Moses parts the Red Sea (1907 print in public domain).
The Manassites.
We have often discussed the Cymru being one of the ten lost tribes of Israel, in my family and on the various history forums I proliferate, Britain’s Hidden History being the main one. One of the questions has always been which one? The tribes of Isaac, Dan, Judah and Gad have all been put forward, but I find the evidence for the Cimmeroi/Khumry/Cymru being from the Manasseh fairly solid. In this article I propose that it was the Manasseh or the Manassites who became the infamous Cimmeroi following their abduction by the Persians, and who eventually became Greek, Trojan and then British.
We begin this tale of our ancient migrations with the region of Samaria in the ancient Kingdom of Israel. (see my previous Linkedin article ‘Samaria & the lost tribes of Israel for more information on Samaria’); https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/samaria-lost-tribes-israel-eifion-wyn-williams/?trackingId=pZCy0ie6Rvay1F6k3tDNUw%3D%3D
Wikipedia.
‘Samaria (Hebrew: שֹׁמְרוֹן, romanized: Šōmrōn; Ancient Greek: Σαμάρεια, Samareia; Arabic: السامرة, as-Samira) was a city in the historical region of Samaria that served as the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel during the 9th and 8th centuries BCE. Towards the end of the 8th century BCE, possibly in 722 BCE, Samaria was captured by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and became an administrative centre under Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian rule. During the early Roman period, the city was expanded and fortified by Herod the Great, who renamed it “Sebastia” in honour of emperor Augustus.[3][4]
The ancient city's hill is where the modern Palestinian village of Sebastia, which retains its Roman name, is located. The archaeological site, subject to a shared Israeli-Palestinian control,[5] is located on the hill's eastern slope.[6]
Etymology.
Samaria's biblical name, Šōmrōn (שֹׁמְרוֹן), means "watch" or "watchman" in Hebrew.[7] The Bible derives the name from the individual (or clan) Shemer (Hebrew: שמר), from whom King Omri (ruled 880s–870s BCE) purchased the hill in order to build his new capital city (1 Kings 16:24).[8]
In earlier cuneiform inscriptions, Samaria is referred to as "Bet Ḥumri" ("the house of Omri"); but in those of Tiglath-Pileser III (ruled 745–727 BCE) and later it is called Samirin, after its Aramaic name,[9] Shamerayin.[10] The city of Samaria gave its name to the mountains of Samaria, the central region of the Land of Israel, surrounding the city of Shechem. This usage probably began after the city became Omri's capital but is first documented only after its conquest by Sargon II of Assyria, who turned the kingdom into the province of Samerina.
According to the Hebrew Bible, Omri, the king of the northern kingdom of Israel, purchased the hill from Shemer its owner for two talents of silver, and built on its broad summit the city to which he gave the name of Šōmrōn (i.e., Samaria), as the new capital of his kingdom, replacing Tirzah (1 Kings 16:24).[25] As such it possessed many advantages. Omri resided here during the last six years of his reign (1 Kings 16:23).’ – Wikipedia.
The Region of Samaria initially included all the tribes over which Jeroboam made himself king, whether east or west of the river Jordan. Hence, even before the city of Samaria existed, we find an “old prophet who dwelt at Bethel" describing the predictions of "the man of God who came from Judah”. The Bible tells us that in the days of Pekah (771 & 740 BC), Tiglath-Pileser, the King of Assyria invaded the northern tribes of Israel, who dwelt at that time in Galilee and Gilead. The King of Assyria captured them and took them home with him to Assyria. - (2 Kings 15:29). “He carried them away, even the Reubenites, the Gadities and half of the tribe of Manasseh, and he brought them unto Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river of Gozan.” – (1 Chronicles 5:26). The latter of these kings went further: “He took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria” (2Ki 15:29).
Nearly a century before, in 860 BC “The Lord had begun to cut Israel short” for “Hazael, king of Syria smote them in all the coasts of Israel; from Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the river Arnork even Gilead and Bashan” (2Ki 10:32-33). This was merely a passing conquest however and involved no permanent subjection of the country and no deportation of its inhabitants. The invasions of Pul and of Tilgath-pilneser just a few years later, were, in contrast utter clearances of the population. The kingdom of Samaria was reduced drastically when “Shalmaneser came up throughout the land”, and after a siege of three years “Took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, placing them in Halah, and in Habor by the river Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes” (2Ki 17:5-6). Again we are told that “Israel was carried away out of their own land into Assyria in” (2Ki 17:23). On the capture of the city of Samaria, and in the final overthrow of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser or Sargon in 720 BC), “the Jews were removed, and strangers were brought from Assyria and placed in the cities of Samaria” (2Ki 17:24; comp. Ezr 4:10).
These Manassites were not Jews however, but Manasseh Israelites; “What if one of Zelophehad's daughters were to marry a Jew? What if another marries an Asherite; a third one, a Benjamite; the fourth, a Gadite; and the fifth, a Simeonite? Who inherits the land when couple number one dies, or couple number two, or couple number three? The problem is that their offspring will not be of the same family and tribe as those in the area in which they are living; they would not be Manassites. They would be Jews, Asherites, Benjamites, Gadites, Simeonites, or whatever.” – (Numbers 36: 1-3).
In other words, the land that God gave to Manasseh would pass to the Jews, Asherites, etc., and the Manassites would not own their own land, clearly demonstrating the division.
The new immigrants coming into Manasseh took the name of their new country; Samaria and became the Samaritans. Instead of a kingdom, Samaria now became a province. Its extent cannot be exactly ascertained even to this day as the political geography of Palestine was undergoing major changes every year in that period. Due to the incessant wars and conquests of the period, it was not until the advent of Roman dominion that the boundaries of those provinces began to be accurately defined, and also due to the Romans’ proclivity for drawing accurate maps. Josephus describes the province as follows: “The district of Samaria lies between Judea and Galilee. Commencing at a village called Ginaea, it is situated in the Great Plain, terminating at the territory of the Acrabatenes” (War, 3, 3, 4). Ginaea is the modern Jenin, situated on the southern side of the plain of Esdraelon. It is clear then that Sumeria was the ancient territory of Ephraim, and of those Manassites who were west of Jordan. To be more precise, the Western Manassites.-
The Twelve Tribes of Israel in C; 1200-1050 BC; - Wikipedia.
The Manasseh/Manassites; the tribe descended from Joseph's eldest son were adopted by Jacob. “And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: For God, said he hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house” (Genesis 41:51). “And now thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine” (Genesis 48:5).
At that time, Israel had long been known to the Assyrians as Beth-Khumri, meaning ‘The people of Ommri.’ Omri in Hebrew began with the letter ayin or gayin. This letter used to be pronounced as a guttural H or GH, for example Gomorrah in Hebrew begins with the same three consonants as Omri. Omri was a prince of the tribe of Issachar, showing an Israelite origin for the name. According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Issachar was one of the twelve tribes of Israel and one of the ten lost tribes. Thus, and assuming the Hebrew 'Gayin', Omri used to be pronounced Ghomri, which became Ghumri and then Khumri in Assyrian.
On the ‘Black Obelisk’ now kept in the British Museum, a king of Assyria more than a century before these captivities is named there. It is recorded that he received tribute from one Jehu, and above the panel depicting the event the inscription reads; ‘The tribute of Jehu, son of Khumri’, followed by further details of the accolade. Tiglath-Pileser, in his annals also tells us how he took the first Israelites captive at the time when he captured Damascus and conquered Syria; “The towns of Gilead and Abel-beth-maacah on the frontier of Beth-Khumri, and the widespread district of Hazael to its whole extent I turned into the territory of Assyria.” Syria is here named after Hazael a former king of that land, just as Israel is called Beth-Khumri after the king who founded Samaria; Omri. Assyrian history places the capture of Damascus and the first captivity of the Israelites in 732 BC.
Historians agree that Gimirra is the Assyrian equivalent of the Greek ‘Kimmeroi’, called the Cimmerians by current academics. These Gimirrai/Kimmeroi/Cimmerians are known to have lived in Asia Minor during the seventh century BC. The earliest Assyrian documents to mention the Cimmerians state that some of them were living in northern Iran near Lake Urmia as early as 707 BC, ‘only fourteen years after the fall of Samaria’. Although the Assyrians called the Israelites Khumri initially, this soon mutated to Gamir following their exile and captivity. This later further mutated to Gimira/Gimirai, equivalent to the Greek Kimerioi or Cimmerian. According to Greek historians, these ‘Cimmerians’ made their first appearance in Asia Minor when they overthrew Midas, king of Phrygia. This was dated by both Eusebius and Julius Africanus as the first quarter of the seventh century BC. Archaeologists, excavating the ruins of Gordium, the Phrygian capital have confirmed that the city was destroyed by fire about 700 BC. These dates support the view that these Cimmerians were actually Israelites, those who had been taken into exile in 732 and 721 BC respectively and had then escaped through the Euphrates gorge. These people called Gimirrai by the Assyrians and Kimmeroi by the Greeks; these fierce Cimmerians were beginning to move into Asia Minor in that time, and to meet their attack, one King Argistis marched northward to meet them. All we know is that this King Argistis suffered a great defeat in that battle with the fierce Cimmerians, this defeat being delivered in a territory acknowledged as being Cimmerian.” - Cambridge Ancient History (Vol III, p. 53).
Clay tablets discovered in Ur by Leonard Woolley revealed that in the autumn of 708 BC, the Urartians advanced through ‘Musasir’ in arms. They moved toward the south of Lake Urmia in the spring of 707 BC, apparently with the aim of retaking the ‘Mannai’ territory (Manasseh/Manassite) which the Assyrians had taken from them seven years earlier. It was there they were defeated by the formidable Cimmerians. This location is also confirmed by a further report to the palace overseer, one which reports; “In their counterattack, the Gomera went forth out of the midst of the Mannai and into the land of Urartu” (H.12). This last tablet should provide ample proof that the 'Gamera/Gomera', when first mentioned were living in Mannai territory, immediately adjacent to Media where the Israelites had been held in captivity only fourteen years previously. In 719 BC, only two years after the Israelite exodus, King Sargon of Assyria states in his annals that he invaded their territory and deported many of the ‘Mannai’ to the west. The Mannai obviously refers to the Manasseh tribe, or more accurately the ‘West Manasseh’ who were deported to Iran in the exodus.
Who were the Western Manasseh/Manassites?
The chief of the tribe at the time of the census at Sinai was one Gamaliel ben-Pedahzur. Its numbers then totalled 32,200 men at arms (Nu 1:10,35; Nu 2:20-21; Nu 7:54-59).
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.
Manasseh (Mênassêh), “one who makes to forget”; (Mavaoo-Tje) is an eponym of the Israelite tribe of the Manassites in the hills of Central Palestine and Transjordan. Manasseh was the eldest son of Joseph and Asenath, daughter of Potiphar, priest of On (Gen 41:50-51; 46:20). Joseph chose this Manasseh or Manassites name in relation to the stem n-s-y; “to forget,” because “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s house.” Accordingly, Jerome and later church fathers translated the name Manasseh as “forgetful” or “necessity.” The common etymology is symbolically related to Israel’s forgetting of God (Ambrose, Pair. 1.4) or to God forgetting Israel’s sins (Isidore of Seville, Orig. 7.6.73).
Manasseh within the Tribal System.
Manasseh and Ephraim were adopted by their grandfather Jacob on his deathbed, giving Joseph a part of Jacob’s estate (Genesis 48). Therefore, Manasseh and Ephraim were regarded equally, and as separate tribes of the tribal entity of the house of Joseph.
The numbers (soldiery) of Ephraim were at the same date 40,500. Forty years later, on the banks of the Jordan, these proportions were reversed. The Manasseh/Manassites had then increased to 52,700 members, while Ephraim had diminished to 32,500 (Nu 26:34,37). On this occasion it is remarkable that Manasseh (the patronymic head of the tribe) resumes his position in the lists as the eldest son of Joseph. This may have been due to the strength and prowess the tribe had shown in the conquest of Gilead, for Manasseh and his Manassites were certainly at this time the most distinguished of all the tribes.
Machir, Jair, and Nobah, the sons of Manasseh were pure warriors. They had taken the most prominent part in the conquest of those provinces which had been conquered, and whose deeds are constantly referred to (Nu 32:39; De 3:13-15) with credit and renown. “Jair, the son of Manasseh took all the tract of Argob; sixty great cities” (De 3:14,4). “Nobah took Kenath and the daughter-towns thereof and called it after his own name” (Nu 32:42). “Because Machir was a man of war, therefore he had Gilead and Bashan” (Jos 17:1). The district which these ancient warriors conquered was amongst the most difficult, if not the most difficult in the whole country. It embraced the hills of Gilead with their inaccessible heights and impassable ravines, and the almost impregnable tract of Argob, which derives its modern name of Lejah from the secure “asylum” it affords to those who take refuge within its natural fortifications.
The few personages of eminence whom we can with certainty identify as Manassites, such as Gideon and Jephthah for Elijah and others were among the most remarkable that Israel ever produced. Gideon was in fact “The greatest of the judges, and his children all but established hereditary monarchy in their own line” (Stanley, S. and P. p. 230).
The warlike tendencies of the Manassites seem to have been confined to the east of the Jordan, where they “Throve exceedingly, pushing their way northward over the rich plains of Jaulan and Jedur; the Gaulanitis and Ituraea of the Roman period, all the way to the foot of Mount Hermon” (1Ch 5:23). At the time of the coronation of David at Hebron, while the Western Manasseh sent 18,000 soldiers, and Ephraim itself 20,800, the Eastern Manasseh, with Gad and Reuben, mustered to the number of 120,000, thoroughly armed; a remarkable demonstration of strength from this huge central, dual Kingdom bestriding the Jordan.
The Archaeology of the Manasseh Hills.
The settlement of Manasseh reached a peak in Iron Age II , with all parts of the Manasseh Hills settled. Those Manassite villages relied mainly on animal husbandry and cereal growing. In that time, different types of settlements were employed, from small farmsteads and simple enclosed clusters to fortified cities. The founding of new sites on virgin soil indicates not only a population expansion and a quest for new land, but also one of political stability and economic prosperity. The eastern valleys especially were protected by fortresses built upon natural hills to secure incoming roads from the east; but also the roads from the north via the Dothan Valley and those from the south were guarded by fortresses. The success of Israel under the Omrides may have led to this population growth, security and development in this area. After the Assyrian conquests and the transformation of the Manasseh Hills into the province of Samerina, the population gradually decreased. The Assyrians destroyed some of the larger cities but left the villages mainly intact. Yet, many family farmsteads decayed and were given up bit by bit after the enforced exodus by the Persians/Assyrians. The farmsteads and villages in the arid zones in particular were abandoned. The populace may have moved to the west, and further deportations would also have contributed to the general decline. New settlements were founded mostly in the region around the new Samerina. That immigrants came from other areas of the Assyrian empire is attested by the different ceramic traditions discovered in archaeological excavations around the old territory of Manasseh and from the Mesopotamian building plans brought there by those people.
The Scythians.
Gold plaque of a mounted Scythian. Black Sea region, c. 400–350 BC. © The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, 2017. Photo: V Terebenin.
The Scythians.
Following the Persian conquests and the mass relocation of those unfortunate Israelites, in addition to the Gimira being reported among the Medes and the Mannai in the following years, another name, the ‘Iskuzza’ also occurs in this connection in the Assyrian archives. This could be the first mention of the Scythians we find in history. Esarhaddon, in his Annals claimed victory over them: “I scattered the Mannaean people; intractable barbarians, and I smote with the sword the armies of Ishpaki; the Iskuzza. Alliance with them did not save him.” The Scythians are again mentioned in association with the Mannai in a prayer text, asking; “Will the Iskuza warriors who live in a district of the Mannai, and have moved to the frontier of the Mannai succeed in their plan? Will they march out from the pass of Hubushkia, and reach the town of Harrania and Anisuskia, and take great booty and heavy spoil from the borders of Assyria?” Hubushkia was the chief city of the hill country called Nairi, lying between Assyria and Urartu. So, these two texts clearly place the Iskuza; the Scythians among the Mannai in the north.
So, we find that the Scythians were assimilated perhaps as a sub-group into the Mannai; the Kimerioi or Cimmerians. The reverse could also have been true, in that the Cimmerians could have been a sub-group of the Scythians.
Two further prayer texts found mention the Scythians in the south, these threatening Assyrian expeditions sent to collect tribute in Media. One asks whether someone whose name is illegible, “His son, or the Iskuza warriors, or anyone else who is with him, will attack the nobles and governors of Bitkari and Saparda who are going into a district of the Medes and are returning? In the other text, the king enquires, “Will the governors, nobles, warriors, horses and troops of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, which are in Bitkari, and which have invaded the land of the Medes to collect the tribute of horses, be attacked by the hand of Iskuza warriors?” So, it is evident from these texts that during Esarhaddon's reign, hostile bands of not only Gimira - Cimmeroi, but also of Iskuza - Scythians were operating among the Mannai and the Medes.
We know that ten tribes of Israelites had been kidnapped and placed in the same region of Persia (Iran) less than half a century earlier, so it would seem unlikely that three distinctly different peoples; the Gimira, the Iskuza and the Israelites would all arrive in the same small area within such a short space of time by chance. The Iskuza - Scythians had themselves been driven by the nomadic Massagetae from their lands; a place of deposition by Esarhaddon some years earlier.
So, it seems more likely that these are just different names for the same peoples. “Just as Gimira could be derived from Khumri, so Iskuza could have been derived from Isaaca or the house of Isaac, as the Israelites may have called themselves” (cf Amos 7:16). The initial I in the name Isaac, though retained by the Assyrians, was dropped by the Persians, probably because in Hebrew the accent fell on the last syllable. This does, however, support the fact that Iskuza was the Assyrian name for the people whom the Greeks called Scythians, and Herodotus (VII,64) informs us that the Persians called all Scythian tribes Sacae. Since the Persians called the captured Israelites in Media Sacae, the name Sacae or Scythian was retained by them in later literature, but those is Asia Minor retained the Assyrian name Gimira or the Greek Cimmerian. Since the Assyrians included the Cimmerians in Asia Minor among the Gimira, they must all originally have been the same people. That they were, in fact Israelites is evident from the fact that all made their first appearance immediately after the Israelite exile, and in exactly those places where the Israelites were exiled to, and in exactly those places from where the Israelites subsequently vanished. Furthermore, both names can be derived from ancient names for Israel. It seems clear that the Cimmerians (Gimirri) and the Scythians (Iskuza) were closely related. They were in fact the two Israelite tribes of the Isaaca (the tribe of Isaac) and the Manassites (the tribe of Manasseh).
The Cimmerians were probably the first among the ten displaced, Scythic (Israeli) peoples in Media to venture south of the Caucasus. They did this around 720 BC, arriving in Uishdish after passing the Caucasus on the side of the Caspian Sea. Around 680 BC they were followed by the Iskuza. and eventually reaching Anatolia (modern-day Turkey). The migration routes of these nomadic peoples came back to the west from Manni, Gamir and Urartu, through Tabal and Phrygia and onward, always following their Sun God west. Through Lydia and Troad, and further north through Thrace they travelled, pushing ever west into Greece, known to have formed an alliance with the Thracians there in C: 650 BC.
Esarhaddon.
By Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany - The Royal lion hunt reliefs from the Assyrian palace at Nineveh, the king is hunting, about 645-635 BC, British Museum.
Oracle texts from the reign of Esarhaddon; (clay tablets) C: 681-669 BC again mention the Gimirri among the people of the Zagros region, along with the Mannaeans and the Medes. It is around this time the Gimirri start raiding regions further from their homelands near Lake Urmia. In 679 BC, the Cimmerians attacked Cilicia, a major Phoenician port, and, in 676 BC, they turned their warlike attentions to Phrygia. Finally, in the second half of the seventh century BC, they started to raid into Lydia. The Cimmerians’ Anatolian campaigns understandably became the focus of Herodotus’ ancient accounts. The same oracle texts also mention the Ishkuza/Iskuza; the Scythians. They state that Esarhaddon forged an alliance with Bartatua, king of the Iskuza, probably in an attempt to counter the threat of Median attacks. This Bartatua is known as one Protothyes in the work of Herodotus. It is thought that some Cimmerians moved further west into Italy from Lydia and Lemnos to become the Etruscans, but the question of Etruscan origins has long been a subject of interest and debate among historians. It may be that some of the fierce Cimmerians were absorbed by the indigenous Etruscans, but that is also impossible to prove.
A people called the Kimmeroi are also named in Homer’s Odyssey, however. These ‘Kimmeroi’ lived in the far west across the ocean, in a misty land apparently never touched by the sun. They appear to be a purely mythical people in Homer’s texts, but I believe them to be real. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are conventionally dated to the late 8th or early 7th century BC, and so I consider them contemporary and not mythically historic for the author. I believe Homer’s Kimmeroi to be Hyperborean in period. The name Kimmeroi is perhaps derived from the Greek word kemmeros, which means mist. When the Greeks came into contact with a people named the Gimirri, and noted the similarity in name with Homer’s Kimmeroi, they may have conflated the two. The misty isles in the far west, across the ocean was known to them as Hyperborea or Hibernia, and we ancient Britons had a long association with inter-travel and religious pilgrimage between Britain and Greece even in those ancient times, as proved by the account of Abaris the Hyperborean; a British Arch-Druid. (follow the link to my article Abaris the Hyperborean for more information); https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/abaris-hyperborean-eifion-wyn-williams/?trackingId=pZCy0ie6Rvay1F6k3tDNUw%3D%3D
It is my contention that our chief Druid Abaris was dispatched to Greece to make sacrifice at the main temple to Apollo in Athens (see the link above article for more information). He was sent to Greece to turn the auguries and to stop the appalling sickness which had swept Britain from the south coast to the most northern. Mass death and civil unrest tore the country apart following this epidemic, causing political and leadership uncertainty, which in turn began inter-tribal conflicts across Britain. As many leaders had succumbed to the disease, it could have become cataclysmic if the territories and kingdoms of this country had broken out into full civil war. So, we now move to 509 BC and the arrival here of the eponymous Brutus, coming from a war-torn Troy in Anatolia and brought hither by our venerated Arch Druid, by ship from Lemnos. We now discover how the Beth Ghomri, the Gimirri, the Kimmeroi or the Cimmerians eventually came to Britain.
To say they trod a long, weary and a rocky road would be an understatement, but they endured, and they survived, to become the valiant Khumry/Kymru/Cymru; the Welsh; my people and one of the very ancient, founding tribes of these blessed isles.
Eifion Wyn Williams.
Author’s Website: https://iffy88227.wixsite.com/sonsofbelimawr
Britain’s Hidden History: https://www.facebook.com/groups/britainshiddenhistory
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