Phoenicians in the Pre-Columbian New World
"Scholar Cyrus H. Gordon believed that Phoenicians and other Semitic groups had crossed the Atlantic in antiquity, ultimately arriving in both North and South America. This opinion was based on his own work on the Bat Creek inscription. Similar ideas were also held by John Philip Cohane; Cohane even claimed that many geographical names in America have a Semitic origin.
Using gold obtained by expansion of the African coastal trade down the west African coast, the Phoenician state of Carthage minted gold staters in 350 BCE bearing a pattern, in the reverse exergue of the coins, interpreted as a map of the Mediterranean with the Americas shown to the west across the Atlantic. Reports of the discovery of putative Carthaginian coins in North America are based on modern replicas, that may have been buried at sites from Massachusetts to Nebraska in order to confuse and mislead archaeological investigation."
Using gold obtained by expansion of the African coastal trade down the west African coast, the Phoenician state of Carthage minted gold staters in 350 BCE bearing a pattern, in the reverse exergue of the coins, interpreted as a map of the Mediterranean with the Americas shown to the west across the Atlantic. Reports of the discovery of putative Carthaginian coins in North America are based on modern replicas, that may have been buried at sites from Massachusetts to Nebraska in order to confuse and mislead archaeological investigation."
- Text from Wikipedia entry for "Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories" (accessed 11/10/2015) [links added]
- Image source
Blog Posts and Articles
- "Did the Phoenicians Make the Nazca Lines and Other Andean Monuments?" (Jason Colavito, 8/31/2015)
- "British Sailor Want to Prove Phoenicians Sailed to America" (Jason Colavito, 3/8/2013)
- "Canaanites in America?" (Michael Heiser, 7/17/2011)
Artifacts and Sites
- Bat Creek Stone (Tennessee)
- Paraíba Stone (Brazil)
- Waubansee Stone (Illinois)
