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Tuesday, June 7, 2022

The Necessity of Understanding Difference Between Middle East and Western Civilizations

Nadene Goldfoot                                                  


Mankind started in Africa and slowly came out and spread eastward, first as hunters, then gatherers/farmers.  This is something we've learned from the study of DNA, a very new field in the world of science.  All men carry within their cells, DNA that distinguishes them from one family/clan line from another.  It's called the Y haplogroup/haplotype, recorded for us like R1, Q, G, etc.  Populations can be tested and follow their progress from one place to another.  (Women have their own called the mt haplogroup-apart from the men). The male line's genealogy was recorded in the bible, maybe for good reason as this follows DNA's importance that we have in population genetics.  We may have all started at just about the same time, but our civilizations have developed at different times.     

   
  Menes,  1st pharaoh,  first ruler of the first dynasty of Kemet which is said to have begun between 3200 – 3000 B.C. and he ruled around sixty years, 5,222 years ago. 
Egypt's civilization with pharaoh's can be traced back, using their heiroglyphics, Menes, also spelled Mena, Meni, or Min, (flourished c. 2925 BCE), 4,947 years ago, legendary first king of unified Egypt, who, according to tradition, joined Upper and Lower Egypt in a single centralized monarchy and established ancient Egypt's 1st dynasty.  It was already 1,340 years old by the time Moses was 80 years old.  Moses was born in 1391 BCE.  (I get the dates from the Jewish figuration of time from our Tanakh, deciphered and used by my Jewish encyclopedia).                        

There were other civilizations during this period; Assyrian Empire, Babylonian Empire, Sumerian Empire, Hittite, etc.  

We can see that the Middle Eastern civilization had been going on for the past 5,000 years.  

The land of Israel was started in about 1485 BCE by Moses leading the slaves, Israelites and others of the past 400 years,  from Egypt , then a very old civilization already, to Canaan, a land of tents and a few dwellings and the beginnings of villages, getting there in about 1445 BCE.  They arrived 3,467 years ago. 

"The British Isles were linked to continental Europe by a territory named Doggerland. The plains of Doggerland were thought to have finally been submerged around 6500 to 6000 BCE, but recent evidence suggests that the bridge may have lasted until between 5800 and 5400 BCE, and possibly as late as 3800 BCE, 5,822 years ago when the 1st pharaoh of Egypt emerged."  Doggerland must be land between France and England now underwater.  

Around 4000 BCE migrants began arriving from central Europe. Although the earliest indisputably acknowledged languages spoken in the British Isles belonged to the Celtic branch of the Indo-European family,  it is not known what language these early farming people spoke. That was 6,022 years ago.                           

In 55 and 54 BCE, Roman general and future dictator Gaius Julius Caesar launched two separate invasions of the British Isles, though neither resulted in a full Roman occupation of the island. In 43 CE, southern Britain became part of the Roman Empire.  That was 1,979 years ago. 

The first king was Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, b:849-d: October 26, 899  at age 50.  He was born 1,173 years ago.  He ruled from 871 CE.  

The Last Kingdom is a great show on Netflix depicting all this history in a breath-taking history.  Like history?  Watch it. Here's Alfred.                     

Rome, capital of Italy, seems to be the oldest of Europe.  This city is said to have been founded by Romulus and Remus and were raised by wolves.  Rome was founded around 625 BCE, 2,647 years ago,  in the areas of ancient Italy known as Etruria and Latium. 

It is thought that the city-state of Rome was initially formed by Latium villagers joining together with settlers from the surrounding hills in response to an Etruscan invasion.  Jews had arrived due to commerce-from trading from Israel by 139 BCE,  2,161 years ago.  

By 51 BCE, Julius Caesar had conquered Celtic Gaul and, for the first time, Rome’s borders had spread beyond the Mediterranean region. Although the Senate was still Rome’s governing body, its power was weakening. Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC and replaced by his heir, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Octavian) who ruled alongside Mark Antony.                                

In 31 BC Rome overtook Egypt which resulted in the death of Mark Antony and left Octavian as the unchallenged ruler of Rome. Octavian assumed the title of Augustus and thus became the first emperor of Rome. 

Rome, Egypt, Israel were all on the Mediterranean Sea.  

People of the Middle East must have gathered up much DNA of people already quite civilized before Europe started to develop.  As the Middle Eastern civilization came and left,, Europe then developed.  The question is, is it ready to leave at this point in time?  With nuclear technology in our midst, one never knows.                     

    Germany was part of the Holy Roman Empire.

In the late 1st century BCE, the Roman emperor Augustus launched campaigns across the Rhine, and incorporated areas of Germania as far east as the Elbe into the Roman Empire, creating the short-lived Roman province of Germania Antiqua in 7 BCE, with further aims of establishing a greater province of Magna Germania, with headquarters at Colonia (modern-day Cologne).                    

The Germans originally came from Scandinavia. They were mainly shepherds and hunters, and only a small minority were farmers. The Germans consisted of several different groups. The most important of these were the GothsVandalsFranks and Saxons.  The Germans were dangerous fighters. Their tactics were crude but. effective. Their main strategy was to charge the enemy and involve them in hand-to-hand combat. Only the chiefs wore helmets but they all carried large oblong shields and swords.  The Germans wore animal-skins. They were very proud of their long hair which they dyed red and wore in a bun or pony-tail. They also smeared their hair with thick grease.

Germany is the first of European Western countries that Jews moved to from Rome when on the continent. It's where Yiddish developed, a mixture of Hebrew and German. 

In  286 CE, the Roman Empire was split into eastern and western empires, each ruled by its own emperor. The western empire suffered several Gothic invasions and, in  455, was sacked by Vandals. Rome continued to decline after that until  476 when the western Roman Empire came to an end. The eastern Roman Empire, more commonly known as the Byzantine Empire, survived until the 15th century CE. It fell when Turks took control of its capital city, Constantinople (modern day Istanbul in Turkey) in 1453.

The Byzantine Empire: the eastern Roman Empire with capital in Constantinople, grew and grew up to 637 when it included Palestine (named by the Romans from Israel).  Jews were there from 4th century.  Each new emperor had his own way of thinking about the Jews.  Justinian (527-565) had terrible laws for Jews with the decree in 553 that interfered with synagogue services itself!  Judaism was forbidden!  Here's where a major part of anti-Semitism started.    Today, people call Constantinople, Istanbul. 

As empires developed, they interacted with others, and copied good ideas.  We've tried to drop bad ideas.   Thus, we have today.  The point being made is that the Middle East was first and is very very old.  The west, European, is very young by comparison, and this is a development in the people.  It could be a help or a hindrance, but it's interesting.  The question is, how does it affect our brains and thinking and problem-solving processes?   

The fact is that we all share very distant ancient genes from our beginnings,  Jews have intermingled with non-Jews for the past 100 years, picking up other genes than the Middle Eastern ones,  but there are most non-Jews who have not, and have no "Jewish" genes. 

All I know is that the Messiah (Moshiach) is expected by all religions at  just about the same time, and he is, according to Jewish prophets, to be from the House of David, so he should be an ancient middle eastern brain-problem solver.  Zelensky of Ukraine has been a good middle-eastern original problem-solver.  


Resource:

https://spartacus-educational.com/ROMgermans.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Menes

https://www.ontheshoulders1.com/the-giants/menes-the-first-pharaoh-of-kemet#/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_Isles

https://www.mpm.edu/research-collections/anthropology/anthropology-collections-research/mediterranean-oil-lamps/roman-empire-brief-history#:~:text=Rome%20was%20founded%20around%20625,response%20to%20an%20Etruscan%20invasion.



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