Hope of Israel Ministries (Church of YEHOVAH):

The Anakim Migration to Mesoamerica --

When the Maya traveled across the Atlantic to the New World, a mysterious culture was already in full bloom in Mesoamerica. Called the OLMEC, The Facts On File Dictionary of Archaeology states that they were "a Mesoamerican group whose heartland lay in the low-lying swampy areas of the southern Veracruz and Tabasco provinces of Mexico. Since their CULTURAL ZENITH occurred in the MIDDLE PRE-CLASSIC [1000-300 B.C.], they are often proposed as the earliest civilization in Mesoamerica" (edited by Ruth D. Whitehouse. N.Y. 1983. P. 363).

This publication goes on to say that "the OLMEC were apparently GREAT TRADERS, but they are particularly noted for the variety and high quality of their art, especially their ceramic and jade figurines. Massive basalt heads depicting thick-lipped men in tightly fitted helmets have been found at all the major centres. They are also noted for a distinctive black, white-rimmed kaolin pottery....it is clear that the OLMEC were controllers of a widespread trade network."

Notes Michael D. Lemonick: "More than 1,500 years before the Maya flourished in Central America, 25 centuries before the Aztecs conquered large swaths of Mexico, the mysterious Olmec people were building the first great culture of Mesoamerica. Starting in 1200 B.C. [actually much earlier] in the steamy jungles of Mexico's southern Gulf Coast, the Olmec's influence spread as far as modern GUATEMALA, HONDURAS, BELIZE, COSTA RICA and EL SALVADOR. They built large settlements, established ELABORATE TRADE ROUTES and developed religious iconography and rituals, including ceremonial ball games, blood-letting and HUMAN SACRIFICE, that were adopted by all the Mesoamerican civilizations to follow" (Mystery of the Olmec, p. 1).

Charles Gallenkamp adds the following information:

Olmec culture is known mainly from THREE important ruins: LA VENTA, TRES ZAPOTES, and SAN LORENSO....their influence was extremely widespread. Unmistakably OLMEC TRAITS are found in archaeological sites EXTENDING FROM THE VALLEY OF MEXICO TO EL SALVADOR, and some authorities view the OLMEC as a kind of "MOTHER CULTURE" that played a vital role in stimulating the RISE OF CIVILIZATION throughout the area. -- Maya: The Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization. Third edition. Viking Penguin, Inc. N.Y. 1985. Pp. 67-68.

La Venta was a large ceremonial center located on an island in the swampy lowlands of the Tabasco Province of Mexico. The site is dominated by a large, conical clay PYRAMID some 300 feet high; and there are a number of other low platform mounds orientated on a north-south axis. These are thought to have supported residences of the ruling aristocracy that were probably constructed from perishable materials. On the north part of the complex lies a courtyard palisaded with monolithic basalt columns.

Records Ruth D. Whitehouse --

The site is best known for its great variety of worked stone, made all the more impressive by the lack of local sources. Carved STELAE, altars, colossal stone heads in basalt (the nearest source for this material is some 100km away) and three massive mosaic pavements in SERPENTINE laid in the form of a jaguar mask are among the monumental works. The famous Jade Group, consisting of 16 human figure statuettes and 6 celts arranged in a kind of circular gathering, was buried in association with the main building complex. -- The Facts On File Dictionary of Archaeology. Facts On File Publications, New York, N.Y. 1983. P.278.

The site at San Lorenzo is considered the earliest of the major Olmec ceremonial centers and supported a long occupation. Located in the open country around the Rio Chiquito in southern Veracruz, Mexico, its main construction rests on an artificially modified salt dome. Orientated on a north-south axis once again, this plateau has a series of man-made ravines constructed on three of its sides; at the top of some of these massive stone heads had been buried.

Notes Ruth D. Whitehouse --

The principal features of the site are a large platform mound and a cluster of smaller mounds surrounding what may be the earliest BALL COURT in Mesoamerica; more than 200 house mounds are clustered around these central features. A system of carved stone drains underlying the site (the longest section is over 200 metres long) is a unique structural feature. Numerous stone heads (the largest is nearly 3 metres high and weighs 25 tons) have been found on the site; most were DELIBERATELY mutilated before burial. -- Ibid., p. 450.

San Lorenzo shows clear evidence of class structure, according to Olmec scholar Ann Cyphers at Mexico's National Autonomous University, with more elaborate residences for the upper classes and simpler accomodations for the middle class and the poor. There were also, observes Cyphes, workshops for producing artifacts, and irrigation and drainage systems. "All these things show a society of great complexity," she says.

Tres Zapotes is located west of the Tuxtla Mountains and 160km northwest of La Venta. Its Olmec beginnings are evidenced by flat-bottomed, white-rimmed pottery and colossal stone heads. Probably the most important find at this site is Stele C -- which has the earliest Maya LONG COUNT DATE yet discovered (31 B.C.)

These three sites indicate a complex society -- but, think some scholars, this complexity may not have extended to Olmec politics. "Rather than a single, unified state," says one school of archaeological thought, "the Olmec were little more than a glorified collection of CHIEFDOMS." There is no evidence for a single linguistic or political entity and, according to Richard Diehl of the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa), "there were probably a NUMBER OF DIFFERENT POPULATIONS, forming groups that rose and fell over time and shifted alliances. I don't think there was any political integration."

Evidence of the Olmec culture can be found as far north as Cholula -- which is located about 60 miles south-east of Mexico City. Here is found the great man-made mountain called "tlahchiualtepetl." "Once sacred to the peaceful cult of Quetzalcoatl, but now surmounted by an ornate Catholic church, this emmense edife was ranked among the most extensive and ambitious engineering projects ever undertaken anywhere in the ancient world" (Fingerprints of the Gods, by Graham Hancock. Crown trade Paperbacks, N.Y. 1995. P. 109).

This huge, truncated pyramid, constructed of sun-dried bricks and earth, 177 ft. high, and covering an area of nearly 45 acres, is the most conspicuous object in the town and was built as an imposing site for a temple. It was three times more massive than the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Limited excavation of the site by tunnelling shows four earlier pyramids nested inside the Great Pyramid -- the earliest of which goes back to the Pre-Classic Period when the site was first occupied by the Olmec. "Though its contours were now blurred by age and its sides overgrown with grass, it was still possible to recognize that it had once been an imposing ziggurat which had risen up towards the heavens in four clean-angled 'steps'" (ibid., p. 109).

The archaeological excavations have revealed that this edifice -- the largest building ever erected on earth -- was not the product of one dynasty. It was built up over a very long period of time (probably three thousand years or more) and was a collective project, created by an inter-generational labor force drawn from the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Toltec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Cholulan and Aztec that had passed through Cholula since the dawn of civilization in Mexico.

The legends of the area offer us one graphic and powerful piece of imagery -- the original builders of the pyramid were "GIGANTIC MEN of deformed stature." When Franciscan Diego de Duran visited Cholula in 1585, a venerated elder of the town told him the story of the making of the great ziggurat --

...Immediately after the light and the sun arose in the east there appeared GIGANTIC MEN of deformed stature who POSSESSED THE LAND. Enamoured of the light and beauty of the sun they determined to build a tower so high that its summit should reach the sky. Having collected materials for the purpose they found a very adhesive clay and bitumen with which they speedily commenced to build the tower...(Historia antiqua de la Nueve Espana, 1585, quoted in Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by Ignatius Donelly. P. 200).

The existence of the OLMEC culture in Mexico and Central America, along with terraced pyramids (similar to SUMERIAN ZIGGURATS), calendrical systems, mathematics and sculptured figures WITH BEARDS or Negroid features implies, to many observers, "a CONNECTION with such peoples as the...PHOENICIANS, HITTITES... or CARTHAGINIANS" -- all of whom were CANAANITES! (Maya:The Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization., p. 44).

Who was this mysterious people that have so baffled the modern-day historians and anthropologists? To find the answer to this riddle we must go back, once again, to the OLD World!

In the year 1883 B.C. an invasion of Spain took place from the confines of North Africa. Having become a civilized land and weathy due to changes in climate and the presence of many producing gold mines, Spain aroused the greed of Egypt and other North African nations. A king by the name of GERION or DEABUS, with a large army and many ships, conquered Spain and forced the inhabitants to dig gold for their new African overlords. Many Spanish slaves died from overwork under this tyranny.

Records Herman L. Hoeh --

The history of this period is as follows:

Gerion, the Giant                                     34                                       1883-1849
                                                              (or 35)                                   (1884-1849)

Gerion was the seventh generation from HAM. He descended through Cush, Saba (the Saba of Gen. 10:7), Gog, Triton, Ammon and HIARBA (compare the last name with the Biblical "ARBA" of Joshua 13:14, who was THE FATHER OF THE ANAKIM GIANTS).

The Lomnini                                             42                                       1849-1807

The Lomnini were three GIANT SONS of Gerion. They were allowed to continue to rule in the land [Spain] after an invasion in 1849 by an Egyptian army under Osyris Denis (Dionysius in Greek). -- Compendium of World History, vol. II, pp.113-115.

The Egyptians slew Gerion in 1849, whereupon the part of his tribe that was left fled to sea in their ships AND SAILED TO THE NEW WORLD. A tradition found among the TOLTECS of Mexico, and preserved by the historian Ixtlilxochitl, declares that at one time there were GIANTS IN THEIR LAND.

Part of the remnant fled to Ireland where they buit strongholds on Tory Island and in the Hebrides.

Herman Hoeh adds that "one of the LOMNINI in Spain, meanwhile, was given to wife a sister of Osyris. A son of the union, NORAC, SETTLED SARDINIA and built the city of Norca. Sardinia is famous for traditionally being inhabited by GIANTS who left the MEGALITHIC REMAINS and GIANT TOMBS."

Continues Herman Hoeh --

Even the date of the arrival of these GIANTS [in Mesoamerica] has been preserved by the Toltec historian [Ixtlilxochitl]. It was 520 years after the flood. (Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, vol. v, p.209). The year of the flood was 2370-2369. And 520 years after the flood -- that is, after 2369 -- is 1849, the very year a great battle was fought in Spain during which Gerion was slain and MANY OF THE GIANTS EXPELLED. Later Indian tradition records the perishing of these giants in the New World in a struggle with the Indians. (Ibid.).

The Anakim were a race of people of extraordinary size who lived in the mountainous regions of Canaan as well as some coastal areas -- particularly in the south and, as we shall see, across the north of Africa. Numbers 13:22 relates that at one time three prominent men of the Anakim -- Ahiman, Sheshai and TALMAI -- resided at Hebron. It was here that the 12 Hebrew spies first saw the Anakim and subsequently gave a frightening report of their experience to Moses.

Notes Insight On the Scriptures: "In Joshua's rapid sweep through Canaan, he gained victories over the Anakim in the mountainous regions, destroying their cities, but others remained in the Philistine cities of Gaza, Ashdod, and Gath" (Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York, Inc. Brooklyn, N.Y. 1988. P. 103).

Many of the Anakim fled Canaan at this time along with numbers of the vanquished Canaanites -- ending up in the north parts of Africa.

However, evidence exists that the Anakim were well-known to the Egyptians of the Middle Kingdom and were ALREADY PRESENT in parts of North Africa. Egyptian Execration Texts (from pottery on which the names of enemies of the pharaoh were written and which was then broken as a curse) make mention of the tribe of Anak as "Iy-'anaq." Explains Donald B. Redford in Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times:

The most precious source bearing on Egypt's relations with Asia in the late Middle Kingdom, [are] the so-called Execration Texts...For the 12th and early 13th Dynasties four lots of texts have relevance: figurines from Helwan, early 12th Dynasty (no Asiatics names preserved); figurines and pottery from the Nubian fortress of Mirgissa...pottery purchased on the market and now in Berlin, dating from the reign of Senwosret III or (early) Amenemhet III; and clay figurines excavated at Saqqara and now in Brussels, dating one or two generations after the Berlin bowls...Here [in the Berlin group], for both NUBIA and Asia (and for LIBYA as well, although the section is brief), we have the following "paragraphs": (A) a listing of named chieftains each preceded by the denomination "chief of (TOPONYM) N, and all the henchmen who are with him"...The Mirgissa texts have six entries for section A with three toponyms mentioned ('ANAQI four times)...(Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. Pp. 87-88).

Further, it should be noted that one of the prominent men of the Anakim was TALMAI -- the root TAL -- is found everywhere from TLemcen, near the ATLas Mountains, to the ATLantic Ocean. A sub-tribe of the leading Berber tribe in Morocco is called TALesinnt. This root is particularly prevalent in the Megalithic heartland of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). When the Lenni Lenape Indians migrated across the United States they ran into the Moundbuilders whom they called the TALegawil or TALega -- the root TAL- linking them to the TAL-MAI. "From this root came both the Arabic "tell" (man-made mound, artificial hill) and the related word "tuul" (hill, heap) in the Cushite languages of East Africa. In Berber Africa, 'Tell denotes the mountainous but fertile region of Algeria and Morocco between the Atlas [Mountains] and the Mediterranean' (Fage & Oliver, 548)" (The Berber Project, by R. Ben Madison).

Early British tradition also records the presence of SWARTHY GIANTS who built many of the MEGALITHIC monuments or henges.

The arrival of the North Africans (Anakim) in Ireland is recorded by Geoffrey Keating in The History of Ireland:

Neimheadh won three battles on the FOMORIANS, namely, NAVIGATORS OF THE RACE OF HAM, WHO FARED FROM AFRICA; they came FLEEING to the islands of the WEST OF EUROPE, and to make a settlement for themselves, and (also) FLEEING THE RACE OF SHEM, for fear that they might have advantage over them, in consequence of the curse which Noah had left on HAM FROM WHOM THEY CAME; inasmuch as they thought themselves to be safe from the control of the POSTERITY OF SHEM by being at a distance from them: WHEREFORE THEY CAME TO IRELAND....It is wherefore they used to be called FOMORIANS, namely, from their being committing robbery on sea: FOMHORAIGH, i.e. along the seas. -- Vol. 1. The Irish Texts Society, London. 1902. Pp. 179 & 183.

Irish tradition also tells the story of "stones [that] were brought there by a King who arrived in a LARGE FLEET with a retinue of priests and AFRICANS. The Africans set up the stones, those who died in the process being buried within the circle. When THE KING DEPARTED he left behind the high priest and others, and they invited the local people to assist in their rituals: 'The priests wore robes made of SKINS AND FEATHERS OF BIRDS, that of the Chief Priest being white with a girdle made from the neck feathers of mallard drakes; the other priests wore FEATHER CLOAKS of mixed colours.'" (Megalithomania, by John Michell. Cornell University Press, N.Y. 1982. P.102.)

The Irish traditions are full of stories about the Fomorians. "Living mainly...on offshore islands, the Fomorians were regarded as coeval with the world itself. From their base on Tory Island, beyond the extreme northeast tip of Donegal, they regularly invaded the mainland" (Mythic Ireland, by Michael Dames. Thames and Hudson, 1992. P. 187).

The Irish traditions regularly portray the Fomorians as GIANTS who laid claim to the mainland of Ireland; and they are reported to have claimed their annual tithes or tribute from the Irish (the children of Neimheadh) at Mag Cetne, on The Plains of Tribute, which lay on the south side of the Ess Ruaid Falls -- stretching towards the river Drowes along the coastal plain of north Sligo. In the Annals of Connacht this area is referred to as Mag Cetne of the Fomore (Fomorians).

Wrote Keating --

There was much slavery and great oppression afterwards on the race of Neimheadh by the Fomorians, revenging the battles which Neinheadh had gained over them. MORC, indeed, son of DEILEADH, and CONAING, son of FAOBHAR, from whom is named Tor Conaing on the border of Ireland north had a fleet, and they residing in Tor Conaing which is called TOIRINIS [Tory Island], enforcing a tribute on the children of Neimheadh: and the extent of that tribute was TWO THIRDS OF THE CHILDREN, and of the corn, and of the milch-kine of the men of Ireland, to be offered to them every year on the eve of Samhain at Magh gCeidne between the Drobhaois and the Eirne...(The History of Ireland, p. 183).

Adds Michael Dames --

In addition three full measures from every household in Ireland of the cream of milk, of the flour of wheat, and of butter to be brought to Toirinis (Tory Island), and a female steward who was called Liagh (liach, ladle) enforced the tax throughout Ireland. -- Mythic Ireland, p. 188.

The children, evidently, were used as SACRIFICES; and this proclivity is highlighted by Dames' next statement: "Drownings were another aspect of the Gamraid ceremony -- the marriage of young men to Indech mac Dimnann's daughter of Ocean, and the Dagda's lover. BEREAVED MOTHERS around the coasts of Ireland accepted these repeated claims with numb resignation" (ibid., p. 188).

"Anger and rage indeed did seize upon the men of Ireland by reason of the heaviness of that tribute and tax, insomuch that they went to do battle with the Fomorians" (The History of Ireland, p. 185).

The Neimheadh (Nemedians) managed to gain the upperhand for a while and kill Conaing and his children. Morc, son of Deileadh, however, "brought the crew of three score ships FROM AFRICA TO TOIRINIS" to engage the Neimheadh. During the ensuing battle the children of Neimheadh "fell side by side, and...everyone of them who was not slain was drowned, but [for] Morc and a few of his company who took possession of the island..." (Ibid., p.185) For the next several centuries the Fomorians held sway over Ireland until the Tuatha De Danaan arrived.

The new invaders of Ireland were of the Israelite tribe of Dan (hence Tuatha De Danaan) and were a capable and cultured people. According to Seumas MacManus they were a "highly civilized people, so skilled in the crafts, if not the arts, that the Firbolgs named them necromancers; and in course of time both the Firbolgs and the later-coming Milesians created a mythology around them" (The Story of the Irish Race, by Seumas MacManus. The Devin-Adair Company, Old Greenwich, Conecticut. 1992. P. 2).

The great Irish historiographer, Eugene O'Curry, records that "the De Danaan were a people remarkable for their knowledge of the domestic, if not the higher, arts of civilized life" -- and he goes on to say that they were apparently more highly civilized than even their conquerors, the Milesians.

In a famous battle at Southern Moytura (on the Mayo-Galway border in Ireland) the Tuatha De Danaan met and vanquished the Firbolgs. The king of the Firbolgs, Eochaid, was slain in this great battle, but the greatest of their warriors, Sreng, maimed the De Danaan King Nuada by cutting off his hand. This immediately disqualified him from the kingship because under De Danaan law no king could rule who suffered from a personal blemish.

Notes Seumas MacManus --

The great warrior champion of the De Danaan, Breas (whose father was a FOMORIAN CHIEF) filled the throne while Nuada went into retirement, and had made for him a silver hand...

Breas, says the legend, ruled for seven years. He incensed his people by indulging his kin, the FOMORIANS, in their depredations...he was finally DEPOSED for this and for another cause...

Breas fled to the HEBRIDES, to his father, Elatha, the chief of the Fomorians, where, collecting a mighty host of their sea-robbers, in as many ships as filled the sea from the Hebrides to Ireland, they swarmed into Eirinn [Ireland] -- and gave battle to the De Danaan at Northern Moytura, in Sligo. -- The Story of the Irish Race., pp. 3-4.

In this -- their second great battle since landing in Ireland -- the De Danaans were again victorious. They routed the Fomorians with tremendous slaughter and eliminated their tyranny in Ireland forever. Records MacManus: "The famous Fomorian chief, Balor of the Evil Eye, whose headquarters was on Tory Island, off the Northwest coast, was slain, by a stone from the sling of his own grandson, the great De Danaan hero, Lugh" (ibid., p.4)

Writes Michael Dames --

Each new group of...invaders was confronted by the Fomorians. Neither men nor gods could escape the dialectic. Of the Danaan's battle with the Fomorians, Gray says that "it stands at the centre of Irish mythology." It is the stuff of eternity. Today the place of the battle, Moytirra, C. Sligo, is a scattered community of small farms on a thin-soiled limestone plateau, overlooking Lough Arrow in Co. Sligo, where HUGE BLOCKS of limestone rest...scattered across the terrain. The five-metre-high EGLONE STONE, an erratic of magnesium limestone, stands erect. Others, like mortally wounded soldiers, lie around in the rushy pastures together with the remains of MEGALITHIC COURT TOMBS, dating from the early third [?] millenium BC, in a timeless landscape. Nor is the battle forgotten by the present inhabitants, who are proud to occupy land of such significance. -- Mythic Ireland, p. 189.

Adds Seumas MacManus: "This famous life and death struggle of two races is commemorated by a multitude of CAIRNS AND PILLARS which strew the great battle plain in Sligo -- a plain that bears the name (in Irish) of 'THE PLAIN OF THE TOWERS OF THE FOMORIANS'" (The Story of the Irish Race, p.4).

Dames finishes his record of the battle by simply stating: "At the end of the battle the vanquished Fomorians RETURNED TO THE SEA."

When the vanquished Fomorians left Ireland in their fleet of ships, evidence indicates that they headed across the Atlantic Ocean towards the New World -- reaching the New England coast of the United States.

It seems that modern historians and anthropologists have a problem with trans-Atlantic crossings in the Iron and Bronze Ages -- they have the erroneous idea that men were not capable of building the craft necessary for long sea voyages or navigating their way across large expanses of ocean. The facts are that nations of those days were quite adept at building sea-worthy ships and were tremendously capable at using the stars for navigation and discerning the secrets of ocean swells, currents, etc.

Explains R. Ben Madison --

Despite the dread Europeans felt about sailing the Atlantic in the days of Christopher Columbus, the Atlantic is in fact QUITE EASY to sail. Since 1492, there have been hundreds of authenticated "amateur" crossings in vessels of every imaginable description -- including dugout canoes, rafts, six-foot sailboats, kayaks, rubber life rafts, and even an amphibious jeep (Kehoe, 275f). It was NO HARDER to cross the Atlantic in 4500 BC [?] than it is today. Indeed, it would have been considerably easier for neolithic Berbers to reach America than for the equally primitive Polynesians to reach the many tiny isles of the Pacific; after all, the target was simply too big to miss (Riley, 299). -- The Berber Project, p.11.

At the same time that the Megalithic sculptures appeared in the Olmec region of Mesoamerica, huge stone Megaliths, identical to those being built in Europe, SUDDENLY popped up in New England. "Distinctive 'dolmens' (multi-ton boulders balanced precisely on the three smaller stones) were constructed on both sides of the Atlantic. Received opinion holds this to be pure coincidence, but it is hardly plausible that these enormous and distinctive structures should 'just happen' to be invented on two different continents at EXACTLY the same time, especially in the one part of America most accessible to the Megalithic builders of Europe (Trent, ch.2)" (ibid., pp.11-12).

It must be remembered that the Olmec were a "megalithic" people. States Philip J. Arnod III: "As a cultural entity, the Gulf Olmec occupied the area of southern Veracruz and northern Tabasco, Mexico from approximately 1200 bce [some sources push the date back to 1800 B.C.E.] to 400 bce. This era spans the Early and Middle Formative periods in the Mesoamerican chronology. The Gulf Olmec adaptation was based on swidden maize agriculture, supplemented with riverine and terrestrial resources (Coe and Diehl 1980; Rust and Leyden 1994). THE PRIMARY DIAGNOSTIC OF THE GULF OLMEC CULTURE WAS THEIR PENCHANT FOR MEGALITHIC SCULPTURE (colossal heads, "thrones," and stele) and large-scale, earthen, ceremonial architecture" (Ethnicity, Pottery, and the Gulf Olmec of Ancient Veracruz, Mexico. Pp.2-3).

Arnold goes on to say that "this area is demarcated by the PRESENCE OF MEGALITHIC SCULPTURE rendered in the Gulf Olmec style and extends from the Papaloapan River on the western edge to the Grijalva River to the east" (ibid.).

Further, he says, "the volcanic Tuxtlas [a volcanic uplift some 80 km away that reaches a height of 4,500 feet] also provide a suite of resources that are not duplicated along the coastal plain. For example, the basalt used for GULF OLMEC MEGALITHIC SCULPTURE and utilitarian ground stone utensils was quarried in the Tuxtlas. Tropical BIRD FEATHERS and cinnabar are other resources that may have attracted early socio-economic interests in the region" (ibid., p.4).

Regarding Olmec sculptures, Michael D. Lemonick relates that "the most famous Olmec artifacts are 17 COLOSSAL stone heads, presumed to have been carved between 1200 B.C. and 900 B.C. Cut from blocks of volcanic basalt, the heads, which range in height from 5ft to 11ft and weigh as much as 20 tons, are generally thought to be portraits of rulers. Archaeologists still have not determined how the Olmec TRANSPORTED the basalt from quarries to various settlements AS FAR AS 80 MILES AWAY -- and, in San Lorenzo, hoisted it to the top of a plateau some 150ft. high. 'IT MUST HAVE BEEN AS INCREDIBLE ENGINEERING EFFORT,' Joralemon says. 'These people didn't have beasts of burden, and they didn't have wheels. We don't know if they floated the blocks on rafts or traveled over land' (Mystery of the Olmec, p.3).

Not only that, but some of these colossal heads were found in the Olmec city of La Venta -- which was located on the island of Tonala off the Gulf Coast!

When author Graham Hancock traveled to the old colonia town of Santiago Tuxtla in Mexico he found, in the town park, one of these huge heads. When he first spotted it he wrote that "in the centre of the park, like some magic talisman, stood an enormous grey boulder, almost ten feet tall, carved in the shape of A HELMETED AFRICAN HEAD...Here, then, was the first mystery of the Olmecs: a monumental piece of sculpture, more than 2000 years old, which portrayed a subject with UNMISTAKABLE NEGROID FEATURES" (Fingerprints of the Gods, Crown Trade Paperbacks, N.Y. 1995. Pp. 120-121).

He goes on to say, on page 122 of his book, that "it was unmistakably THE HEAD OF AN AFRICAN MAN wearing a close-fitting helmet with long chin-straps. The lobes of the ears were pierced by plugs; THE PRONOUNCED NEGROID FEATURES were furrowed by deep frown lines on either side of the nose, and the entire face was concentrated forwards above THICK, down-curving lips" (ibid.)

When Matthew Stirling uncovered one of these heads at Tres Zapotes he exclaimed: "Cleared by the surrounding earth it presented an awe-inspiring spectacle. Despite its great size the workmanship is delicate and sure, THE PROPORTIONS PERFECT. Unique in character among aboriginal American sculptures, it is remarkable for its REALISTIC TREATMENT. The features are bold and AMAZINGLY NEGROID in character..." (Quoted in Fingerprints of the Gods, p. 122.)

While contemplating one of the Olmec heads Carlos Pellicer Camara had rescued from La Venta, Hancock mused that "it would be impossible, I thought, for a sculptor to INVENT all the different combined characteristics of an authentic racial type. The portrayal of an AUTHENTIC combination of racial characteristics therefore implied strongly a HUMAN MODEL had been used."

"I walked around the great head a couple of times. It was 22 feet in circumference, weighed 19.8 tons, stood almost 8 feet high, had been carved out of solid basalt, and displayed clearly 'an authentic combination of racial characteristics.' Indeed, like the other pieces I had seen at Santiago Tuxtla and at Tres Zapotes, it UNMISTAKABLY AND UNAMBIGUOUSLY SHOWED A NEGRO...My own view is that the Olmec heads present us with physiologically ACCURATE images of REAL individuals of NEGROID STOCK -- charismatic and powerful AFRICAN MEN whose presence in Central America 3000 years ago has not yet been explained by scholars" (ibid., pp. 130-131).

Since Gerion and his sons the Lomnini were directly descended from HAM by way of Hiarba (Arba), then they would have, in all likelihood, NEGROID features and characteristics! So this further links the Olmec to the Anakim of Canaan.

I mentioned earlier that the root TAL- (from TALMAI the Anakim) is prevalent in place-names across North Africa and throughout Spain. Like the Israelite tribe of Dan, it seems that everywhere the tribe descended from Talmai went they left behind evidence of their passing in the place-names and physical features of the land. Have they left behind a record of their presence in Central America? Indeed they have! If you study a map of Mexico, and countries to the south, you will find place-names and geographical features with the root TAL- in abundance. For example, there are the towns of AuTLan, CanaTLan, ColoTLan, CuauTLa, TeziuTLan, HuixTLa and many others. There is the MezquiTAL River, Mount NauhcampatepeTL, Mount PopocatepeTL and the ruins of MiTLa. The extent of the place-names ranges from MazaTLan on the west coast to HuixTLa on the border with Guatemala.

In Guatemala itself we find the towns of AmatiTLan, EscuinTLa and ReTALhuleu, along with Lake AtiTLan and the volcano of AtiTLan, while El Salvador delivers AcajuTLa.

The archaeological record also indicates this wide-ranging influence of the Olmec/Anakim people.

But this is not all -- strange as it may seem, sculptures of tall, thin-featured, long-nosed, apparently CAUCASIAN men with straight hair and full beards and wearing long, flowing robes were discovered at La Venta ALONGSIDE the Olmec heads! Here's the story of one such sculpture:

Matthew Stirling, the American archaeologist who excavated La Venta in the 1940s, made a number of spectacular discoveries there. The most spectacular of all was the STELE OF THE BEARDED MAN.

The plan of the ancient Olmec site...lay along an axis pointing 8 degrees west of north. At the southern end of this axis, 100 feet tall, loomed the fluted cone of the great PYRAMID. Next to it, at ground level, was what looked like a curb about a foot high enclosing a spacious rectangular area one-quarter the size of an average city block. When the archaeologists began to uncover this curb they found, to their surprise, that it consisted of the upper parts of a wall of columns. Further excavation through the undisturbed layers of stratification that had accumulated revealed that the columns were ten feet tall. There were more than 600 of them and they had been set together so closely that they formed a near-impregnable STOCKADE. Hewn out of solid basalt and transported to La Venta from quarries more than sixty miles distant, the columns weighed approximately two tons each.

Why all this trouble? What had the stockade been built to contain?

Even before excavation began, the tip of a MASSIVE CHUNK OF ROCK had been visible jutting out of the ground in the CENTRE of the enclosed area, about four feet higher than the illusory 'curb' and leaning steeply forward. It was covered with carvings. These extended down, out of sight, beneath the layers of soil that filled the ancient stockade to a height of about nine feet.

Stirling and his team worked for two days to free the great rock. When exposed it proved to be an imposing stele fourteen feet high, seven feet wide and almost three feet thick. The carvings showed an encounter between two tall men, both dressed in ELABORATE ROBES and wearing elegant SHOES WITH TURNED-UP TOES. Either erosion or deliberate mutilation (quite COMMONLY PRACTISED on Olmec monuments) had resulted in the complete defacement of one of the figures. The other was intact. It so obviously depicted A CAUCASIAN MALE with a HIGH-BRIDGED NOSE and a long, flowing beard that the bemused archaeologists promply christened it "Uncle Sam." -- Fingerprints of the Gods, by Graham Hancock. Pp. 132-133.

When Hancock personally studied the stele, two things seemed very clear to him: "...the encounter scene it portrayed must, for some reason, have been of immense importance to the Olmecs, hence the grandeur of the stele itself, and the construction of the remarkable stockade of columns built to contain it. And, as was the case with the Negro heads, it was obvious that the face of the bearded CAUCASIAN MAN could only have been sculpted from a HUMAN MODEL. The racial verisimilitude was too good for an artist to have invented it" (ibid., p. 133).

Hancock was able to identify two other Caucasian figures among the surviving monuments from La Venta. "One was carved in low relief on a heavy and roughly cicular slab of stone about three feet in diameter. Dressed in what looked like tight-fitting leggings, his features were those of an Anglo-Saxon. He had a full pointed beard and wore a CURIOUS FLOPPY CAP on his head...Around his slim waist was tied a flamboyant sash. The other Caucasian figure, this time carved on the side of a narrow pillar, was similarly bearded and attired" (ibid., pp. 133-134).

Who were these obviously Caucasian figures carved in the stones uncovered at La Venta? They were uncovered in exactly the same strata as the huge Olmec heads, so were plainly contemporary with the heads. Who could they be?

If you compare the La Venta figures to the Egyptian reliefs at Abydos in Upper Egypt that depict the battle of Kadesh, you will see SIMILAR attirement. The HITTITE charioteers (a Canaanite tribe) shown in the reliefs all have long, elaborate robes and shoes with turned-up toes! Not only that, but the hats or caps of the Hittite charioteers look VERY SIMILAR to the cap on the figure on the circular stele at La Venta! While the La Venta stones may not be depicting the Hittites per sec, other of the Canaanite tribes could have worn similar clothes. We also must realize that there was quite a bit of diversity among the Canaanites -- some looked obviously Negroid (the Anakim) and others were very Caucasian in appearance. Notes Graham Hancock: "It is by no means impossible that these great works preserve the images of peoples from a vanished civilization which embraced SEVERAL ethnic [or tribal] groups" (Fingerprints of the Gods, p. 137).

Philip J. Arnold III, in his article Ethnicity, Pottery, and the Gulf Olmec of Ancient Veracruz, Mexico, makes the observation that the Olmec culture was made up of TWO different "Ethnic" groups:

During 1991 and 1992 I served as co-director of a regional survey of the Tuxtla Mountains (Santley and Arnold 1995). This survey focused on surface settlement remains and documented the entire pre-Hispanic occupational sequence within a four hundred square km portion of the volcanic uplands. As a result of this research, we now have considerable information on the Early and Middle Formation period within the UPLAND PORTION of the Gulf Olmec Heartland. These data provide an important contrast to the riverine and estuarine occupation within other portions of the Gulf Coast during the Early and Middle Formation periods.

He goes on to note --

Perhaps the most important finding from our recent settlement survey is the LACK OF CONGRUENCE between the Tuxtlas occupation and that documented around Olmec centers such as San Lorenzo and La Venta. First, we encounter none of the large-scale architecture that characterizes the Gulf Olmec centers. To be sure, several sites in our study area boast large numbers of high earthen mounds, but these sites invariably date to the later portion of the pre-Columbian sequence. In other words, the monumental construction that characterizes Gulf Olmec occupation in other parts of the Heartland IS NOT REPLICATED in the Tuxtlas.

A number of other discoveries by the author indicate that there was a DIFFERENCE between the Gulf Olmec settlements of La Venta, San Lorenzo and Tres Zapotes and those of the Tuxtla Mountains.

Arnold concludes by saying --

It should be clear from the above presentation that Early and Middle Formative period occupation within the Tuxtlas was rather DIFFERENT from occupation along the surrounding coastal plain. Variation in material culture, especially pottery styles, combined with differences in settlement configuration and subsistence orientation all contribute to this characterization. The question, of course, is to what degree these differences may be attributed to ethnicity as opposed to some other explanation...Given the current information, I believe that there is reason to suggest that the Tuxtlas occupants constitute a DISTINCT ETHNIC GROUP WITHIN THE GULF OLMEC CULTURE. Although the Tuxtlas was part of the Gulf Coast socio-economic system, this region did not participate in much of the activity and symbolism that characterizes coastal occupation. Unfortunately, at the present time we cannot establish whether the occupants of the Tuxtlas saw themselves as different or were viewed as different by the people at the Gulf Olmec centers. In either case, however, it is clear that there was a lack of copying or "appropriation" of emblems and motifs between these two areas. Ultimately, we note a significant distinction between the activities of individuals in and around sites like San Lorenzo and the behavior of individuals within the Tuxtla Mountains.

Arnold's work clearly confirms what the stelae and monuments of the Olmec centers have conveyed all along -- the Olmec culture consisted of two different groups or tribes, the Negroid megalith builders and sculptors and a Caucasian-like component of unknown function.

The suddenness of the Olmec appearance in Mesoamerica was noted by Hancock, who mused --

Strangely, despite the best efforts of archaeologists, not a single, solitary sign of anything that could be described as the 'DEVELOPMENTAL PHASE' of Olmec society had been unearthed anywhere in Mexico (or, for that matter, anywhere in the New World). These people, whose characteristic form of artistic expression was the carving of huge Negroid heads, APPEARED TO HAVE COME FROM NOWHERE. -- Ibid., p. 123.

The archaeological evidence clearly suggests that rather than developing slowly and painfully -- as is normal with static human society -- the civilization of the Olmec, like that of ancient Egypt, emerged ALL AT ONCE AND FULLY FORMED. Indeed, the transition period from primitive to advanced society appears to have been so short that it makes no kind of historical sense to modern anthropologists, archaeologists and historians. Technical skills that should have taken hundreds or even thousands of years to evolve (according to the "experts") were brought into use almost overnight -- and with no apparent anticedents whatsoever.

This is a mystery unless you realize that the Olmec culture arrived from across the ocean -- fully formed and fully functional.

We saw earlier that later Indian tradition records the perishing of the Anakim (Olmec) giants in the New World in a struggle with the Indians -- does the archaeological record support this?

Graham Hancock notes that "carbon-dating suggested that the Olmecs had established themselves here between 1500 and 1100 BC [probably earlier] and had continued to occupy the site [La Venta] -- which consists of an island lying in marshes to the east of the Tonala river -- until 400 BC. Then CONSTRUCTION WAS SUDDENLY ABANDONED, all existing buildings were ceremonially DEFACED or DEMOLISHED, and several huge stone heads and other smaller pieces of sculpture were virtually BURIED in peculiar graves, just as had happened at San Lorenzo" (ibid., pp. 125-126).

A vivid picture of the end of the Olmec civilization is found in the ancient city of Monte Alban. The city stands on a vast artificially flattened hilltop overlooking Oaxaca, and consists of a huge rectangular area (the Grand Plaza) which is enclosed by groups of PYRAMIDS and other buildings laid out in precise geometrical relationships to one another. Hancock visited this site and recorded his discoveries --

...I made my way first to the extreme south-west corner of the Monte Alban site. There, stacked loosely against the side of a low pyramid, were the objects I had come all this way to see: several dozen engraved stelae depicting NEGROES AND CAUCASIANS...equal in life...equal in death. -- Ibid., p. 146.

Hancock continues:

At Monte Alban, however, there seemed to be carved in stone a record of the DOWNFALL of these masterful men. It did not look as if this could have been the work of the same people who made the La Venta sculptures. The standard of craftsmanship was FAR TOO LOW for that. But what was certain -- whoever they were, and however inferior their work -- was that these artists had attempted to portray the same NEGROID subjects and the same goatee-bearded CAUCASIANS as I had seen at La Venta. There the sculptures had reflected strength, power and vitality. Here, at Monte Alban THE REMARKABLE STRANGERS WERE CORPSES. All were naked, most were castrated, some were curled up in foetal positions as though to avoid showers of blows, others lay sprawled slackly. -- Fingerprints of the Gods, p. 146.

Once again, archaeological evidence supports the traditions of a native people.

The megalithic Olmec civilization that left such a mark in the archaeological record of Mesoamerica, was that which developed from the Anakin/Fomorian survivors of the defeat they received at the hands of the Egyptians in Spain -- more than 1,200 years before the death of Christ!

The customs of these people (megaliths, child-sacrifice, place-naming) all point to their origins in North Africa and Canaan. The mystery of the Olmec is solved -- by studying the traditions and archaeological records of a people, as well as accepting the records of by-gone historians, we can arrive at the truth and lift the veil that continues to cloud the view of the "experts" of this world!