Romans could not have been Italics either!

Etruscans were members of the ancient civilization of Etruria, a country in what is now Italy. Their urban civilization is though to have started well before 800 B.C. But it's true beginnings cannot be ascertained, because their literature, especially the Etrusca Disciplina, the Etruscan books of cult and divination, were collected and burned in the 5th century A.D. by White Christian elements. Some say the Etruscans were originally pelasgians (the original people of Greece), some say that they were Phrygian migrants from Anatolia. But both of those theories seem to miss the fact that the entire area was inhabited by Black people, since about 45,000 B.C, when Grimaldi man first entered Europe. 

The Etruscan pendant (above), which has several Swastika symbols (an ancient sign for good luck), connects Etruscans with ancient Nubia (Sudan) on whose pottery it is first found: and also the Indus valley civilization, as well as the Mesopotamian civilizations. The design of their chariots is similar to Egyptian Chariots - one rider, two horses.

The Etruscan cities were large, and in all ways comparable to cities of the other great ancient civilizations. Etruscan state government, like others of those times, was a theocracy (the king was deified, and considered a god). Their religion employed elaborate cults and rituals.

Very little is known about their social and civic structure, except that their city-states weren't particularly unified. The heads of Etruscan cities, apparently at times, met to discuss military and political affairs. But apart from this, the Etruscans could be considered, as many ancient sources describe them, “duodecim populi Eturiae” or “the twelve peoples of Eturia”, (the twelve peoples, referring to the twelve major city-states).

Their agriculture was advanced and efficient, and their trading and commercial relationships were far ranging and profitable. Mining and the commerce of metal, especially copper and iron, led to the enrichment of the Etruscans and to the expansion of their influence in the Italian peninsula and the western Mediterranean sea.

Black Kingdoms Of The Caucasus

The modern country of Georgia in the Caucasus region of the former Soviet Union (The place where European Albinos tell themselves and the world that they are from - they call themselves Caucasians): is the location of one of the oldest Black kingdoms in Europe - Colchis.

According to Greek mythology, Colchis was a fabulously wealthy land situated on the mysterious periphery of the heroic world. Here in the sacred grove of the war god Ares, King Aeëtes hung the Golden Fleece until it was seized by Jason and the Argonauts. Colchis was also the land where the mythological Prometheus was punished by being chained to a mountain while an eagle ate at his liver, for revealing to humanity the secret of fire. The Amazons also were said to be from Colchis. The main mythical characters from Colchis are Aeëtes, Medea, Absyrtus, Chalciope, Circe, Eidyia, Pasiphaë.

In about 730 B.C, Colchis was overrun by the White Kurgan tribes called Cimmerians and Scythians. But they appear to have done little permanent damage. In about 600 B.C, the advanced economy of Colchis soon attracted the attention of the Milesian (White) Greeks in Anatolia (Turkey), who colonized the Colchian coast and established trading posts at Phasis, Gyenos, and Sukhumi. In about 580 B.C, the kingdom came under the control of (probably by the dating); King Astyages of the Median Empire. Which would soon become part of the first Persian Empire under Cyrus II, the Great. (The Sassanian was the second Persian Empire).

Herodotus on Colchis: (circa 440 B.C.)

[2.104] There can be no doubt that the Colchians are an Egyptian race. Before I heard any mention of the fact from others, I had remarked it myself. After the thought had struck me, I made inquiries on the subject both in Colchis and in Egypt, and I found that the Colchians had a more distinct recollection of the Egyptians, than the Egyptians had of them. Still the Egyptians said that they believed the Colchians to be descended from the army of Sesostris. My own conjectures were founded, first, on the fact that they are black-skinned and have woolly hair, which certainly amounts to but little, since several other nations are so too; but further and more especially, on the circumstance that the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians (Nubians), are the only nations who have practised circumcision from the earliest times.

Sometime around the year 2 B.C. both Pontus and Colchis were incorporated into the Roman province of Galatia. Soon the lowlands and coastal area of Colchis, began to suffer raids by White tribes from the surrounding mountains; the Soanes and Heniochi being the most powerful of them. After swearing allegence to Rome, the White tribes were allowed to create their own kingdoms in Colchis; which enjoyed significant independence from Rome. Christianity began to spread in the early 1st century A.D. Traditional accounts relate the event with Saint Andrew, Saint Simon the Zealot, and Saint Matata. However the previous religious beliefs, like the Hellenistic, the local pagan and the Mithraic beliefs, would still be widespread until the 4th century A.D. By about the 130s A.D. the new kingdoms of Machelons, Heniochi, Egrisi, Apsilia, Abasgia, and Sanigia, had sprung up from south to north. The Goths, dwelling in the Crimea and looking for new homes, raided Colchis in 253 A.D, but they were repulsed with the help of the Roman garrison of Pitsunda. By the 3rd-4th centuries A.D, most of the local kingdoms and principalities had been subjugated by the (Turkic) Lazic kings, and thereafter the country was generally referred to as Lazica. In the late 8th century A.D, Colchis was attached to Abasgia, which in turn was incorporated into Russian Georgia. Blacks however, are said to have survived in the area until the early 20th century.

The Real Jesus Part One

What color was Jesus? Most American Christians—Black and White—would dismiss this question as both irrelevant and unanswerable as the Gospels fail to give us a physical description. The irony is that most of these same Americans in their heart of hearts are pretty confident any way that they know what color Jesus was. They attend churches with images of a tall, long haired, full bearded White man depicted in stained glass windows or painted on walls, and they return home to the same depictions framed in their living room or illustrating their family Bibles.

Further compounding the irony is the fact that America actually has an obsession with the (presumed) color of Christ and has exported her White Americanized Savior around the world, as recently documented by Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey in their book, The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America (2012).

In fact, the world’s most popular and recognizable image of Christ is a distinctly 19th-20th century American creation. It is true that versions of the “White Christ” appear in European art as early as the 4th century of the Christian era, but these images coexisted with other, nonwhite representations throughout European history. The popularity of the cult of the Black Madonna and Black Christ throughout Europe is evidence of the fact that the European ‘White Christs’ never acquired the authority and authenticity that the White Christ now has globally. This Christ and his authority are American phenomena. As a predominantly Protestant nation Early America rejected the imaging of Christ that characterized European Catholicism.

By the mid-19th century, however, in response to American expansion, splintering during the Civil War and subsequent reconstructing, “Whiteness” took on a new significance and a newly- empowered “White Jesus” rose to prominence as the sanctifying symbol of a new national unity and power. As Blum and Harvey observe:

“By wrapping itself with the alleged form of Jesus, whiteness gave itself a holy face … With Jesus as white, Americans could feel that sacred whiteness stretched back in time thousands of years and forward in sacred space to heaven and the second coming … The white Jesus promised a white past, a white present, and a future of white glory.”

As America rose to superpower status in the 20th century she became the world’s leading producer and global exporter of White Jesus imagery through film, art, American business, and Christian missions, and has thereby defined the world’s view of the Son of God. This globally recognizable Jesus is a totally American product. Indeed, he is an American. Warner Sallman’s iconic image of Jesus called Head of Christ (1941) became the most widely reproduced piece of artwork in world history and its depiction the most recognizable face of Jesus in the world. By the 1990s it had been printed over 500 million times and achieved global iconic status. With smooth white skin, long, flowing blondish-brown hair, long beard and blue eyes, this Nordic Christ consciously disguised any hint of Jesus’s Semitic, oriental origin—and departed from the older European depictions. It both shaped and was shaped by emerging American ideas of whiteness. The beloved White Jesus of today’s world was Made in America.

What, then, did Jesus actually look like? Despite the absence of a detailed description of Jesus’s physical appearance in the Gospels (though John the Revelator saw the risen Christ apparently with wooly hair and black feet, Rev. 1:14-15), there are non-biblical evidences that actually allow us to visualize the Son of God from Nazareth.

Revelation 1:14-15 - King James Version (KJV)

14) His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;

15) And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.

The first century Jewish writer Josephus (37-100 AD) penned the earliest non-biblical testimony of Jesus. He reportedly had access to official Roman records on which he based his information and in his work Halosis or the “Capture (of Jerusalem),” written around 72 A.D., Josephus discussed “the human form of Jesus and his wonderful works.” Unfortunately his texts have passed through Christian hands which altered them, removing offensive material. Fortunately, however, Biblical scholar Robert Eisler in a classic 1931 study of Josephus’ Testimony was able to reconstruct the unaltered testimony based on a newly-discovered Old Russian translation that preserved the original Greek text. According to Eisler’s reconstruction, the oldest non-Biblical description of Jesus read as follows:

At that time there also appeared a certain man of magic power … if it be meet to call him a man, [whose name is Jesus], whom [certain] Greeks call a son of [a] God, but his disciples [call] the true prophet … he was a man of simple appearance, mature age, black-skinned (melagchrous), short growth, three cubits tall, hunchbacked, prognathous (lit. ‘with a long face’ [macroprosopos]), a long nose, eyebrows meeting above the nose … with scanty [curly] hair, but having a line in the middle of the head after the fashion of the Nazaraeans, with an undeveloped beard.”

This short, black-skinned, mature, hunchbacked Jesus with a unibrow, short curly hair and undeveloped beard bears no resemblance to the Jesus Christ taken for granted today by most of the Christian world: the tall, long haired, long bearded, white-skinned and blue eyed Son of God. Yet, this earliest textual record matches well the earliest iconographic evidence.

The earliest visual depiction of Jesus is a painting found in 1921 on a wall of the baptismal chamber of the house-church at Dura Europos, Syria and dated around 235 A.D. The Jesus that is “Healing the Paralytic Man” (Mark 2:1-12) is short and dark-skinned with a small curly afro - see below.

This description has now been supported by the new science of forensic anthropology. In 2002 British forensic scientists and Israeli archaeologists reconstructed what they believe is the most accurate image of Jesus based off of data obtained from the multi-disciplinary approach. In December 2002 Popular Science Magazine published a cover story on the findings which confirm that Jesus would have been short, around 5”1’, hair “short with tight curls,” a weather-beaten face “which would have made him appear older,” dark eyes and complexion: “he probably looked a great deal more like a dark-skinned Semite than Westerners are used to seeing,” they concluded. The textual, visual, and scientific evidence agrees, then: Jesus likely was a short, dark-skinned Semite with short curly hair and dark eyes.

Colossians 1:15 describes Christ as the “image of the unseen God” and in the Gospel of John (12:45; 14:9) Jesus declares that whoever sees him has seen God. What Jesus “looks like” then is not irrelevant as it is in some way a pointer to God Himself.