City of Giants.htm

The City Of Giants
Pre-Roman site of Baalbek, City of ancient Syria, now Lebanon, 36 mi northeast of Beiru.

Originally Baalbek was the centre of Baal worship, giants and cannabilism. Its orgin goes back to Cain. Baal means lord or god and Baal's priests were eaters of human sacrifices; thus it has come to pass that "Cahna-Bal," (the word Cahna is the emphatic form of "a priest,") The priest of Baal is the established word in our own tongue as Cannibal for a devourer of human flesh., [The Two Babylons, Hislop, p. 232;] Hislop continues with the Historian, Castor, that it was under Bel, or Belus, that is Baal, that the Cyclops lived; and that these Cyclops were the brethern of Kronos, the father of Jupiter. Kronos in the east was worshipped under the names of Bel and Bal; and from Eusebius we learn that the first of the Assyrian kings, whose name was Belus, was also by the Assyrians called Kronos, as we have seen (Hislop, The Child in Assyria, p.32). Ponder this: Could these giant Cyclops originate from Cain and his mark given to him by God?

HISTORY OF EGYPT CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA-By G. MASPERO The Sun-god as the Eye of the Sky

Baalbek is the name of an archeological site in Lebanon. In Roman times it was known as Heliopolis or City of the Sun. An example of how ancient is the site can be found in that its holiest area (in pagan times) was the Temple of Baal-Jupiter — a hybrid between the ancient Canaanite god Baal (lord) and the Roman Jupiter. "The Cyclops were so called from Cyclops their king.... The Cyclops ....were the brethren of Kronos, the father of Jupiter." (Hislop, p. 32)

Moreover, this temple was built on a “tel” or ruin mound, indicating a place that had long been held sacred, though what had caused this area to be significant or “sacred” is unknown. Approximately 86 kilometers northeast of the city of Beirut in eastern Lebanon stands the temple complex of Baalbek. Situated atop a high point in the fertile Bekaa valley, the ruins are one of the most extraordinary and enigmatic holy places of ancient times. Long before the Romans conquered the site and built their enormous temple of Jupiter on top of the ancient ruins, long even before the Phoenicians constructed a temple to the god Baal, there stood at Baalbek the largest stone block construction found in the entire world.

The origin of the name Baalbek are of differing opinions among scholars. The Phoenician term Baal (as the Hebrew term Adon) simply means ‘lord’ or ‘god’ and was the title given to the Semitic sky-deity worshipped throughout the archaic Middle East. The word Baalbek may mean "City of Baal," or "god of the Bekaa valley" (the local area) or ‘god of the Town’, depending on different interpretations of the word. According to an Arabic manuscript found at Baalbek:

Nimrod sent giants to rebuild Baalbek after the Flood, whilst another tale relates that Nimrod the giant rebelled against his God and built the Tower of Babel at Baalbek. Other legends associate Baalbek with the Biblical figure of Cain, the son of Adam, claiming that he built it as a refuge after his God Yahweh had sent him to the land of Nod (wanderings) setting a mark upon him (a round circle above his forehead with Yahweh's Name = Cyclops?) protecting him from those who would kill him.. (all of the above could be true in my opinion and just as Cain was a giant, he was not black as protrayed by many, however, Nimrod, son of Cush, son of Ham was black

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin?" is in the original, "Can the Cushite" do so? (Hislop, p. 34)

Nimrod was the actual father of the gods, as being the first of deified mortals and historically that Kronos, the Horned one, represented among Babylon and Nineveh sculptures, the gigantic horned man-bull as representing the great diivinities in Assyria signifing "The Mighty Prince" is applied to Nimrod." (Hislop, pp. 32-33) "Nimrod was the first king after the Flood and Bacchus was celebrated as the first who wore a crown, both are one of the same"

BAALBEK - LEBANON'S SACRED FORTRESS

Massive foundation stones of Baalbek

According to Estfan Doweihi, the Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon:

Tradition states that the fortress of Baalbek... is the most ancient building in the world. Cain, the son of Adam, built it in the year 133 of the creation, during a fit of raving madness. He gave it the name of his son Enoch and peopled it with giants who were punished for their iniquities by the flood.

The local Muslims also believed that it was beyond the capability of humans to move the enormous stones of Baalbek. Instead of giants, however, they credited the work to demons or djinn.

The English traveller, David Urquhart, in a similar vein, suggested that the builders used mastodons huge extinct elephant-like mammals - as mobile cranes to help them move the stones!

Andrew Collins, investigates one of the world's greatest enigmas - the Great Platform at Baalbek in Lebanon and uncovers its links with giants, Titans and a previously unknown culture.

An outer podium wall, popularly known as the `Great Platform', is seen by some scholars as contemporary to the Roman temples. Yet incorporated into one of its courses are the three largest building blocks ever used in a man-made structure. Each one weighs an estimated 1000 tonnes a piece.(Ragette, Baalbek, p. 33) They sit side-by-side on the fifth level of a truly cyclopean wall located beyond the western limits of the Temple of Jupiter.

Temple of Bacchus, in front of the Temple of Jupiter is better preserved.

Even more extraordinary is the fact that in a limestone quarry about one quarter of a mile away from the Baalbek complex is an even larger building block. Known as Hajar el Gouble, the Stone of the South, or the Hajar el Hibla, the Stone of the Pregnant Woman, it weighs an estimated 1200 tonnes.(Ragette, Baalbek, p.114) It lays at a raised angle - the lowest part of its base still attached to the living rock - cut and ready to be broken free and transported to its presumed destination next to the Trilithon, the name given to the three great stones in ancient times.

There is not a crane today that can even think of lifting a 1000-tonne weight, never mind a 1200-tonne weight like the stone block left in the quarry. Confounding the mystery even further is how the builders of the Trilithon managed to position these stones side by side with such precision that, according to some commentators not even a needle can be inserted between them.(Alouf, M. M., History of Baalbek, p. 98.)

Greatest Baalbek Stone weighing 1,200 pounds

Imagine an architect's specification that called for the foundation of a massive platform to be built of limestone blocks in sizes between 63 and 65 feet long, 14 feet 6 inches high and 12 feet deep and weighing in the neighborhood of 1,000 tons each.

The stereobate or platform that once held the Temple of Jupiter in Baalbek, Lebanon called for such a specification, but the architects and engineers who built it in the first century BC left no indication of how they accomplished such a massive construction challenge. The limestone blocks were quarried about a quarter of a mile away from the construction site and made up the lower course of the foundation. How they were transported and positioned so precisely remains a mystery. There are no records of the Romans engineering such a masterpiece and debates go on as to whether the platform was built by the Romans or, according to local folklore, it was built by a pantheon of superhuman giants.

Excavations indicate the site was occupied as early as 2300 BC by the Phoenicians, a sea-faring people known in the Bible as the Canaanites who worshipped the god Baal. When Alexander the Great marched through the Beqa'a Valley on the way to Damascus in 334 BC, Baalbek was known as Heliopolis, the "city of the sun," the name given to this important religious center by the Ptolemies of Egypt, the rulers of the time.

"This MASSIVE ~3 million square foot stone platform contains huge stones, including "The Trilithons' which each weigh ~1200 tons, that's 2.4 million pounds. Much later, the Greeks and Romans built their temples on top of it.

Each one weighs an estimated 1000 tonnes a piece.(Ragette, Baalbek, p. 33) They sit side-by-side on the fifth level of a truly cyclopean wall located beyond the western limits of the Temple of Jupiter.

The enigma is this - although the high-tech, computer programmed jet fighters that scream through the Beqa’a Valley possess laser-guided missiles that can precision bomb to within three feet of their designated target, there is not a crane today that can even think of lifting a 1000-tonne weight, never mind a 1200-tonne weight like the stone block left in the quarry. Confounding the mystery even further is how the builders of the Trilithon managed to position these stones side by side with such precision that, according to some commentators not even a needle can be inserted between them.

The Mamluks were in power in 1326 and had made their own additions to the site, but Baalbek belonged to the ancient world; its gigantic proportions the ultimate in imperial power, wealth and might. The site was, like most other temple sites across the Middle East, a place of religious significance dating back to the third millennium BC, and in the first millennium it became a place of human sacrifice.

Between the 4th and 1st centuries BC the Ptolemies, who ruled this area, dedicated the site to the sun god calling it Heliopolis. But the transformation of Baalbek into the history books began under Augustus at the end of the 2nd century BC, although it took another 300 years for the completion of the complex, by which time Christianity had become the religion of the Roman Empire and Jupiter's pagan rites and symbols were abolished.

When Julius Caesar made Baalbek a Roman colony in 27 BC, its purpose as a religious center continued, but with great Roman exuberance, and the golden age began. Construction on three major and several minor temples began and was to continue for the next 150 years.

Had Ibn Battuta seen the ruins of Baalbek floodlit at night, he might have managed to spare a word or two about them.

In modern times, however, Baalbek lies forgotten - wiped off the map by more than twenty years of warfare and terrorism. The site has become so neglected that some archaeology books omit any mention of it.

What a contrast from two thousand years ago, when Roman emperors would journey 1,500 miles to this remote location, to make offerings to their Gods and receive oracles on the destiny of their empire. Indeed, it was here that the Romans built their grandest ever temples, crowned by the magnificent temple to their chief God, Jupiter.

Jupiter, the most important of the Roman gods, was the principle deity to preside over the monumental city until the Roman Empire converted to Christianity. Building materials for the temples included the local limestone and pink granite from Aswan in Egypt that was used for the columns supporting the porticos and facades.

The irony of Baalbek; despite is massive size and show of power, the gods to which it was dedicated was never completed.

After thousands of years, the stonework in Baalbek, Lebanon, remains a mystery, as locals debate whether it was achieved through Roman genius or by the work of the gods

The City of Baalbek, most of the stones used to construct the foundations of the city could be considered megalithic, which include some stones weighing over 1000 tonnes:

A panorama of ancient Baalbek, seen from a nearby hill.

The ruins are the Roman temples of Bacchus (foreground) and Baal-Jupiter.

The entire city is of megalithic proportions. Legend has it that construction began on the city by the Atlanteans, various cultures from that point on took claim to the city, such as the Romans, who renamed it Heliopolis- City of The Sun. The columns appear somewhat roman in style, but they are far beyond the Romans capability of construction, they may well have been re-carved into Roman style by the Romans, they never claimed to construct the city however.

local inhabitants of the Beqa’a Valley - who consist in the main of Arab Muslims, Maronite Christians and Orthodox Christians - do preserve legends about the origins of the Great Platform, but they do not involve the Romans.

Local Legends About the Origins of the Great Platform

They say that Baalbek’s first city was built before the Great Flood by Cain, the son of Adam, whom God banished to the ’land of Nod’ that lay ’east of Eden’ for murdering his good brother Abel, and he called it after his son Enoch.(Ragette, Baalbek, p.39, quoting a story told by Estfan Doweihi, a Maronite Patriarch.) The citadel, they say, fell into ruins at the time of the deluge and was much later re-built by a race of giants under the command of Nimrod, the ’mighty hunter’ and ’king of Shinar’ of the Book of Genesis.(Ibid., p. 41, quoting an Arab manuscript actually found at Baalbek.)

So who do we believe - the academics who are of the opinion that the Great Platform was constructed by the Romans, or the local folktales which ascribe Baalbek’s cyclopean masonry to a much earlier age? And if we are to accept the latter explanation, then who exactly were these ’giants’, gigantes or Titans of Greek tradition? Furthermore, why accredit Cain, Adam’s outcast son, as the builder of Baalbek’s first city?

Excavations in the vicinity of the Great Court of the Temple of Jupiter have revealed the existence of a tell, or occupational mound, dating back to the Early Bronze age (c.2900-2300 BC).(6) By the late second millennium BC a raised court, entered through a gateway with twin towers, had been constructed around a vertical shaft that dropped down some fifty yards to a natural crevice in which ’a small rock cut altar’ was used for sacrificial rites.(7)

In the hills around the temple complex are literally hundreds of rock-cut tombs which, although plundered long ago, are thought to date to the time of the Phoenicians,(8) the great sea-faring nation of Semitic origin who inhabited Lebanon from around 2500 BC onwards and were known in the Bible as the Canaanites, the people of Canaan. They established major sea-ports in Lebanon, northern Palestine and Syria, as well as trading posts across the Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic seaboard, right through till classical times. Indeed, it is believed that Phoenicia’s mythical history heavily influenced the development of Greek myth and legend.

Following the death of Alexander in 323 BC, Phoenicia was ruled successively by the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt and the Seleucid kings of Syria until the arrival of the Romans under a general named Pompey in 63 BC. The first-century AD Jewish historian Josephus tells of Alexander’s march through the Beqa’a on his way to Damascus, during which he encountered the cities of ’Heliopolis and Chalcis’.(9) Chalcis, modern Majdel Anjar, was then the political centre of the Beqa’a, while Baalbek was its principal religious centre.

Heliopolis was the name given to Baalbek under the Ptolemies of Egypt sometime between 323 and 198 BC. Meaning ’city of the sun’, it expressed the importance this religious centre held to the Egyptians, particularly since a place of immense antiquity bearing this same name already existed in Lower Egypt.

Following a brief period in which Mark Anthony handed Lebanon and Syria back to Queen Cleopatra, the last Ptolemaic queen of Egypt, Lebanon became a Roman colony around 27 BC, and it was during this phase in its history that construction began on the Baalbek temples.(10)

The principal deity they chose to preside over Baalbek was Jupiter, the sky god. He was arguably the most important deity of the Romans, taking over the role of Zeus in the Greek pantheon. Jupiter was probably chosen to replace the much earlier worship of the Canaanite god Baal (meaning ’lord’) who had many characteristics in common with the Greek Zeus. Yet when, and how, this god of corn, rain, tempest and thunder, was worshipped here is not known, even though legend asserts that Baalbek was the alleged birth-place of Baal.(11) In the Bible Baalbek appears under the name Baalath,(12) a town re-fortified by Israel’s King Solomon, c. 970 BC (1 Kings 9:18 & 2 Chr. 8:6), confirming both its sanctity to Baal at this early date and its apparent strategic importance on the road to Damascus.

Whatever the nature of the pre-Roman worship at Baalbek, its worship of Baal created a hybrid form of the god Jupiter, generally referred to as Jupiter Heliopolitan. One surviving statue of him in bronze shows the beardless god sporting a huge calathos head-dress, a symbol of divinity, as well as a bull, a symbol of Baal, on either side of him. The Sun-god as the Eye of the Sky

Temple of Jupiter
Baalbek in it's totality dwarfs Roman constructions such as the collosium, which doesn't even contain any megaliths. Baalbek also dwarfs the megaliths contained within the great pyramid, the heaviest stones used in construction of the pyramid weighing 40 tonnes. We have no force on earth that could utilize blocks weighing over 1000 tonnes in construction, it's doubtful we could move something that heavy in one piece. It would likely be impossible to even utilize some of the lighter 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 tonne blocks used in the construction of baalbek. A city that defies historical and modern technology, seemingly forgotten.

Temple of Bacchus:

Remains of the Temple of Jupiter

Elevated above the lazy town of Baalbek is one of architecture’s greatest achievements. I refer to the almighty Temple of Jupiter, situated besides two smaller temples, one dedicated to Venus, the goddess of love, and the other dedicated to Bacchus, the god of fertility and good cheer (although some argue this temple was dedicated to Mercury, the winged god of communication). .

The god Jupiter, generally referred to as Jupiter Heliopolitan, identified with the local god Baal, from Baalbek, one surviving statue of him in bronze and copper, second to third century CE, shows a beardless god sporting a huge calathos head-dress, a symbol of divinity, as well as a bull sacred to Baal representing the Heliopolitan priesthood.

Titans and Elohim

Aside from the suggested link with the Egyptian culture, the writings of Sanchoniatho throw further light on this apparent pre-Phoenician culture existing in the Levant during prehistoric times. He says that the ’auxiliaries’ or ’allies’ of Cronus, presumably in battle, were the ’Eloeim’ a misspelling of the term Elohim, the sons of whom (the bene ha-elohim) were said to have been a divine race that came unto the Daughters of Man who subsequently gave birth to giant offspring known as the Nephilim, or so records to the Book of Genesis and various uncanonical works of Judaic origin.(63)

Elsewhere I have put forward the hypothesis that the Sons of the Elohim - who are equated with the angelic race known as the Watchers in the apocryphal Book of Enoch, as well as in recently translated Dead Sea literature - were a race of human beings. Evidence indicates they established a colony in the mountains of Kurdistan in south-east Turkey sometime after the cessation of the last Ice Age, before going on to influence the rise of western civilization. Their progeny, the Nephilim, were half-mortal, half-Watcher, and there is tentative evidence in the writings of Sumer and Akkad to suggest that the accounts of great battles being fought between mythical kings and demons dressed as bird-men might well preserve the distorted memories of actual conflicts between mortal armies and Nephilim-led tribes.(64)

Might Cronus - who or whatever he represents - have employed the services of the bene ha-elohim in the wars against his father, Ouranus? In Greek mythology the Nephilim are equated directly with the Titans and gigantes, or ’giants’, who waged war on the gods of Olympus and, like Cronus, were the offspring of Ouranus. In many ancient writings preserved during the early Christian era, stories concerning the Nephilim, or gibborim, ’mighty men’, of biblical tradition are confused with the legends surrounding the Titans and gigantes. All blend together as one, and not perhaps without reason. The giants and Titans are said to have helped Nimrod, the ’mighty hunter’ construct the fabled Tower of Babel which reached towards heaven. On its destruction by God, legends speak of how the giant races were dispersed across the bible lands.(65)

According to an Arabic manuscript found at Baalbek and quoted by Alouf in his informative History of Baalbek,

’after the flood, when Nimrod reigned over Lebanon, he sent giants to rebuild the fortress of Baalbek, which was so named in honour of Baal, the god of the Moabites and worshippers of the Sun.’(66)

Local tradition even asserts that the Tower of Babel was actually located at Baalbek.(67)

Stories of giants exist right across Asia Minor and the Middle East, and these are often cited to explain the presence of either cyclopean ruins (such as the Greek city of Mycenae, the cyclopean walls of which were said to have been built by the cyclops - hence the term ’cyclopean’ masonry) or gigantic natural and man-made features.

On the other hand, the alleged connection between giants, Titans and Baalbek is quite another matter. It is feasible that, if the Watchers and Nephilim (and therefore the Titans and gigantes) are to be seen as a lost race of human beings, any presumed pre-Phoenician culture in Lebanon could not have failed to have encountered their presence in the Near East. If so, were alliances forged with them, wars fought alongside them?

Might the ancient skills and brute strength of these human races of great stature have been employed in grand engineering projects such as the construction of the Great Platform? Remember, the Titans were said to have been born of the same loins as Cronus, and in alliance with their half-brother, they waged war against their father Ouranus. Yet family alliances of this type can go wrong, for according to the various ancient writers on this subject,(68) after the fall of the Tower of Babel and the dispersion of the tribes, a war broke out between Cronus and his brother Titan.

An early Christian writer named Lactantius (AD 250-325) records that Titan, with the help of the rest of the Titans, imprisoned Cronus and held him safe until his son Jupiter (or Zeus) was old enough to take the throne. Does this imply that the Titans deposed Cronus and took control of the Byblos culture until the coming of Zeus, or Jupiter? What influence might this forgotten race have brought to bear on the development of Lebanon’s pre-Phoenician culture? More importantly, when might any of this have taken place?

Far off in Hell

According to classical mythology, the Titans were eventually defeated by Jupiter and his fellow Olympian gods and goddesses. As punishment, they were banished to Tartarus, a mythical region of hell enclosed by a brazen wall and shrouded perpetually by a cloud of darkness. The gigantes, too, were linked with this terrible place, for they are cited by the first-century Roman writer Caius Julius Hyginus (fl. c. 40 BC) as having been the ’sons of Tartarus and Terra (ie the earth)’.(69)

Although Tartarus has always been seen as a purely mythical location, there is reason to link it with a Phoenician city-port and kingdom known as Tartessus (Tarshish in the Bible) that thrived in the Spanish province of Andalucia during ancient times.

If we accept for a moment that Baalbek’s Great Platform, and perhaps even the inner podium that supports the Temple of Jupiter, might well possess a much greater antiquity than has previously been imagined, then what purpose might the Baalbek structure have served?

How old is Baalbek?

The French archaeologist Michel Alouf apparently learnt from the Maronite Patriarch of the Baalbek region, a man named Estfan Doweihi, that:

’... the fortress of Baalbek on Mt. Lebanon is the most ancient building in the world. Cain, the son of Adam, built it in the year 133 of the creation, during a fit of raving madness’.(Alouf, M. M., History of Baalbek, p 49) Note 74.

Unfortunately this tells us very little about the site’s real age. Yet if we can accept the existence of a pre-Phoenician culture that not only employed the use of cyclopean masonry in its building construction, but also possessed sea-going vessels and flourished in the Mediterranean somewhere between 7000 BC and 3000 BC, then it opens the door to the possibility that Baalbek’s ’fortress’ may also date to this early phase of human history.

Yet the question remains as to why this pre-Phoenician, sea-going nation should have wished to construct an almighty edifice on an elevated plain between two enormous mountain ranges. What was the reasoning behind this decision? The site undoubtedly possessed a very ancient sanctity; however, the architects may well have had more pressing reasons for placing it where they did. All the indications are that Sanchoniatho’s Byblos culture eventually experienced a period of fierce wars that waged between Cronus, or Saturn, and his titanic brothers under the leadership of Titan or Gyges, and then finally between Cronus’ son Jupiter and the rest of the Olympian deities. In a strange way the fraternal conflict between Cronus and his brothers parallels the biblical struggle between Cain and Abel, suggesting that the link between Cain and Baalbek might well have some symbolic significance to the site’s early history.(75)

Is it possible that Baalbek’s first ’city’ was constructed, not just as a religious centre, but also as an impenetrable fortress against attacks by whatever we see as constituting the gigantes and Titans of mythology? If the Great Platform, and perhaps even the inner podium, really does date to this early period, then might the fortress theory explain why its architects used such gigantic stones in its construction? Were they incorporated into the design through a combination of technological capability and sheer necessity, not through ’the interest of appearance’ or some ancient wall-building tradition upheld by the neo-Phoenicians of the Roman era?

Such ideas may even provide some kind of explanation as to why the mother of all stone blocks, the Stone of the Pregnant Woman, was left cut and ready for transportation in a nearby quarry. Did the whole building project have to be abandoned because the site was over-run, or at least seriously threatened, by invading forces? Scholars have always accredited the Romans with having built the Great Platform, with its stupendous Trilithon stones, simply because they could not conceive of an earlier culture possessing the technological skills needed to have transported and positioned such enormous weights.

The Sphinx-building culture of Egypt is evidence that such technological skills may well have been available as early as 10,500 BC, while our current knowledge of the Baalbek platform gives us firm grounds to push back its accepted construction date by at least a thousand years.

Even if the dates suggested for Sanchoniatho’s Byblos culture are open to question, I believe the sacred fortress hypothesis brings us a lot closer to unlocking the mysteries of Baalbek. Both visually and in legend its ruins bear the mark of the Titans, and understanding the site’s true place in history can only help us to discover the reality of this lost cyclopean age of mankind.

Physical evidence suggests the existence of a very old, unrecorded culture, using advanced technology at Baalbek, Tiwanaku and various sites in Peru. Later cultures saw this technology as the handiwork of “Gods” and made these places sacred.

The Nazca Lines indicate that one of the technologies possessed by these “Gods” was aeronautics. The existence of a huge prehistoric platform at Baalbek, along with the associated legend of the Sun God’s “chariot”, supports this conclusion.

NOTES

1. Ragette, Baalbek, p. 33.
2. Ibid., p. 114.
3. . 98.
4. Ibid., p. 39, quoting a story told by Estfan Doweihi, a Maronite Patriarch.
5. Ibid., p. 41, quoting an Arab manuscript actually found at Baalbek.
6. Ragette, p. 16.
7. Ibid., p. 27, cf. Kalayan, 1969.
8. Ibid., p. 16.
9. Ibid., p. 16, quoting Josephus.
10. Ibid., p. 17.
11. Alouf, p. 50.
12. Ibid. pp. 42-4.
13. Ragette, p. 19.
14. See Ibid., p. 20 & accompanying pl. on f/p.
15. Ibid., p. 30.
16. Ibid., p. 27.
17. Ibid., p. 30.
18. Ibid., p. 31, cf. Kalayan, 1969.
19. Ibid., pp. 31-2.
20. Alouf, p. 98. The sizes of the blocks from right to left are given as 65 feet, 64 feet 10 inches and 63 feet 2 inches.
21. Ibid., p. 98
22. Ibid., p. 99
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., p. 106.
25. Ragette, p. 33.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., pp. 33-4.
29. Ibid., pp. 34.
30. Ibid., p. 115
31. Ibid., p. 115.
32. Alouf, p. 106, quoting Louis Flicien de Saulcy.
33. Ibid., p. 115.
34. Ibid., p. 115.
35. Ibid., p. 33.
36. Ibid., p. 119.
37. Ibid., p. 116.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid., p. 94.
40. See Renan, 1864.
41. Ragette, p. 94.
42. Ibid., p. 94.
43. Ibid.
44. Cory, p. viii.
45. Sanchoniatho, quoted by Cory., p. 9.
46. Ibid., p. 7.
47. Ibid., p. 11.
48. Ibid., p. 14.
49. Ibid., p. 14.
50. Ibid.
51. Budge, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, p. l.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid., p. l, n 3.
54. Ibid., p. l.
55. Herm, The Phoenicians, p. 114
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid.
58. See Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods, 1995; Bauval & Hancock, Keeper of Genesis, 1996; Collins, From the Ashes of Angels, 1996.
59. Alouf, p. 32
60. Ibid., p. 47-8, cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia, L.I.C. 23.
61. Ibid., p. 47, cf. Volney, Voyage en Syrie, p. 228.
62. Ibid., cf. De De ’ Syriae & Macrobius, L.I.C. 23.
63. See, for instance, Gen. 6:1-2,4.
64. See the author’s From the Ashes of Angels, Ch. 16.
65. See, for instance, the works of Berossus, Eupolemus, Alexander Polyhistor and the Sibylline Oracles, as quoted by Cory.
66. Alouf, p. 41.
67. Ibid., quoting a traveller named d’Arvieux’ from his M moires, Part IIe, Ch. 26, c. 1660.
68. See, for instance, Berossus, Alexander Polyhistor and the Sibylline Oracles quoted by Cory.
69. Lempriere, Classical Dictionary, c.v. ’Gigantes’, p. 249.
70. Ibid. & Eupolemus, quoted in Cory, p. 53.
71. Thallus, quoted by Cory, p. 53
72. Hapgood, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, p. 221.
73. Sanchoniatho, quoted in Cory, p. 10.
74. Alouf, p. 39.
75. Indeed, local tradition asserts that the region around Baalbek was the stamping ground of Genesis characters such as Adam and his sons Abel, Cain and Seth. See Alouf, p. 39. The reality of such myths is quite another matter, especially as equally strong traditions associate the pre-Flood events of the Book of Genesis with Turkish and Iraqi Kurdistan.