BIBLE ARCHAEOLOGY - THE DEAD SPEAK 

by E. Raymond Capt

     There is something sacred about the manner in which a nation

or people dispose of their dead and record the names of their

loved ones. Our mode of dress and of travel may change, but we

adhere very tenaciously to methods of sepulture handed down to us

from our fathers. Thus inscriptions and burial procedures are

used by archaeology in identifying or tracing migrant peoples.

Archaeological excavations in the Middle East have uncovered vast

graveyards full of mounds or vaults with stone monuments and

gravestones that speak of dispersed Israel and bear witness to

the fidelity of the Bible narratives of the time of Hosea the

king.

     One such cemetery was found in the Crimea on a high and dry

ridge lying east of Sebastopol on the road from Balaclava to

Batshiserai. It is in close proximity to a stronghold or

fortification called "Tschu-fut-kaleh" or "Israel's fortress."

The entrance to this sacred spot still bears the name of "the

valley of Jehoshaphat" All the inscriptions in this cemetery

strikingly resemble in form and in construction many of those

found in the East.

     The Hebrew inscriptions on one gravestone translates as

follows: "I am Jehudi, the son of Moses, the son of Jehuda the

mighty, a man of the tribe of Naphtali of the family of Shimli,

which was carried captive in the captivity of Hosea, king of

Israel, with tribe of Simeon, together with other tribes of

Israel which were carried away by the prince Shalmaneser from

Samaria. They were carried to Helah, to Habor, which is Cabool,

to Gozan, and to Khorsoneses (the Crimea); Khorsori was built by

the father of Cyrus, and afterwards destroyed, and again rebuilt

and called Crim.

     In another tombstone taken to St.Petersburg, we find the

following words: "I am one of the faithful in Israel.

Abraham-ben-mar-Sinchad of Kertsch .... The descendants of the

ten tribes, under the kings of Media, Cyrus, and Cambysea,

obtained possession of the Crimea, and settled there, and thus

the exiles of Shalmaneser and of Nebuchadnezzar were mingled

together in one people." This inscription confirms the Biblical

account that the majority of the House of Judah were also taken

captive to Assyria (2 Kings 18:13).

     Another inscription reads: "This is the grave of Buki, the

son of Isaac, the priest, may his rest be in Eden at the time of

the deliverance of Israel. He died 702 of our captivity." This

would be about 19 B.C. In many of the Crimea cemetery monuments

we find frequent reference to the house of Omri, Khomri, Kymri,

Camera, and Cimmerian. The same names me found in Assyrian and

Greek writings and always spoken of as connected with the

captivity of Israel. An example is an Assyrian tablet of

Esarhaddon (681 B.C.) that bears the name of "Teuspa the

Cimmerian," whom it was said, was the leader of the tribe from

Israel who loved freedom more than life.

     This mode of expression of ancestry familiar in ancient

Hebrew family records (ex. "which was the son of Abraham, which

was the son of Thara, which was the son of Nacm," etc.) we find

on marble headstones in cemeteries stretching from the Crimea

westward to Ireland.

     Some 2600 years ago in western Asia, a great, restless,

energetic people were carried away into captivity and lost, to

themselves and to other nations. They were the children of

Abraham, heirs of the covenant, and of the promises. Among them

were many thousands of young women with beautiful complexions,

"Purer than snow, whiter than milk," and an immense number of

stalwart young men, middle-aged men and mothers with children.

Among them were orators, poets, musicians, warriors, and

administrators. What was their ultimate fate?

     One nineteenth-century historian (Dr.Freeman) noted, "All

history shows us that there must have been some great 'hive'

somewhere in the middle of Western Asia, which was constantly

sending swarms of people for the most part westward, and they

came somehow by design, as if they knew they had a mission to

perform, and a hand to guide them. As one swarm came and pushed

them farther on from the old cradle or hive, and another century

passed and we find another swarm, then another until we had at

least five swarms of people from Armenia, or Media, precisely the

same country to which the ten tribes (Israel) were led, as they

left their own country."

     It is reasonable to conclude that the successive waves of

people that swept over Europe sometimes called Celts, Scythians,

Gauls, Gaels, the Gatae, the Belgae, the Angles, Jutes, Danes,

Saxons, Normans, and other Germanic peoples were Israelites.

These same people became the progenitors of Western. Europe,

Britain and the Commonwealth, and America. Their roots can be

traced by their language, laws, religion, customs, institutions,

ethnological character, present condition, and future prospects.

These peoples have been and are now being blessed as the Lord

promised to bless His Israel, with a multiplicity of increase, as

many as the stars in heaven, or sands on the ocean shores; with

control of the oceans and the possession of the islands; with

blessings of harvest and minerals; with wealth and treasure to

lend to all other nations, and with too much independence to

borrow of any; and with a Bible which is above all price.

Today it is the spade of the archaeologist that is literally

clearing away the sands of time, unearthing the authentic relics

of the past, bringing forgotten languages to life and causing the

"dead to speak."

                       .............. 

Raymond Capt M.A., A.I.A., F.S.A. SCOT. is an Archaeologist of no

small repute. One of his most instructive and remarkable books is

"Missing Links Discovered in Assyrian Tablets - A study of

Assyrian tablets that reveal the fate of the Lost Tribes of

Israel" is published by Artisan Sales, P.O. Box 1497 - Thousand

Oakes - Calif. 91360 USA

ISBN: 0-93466-15-6