BOOK: The Sumerian Swindle – How the Jews Betrayed Mankind – (5000 BC to 1500 BC) – Chapter 8: The Apiru, the Hapiru, the Habiru, the Hebrew 1520 BC

Let’s leave the great empire of Babylonia to its demise around 300 BC and go backward in time once again to where we left the Hyksos goat-rustlers who had escaped from Egypt in 1550 BC.

Once Pharaoh Ahmose, founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty (1550-1292 BC), had chased the Hyksos out of Egypt and had re-established Egyptian rule, he continued to solidify and protect his country by leading expeditions into Canaan and Syria.

For thousands of years, Egypt had been satisfied with its quests for immortality within its Nile Valley and its desert environs.

But now that Egypt had been violated by the Babylonian money-grubbers and their dirty Hyksos goat-rustlers, Egypt wanted a bigger buffer of protective territory.

Although the Hyksos sheep stealers were too scattered in the hilly regions to make chasing after them a priority, the established towns and cities of Canaan were worth the military effort to show the Canaanites that Egypt would not accept their depredations.

Those Hyksos who had been trapped and enslaved in Egypt were given the Egyptian name for “peasant workers” and “slaves” which was “Apiru”.

As the Egyptian army dealt with the Hyksos who had scampered off into the wilderness with their loot, chasing them away from Egyptian territory in Canaan, they were still called Apiru by the Egyptians.

Thus, the people of Canaan also called these bandits Apiru.

In this way, the Egyptian word took on a new meaning among the Canaanites.

It meant “bandit and cutthroat” because that is what these goat-rustlers were.

By pushing his military campaign into the Near East, Pharaoh Ahmose set a precedent for most Egyptian kings for the next five centuries.

During Ahmose’s reign, Upper and Lower Egypt were once again unified, and Egypt became one of the main Near Eastern powers.

His reign is therefore seen as the end of the Second Intermediate Period and the beginning of the New Kingdom.

A new and great era had dawned for Egypt.

The Eighteenth Dynasty is perhaps the best known of all the dynasties of ancient Egypt and it was led by a number of Egypt’s most powerful pharaohs.

To put this time frame into focus, here is a short list of the Pharaohs important to our study.

This might seem a bit tedious, but it’s necessary background information to link subsequent events together.

Ahmose (1550-1525 BC) was succeeded by his son, Amenhotep I (1526-1506 BC), who was later revered for founding the institution responsible for building the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

Amenhotep I (/ˌæmɛnˈhoʊtɛp/) or Amenophis I (/əˈmɛnoʊfɪs from Ancient Greek Ἀμένωφις), was the second Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. His reign is generally dated from 1526 to 1506 BC (Low Chronology).

Amenhotep I probably left no male heir and the next Pharaoh, Thutmose I (1506-1493 BC), seems to have been related to the royal family through marriage.

Thutmose I (sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis I, Thothmes in older history works in Latinized Greek; meaning “Thoth is born”) was the third pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. He received the throne after the death of the previous king, Amenhotep I. During his reign, he campaigned deep into the Levant and Nubia, pushing the borders of Egypt farther than ever before in each region. He also built many temples in Egypt, and a tomb for himself in the Valley of the Kings; he is the first king confirmed to have done this (though Amenhotep I may have preceded him).  Thutmose I’s reign is generally dated to 1506–1493 BC, but a minority of scholars—who think that astrological observations used to calculate the timeline of ancient Egyptian records, and thus the reign of Thutmose I, were taken from the city of Memphis rather than from Thebes—would date his reign to 1526–1513 BC. He was succeeded by his son Thutmose II, who in turn was succeeded by Thutmose II’s sister, Hatshepsut.

During his reign, the borders of Egypt’s empire reached their greatest expanse, extending in the north to Carchemish on the Euphrates and in the south up to Kurgus beyond the fourth cataract.

The scattered tribes of Apiru goat-rustlers in Canaan ran away from his armies but he subjected the towns and cities to his rule.

Thutmose II was the fourth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, and his reign is thought to be 13 years 1493 to 1479 BC (Low Chronology) or just only 3 years from around 1482 to 1479 BC. Little is known about him and he is overshadowed by his father Thutmose I, half-sister and wife Hatshepsut, and son Thutmose III. He died before the age of 30 and a body believed to be his was found in the Deir el-Bahri Cache above the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut.

The dynasty next was led by Thutmose II (1493 – 1479 BC) and his queen, Hatshepsut (1479-1458 BC).

Hatshepsut[a] (/hɑːtˈʃɛpsʊt/ haht-SHEPP-sut; c. 1507–1458 BC) was the Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Thutmose II and the sixth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, ruling first as regent, then as queen regnant from c. 1479 BC until c. 1458 BC (Low Chronology). She was Egypt’s second confirmed woman who ruled in her own right, the first being Sobekneferu/Nefrusobek in the Twelfth Dynasty.

She was the daughter of Thutmose I and soon after her husband’s death, ruled for over twenty years after becoming pharaoh during the minority of her stepson, who later would become pharaoh Thutmose III.

Thutmose III (variously also spelt Tuthmosis or Thothmes), sometimes called Thutmose the Great, was the fifth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. Officially he ruled Egypt from 28 April 1479 BC until 11 March 1425 BC, commencing with his coronation at the age of two and concluding with his death, aged fifty-six; however, during the first 22 years of his reign, he was coregent with his stepmother and aunt, Hatshepsut, who was named the pharaoh. While he was depicted as the first on surviving monuments, both were assigned the usual royal names and insignia and neither is given any obvious seniority over the other. Thutmose served as commander of Hatshepsut’s armies. During the final two years of his reign after the death of his firstborn son and heir Amenemhat, he appointed his son and successor Amenhotep II as junior co-regent.

Hatshepsut re-established international trade, restored the wealth of the country, fostered large building projects and created architectural advances that would not be rivaled for another thousand years when Greece and Rome stepped onto the world stage.

She restored the temples which were still in decay after the ravages of the Hyksos occupation.

Thutmose III (1458-1425 BC) who later became known as the greatest military pharaoh ever, also had a lengthy reign.

He had a second co-regency in his old age with his son by a minor wife who would become Amenhotep II.

Amenhotep II (sometimes called Amenophis II and meaning “Amun is Satisfied”) was the seventh pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. He inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III and held it by means of a few military campaigns in Syria; however, he fought much less than his father, and his reign saw the effective cessation of hostilities between Egypt and Mitanni, the major kingdoms vying for power in Syria. His reign is usually dated from 1427 to 1401 BC. His consort was Tiaa, who was barred from any prestige until Amenhotep’s son, Thutmose IV, came into power.

Amenhotep II (1427-1401 BC) was succeeded by Thutmose IV (1401-1391 BC),

Thutmose IV (sometimes read as Thutmosis or Tuthmosis IV, Thothmes in older history works in Latinized Greek; Ancient Egyptian: ḏḥwti.msi(.w) “Thoth is born”) was the 8th Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, who ruled in approximately the 14th century BC. His prenomen or royal name, Menkheperure, means “Established in forms is Re.” He was the son of Amenhotep II and Tiaa. Thutmose IV was the grandfather of Akhenaten.

who in his turn was followed by his son Amenhotep III (1388-1350 BC) who was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

Amenhotep III (Ancient Egyptian: jmn-ḥtp(.w) Amānəḥūtpū, IPA: [ʔaˌmaːnəʔˈħutpu]; “Amun is satisfied”), also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amenhotep the Great and Hellenized as Amenophis III, was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. According to different authors following the “Low Chronology”, he ruled Egypt from June 1386 to 1349 BC, or from June 1388 BC to December 1351 BC/1350 BC, after his father Thutmose IV died. Amenhotep was Thutmose’s son by a minor wife, Mutemwiya.  His reign was a period of unprecedented prosperity and splendour, when Egypt reached the peak of its artistic and international power, and as such he is considered one of ancient Egypt’s greatest pharaohs. When he died in the 38th or 39th year of his reign he was succeeded by his son Amenhotep IV, who later changed his name to Akhenaten.

The reigns of these two kings, which lasted some 50 years in total, are generally seen as a single phase.

At this time a peace was reached with Mittani, Egypt’s main adversary in Asia.

Amenhotep III undertook large scale building programs, the extent of which can only be compared with those of the much longer reign of Ramesses II later during the 19th dynasty.

Ramesses II[a] (/ˈræməsiːz, ˈræmsiːz, ˈræmziːz/; Ancient Egyptian: rꜥ-ms-sw, Rīꜥa-masē-Ancient Egyptian pronunciation: [ɾiːʕamaˈseːsə]; c. 1303 BC – 1213 BC), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty, he is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom, which itself was the most powerful period of ancient Egypt. He is also widely considered one of ancient Egypt’s most successful warrior pharaohs, conducting no fewer than 15 military campaigns, all resulting in victories, excluding the Battle of Kadesh, generally considered a stalemate

It should be noted that the lengthy reign of Amenhotep III was a period of unprecedented prosperity and artistic splendor when Egypt reached the peak of her artistic and international power.

A 2008 list compiled by Forbes magazine found Amenhotep III to be the twelfth richest person in human history with a net worth of $155 billion in 2007 dollars.

When he died (probably in the 39th year of his reign), his son reigned as Amenhotep IV, later changing his royal name to Akhenaten (1353-1336 BC).

Akhenaten (pronounced /ˌækəˈnɑːtən/ listenⓘ), also spelled Akhenaton or Echnaton (Ancient Egyptian: ꜣḫ-n-jtn ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy, pronounced [ˈʔuːχəʔ nə ˈjaːtəj] ⓘ, meaning ‘Effective for the Aten’), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning c. 1353–1336[3] or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Before the fifth year of his reign, he was known as Amenhotep IV (Ancient Egyptian: jmn-ḥtp, meaning “Amun is satisfied”, Hellenized as Amenophis IV).

Akhenaten, who ruled for 17 years, was the famous “heretic Pharaoh” who (with his wife, Nefertiti) instituted what many identify as the first recorded monotheistic state religion.

Nefertiti (/ˌnɛfərˈtiːti/) (c. 1370 – c. 1330 BC) was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for their radical overhaul of state religious policy, in which they promoted the earliest known form of monotheism, Atenism, centered on the sun disc and its direct connection to the royal household. With her husband, she reigned at what was arguably the wealthiest period of ancient Egyptian history. After her husband’s death, some scholars believe that Nefertiti ruled briefly as the female pharaoh known by the throne name, Neferneferuaten and before the ascension of Tutankhamun, although this identification is a matter of ongoing debate. If Nefertiti did rule as pharaoh, her reign was marked by the fall of Amarna and relocation of the capital back to the traditional city of Thebes.  In the 20th century, Nefertiti was made famous by the discovery and display of her ancient bust, now in Berlin’s Neues Museum. The bust is one of the most copied works of the art of ancient Egypt. It is attributed to the Egyptian sculptor Thutmose and was excavated from his buried studio complex in the early 20th century.

It was during the reign of Akhenaten and his super-wealthy father that the Amarna letters were written.

These cuneiform tablets have given us an important window into the events in Canaan with the rampaging Apiru thieves.

Following Akhenaten, Egypt was ruled by the boy king, Tutankhamun (1333 BC– 1324 BC).

Tutankhamun or Tutankhamen, (Ancient Egyptian: twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn; c. 1341 BC – c. 1323 BC), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who ruled c. 1332 – 1323 BC during the late Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. Born Tutankhaten, he was likely a son of Akhenaten, thought to be the KV55 mummy. His mother was identified through DNA testing as The Younger Lady buried in KV35; she was a full sister of her husband.

SCIENCE: TECHNOLOGY: MODERN PAST: Tutankhamun’s Stargate – Library of Rickandria

His intact royal tomb was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922 and gives an amazing example of the splendors and richness of Egypt during those times even though his tomb is certainly of minor importance compared to the greater pharaohs whose wealth-ladened tombs disappeared at the hands of tomb robbers.

Howard Carter (9 May 1874 – 2 March 1939) was a British archaeologist and Egyptologist who discovered the intact tomb of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun in November 1922, the best-preserved pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings.

Ay was the penultimate pharaoh of ancient Egypt’s 18th Dynasty. He held the throne of Egypt for a brief four-year period in the late 14th century BC. Prior to his rule, he was a close advisor to two, and perhaps three, other pharaohs of the dynasty. It is speculated that he was the power behind the throne during child ruler Tutankhamun’s reign, although there is no evidence for this aside from Tutankhamun’s youthfulness. His prenomen Kheperkheperure means “Everlasting are the Manifestations of Ra”, while his nomen Ay it-netjer reads as “Ay, Father of the God”. Records and monuments that can be clearly attributed to Ay are rare, both because his reign was short and because his successor, Horemheb, instigated a campaign of damnatio memoriae against him and the other pharaohs associated with the unpopular Amarna Period.

The last two members of the eighteenth dynasty – Ay and Horemheb – were followed by Ramesses I, who ascended the throne in 1292 BC and was the first pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty.

Horemheb, also spelled Horemhab, Haremheb or Haremhab (Ancient Egyptian: ḥr-m-ḥb, meaning “Horus is in Jubilation”), was the last pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt (1550–1292 BC). He ruled for at least 14 years between 1319 BC and 1292 BC. He had no relation to the preceding royal family other than by marriage to Mutnedjmet, who is thought (though disputed) to have been the daughter of his predecessor, Ay; he is believed to have been of common birth.

While these Pharaohs were ruling their empires and protecting their people, the goat-rustling Hyksos who had escaped Egypt, were scampering around:

• Sinai
• Canaan
• Syria

looking for weak towns to rob and fools to lend money to.

We left them counting their loot in the previous chapter while we followed the great empires of Babylonia and Assyria to their respective and historical demise.

And now, knowing how both Assyria and Babylonia met their ends, and which Pharaohs ruled after the Hyksos expulsion, let’s see what happened to the Hyksos.

By the time Pharaoh Ahmose allowed the Hyksos to escape in 1550 BC, Sumeria had by this time become a forgotten legend while its cuneiform writing, its culture, its inventions and its religious systems had been appropriated and absorbed by the Babylonians and Assyrians as well as by all of the other peoples who came to live in Mesopotamia.

However, even after 1800 years, the Sumerian Swindle, itself, remained the sole secret of the Babylonian and Assyrian tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders].

They were making themselves huge fortunes with this ancient scam just as the modern-day bankers and financiers do to this very day, swindling the people around them secretly, while pretending to be honest businessmen doing business as:

“it has always been.”

While the great empires of:

• Babylonia
• Assyria
• Egypt

contended with one another across the centuries, the:

• Gutians
• Hittites
• Hurrians
• Scythians
• Medes
• Amorites
• Kassites
• Sea Peoples

and numerous other tribal and ethnic confederations walked on foot and rode on donkeys and horses and chariots back and forth across the dusty plains of the Fertile Crescent and among the hills of Palestine and Anatolia.

They vied with one another over:

• water rights
• farmlands
• trade goods

and silver, combined with the violent arguments between the Type-A personalities and the charismatic psychopaths who had become their kings.

SPIRITUALITY: EMPATHY: TOXICITY: Traits of a Psychopath – Library of Rickandria

These historic struggles for empire were vast in scale and filled with incredible suffering and bloodshed.

But in Palestine, though the struggles were no less lethal man-to-man, they were certainly quite small and insignificant when set beside the epic scale of the marching armies of the great empires.

• Egypt
• Hattiland
• Mitanni
• Assyria

and Babylonia were truly enormous while the petty kingdoms in:

• Canaan
• Moab
• Judea

were truly tiny.

As the great empires traded on an international scale and fought wars involving tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people, the small towns and villages of Palestine fought battles with ten or even a hundred goat-herders wielding bronze swords and copper maces and throwing rocks with their slings.

Every town and village had to protect its farming and grazing lands from the roving bandits and cattle rustlers who infested the countryside.

These areas of Canaan were too insignificant and too far away from the power centers of:

• Mesopotamia
• Anatolia
• Egypt

for these small towns to ask the Great Powers for protection from the small bands of rampaging Apiru.

But Palestine had major trade routes running through it from Arabia connecting:

• Egypt
• Anatolia
• Mesopotamia

and the Mediterranean, so it had strategic importance to the great empires.

Yet, the land was sprinkled with small villages and tiny towns.

It was a quandary.

To guard such an area was more of an inconvenience than a profitable tactic for the great empires.

But because of the convergence of trade routes, this mostly desolate land was never-the-less strategically important.

Now, back again to 1550 BC.

Once Pharaoh Ahmose began his assault from Upper Egypt, those Hyksos who could do so commandeered:

• boats
• horses
• chariots

and donkeys and ran for their lives.

These were the commanders of the Hyksos, the leading generals and lieutenants, the wealthier tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] and their families and bodyguards, plantation overseerers, boat-owners and their families.

All of these upper classes fled north along the Nile to the safety of Avaris.

But the lower-level Hyksos who had been ignorant shepherds before the Hyksos takeover and who were members of the gangs of enforcers and bosses over the enslaved Egyptian farmers, were left behind to fend for themselves.

Because there was no room on the boats and not enough horses and donkeys, these lower-class shepherds were abandoned to their fate.

As the hired hands of Hyksos slavedrivers, they had murdered and enslaved the Egyptians and had helped to loot the temples and plunder the tombs

 So, when the Egyptian army caught up with them, they were either killed or bound in fetters and themselves enslaved.

For now, let’s leave these enslaved Hyksos (Apiru) chained up in Egypt, working for the Egyptians who were none too happy with those formerly cruel and rapacious Hyksos shepherds and their families of thieves.

Their history is of little importance.

They were slaves.

Nothing more can be said about them that cannot be said about any other slaves of the ancient Near East.

They worked for the Egyptian people whom they had tortured and destroyed and looted.

So, slavery was their reward.

Although slaves were not allowed to work on Egyptian pyramids or temples since this was a holy privilege of the Egyptian people, alone, these Apiru slaves no doubt did the brick making and field plowing during their time when Pharaoh Ahmose built the last pyramid by an Egyptian monarch.

Illiterate, they had no way of writing down their travails.

And of what history of slaves can there be other than the daily drudgery of labor?

They and their descendants were to remain as slaves in Egypt until they were released from bondage by Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in 671 BC.

Ashurbanipal (Neo-Assyrian Akkadian: 𒀸𒋩𒆕𒀀, romanized: Aššur-bāni-apli, meaning “Ashur is the creator of the heir”) was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 669 BC to his death in 631. He is generally remembered as the last great king of Assyria. Ashurbanipal inherited the throne as the favored heir of his father Esarhaddon; his 38-year reign was among the longest of any Assyrian king. Though sometimes regarded as the apogee of ancient Assyria, his reign also marked the last time Assyrian armies waged war throughout the ancient Near East and the beginning of the end of Assyrian dominion over the region.

We will pick up their history more thoroughly in Volume Two, The Monsters of Babylon.

So, leaving them at their labors, let’s move on to the second group of escapees from the wrath of the Egyptians.

Those Hyksos who had reached Avarice in time to find safety there, can be divided into the other three groups.

As previously stated, Pharaoh Ahmose had allowed the Hyksos to leave Avarice and take with them all of their loot as a way of avoiding a long siege.

When the Egyptians let them go, some of the Hyksos turned to the east and south and wandered with their loot and small cattle into the Sinai region of Arabia.

Nabonidus (Babylonian cuneiform:   Nabû-naʾid, meaning “May Nabu be exalted” or “Nabu is praised”) was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling from 556 BC to the fall of Babylon to the Achaemenian Empire under Cyrus the Great in 539 BC. Nabonidus was the last native ruler of ancient Mesopotamia, the end of his reign marking the end of thousands of years of Sumero-Akkadian states, kingdoms and empires. He was also the last independent king of Babylon. Regarded as one of the most vibrant and individualistic rulers of his time, Nabonidus is characterised by some scholars as an unorthodox religious reformer and as the first archaeologist.

This desolate region king Nabonidus would later name after his Moon God, Sin, as the “Wilderness of Sin,” that is, “Sinai.”

Sin (/ˈsiːn/) or Suen (Akkadian: 𒀭𒂗𒍪, dEN.ZU[1]) also known as Nanna (Sumerian: 𒀭𒋀𒆠 DŠEŠ.KI, DNANNA) is the Mesopotamian god representing the moon. While these two names originate in two different languages, respectively Akkadian and Sumerian, they were already used interchangeably to refer to one deity in the Early Dynastic period.

Some of them got lost in the desert wilderness of Sinai where for forty years they herded their goats and ate grasshoppers before finding their way back into Canaan.

Schlepping their gold and silver ornaments and herding their goats, some of them wandered into the moderately-settled hill country of Canaan where they took up once again their goat rustling and raiding.

No doubt these illiterate goat-rustlers were extremely pleased with their good luck.

Pharaoh Ahmose had allowed them to escape from Egypt and take with them whatever loot that they already possessed.

They had been the foot-soldiers of the Hyksos invasion.

They, as well as their poorer relatives who had been captured and enslaved by the Egyptians, were the pawns of the operation, totally expendable and useful for basic soldiering and gangster work.

They had entered Egypt as shepherds and bandits, and they left Egypt following that same pastoral life as their forefathers and fathers.

Only now, they were rich gangs of dusty goat-herders carrying an unusually large amount of Egyptian gold and silver and fine linens and ebony furniture and expensive incense and gemstones into the uninhabited regions of Sinai.

True to their nature, these tribes began lurking around Palestine as wandering bands of thieves and goat-rustlers.

They had plenty of silver and gold and goats and cattle but no land of their own.

The quiet towns and villages of the region could eke out a living in the rocky and dry land, but the land could not support both the Apiru and the Canaanites.

Besides, the Apiru were thieves.

They were not wanted in Egypt by the Egyptians, and they certainly were not welcome in Canaan by the coastal cities or by the poor inland villages.

Yet, when did thieves ever worry about whether they were welcome or not since they never were?

As wandering nomads, traveling on foot and by donkey, there was not much space on their pack animals and carts for them to be carrying around statues of their gods.

No different than any other of the people of the ancient Near East in their belief system, the Apiru believed in many gods, and they believed that each god lived in his own territory.

As previously mentioned, their fortress city of Avarice had been home to religions from all over the ancient Near East.

• Canaanite-style temples
• Minoan wall paintings
• Palestinian-type burials

all made use of statues of gods in their religious services.

In Egypt, they had worshipped the Egyptian gods in whose territory they had invaded, most notably the Egyptian Moon God, Yah.

Iah (Ancient Egyptian: jꜥḥ; 𓇋𓂝𓎛𓇹, Coptic ⲟⲟϩ) is a lunar deity in ancient Egyptian religion. The word jꜥḥ simply means “Moon”. It is also transcribed as Yah, Jah, Aa, or Aah.

The Moon God was always a favorite of the Semites.

He was called:

• Sin in Babylonia
• Lah in Arabia
• Yah in Egypt

The Hyksos pharaoh had had the Egyptian priests serving him at court, calling upon the power of Egyptian gods for the protection of the Hyksos.

So, praying to Yah was a practice learned from their residence in Egypt.

They had been chased out of Egypt by Pharaoh Ahmose (Yahmose) whose name meant “The Moon is Born”.

So, all of this influence of moon worship carried over to the worship of their Moon God, Yahweh, or “Yah is here”.

RELIGION: CHRISTIANITY: YHVH: The Truth About “Yahweh/Jehovah” – Library of Rickandria

But once they were back wandering in the wilderness looking for water and forage, some of these Apiru returned to the worship of their goat herder gods.

After all, the gods were believed to take up residence at specific geographical locations and to live in specific city temples.

Among the hills and mountains of the Sinai Peninsula, the Apiru worshipped El-Shaddai, the god of the mountain.

In these hot and arid lands, the work of this god could be seen in the clouds that surrounded the highest mountain tops as thunder and lightning.

This mighty god of flashes of burning fire, caused the goats and sheep to panic and the women to scream.

This was not a god to be trifled with.

Whenever they needed additional protection, their priests and elders would go up into those mountains to seek out this god and to offer him sacrifices atop piles of heaped stones sprinkled with the blood of their goats and sheep.

The god of the mountain, El-Shaddai, was not only a mighty god of thunderings and earthquakes but he was also invisible.

And for people living in goat-hair tents and riding donkeys, invisible gods didn’t weigh very much.

This god could only be seen dressed in his surrounding clouds and lightning bolts high up on the mountaintops or as pillars of whirling dust devils that surrounded the goat-rustlers as they traversed the deserts.

Since their invisible god didn’t weigh anything, they didn’t need statues or idols to pray to him, which was convenient because that left more room on their pack donkeys for loot.

The Sinai desert was important for its copper and gemstone mines and its trade routes that passed through Arabia and to the Horn of Africa as well as from the Gulf of Aqaba over the Red Sea to:

• Punt
• India
• Elam

and Babylonia.

But these Apiru cared nothing about that.

Once these Hyksos herdsmen had escaped into the wilderness, they had thousands of square miles to roam in.

For many years, they spent their days searching out oasis and forage for their animals.

And, when their children would ask:

“Where did these gold Egyptian bracelets come from?”

they did not want to tell their children of running for their lives in defeat.

So, they told stories around the campfires about how they and their forefathers had out-foxed Pharaoh and had stolen the jewelry of the Egyptians.

Through the generations and the illusion of their asl, the stories transmogrified into:

“we outfoxed the Egyptians.”

After chasing the Hyksos out of Egypt, Pharaoh Ahmose and his successors of the Eighteenth Dynasty treated all of Canaan and Sinai as a buffer against the empires of the Hittites and Babylonians.

The Egyptians had been insular and self-absorbed before the Hyksos invasion, relying upon the protection of their surrounding deserts.

But they had learned the hard lesson of international politics.

And that lesson is, if you do not defend your country, you will lose it to foreigners.

The fleeing tribes of Hyksos bandits and scattered families of shepherds were of less concern for a mighty king of Egypt than were the powerful empires across his borders.

And so, after warfare had extended the influence of Egypt all the way into Syria, eventually, with the ensuing peace, the Egyptian and Babylonian royal families became linked through the diplomacy of marriage.

This diplomacy was recorded on the clay Amarna tablets written in cuneiform which had been deposited in the royal archives of Amenhotep III (1388-1350 BC) and his son, Akhenaton (1353 1336 BC).

They were written about 200 years after the Hyksos had been expelled.

Some of those letters were written by the kings of Hattiland and Babyonia to the Pharaohs.

But most of these letters were written to Pharaoh by Canaanite princes in Palestine, Phoenicia and Southern Syria during the early fourteenth century BC.

These letters tell of attacks by the bandits known as “Apiru” or “Hapiru” or “Habiru” or “Hebrew”.

A portion of this royal correspondence between:

• Egypt
• Babylonia
• the Hittites

was first discovered by French archeologists at Mari on the Euphrates.

Another group of letters comes from the half century around 1400 BC and was found in central Egypt at El Amarna.

These Amarna Letters make it abundantly clear that Babylonian influence in the development of international law was so pre-eminent that Akkadian had become the principal language of diplomacy between rulers even where, as between Egypt and the Hittites, it was the mother tongue of neither party. [292]

In other words, the language and the writing of the tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] of:

• Babylonia
• Assyria
• Hattiland

was the standard language of the civilized world.

The moneylenders could do business with every empire in the ancient Near East using the Akkadian language and cuneiform writing.

In the Amarna letters, the kings addressed each other as “brother”, a greeting implying equality of status.

Gifts were exchanged – 

• horses
• chariots
• lapis lazuli

from Babylon for gold from Egypt, and also:

• silver
• bronze
• ivory

furniture of ebony and other precious:

• woods
• garments
• fine oil

Teams of horses were much in demand from the Kassites, who were noted not only for their horsemanship but also for their horses.

Kadašman-Enlil II, typically rendered dka-dáš-man-dEN.LÍL[nb 1] in contemporary inscriptions, meaning “he believes in Enlil” (c. 1263-1255 BC) was the 25th king of the Kassite or 3rd dynasty of Babylon.

In a letter to Kadashman-Enlil II, the Hittite king Hattusili III remarks that in Babylonia:

“there are more horses even than straw”

and, despite the fact that the well-watered Hittite homeland would seem more suited to the breeding of horses than the dry plains of Babylonia, he demanded “fine horses” from Babylon.

The general tone of the Amarna letters between Babylonia and Egypt suggests a decline in relations between the two countries, possibly a reflection of growing weakness in Egypt under Amenhotep III and Akhenaten.

Both of these Pharaohs had plenty of wealth to rule their empire but neither had the will to do so.

Kadašman-Enlil I (mka-dáš-man-dEN.LÍL in contemporary inscriptions) was a Kassite King of Babylon from ca. 1374 BC to 1360 BC, perhaps the 18th of the dynasty.

Both Kadashman-Enlil I and Burna-burias complain of the ill-treatment of their messengers and the stinginess of Pharaoh.

Burna-Buriaš II was a Kassite king of Karduniaš (Babylon) in the Late Bronze Age, ca. 1359–1333 BC, where the Short and Middle chronologies have converged. The proverb “the time of checking the books is the shepherds’ ordeal” was attributed to him in a letter to the later king Esarhaddon from his agent Mar-Issar.

“Twenty minas of gold”

sent to Burna-burias from Egypt:

“were not complete, for when they were put in the furnace, five minas did not come forth.”

In the letter to Akhenaten, Burna-burias asks that Pharaoh seal and dispatch the gold himself and not leave this task to some “trustworthy official”. [293]

Although the kings of:

• Babylonia
• Hattiland
• Egypt

contented themselves with personal gifts and concubines, the tone of the Amarna Letters from the various governors of Canaan were very different.

There, the lands were being overrun by Hebrew bandits.

It is clear from these desperate pleas for help that the Hebrews (the Apiru) were taking over the entire region and Pharaoh was doing nothing to protect his land.

As you read the Amarna Letters, it is easy to see the close correlation between them and the Old Testament stories of how the Hebrews attacked and took over Canaan.

The events in these letters took place about two hundred years after the Hyksos had escaped from Egypt.

So, as their circumcised and promiscuous population increased, these Hebrew bandits were becoming an increasing source of trouble to the people of the entire region, just as they are in the present day.

Please understand that these Hebrews were not Jews because there were no Jews anywhere in the world at that time.

They were merely the scattered tribes of Hyksos bandits.

The Egyptians called them Apiru because that was the name for their slaves and peasant laborers.

To the Canaanites, since the Apiru were “cut throats” and “bandits” and “thieves,” then that is what the Egyptian word meant to the Canaanites — 

• goat rustlers
• bandits
• thieves

Labaya, the governor of Shechem, was a Canaanite.

The Amarna Letters show that although he was supposed to have been a loyal subject of Pharaoh Akhenaten, in fact, he was secretly a Hebrew.

With the usual Semitic deceit, he claimed to be loyal to Pharaoh while simultaneously raiding the caravans and the territories of his neighbors on all sides.

Milkilu, the governor of Gezer, seems to have also been in league with the Hebrews.

As the looters of Egypt, these Hebrew bandits were now turning their attention upon the towns and villages of Canaan.

Two hundred years had passed since they had been chased out of Egypt.

With their many wives producing a multitude of children, their numbers had increased enough that they could challenge the established regime.

The Amarna Letters describe the situation.

In one letter, Labaya, the Canaanite prince of Shechem in the central hill country, [294] hypocritically complains to Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1388-1350 BC) that he is loyal and is being slandered by the other princes.

Furthermore,

“I did not know that my son associates with the Apiru, and I have verily delivered him into the hand of Addaya.” [295]

Thus, the Hebrew bandits were not merely tribes related by blood and closed to outsiders but were actually open membership gangs which outsiders could join and become full members participating in their raids.

But Labaya’s protestations of innocence certainly did not fool his neighbors who had to defend themselves from his depredations.

Biridya, prince of Meggido, writes to Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1388-1350 BC) of the troubles he is having capturing the bandit prince Labaya.

Biridiya was the ruler of Megiddo, northern part of the southern Levant, in the 14th century BC. At the time Megiddo was a city-state submitting to the Egyptian Empire. He is part of the intrigues surrounding the rebel Labaya of Shechem.

That these letters were dictated to a scribe is shown in the phrase, “Let Pharaoh know”:

“Let Pharaoh know that ever since the archers returned to Egypt, Labaya has carried on hostilities against me, and we are not able to pluck the wool, and we are not able to go outside the gate in the presence of Labaya, since he learned that thou hast not given archers.

And now his face is set to take Megiddo, but let Pharaoh protect his city lest Labaya seize it. 

Verily, the city is destroyed by death from pestilence and disease.

Let Pharaoh give one hundred garrison troops to guard the city lest Labaya seize it.

Verily, there is no other purpose in Labaya.

He seeks to destroy Megiddo.”

And Biridya continues on another tablet,

“I said to my brethren, ‘If the gods of Pharaoh, our lord, grant that we capture Labaya, then we will bring him alive to Pharaoh, our lord.’

But my mare was felled by an arrow, and I alighted afterwards and rode with Yashdata.

But before my arrival, they had slain Labaya.” [296]

In another letter, Milkilu, the prince of Gezer, pleads with Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1388-1350 BC) and begs Pharaoh for some help against the rampaging Hebrew thieves.

He writes on behalf of himself and his friend, Shuwardata, prince of Hebron and says:

“Let Pharaoh know that powerful is the hostility against me and against Shuwardata.

Let Pharaoh, my lord, protect his land from the hand of the Apiru.

If not, then let Pharaoh, my lord, send chariots to fetch us, lest our servants smite us.” [297]

Thus, it can be seen that the fighting throughout the area was so intense that Milkilu wanted to retreat to Egypt.

The Hebrews were attacking the entire region.

Under the aging Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1388-1350 BC), Egypt was rich but neglectfully weak and unresponsive.

This old Pharaoh Amenhotep III replied in a letter to Milkilu, giving insight of the Pharaoh’s interest in his Canaanite territories and the trade goods of the day.

Remember that Amenhotep III was the richest king in Egyptian history.

That he was enjoying his wealth and was not at all concerned about the fate of his Canaanite possessions, his reply makes quite clear:

“To Milkilu (1350-1335 BC), prince of Gezer.

Thus, Pharaoh says.

Now I have sent thee this tablet to say to thee: behold, I am sending to thee Hanya, the commissioner of the archers, together with goods, in order to procure fine concubines and weaving women: silver, gold, linen garments, turquoise, all sorts of precious stones, chairs of ebony, as well as every good thing, totaling 160 deben.

Total: 40 concubines.

The price of each concubine is 40 shekels of silver.

So, send very fine concubines in whom there is no blemish.

And let Pharaoh, thy lord, say to thee,

‘This is good.

To thee life has been decreed.’

And mayest thou know that Pharaoh is well, like the Sun-god.

His troops, his chariots, his horses are very well.

Behold, the god Amon has placed the upper land, the lower land, the rising of the sun, and the setting of the sun under the two feet of Pharaoh.” [298]

This letter also shows the mystic power that was assumed both by Pharaoh and his subjects where-by he could presume in a god-like way,

“To thee life has been decreed.”

Obviously, getting concubines for his harem was of more importance to this lecherous, old and wealthy Pharaoh than protecting his lands from the Hebrew bandits.

But more than god-like decrees of Pharaoh were needed to stop the bandits.

The Hebrews used the captured towns as fortresses and staging areas for further raids.

After Amenhotep III died, the new Pharaoh was not anymore helpful to these besieged governors.

The new Pharaoh was Akhenaton (1353-1336 BC) who had inherited all of the wealth of his father but whose main interest was in the Sun God religion that he founded.

Akhenaton was the famous Pharaoh who established the world’s first monotheistic religion 800 years before there were any Jews to lie about doing it first.

At the beginning of Akhenaten’s reign, Shuwardata wrote:

“Let Pharaoh, my lord, learn that the chief of the Apiru has risen in arms against the lands which the god of Pharaoh, my lord, gave me; but I have smitten him.

Also let Pharaoh, my lord, know that all my brethren have abandoned me, and it is I and Abdu-Heba (governor of Jerusalem) who fight against the chief of the Apiru.

And Zurata, prince of Accho, and Indarapatra, prince of Achshaph, it was they who hastened with fifty chariots to my help – for I had been robbed by the Apiru – but behold, they are fighting against me, so let it be agreeable to Pharaoh, my lord, and let him send Tanhamu, and let us make war in earnest, and let the lands of Pharaoh, my lord, be restored to their former limits!” [299]

Under a weak and unresponsive Pharaoh Akhenaton, not only were the Hebrews attacking the towns of Canaan without fear of retribution, but many of these towns were actually joining the Hebrew gangs.

The loyalty to the Pharaoh was quickly being replaced with self-interest and the opportunity for acquiring land and loot.

The Hebrews were so numerous that even the two foes, Abdi-Heba governor of Jerusalem and Shuwardata of Hebron, could not fight against them.

Abdi-Ḫeba (Abdi-Kheba, Abdi-Ḫepat, or Abdi-Ḫebat) was a local chieftain of Jerusalem during the Amarna period (mid-1330s BC). Egyptian documents have him deny he was a mayor (ḫazānu) and assert he is a soldier (we’w), the implication being he was the son of a local chief sent to Egypt to receive military training there.

In this letter, Shuwardata complains to Pharaoh Akhenaten that Abdi-Heba, the prince of Jerusalem, was one of the land-grabbers:

“Pharaoh, my lord, sent me to make war against Keilah.

I have made war, and I was successful; my town has been restored to me.

Why did Abdi-Heba (Prince of Jerusalem) write to the people of Keilah saying,

‘Take my silver and follow me”?

Let Pharaoh, my lord, know that Abdu-Heba had taken the town from my hand.

Further, let Pharaoh, my lord, investigate; if I have taken a man or a single ox or an ass from him, then he is in the right!

Further Labaya is dead, who seized our towns; but behold, Abdi-Heba is another Labaya, and he also seizes our towns!

So let Pharaoh take thought for his servant because of this deed!

And I will not do anything until the king sends back a message to his servant.” [300]

The territorial infighting between the governors and princes of Canaan was always superseded by the general chaos of the entire region brought on by the thieving Hebrew tribes.

Abdi-Heba’s name can be translated as “servant of Hebat”, a Hurrian goddess.

Ḫepat (Hurrian: 𒀭𒄭𒁁, dḫe-pát; also romanized as Ḫebat; Ugaritic 𐎃𐎁𐎚, ḫbt) was a goddess associated with Aleppo, originally worshiped in the north of modern Syria in the third millennium BCE.

The entire populace of pre-Israelite Jerusalem (known as Jebusites in the Bible) was under the ban of the Hebrew god who demanded their complete genocide.

NEW WORLD ORDER: Genocide IS & Always Has Been a Jewish Ideal – Library of Rickandria

In this letter, Abdi-Heba complained to Pharaoh Akhenaten:

“Lost are the lands of Pharaoh!

Do you not hearken unto me?

All the governors are lost; Pharaoh, my lord, does not have a single governor left!

Let Pharaoh turn his attention to the archers and let Pharaoh, my lord, send out troops of archers, for Pharaoh has no lands left!

The Apiru plunder all the lands of Pharaoh.

If there are archers here in this year, the lands of Pharaoh, my lord, will remain intact; but if there are no archers here the lands of Pharaoh, my lord, will be lost!” [301]

The entire region was in turmoil.

The Hebrews were turning Canaan into a total war zone with their raids and plundering.

Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem complains about a number of events which recur in other letters.

In the first place, he excoriates Milkilu of Gezer and Tagu of the northern Coastal Plain of Palestine for their aggression against Rubutu, which lay somewhere in the region southwest of Megiddo and Taanach.

In the second place, he urges Pharaoh Akhenaten (1353-1336 BC) to instruct his officers to supply the Egyptian archers from the towns in the plain of Sharon in order to avert heavy drain on the scanty supplies of Jerusalem.

He finally complains that his last caravan containing tribute and captives for Pharaoh was attacked and robbed near Ajalon, presumably by the men of Milkilu of Gezer and the sons of Labaya. [302]

Although Akhenaten had sent a troop of Nubian archers to aid Abdi-Heba, they were certainly not a blessing.

Much like their modern-day descendants who take every pretext and opportunity to riot and loot, the black Nubian mercenaries garrisoned in Jerusalem by Pharaoh Akhenaten (1353-1336 BC) had been caught up in the riotous pillaging of the time and had even attacked the governor, Abdi-Heba, himself, as they attempted to burglarize his home.

In another letter to Akhenaten, Abdi-Heba wrote:

“Behold, this deed is the deed of Milkilu and the deed of the sons of Labaya who have given the land of Pharaoh to the Apiru.

Behold, O Pharaoh, my lord, I am right! With reference to the Nubians, let my king ask the commissioners whether my house is not very strong!

Yet, they attempted a very great crime; they took their implements and breached the roof….

The men of the land of Nubia have committed an evil deed against me.

I was almost killed by the men of the land of Nubia in my own house.

Let Pharaoh call them to account. Seven times and seven times let Pharaoh, my lord, avenge me!” [303]

As the general banditry and attacks by the Hebrews spread, Abdi-Heba, governor of Jerusalem, sent yet another letter to the unresponsive Pharaoh Akhenaten:

“Let Pharaoh take thought of his land! The land of Pharaoh is lost; in its entirety it is taken from me; there is war against me, as far as the lands of Seir and as far as Gath-carmel!

All the governors are at peace, but there is war against me.

I have become like an Apiru and do not see the two eyes of Pharaoh, my lord, for there is war against me. I have become like a ship in the midst of the sea!

The arm of the mighty Pharaoh conquers the land of Naharaim and the land of Cush, but now the Apiru capture the cities of Pharaoh.

There is not a single governor remaining to Pharaoh, my lord – all have perished.

Behold, Turbazu has been slain in the very gate of Sile, yet Pharaoh holds his peace.

Behold Zimreda, the townsmen of Lachish have smitten him, slaves who had become Apiru. Yaptih-Hadad has been slain in the very gate of Sile, yet Pharaoh holds his peace. Wherefore does not Pharaoh call them to account?” [304]

Thus, it is clear that Canaan was being over-run by the Hebrews.

This word, “Hebrew”, was not a religious term since this and other letters by the other governors indicate that anyone could join the Hebrew gangs, anyone could become a Hebrew (Apiru) gangster and goat-rustler.

They were not an exclusive group of religious nomads as the lying rabbis claim.

They were raiders who welcomed more allies to increase the size of their bandit tribes.

As Abdi-Heba laments,

“I have become like an Apiru (Hebrew) …. I have become like a ship in the midst of the sea.”

It is quite clear that these roving bandits, these Hebrews, who attacked from the desert regions, welcomed any who would rebel and join their tribes.

Whether they were sons of local kings like the son of Labaya or:

“slaves who had become Apiru”

like the townsmen of Lachish, all who could fight were welcome to join the Hebrew bandits in their:

• rape
• looting
• warfare

and genocide across all of Canaan.

Modern day apologists can argue that these Hebrews were so-called “freedom fighters” who were freeing Canaan from Egyptian domination.

But this argument ignores the fact that the Hebrews, themselves, were foreign raiders from the deserts, the wandering dregs of Hyksos from Egypt, who were in Canaan to get whatever they could steal.

In another letter, Abdi-Heba writes to Pharaoh Akhenaten (1353 1336 BC):

“Behold, Milkilu does not break his alliance with the sons of Labaya and with the sons of Arzayu, in order to covet the land of Pharaoh for themselves.

As for a governor who does such a deed as this, why does not Pharaoh call him to account?

Behold Milkilu and Tagu!

The deed which they have done is this, that they have taken it, the town of Rubutu.

And now as for Jerusalem – Behold this land belongs to Pharaoh or why like the town of Gaza is it loyal to Pharaoh?

Behold, the land of the town of Gath-carmel, it belongs to Tagu and the men of Gath have a garrison in Beth-Shan.

Or shall we do like Labaya, who gave the land of Shechem to the Apiru?

Milkilu has written to Tagu and the sons of Labaya saying, ‘You are members of my house. Yield all of their demands to the men of Keilah and let us break our alliance with Jerusalem!’” [305]

Later, Abdi-Heba wrote to Pharaoh Akhenaten (1353 1336 BC):

“Behold the deed which Milkilu and Shuwardata did to the land of Pharaoh!

They rushed troops of Gezer, troops of Gath and troops of Keilah; they took the land of Rubutu; the land of Pharaoh went over to the Apiru people.

But now even a town of the land of Jerusalem, Bethlehem by name, a town belonging to Pharaoh, has gone over to the side of the people of Keilah.

Let Pharaoh hearken to Abdi-Heba, thy servant, and let him send archers to recover the royal land for Pharaoh.

But if there are no archers, the land of Pharaoh will pass over to the Apiru people.” [306]

Balu-shipti, the prince of Gezer, wrote during the middle of Akhenaton’s reign (1353-1336 BC), following the death of Milkilu:

“Behold the deed of the Egyptian official Peya against Gezer.

How many days he plundered it so that it has become an empty cauldron because of him.

From the mountains, people are ransomed for thirty shekels of silver, but from Peya for one hundred shekels of silver, so know these words of thy servant!” [307]

Yapahu, the prince of Gezer, wrote to Akhenaten thus:

“Let Pharaoh know that my youngest brother is estranged from me, and has entered Muhhazu, and has given his two hands to the chief of the Apiru.

And now the land of Janna is hostile to me.

Have concern for thy land!” [308]

Such were the tumultuous times.

Once the Hyksos (Apiru) had been expelled from Egypt, they continued their thieving and plundering and were known by the Canaanite populace as “cut-throats”, “bandits”, “thieves”, or “Hebrews”.

And once they had increased their tribal numbers enough to become a military threat, they committed crimes wherever they roamed:

• killing
• thieving
• raping
• rustling

and taking over entire towns after first murdering the owners.

We know the names of those unfortunate governors of the Canaanite cities from their Amarna letters.

Most of those governors were Indo-Aryans:

• Biryawaza, prince of Damascus.
• Biridiya, prince of Megiddo.
• Zurata, prince of Acre.
• Mut-Balu, prince of Pella.
• Ayab, prince of Ashtaroth.
• Milkilu, prince of Gezer.
• Shuwardata, prince of the Hebron district.

And the long-suffering Abdu-Heba, governor of the small town of Urusalem (Jerusalem).

But their letters do not record the names of their enemies except as the general names of bandits or thieves or cut-throats which they called Apiru or Hapiru or Habiru or Hebrews.

They do not mention the tribal names of their Hebrew enemies – the tribes of:

• Benjamin
• Ephraim
• Manasseh
• Naptali
• Dan
• Asher
• Issachar
• Judah
• Zebulon
• Simeon
• Reuben

and Gad.

RELIGION: CHRISTIANITY: The Lost Tribe of Dan – The Early Jewish & Christian View of the Identity of the Antichrist – Library of Rickandria

For these names, we must read the Hebrew account of the “conquest of Canaan” in the Old Testament.

The full account of how the Hebrews genocided the Canaanites and stole their property is explained in its entirety in Volume Two: The Monsters of Babylon.

But for now, let’s leave the first and second groups of Hyksos and study the third group.

The first group of Hyksos were still enslaved in Egypt during these times, and they were called Apiru (slaves) by the Egyptians.

The second group of Hyksos who had escaped Egypt were ravaging the countryside of Canaan.

The princes of the cities in Canaan also called them by the Egyptian name when writing to Pharaoh.

But in this case, Apiru meant “bandit”.

The third group was composed of the Hyksos officials, their generals and military guards and some of the lower level tamkarum [merchant moneylenders].

For these administrators and leaders of the Hyksos, who had been involved in looting and administering Egypt, only life in the cities offered any allure to them.

The luxuries of:

• good food
• bawdy taverns
• slave women and prostitutes

and an easy life in a debauched Egypt, was something that they wanted to continue.

These mid-level and upper-level Hyksos knew how to lead and organize their men.

They had the loot that Pharaoh Ahmose had allowed them as well as the accumulation of over a hundred years of looting which their families had safely hoarded in the coastal cities of Canaan.

With such wealth and organizational skills, these tradesmen and merchants had no intention of going back to Babylonia where they could no longer be independent bankers and gangsters. 

They had tasted wealth and power without being the servants of the kings or subalterns of the tamkarum trade guilds of Babylonia.

They had ruled Egypt as kings with wealth, power and prestige, while the mighty Egyptians had been forced to literally kiss their feet.

So, to once again become servants to a Babylonian king was not appealing to them.

Besides, the trade guild cities of Babylonia were distant, and the markets and trade routes were controlled by competitive tamkarum guilds.

For these particular Hyksos, the markets were either closed to them or tightly controlled by competing guilds, giving them secondary profits in Mesopotamia as mere employees of the tamkarum patriarchs.

However, there were richer possibilities, not in the distant markets of Babylonia and Assyria, but near at hand in the untapped markets of the Mediterranean Sea.

These new markets were scattered throughout the Mediterranean Sea on both the North African and European continents.

No one controlled these markets because these areas were lightly populated and few of those foreign merchants understood the power of organized, international trade cartels.

What was even better, none of those people in the new lands knew anything about the Sumerian Swindle.

These were markets with unsophisticated and illiterate peoples who were innocent of the deceits of the tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders].

So, this third group of Hyksos escaped from Egypt and schlepped their loot to the port cities of:

• Acre
• Tyre
• Sidon

and Byblos and began building ships.

In these fortified port cities, these Hyksos were safe from the raids and troubles that the Hebrew shepherds were causing throughout Canaan.

Their families and guilds had been among the original conspirators in the take-over of Egypt over a hundred years previously.

They had been the second-tier field agents for the merchant-moneylender guilds in Babylonia but not the main directors.

As:

• generals
• captains
• lieutenants

in the army, as high priests for the Canaanite gods, as merchants and traders, as sea captains for the Red Sea fleets, as caravan organizers and warehousemen, as an educated elite, they had been among the leading profiteers of the Hyksos invasion of Egypt.

But once they had been expelled by Pharaoh Ahmose, they were like grasping arms and hands that had been cut off from the head which was based in Babylonia.

During their years in Egypt, these Hyksos had developed trade partners along the Canaanite coastal cities and on Crete as well as in Babylonia.

So, when they were expelled, unlike the shepherd Hyksos wandering around as flea-bitten and unsophisticated Hebrew bandits, these merchant Hyksos had somewhere to go and trade partners with whom to do business.

The entire Mediterranean Sea and its margins was open to them.

They transferred the sailors and sea captains from among their ships in the Red Sea and based them in the cities along the Canaanite coast.

From the cities of:

• Dor
• Acre
• Tyre
• Sarepta
• Sidon
• Beritos
• Tripoli

and Arwad, these wealthy Hyksos began building a trading fleet that could carry the manufactured goods of:

• Egypt
• Assyria
• Syria

and Babylonia into the less-civilized lands of:

• Greece
• Europe
• North Africa

and the Black Sea.

All they needed were these seaports as a base of operations and some new ships and they were back in business.

Adhering to their basic business policy of dealing whenever possible in easily transported, rare and therefore expensive goods, these Hyksos [merchant moneylenders] had such an item readily at hand with which to sell at a high profit and with which to bribe the kings of any country.

And best of all, as in Secret Fraud #7 of the Sumerian Swindle, it could be monopolized.

This product was the famous purple dye that was not only very beautiful but very costly.

This dye was made from the sea snails of the eastern Mediterranean coast found in the very area where the Hyksos established their new trading ports.

By monopolizing the manufacture of this dye, the Hyksos merchant-moneylenders had an immediate source of profit which they, alone, could control.

The purple dye was manufactured from a medium sized predatory sea snail that thrived in the area.

The snails were crushed to extract the dye.

It took twelve thousand snails to yield 1.4 grams of pure dye, enough to color only the trim of a single garment.

So, purple dye was very, very expensive.

The expense rendered purple-dyed textiles as status symbols and became a mark of royalty and extreme wealth and a prestigious symbol of those:

“born to the purple.”

Known as royal purple or Tyrian purple after the main distribution point of Tyre, it was worn only by kings and high priests.

Thus, this expensive and profitable trade item gave the Hyksos merchants their special entry into the palaces and homes of the leaders of society wherever they traveled.

The language of these Hyksos merchant moneylenders was Canaanite, the same language as the shepherd Hyksos with outlying tribes speaking the related dialects of Hebrew and Aramaic. 

These were the languages that they spoke when they first invaded Egypt and which they still spoke as they made their escape out of Egypt.

In terms of:

• archaeology
• language
• religion

there is little to set those Hyksos apart as markedly different from the other tribes of Canaan.

They were Canaanites.

In the Amarna tablets, they called themselves Kenaani (Canaanites).

But we know them today as Phoenicians because of their monopoly of the purple dye.

Their first and most important customers were the Greeks.

The Greeks called the purple dye, “phoenix” meaning “purple-red”, hence the Greek name phoinikèia or “Phoenicia”.

Miles Williams Mathis: Phoenicians – Where did they ALL Go? – Library of Rickandria

But whatever name they were called, whether Phoenicians, Tyrians from Tyre, Sidonians from Sidon, etc., they were the same Semitic gangs of thieves and moneylenders who had originally joined together with their Babylonia leaders to loot Egypt.

And now that they had escaped, they were looking for new opportunities for profits doing what they did best, buying and selling and profiting from the Sumerian Swindle.

Herodotus (~460 BC) tells us that the Phoenicians:

“came originally from the coasts of the Indian Ocean; and as soon as they had penetrated into the Mediterranean and settled in that part of the country where they are today, they took to making long trading voyages.

Loaded with Egyptian and Assyrian goods, they called at various places along the coast, including Argos, in those days the most important of the countries now called by the general name of Hellas.

“Here in Argos, they displayed their wares, and five or six days later when they were nearly sold out, it so happened that a number of women came down to the beach to see the fair.

Among these was the king’s daughter, whom the Greek and Persian writers agree in calling Io, daughter of Inachus.

These women were standing about near the vessel’s stern, buying what they fancied, when suddenly the Phoenician sailors passed the word along and made a rush at them.

The greater number got away; but Io and some others were caught and bundled aboard the ship, which cleared at once and made off for Egypt” [309] 

Even though the event described took place before 539 BC, nearly a thousand years later than the present time that we are studying, it does give an account of the methods and morals of the Phoenician merchants and shows that they were still thieving Hyksos bandits and slavers even as late as Herodotus’ time.

Although Herodotus’ information was partially correct in that the Phoenicians came from the direction of the Indian Ocean, he didn’t understand that they were the Sea Captains for the Babylonian merchant-moneylender guilds.

The Phoenician leaders and captains came from the Persian Gulf, from the direction of India, but they did not come from India.

CIVILIZATION: ANCIENT SPOOKS – Canaanites, Israelites & Phoenicians: The Modern-day Jews – Library of Rickandria

Their original home ports were the cities of Babylonia.

But now that they had moved into the Mediterranean Sea, their main, fortified harbor and shipyard was at Tyre.

And with their Babylonian and Assyrian guild partners, they soon had plenty of:

• Egyptian
• Assyrian
• Babylonian

goods with which to trade.

These trade goods included the debt-slaves who were becoming so numerous in Babylonia as well as the war-slaves captured by Assyria.

And of course, the prettiest women fetched them the most profits.

The Phoenician alphabet was developed from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet during the 15th century BC which they learned from Egyptian hieratic script.

Before then, the Phoenicians wrote in cuneiform script on clay because they were the sailors and sea captains of the Babylonian tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] Persian Gulf trading fleets.

They switched to an alphabet because it is a simpler and more efficient way of communication than was the complicated Mesopotamian cunieform.

As they expanded their Mediterranean trading fleets, they introduced the alphabet writing system to other peoples.

EDUCATION: Is the English Language Really Reversed Hebrew? – Library of Rickandria

The Canaanite alphabet evolved into Proto-Hebrew/Early Aramaic and finally into Hebrew.

And the idea was taken up and improved upon by the Greeks.

As Hyksos merchants, the Phoenicians began a seafaring enterprise of trade and moneylending that brought them great wealth.

Where else could these tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] and pirates go but out to sea? 

The Mediterranean Sea was new territory for them.

To the south and southwest, Egypt had just chased them out and was more interested in killing them than doing business.

To the north, an emerging Indo-European power known to us as the Hittites was beginning to expand.

To the east, the empires of Babylonia and Assyria would allow no trade competition in their territory.

So, these Amorite tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] and fugitive Hyksos used the profits that they had made in the looting of Egypt to build ships and warehouses.

From Tyre, they sailed off to the unfettered expanse of the Mediterranean Sea to build the Phoenician trading and money-lending empire.

There was no difference between the Apiru goat rustlers who had wandered about in the deserts of Sinai and the Apiru who had been trapped and enslaved in Egypt.

There was no difference between the Apiru thieves who slinked about the hills of Canaan and those Apiru in the coastal cities who had become known as Phoenicians.

There was no difference between any of these Hyksos either culturally or linguistically.

But because of their geographical locations and their methods of livelihood, all of these Semites had a very different history from one another from 1550 BC onward.

The slaves, the goat-rustlers of Sinai and the bandits of Palestine all separated and then later merged together as you shall see.

But the Apiru known as Phoenicians set sail on an entirely different and an entirely independent tact through history.

Building on the profits that they had made in looting Egypt, speaking a dialect of Hebrew, praying to the Canaanite gods, dealing in slaves, precious metals and moneylending, sailing their ships to wherever a profit could be made, these Phoenician [merchant moneylenders] had no intention of returning to Babylonia when so much silver could be made from the countries of the Mediterranean Sea and beyond.

They had ready sources for manufactured trade goods from Assyrian and Babylonia and eventually from Egypt but their customers for these goods were in the Mediterranean.

In addition to their skills as traders and merchants, they carried with them wherever they went, the Sumerian Swindle with which to enslave and defraud the peoples of:

• Greece
• Europe
• North Africa

The Phoenicians were not just traders, they were also loan sharks.

It was not just with their monopoly of purple dye that they profited.

It was not just with their Sumerian Swindle with which to enslave the peoples of the Mediterranean.

The simple fact that they were the middlemen in the transportation of goods, gave them an additional advantage over the other peoples of the Mediterranean – an advantage that they lost no time in exploiting.

These Phoenician traders profited from Secret Fraud #18 of the Sumerian Swindle:

“When the source of goods is distant from the customers, profits are increased both by import and export.”

With their fleets of ships, the Phoenicians could transport and trade the products of the:

• Near East
• Europe
• North Africa

and the Black Sea.

By keeping the source of goods, a secret and the market for the goods saturated with their peddlers and agents, the profits were enormously increased simply because of the resulting monopoly.

Their home ports were the coastal cities of Canaan which was the cross-roads of all trade routes from the distant sources of:

• Assyria
• Babylonia
• Persia
• India
• Arabia

and even China.

As middlemen, they could transport the goods of the entire known world on their fleets of ships.

The ships of the ancient peoples sailed and rowed, hugging the coasts during the mild seasons.

The smaller ships were designed to be easily beached and refloated upon sandy inlets or else find a protected cove and ride at anchor for the night.

The Phoenicians were the first ancient people to sail at night using the stars and also to sail in the winter.

Phoenician culture was organized into city-states like those of Mesopotamia.

Each city-state was an independent unit politically, although they could come into conflict with one another, be dominated by another city-state, or collaborate in guild alliances, much in the same manner as the roving Amorite tribes.

Each city was organized around its own merchant-moneylender guild.

These cities were led not by kings but by priests whose chief god was the Canaanite deity, Ba’al.

This storm god was equally important both to the shepherds of the wilderness and the sailors upon the sea.

But as useful as this system was to those cities, the Phoenicians had a major weakness.

Being among the elite of the Hyksos who had escaped from Egypt, they were predominantly populated by leaders rather than followers.

Normally, the city-states that had arisen throughout the ancient Near East during the previous 2000 years had had a natural balance of a few leaders, many merchants, a larger number of military, all supported by a much larger number of farmers and laborers.

But the Hyksos who had settled in the Canaanite cities were not supported by either farmers or military since these had been among the Hyksos:

• foot soldiers
• shepherds
• thieves

who had run off into the wilderness of Canaan and Sinai or who had been enslaved in Egypt.

The Phoenicians were mainly merchants and gang leaders with a few high ranking soldiers among them.

They were “Haves” who did not have enough “Have-Nots” to support and protect them.

They were short of:

• laborers
• farmers
• soldiers

The Phoenicians made up for this deficiency because they had the wealth with which to hire whatever help they needed.

The Canaanite cities that they had inhabited had sufficient:

• farmers
• fishermen
• workers

to serve their needs of food and labor.

Whenever they needed bodyguards or soldiers, they would hire mercenaries.

So, the initial labor shortage was at first not a problem.

Their cartels of independent seaports, with others on the islands and along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, were ideally suited for trade throughout the entire region.

But the Phoenician home ports in Canaan were surrounded by militant neighbors.

A decade or so before they were kicked out of Egypt, a volcano in the Aegean Sea exploded.

The explosion of Thera sent 100-foot-high tsunamis crashing against the island of Crete.

Minoan eruption – Wikipedia

These monstrous waves wiped out the seaside cities and ships of the Minoans.

The Minoans had had a virtual monopoly on sea trade for hundreds of years before this volcanic explosion.

They had had temples and warehouses in the Hyksos city of Avarice where they had traded with the Hyksos for Egyptian loot.

The Hyksos and the Minoans had been trade partners whose highest ideal was making a profit in trade.

But the Minoans had had the shipping monopoly in the Mediterranean.

Across the Aegean Sea, the rowdy Mycenaean Greeks were less interested in trade than they were in war.

The main interest of these warrior Greeks was heroic adventures through warfare and the ideals of a noble death in battle.

Although they were not shy about making money through the booty of war, mere business and trade was never their top priority.

Their heroes have come down to us in such stories as Homer’s Odysseus and the siege of Troy.

With fierce and idealistic warriors such as these, the materialistic Phoenicians had little in common and in battle no chance of success.

But once the Minoans had been erased from the scene with tsunamis and layers of volcanic pumice, the ever war-like Mycenaeans from the Greek mainland were quick to raid the devastated islands of Crete to salvage what treasures that they could and to establish themselves as the inheritors of the Minoan trade.

Even though the Thera explosion had removed the Minoans and their large fleet of ships from direct competition with the Phoenicians, this did not freely open up trade in the Aegean Sea for the Phoenicians.

The Mycenaeans of Greece with their many and mighty ships were able to replace the Minoans in sea trade in the Aegean Sea and on both Cyprus and Crete.

They prevented the Phoenicians from monopolizing trade in the north simply through superior military strength.

The Mycenaean Greeks were not as successful at trade as the Phoenicians were because:

• ethics
• fair play
• honor

and honesty was a part of their national character.

But at warfare, they were supreme and skillful experts.

So, the Phoenicians dared not oppose them openly.

However, their tamkarum [merchant moneylender] methods of trading both with the Greeks as well as with all of the enemies of the Greeks, began to reap its rewards.

And their use of the Sumerian Swindle gave the Phoenicians a money-making engine that funneled silver into their coffers beyond anything that trade alone could bring in.

Loan sharks in every port, lending-at-interest, soon created a network of money-siphons sucking the silver and gold out of every country where Phoenician ships made land fall.

This combination of import monopolies and moneylending gave the Phoenicians the wealth to finance a successful trade empire.

Their craftiness at trade was apparent to all; but the Secret Frauds of the Sumerian Swindle, as the engine behind their growing trade empire, was hidden from all.

They were both tradesmen and parasites because that is:

“how they had always been.”

The Phoenicians profitably enlarged their trading contacts along the North African coast and circled around Iberia to the Atlantic.

They traded with the Greeks because they had what the Greeks wanted, the purple dye, colorful garments and quantities of:

• exotic perfumes
• gemstones
• incenses

And the Greeks had:

• gold
• silver
• beautiful female slaves

who brought high prices in Egypt and North Africa.

Their trade with the Greeks allowed them access to the Black Sea where lived the peoples who were traditionally the favorite customers of the merchant-moneylenders – that is, people who were illiterate, gullible and easily deceived.

While the Phoenicians expanded trade with the Libyans along the North African coast, which was freely open to the first ones who could make the voyage, they continued their trade with the Greeks.

But close to their home ports in Canaan, the ancient city of Ugarit was becoming a major competitor.

Not content to control the major trade routes from Mesopotamia and the grain and metals trade with the Hittites, and seeing the profits being made by the Phoenicians, the tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guilds of Ugarit also began to build ships for the Mediterranean markets.

This was a direct competition with the Phoenicians.

What was just as bad, Ugarit was better situated to control the trade routes from Mesopotamia than were the Phoenician cites on the Canaanite coast.

Those routes had to pass through Ugarit before they reached Phoenicia.

So, the Phoenicians were being blocked by the Greeks to the north and taxed on their trade goods by Ugarit to the north and east.

To add to their insecurity, the Hittites, an Indo-European people, were increasing their territorial expansion across lands in Anatolia to the north of the Phoenician cities.

Though a Hittite attack on the Phoenician cities was always a threat, it was the combination of both the Hittites and the city of Ugarit that was the most dangerous.

Ugarit supplied grain to the Hittites and the Hittites traded:

• silver
• iron weapons
• horses

to Ugarit.

The fortunes of one were tied to the fortunes of the other.

In addition, the trade guilds of Mesopotamia (and therefore the related trade guilds of the Phoenicians) had only a minor presence among the Hittites.

The Hittites preferred to keep a wary eye on the greedy merchants from Assyria and Babylonia and to restrict their market access by dealing with Ugarit as the middleman.

In addition, Egypt was crowding the Phoenicians out from the south.

Twenty years after the Hyksos had been expelled from Egypt, Pharaoh had sent his armies up the Canaanite coast and demanded to be recognized as overlord of the region.

For the Egyptians, this was mainly a defensive method for creating a buffer zone around Egypt. 

After 1500 BC, although the Phoenicians retained a great deal of independence under this arrangement, they were subjected to heavy demands for tribute which was theoretically buying Egyptian protection.

But as the Amarna letters show, Egypt was not interested in protecting, nor was she able to protect, anyone in Canaan even against the petty gangs of Hebrew goat rustlers and bandits. 

So, Phoenicia was paying tribute and receiving no protection in return.

This strained political climate lasted for about 150 years as Phoenicia expanded its maritime trade across North Africa.

During this time the Hittites continued to press southward.

They engulfed Ugarit and came to the borders of Phoenicia.

The most northern Phoenician city was on the island of Arwad.

The Hittites took the island and forced the Phoenicians to abandon that profitable trade city. 

Thus, the Phoenicians were losing both trade and territory.

Although the powerful Rameses II of Egypt fought the Hittites, he finally signed a treaty with them in 1258 BC which ceded to the Hittites all the lands those people had already taken, including the Phoenician’s Island of Arwad.

To the Phoenicians, it must have been evident that the next push southward by the Hittites would breach the walls of their coastal cities, at which point the sea traders could again expect no support from Egypt, and Phoenicia would in all probability cease to exist.

However, the Hittites had plenty of troubles of their own.

During the next forty-five years of Rameses’ long reign following this treaty, the Hittites were beset on all sides but were able to hold their own.

They fought the Assyrians in the east, the fierce Kaska people who controlled the north shore of Anatolia, and they fought the several groups of people who divided western Anatolia among them.

Meanwhile, the Mycenaean Greeks continued to raid into Anatolia to the west of the Hittites and to occupy the lands in the neighborhood of Miletus.

From their cities on the Canaanite coast, the priests of Ba’al – making sacrifices of children as well as goats – coordinated the itinerary of their ships from North Africa and Libya as far as Morocco and Gibraltar.

Profits were good as they traded with the:

• Greeks
• Assyrians
• Hittites
• Egyptians

and Libyans.

By this time, they were writing on papyrus and parchment using a Canaanite alphabet and a reed stylus instead of incising cuneiform script onto wet clay.

While their Hebrew relatives were stealing sheep and pillaging the villages of Canaan, the Phoenicians were ensconced safely behind the walls of their port cities and aboard their ships on the open sea.

But the Phoenician city-states did not have the manpower to defend themselves from all of these great and powerful nations.

However, they did have an abundance of cunning and the Sumerian Swindle to give them wealth and its resulting power.

The merchant-moneylenders from the most ancient times in Sumeria and Babylonia had practiced Secret Fraud #8 of the Sumerian Swindle:

“Large crime families are more successful than lone criminals or gangs; international crime families are the most successful of all.”

As international moneylenders and merchants, the Phoenicians knew not only their friends and their enemies, but they also knew the friends and enemies of their friends and enemies. 

Because they were merchants who traveled to places outside of the borders of individual countries, they were well acquainted with the international relationships between those countries.

These Phoenician tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] had a long history of subversion and treason.

These moneylenders were well equipped to ally themselves with those who could best serve their purposes.

In this case, the poor and illiterate denizens of the Black Sea region served them very well. 

While the Apiru slaves in Egypt were hauling dung and making mud bricks, while the Apiru goat rustlers were shepherding their sheep and raiding and burglarizing the small towns of the region, the Phoenicians were practicing the Sumerian Swindle and making preparations to subvert their enemies.

Hiring mercenaries whenever they needed soldiers and then dismissing them after the battles had been fought, was an efficient system for small scale battles that worked for these thrifty merchants.

But for prolonged large-scale warfare against the mighty Hittites, or against the:

• noble
• brave
• skillful

Mycenaean Greeks or against the godly and powerful Egyptians, the Phoenicians did not have the manpower.

But they did have the demonic cunning of their tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guild lore and the Secret Frauds of the Sumerian Swindle.

Using the peoples of distant countries to subvert and dispossess the people of Sumaria and Babylonia, had been a standard part of the Sumeria Swindle which they knew and practiced very well.

Using the shepherds of Canaan and Sinai to beat back the Egyptians during the Hyksos invasion, had required some planning but it became a reality and a very profitable reality which had positioned them to control a Mediterranean trading empire.

But their plans for monopolizing Mediterranean trade could not be achieved if the Mycenaeans and Hittites kept pressing in on their cities in Canaan and restricting their profits.

All of these mighty empires were war-like and war ready, not at all like the innocent Egyptians whom the tamkarum Hyksos had been able to invade by use of trickery.

What the Phoenicians needed was control of a large army.

They found this army among the peoples of the Black Sea.

And best of all, they could obtain the services of those hordes of primitive people for free and they could even make a profit from the operation.

In their usual guise as wandering merchants, the Phoenicians had first traded with the Greeks.

They beached their ships and dealt directly with the Greeks of both the mainland as well as on the Aegean islands.\

Dealing in whatever would bring them profits, including whatever women that they could enslave and sell, these Phoenician merchant-moneylenders of Canaan sailed past the Mycenaean colonies and into the Black Sea.

There, they found illiterate people who were eager for the trade goods and who were also a hearty and war-like people greedy for whatever they could rob from their neighbors.

Such people were the perfect pawns for Secret Fraud #15 of the Sumerian Swindle:

“Loans to friends are power; loans to enemies are weapons.”

The first stage of inveigling the peoples of the Black Sea and northern Anatolia to become their allies, was to offer them good deals on trade goods.

The Black Sea peoples were already on bad terms with the Hittites and the Mycenaeans, battling them often.

So, the Phoenician [merchant-moneylenders] became their “friends” and offered them shipments of grain as well as bronze weapons along with the usual colored cloth, Tyrian glass and wine.

SPRITUALITY: SPIRITUAL AWAKENING: So, Your Spiritual Awakening Cost You Some Friends – Library of Rickandria

For those Black Sea Peoples who had a desire to become merchants, the Phoenicians extended them credit on wholesale lots which they could then peddle to the inland villages.

Thus, the Phoenicians [merchant-moneylenders] set up their trade networks while they gathered intelligence.

As usual, these Phoenician merchant moneylenders spied upon all people and calculated the wealth of every nation.

The Phoenicians curried favor with the Black Sea peoples by offering not only good bargains in:

• brightly colored cloth
• copper cooking pots
• glassware
• brass weapons
• grain

and wholesale lots but they offered military intelligence as well.

It was the military intelligence and the grain shipments that most ingratiated the Phoenicians to the peoples of the Black Sea because for whatever reason, changing weather patterns perhaps, there was an increasing shortage of food in the entire Black Sea region.

For the Hittites, this meant increased grain purchases from Ugarit.

For the Black Sea People, this meant increased grain purchases from the Phoenicians.

The grain shipments that the Phoenicians exchanged for gold helped to alleviate the widespread hunger but there were far more hungry people than the grain shipments could supply. Into this need, the Phoenician merchant moneylenders added the fuel of their skills in storytelling to paint a clear picture of the food and wealth of the Near East.

Although the Black Sea People had plenty of ships for fishing and for war parties against one another, their knowledge of the Mediterranean Sea was limited.

Their war parties were blocked from raiding into those waters by the Mycenaeans whose sub-surface rams on the Greek triremes followed by hand-to-hand boarding techniques were unstoppable.

But this need for military intelligence was filled by the Phoenicians who told wonderous tales of the rich lands of the Anatolian coast and especially of the great wealth in Egypt.

The Black Sea barbarians had no way to attack such a powerful and distant country as Egypt.

But with the help of their Phoenician friends, such an attack was shown to be possible.

As Hyksos, the Phoenicians had plundered Egypt, themselves, and intimately knew how much more treasure was to be found in that ancient land.

Also, the Phoenician cities were willing to provide safe ports of call for the Black Sea ships where their sailors and warriors were sold the best wines and entertained by the prettiest whores.

The Phoenicians could also provide allies from among the Libyans of North Africa, another of their trade customers.

For centuries, Libya and Egypt had often been at war.

So, finding Libyan fighters willing to join in a raid against Egypt was not difficult.

Coordinating the two forces was a minor problem.

Suddenly, in 1213 BC, the great Rameses II died, and a paroxysm seized the entire region.

It was fairly common in the ancient Mediterranean for the death of a powerful king to draw in attacks by neighboring states, each seeking to determine if the successor king was weak and if prized lands might be wrested away.

Under the circumstances, the Phoenicians would have had every reason to fear an imminent campaign southward into Egypt by the Hittites.

However, the Hittites were preoccupied by problems at home and put off action in this direction.

With their extensive trade contacts with the Egyptian court, the death of the aged Pharaoh did not come as a surprise.

Rather, they had factored that eventuality into their schemes.

So, if the Hittites were not able to test the power of Egypt, the Phoenicians knew some people who were eager to win some loot.

From their previous experience as Hyksos, they knew what it would take to defeat Egypt.

It was more than what the Phoenicians were willing or able to muster in battle.

But gaining some treasures with a heavily armed raid, might be worth the effort as long as it was other people who did the fighting and dying and not the Phoenicians, themselves.

Once again, acting as the middlemen, the Phoenician merchant-moneylenders brought together two widely separated people for an attack upon Egypt.

The merchant-moneylenders of Phoenicia organized the barbarians of the Black Sea and the Libyans of the North African coast into a raiding party.

After the death of the aged Pharaoh as their signal, and the realization that the Hittites were not going to attack Egypt, it only took a few years for the Phoenician merchant-moneylenders to make the alliances between Libyan raiders and Black Sea barbarians and to coordinate an attack timed to the moon cycles of their Babylonian calendar.

Gathering up a raiding party of five thousand barbarian warriors and their ships was the easy part of the scheme.

The raiders sailed and rowed their ships from one Phoenician port-of-call to the next and, using Phoenician navigators to rendezvous with the Libyans, the Black Sea warriors rowed into the Nile Delta in 1208 BC and attacked the successor to Rameses, Pharaoh Merneptah.

Merneptah (/ˈmɛrnɛptɑː, mərˈnɛptɑː/) or Merenptah (reigned July or August 1213–2 May 1203 BCE) was the fourth pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. According to contemporary historical records, he ruled Egypt for almost ten years, from late July or early August 1213 until his death on 2 May 1203. He was the first royal-born pharaoh since Tutankhamun of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt.  Merneptah was the thirteenth son of Ramesses II, only coming to power because all of his older brothers had died, including his full brother Khaemweset.  He was around seventy years old when he ascended to the throne. He is arguably best known for the Merneptah Stele, featuring the first known mention of the name Israel. His throne name was Ba-en-re Mery-netjeru, which means “Soul of Ra, Beloved of the Gods”.

But Pharaoh Merneptah had spies of his own and knew in advance of the attack.

He concentrated his defenses and routed their forces, as described on his victory stele at Thebes.

It was from this period in the history of the ancient Near East that these barbarian people from the Black Sea region became known as the Sea Peoples.

Although this first strike to obtain gold and riches was a failure, it showed the surviving warriors how easy it was to raid in the Mediterranean Sea when they had the help of such rich and knowledgeable allies as the Phoenician merchant moneylenders.

They returned to their Black Sea homes and were able to verify to their people the Phoenician stories about the rich grain lands of the Near East.

Their five thousand raiders had been hugely outnumbered even with their Libyan allies.

Although their raid on Egypt had failed to procure loot, it had given the Black Sea Peoples the confidence that they could successfully beat the peoples of the Near East in combat.

They had only lost in their raid from lack of numbers.

But if enough of them could attack the lands to the south, they could make those rich and fruitful grain lands their own.

The unrelieved food shortages put increasing pressure on these people to take action.

At every Black Sea port-of-call, the Phoenicians told tales of rich grain lands and mountains of gold and silver loot in the lands to the south.

The stories from the warriors returning from the Egyptian raid began circulating about the food supplies and wealth of the lands to their south, energizing these strong and increasingly hungry people.

They began buying more weapons than cloth from their “friends”, the Phoenician merchant moneylenders.

And they began fitting out their ships and even their fishing boats for war on a massive scale. 

As the stories spread, the tribes from Central Europe and the entire Black Sea region began migrating toward Anatolia.

The Phoenicians sold them the best:

• bronze weapons
• grain
• military intelligence

in exchange for gold.

The attacks against the Hittites began by land.

In fact, the greatest campaigns the Sea Peoples would mount were by land.

This has led recent sources to refer to them as the Land and Sea Peoples which is a much more accurate appellation.

The Kaska lived to the north, between the Hittites and the Black Sea.

They attacked at this time.

The:

• Assuwa
• Arzawa
• Lukka

lived in the land to the west of the Hittites, between that empire and the Aegean Sea.

They also attacked Hattiland.

But another problem had to be overcome.

The Mycenaeans continued to hold the Aegean, and they attacked those Anatolian people from the seaward side.

To deal with this, huge masses of warriors and ships in the Sea Peoples confederacy poured from Anatolia and from the Black Sea into the Aegean in huge numbers, where they outnumbered and ravaged the Mycenaeans in their islands and on the Greek mainland.

The Mycenaean citadel-cities may or may not have been taken at this time because their walls were made of stone and the battering ram still had not been invented.

But the coastal towns were certainly laid waste by these raiders.

Following this widespread disruption the Mycenaean cities withered and eventually died.

When the Aegean had been thus secured, the people of western Anatolia were no longer fighting on two fronts.

They were able to turn their full attention to the Hittites.

The now open Aegean allowed ships belonging to the Sea Peoples to sail through those waters and begin to raid the Hittites all along their Mediterranean coast.

This proved to be pivotal in the struggle against that entrenched power.

In 1182 BC, Ugarit fell and the flow of wheat from Egypt and Mesopotamia to Hittiland was cut off.

Approximately two years later in 1180 BC, the Kaska captured Hattusas, the capital of the Hittites, and that empire died.

Once the Hittites were defeated, nothing stood in the way of the Sea Peoples’ migration.

With their wives, children and household possessions in two wheeled carts, the Sea Peoples — now more properly the Land Peoples — flowed across the former Hittite territory.

At the territory’s southeast corner, they turned south on their path of destruction and, observing their special relationship with Phoenicia, they by-passed the Phoenician cities and lands.

(This theme of revolutionaries and armies leaving intact the property of their secret allies, would be repeated throughout history.)

Flowing down through Canaan they destroyed the non-Phoenician cities they encountered.

Many settled beside the wheat fields and took the land for themselves and their families.

A very large number of the Land and Sea Peoples continued onward and eventually arrived at the border between Canaan and Egypt.

There they were met by the armies of Rameses III and a great battle was fought — with a second battle being fought in the Nile Delta.

Usermaatre Meryamun Ramesses III was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt. Some scholars date his reign from 26 March 1186 to 15 April 1155 BC, and he is considered the last pharaoh of the New Kingdom to have wielded substantial power.

Descriptions of the battle on his funerary temple at Medinet Habu in Thebes are accompanied by pictures displaying battle scenes in which the Sea Peoples’ boats were shown as having a very peculiar design.

The fore post and aft post were identical, and each had a bird’s head at the top.

This design was found only on vessels from Central Europe along the Danube River corridor.

The Danube River emptied into the Black Sea on the north side of Anatolia, where boatmen from this region could join the rest of the Sea Peoples.

Refugees from the shattered Mycenaean world would eventually come to live among the Sea Peoples, though they did not begin to arrive in Cyprus and Palestine until the latter part of the 12th century BC.

Large numbers of them settled in Canaan and gave their own name to the land: primarily the Peleset people (Philistines) who settled a wide swath of land which became known as Philistia and later Palestine.

Others sailed west and settled upon islands which were likewise given the name of the tribe which settled there: the Shekelesh who settled on Sicily, the Sherden who settled on Sardinia, and several settlements in other lands.

By 1176 BC, the remainder of the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean fell to the Sea and Land Peoples except for the Phoenician cities.

King Rameses III stopped the Sea Peoples attacks on Egypt, but he did not contest their other conquests and ceded to them the lands in Canaan that they had already taken.

These relentless attacks by the Sea Peoples virtually destroyed all the major powers of the Mediterranean and cleared the way for the rise of the:

• Greeks
• Romans
• Western civilization

But though they had wiped out the mighty Hittite empire and had decimated the Mycenaean Greeks, ending their hegemony of the Aegean Sea, they left untouched and unmolested, the cities of the Phoenicians.

In the midst of a cataclysm where hundreds of thousands of Land and Sea Peoples had engulfed and destroyed almost every city in the eastern Mediterranean area, the Phoenician cities remained completely untouched.

This is a recurring theme throughout the history of not only the ancient Near East, but the history of the entire world.

And that recurring theme is found in every nation where, after wars and disasters of every kind, one particular group of people is spared.

And that group is composed of the very people who engineered the disaster, itself, the treasonous moneylenders and their relatives.

Tyre was the leading Phoenician city in those days, and we are fortunate to have an excellent archaeological study of this site which went all the way down to bedrock.

The archeological dig not only showed no widespread destruction at that time but there was also great continuity from layer to layer, indicating that the local society continued to live in the same way throughout this period.

Sarepta (modern Sarafand) between Tyre and Sidon was similarly the subject of detailed archaeological study.

The results showed no destruction and great continuity in the strata.

The most northern Phoenician city was on the island of Arwad, also known as Arvad and Arados.

The Hittites had taken this valuable trading center away from the Phoenicians prior to the coming of the Sea Peoples.

This city was, in fact, destroyed by the Sea Peoples.

And after they had captured it, they returned it to the Phoenicians.

Because the merchant-moneylenders of Phoenicia had sold weapons and food to the Sea Peoples, shared with them the spy data, and provided the logistics necessary to attack and subdue all of these great empires of the eastern Mediterranean, they were accorded a special status.

The Sea and Land Peoples had benefited greatly by their alliance with the merchant-moneylenders of Phoenicia.

But like every deal that the merchant-moneylenders conceive, the real winners are not those who believe themselves to be the winners but those who choose who the winners will be.

As to who were the winners and who the losers in these epic battles and mass migrations of hundreds of thousands of Land and Sea Peoples, we can make a list.

The major losers were:

(a)

The city of Ugarit which was totally destroyed and never rebuilt.

The Sea Peoples gained this strategic territory while the trade routes and grain supplies that it controlled fell into the hands of the tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guilds of Babylonia, Assyria and Phoenicia.

(b)

The Hittite empire which was destroyed and left only as a residual fragment on the Euphrates River.

The Land and Sea Peoples made these lands their own while all trade with these lands fell into the hands of the tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guilds of:

• Babylonia
• Assyria
• Phoenicia

(c)

The Mycenaeans who were fatally wounded and would disappear completely within a hundred years.

The Sea Peoples took over their lands and their islands while all trade between these lands and these islands fell into the hands of the Phoenicians [merchant-moneylenders].

And (d)

Egypt which had won the battles but had lost Canaan and the Levant.

The Land and Sea Peoples took over these lands, too.

And once again, all supplies along the trade routes and from the sea lanes fell into the hands of the merchant-moneylender guilds of:

• Assyria
• Babylonia
• Phoenicia

The winners, who constituted the Sea Peoples’ confederacy, were

(a)

The tribes of people who came from Anatolia and the Black Sea region and migrated into the Levant and onto islands across the Mediterranean.

(b)

The Kaska who kept their original lands in the north of Anatolia on the Black Sea, and added the heart of the Hittite territories to their own.

(c)

the West Anatolian people who remained in their own lands, but added some of the Hittite lands, and gained influence in the Aegean.

and (d)

The Phoenicians who gained more than anyone else from the mass migration of the Land and Sea Peoples, even though they did not participate in the actual fighting.

Once again, the methods of the Sumerian Swindle had worked perfectly.

Those who saw their lands overrun and dispossessed by the Land and Sea Peoples, did not see those who stood invisibly behind these invaders.

Under the destructive force of the Sea Peoples’ attacks, all of the Phoenicians’ powerful adversaries had been destroyed.

The Phoenician cities were untouched by this devastation that happened all around them.

This left the Phoenicians in a very advantageous position with fully functioning:

• cities
• fleets
• trade channels

ready to buy and sell amid the destruction all around.

The historical record shows that their active cities quickly began to expand in size and in influence by establishing trading posts (and guild halls) in:

• Cyprus
• the Aegean
• Sicily
• Sardinia
• North Africa
• Algeria
• Morocco

and Spain.

The legacy of the Sea Peoples was that they had forcefully cleared away the old powers from the Mediterranean.

The old powers had been uprooted, leaving the Phoenicians with a new and innocent people upon which to practice the Sumerian Swindle.

In time, the Greeks and Romans would rise and sow the seeds of Western civilization. [310]

But it was a Western civilization that would become infected with the debilitating economic and social disease known as the Sumerian Swindle that was carried about and spread by the Phoenicians and their fellow merchant moneylenders from Mesopotamia.

Following the migrations of the Land and Sea Peoples, the Phoenicians formed the major naval and trading power of the entire region for almost a thousand years.

For the sake of brevity, let’s condense this time span.

They established a second production center for the purple dye in Morocco.

Brilliant textiles were a part of Phoenician wealth; Phoenician glass was another export ware.

They traded whatever brought them a profit – from African Basenji dogs to wine and metals and slaves.

And they loaned silver wherever they went, profiting both from the interest as well as from the property swindles and debt-slaves that inevitably resulted.

They worked their slaves to death in their iron and silver mines in Iberia (Spain) and brought tin from Great Britain to Cyprus where it was smelted into bronze from the local copper mines.

The Phoenicians established commercial outposts (and guild halls) throughout the Mediterranean, the most strategically important being Carthage in North Africa, founded in 814 BC under Pygmalion.

Its chief god was an incarnation of the Canaanite Ba’al.

With an ocean on the east of Africa and the Mediterranean Sea on the north of Africa, after they had sailed to the Atlantic and found an ocean on the west of Africa, it was not much of a stretch of their imaginations to think that they could sail all the way around the south of Africa and arrive back in the waters of the Red Sea once again.

A Carthaginian expedition led by Hanno the Navigator explored and colonized the Atlantic coast of Africa as far as the Gulf of Guinea; and according to Herodotus, a Phoenician expedition sent down the Red Sea by Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt (~ 600 BC) circumnavigated Africa and returned through the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) in three years.

Necho II (sometimes Nekau, Neku, Nechoh, or Nikuu;[5] Greek: Νεκώς Β’; Hebrew: נְכוֹ, Modern: Neḵō, Tiberian: Nəḵō) of Egypt was a king of the 26th Dynasty (610–595 BC), which ruled from Sais.[9] Necho undertook a number of construction projects across his kingdom. In his reign, according to the Greek historian Herodotus, Necho II sent out an expedition of Phoenicians, which in three years sailed from the Red Sea around Africa to the Strait of Gibraltar and back to Egypt. His son, Psammetichus II, upon succession may have removed Necho’s name from monuments.

Cyrus the Great conquered Phoenicia in 539 BC.

Phoenicia prospered as long as they furnished fleets for the Persian kings.

However, Phoenician influence in the area declined after this because much of the Phoenician population migrated to Carthage and other colonies following the Persian conquest.

Alexander the Great took Tyre in 332 BC.

The rise of Hellenistic Greece gradually ousted the remnants of Phoenicia’s former dominance over the Eastern Mediterranean trade routes, and Phoenician culture disappeared entirely from there.

As for the Phoenician homeland, following Alexander it was controlled by a succession of Hellenistic rulers.

In 197 BC, Phoenicia along with Syria reverted to the Seleucids, and the region became increasingly Hellenized.

However, its North African offspring, Carthage, continued to flourish, mining iron and precious metals from Iberia, and using its considerable naval power and mercenary armies to protect its commercial interests.

It was finally destroyed by Rome in 146 BC at the end of the Punic Wars.

In 65 BC Pompey finally incorporated Phoenicia as part of the Roman province of Syria.

And so, after nearly fifteen hundred years of swindles and treason, this branch of the Hyksos merchant-moneylenders – the merchant moneylenders of Phoenicia – became extinct.

The Phoenicians became extinct, but the Sumerian Swindle did not become extinct.

It spread to the moneylenders of:

• Rome
• Europe
• Africa
• India

and China.

From this point onward we must now begin to explore the theme which is the main concern of all three volumes of How the Jews Betrayed Mankind.

Most of Volume One, The Sumerian Swindle, traces how the fraud of moneylending enabled the most ruthless and evil of civilization’s denizens to gain control of entire countries and to debauch and betray all people everywhere.

But also, from this point onward, we will be specifically studying the most evil and ruthless of all of the tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guilds.

Up to this point, we have seen how the moneylenders and merchants were able to use their secret methods of the Sumerian Swindle to defraud and to buy themselves into actual ownership of the enslaved Peoples and to betray the kings whom they had deceived.

Not all of the ancient peoples knew of the Swindle, but as it arose in ancient Mesopotamia it was spread to all parts of the world by the moneylenders and merchants.

Some countries resisted, as you will see in Volume Two.

But most accepted the fraud because it:

“has always been here.”

So, they assumed that it was a legitimate business model.

Slowly, with the cunning of a demonic snake, the merchants and moneylenders used the Sumerian Swindle to gain for themselves and for their trade guilds, control of the ancient world.

Through the corruption of kings, the betrayal of the people and the genocide of warfare, they gathered into their treasuries the wealth of and the ownership of the entire known world.

They did so not because they deserved to own the world but because they had succeeded in deceiving the honest and gullible people of the world with the idea that a few ruthless individuals have the right to swindle and to enslave the entire planet for their own private profit.

Because the Sumerian Swindle was a secret, the merchant-moneylenders did not ask the people for permission to swindle them.

They swindled them through perfidious guile and ruthless greed while keeping their Secret Frauds carefully concealed and their stacks of bullion hidden.

We have followed the history of those Hyksos who later became known as the Phoenicians.

Their own methods of mercantilism and moneylending brought them great success and great wealth.

But it all ended in catastrophe.

How and why, it ended when they came into conflict with Rome, is covered in Volume Two: The Monsters of Babylon.

But for now, understand that the city-states of Phoenicia based their entire society upon the acquisition of:

• silver
• gold
• slaves

Their slaves worked iron and silver mines and built fortifications, their mercenaries fought and died protecting their wealth, but when their businesses became disrupted, neither their Canaanite gods nor even a great general like Hannibal could save them.

Canaanite religion – Wikipedia

Under the armed might of Rome, they disappeared from history forever.

Not so with the other Hyksos who had escaped from Pharaoh into the hills of Canaan and the wilderness of Sinai or who had returned to the guild cities of Babylonia.

Although they used the Sumeria Swindle to their great advantage, they also developed a unique variation of the Swindle that had never been tried before.

These merchant-moneylenders of Canaan used God, Himself, as their middleman for swindling the world of its treasure.

To see how they did this, we must leave the Phoenicians to their doom beneath the heel of Rome at Carthage in 146 BC and return once gain to 1550 BC, not to the Hyksos enslaved by the Egyptians, not to the Hebrew tribes of Hyksos who were roaming around in the hills of Canaan and Sinai, but to the Hyksos who had returned to a life of luxury in Babylonia. 

Remember, in 1550 BC when Pharaoh Ahmose allowed the Hyksos to escape their fortress of Avarice with all of their loot, they had divided into four groups:

the Apiru slaves who were trapped in Egypt; the roving bands of Hebrew goat-rustlers and bandits who wandered into the hills of Canaan and Sinai; the merchants and military officers who became the Phoenicians; and the tamkarum [merchant moneylenders] who had returned to Babylonia.

This last group of Hyksos in our study were actually the first group to leave Egypt.

They were the sons of the Babylonian tamkarum [merchant moneylenders] who had originally planned and organized the Hyksos invasion.

They were the leaders who had usurped Pharaoh’s throne and who had coordinated both the invasion and the systematic looting of the country.

They had inherited all of their fathers’ wealth and treachery.

• Extreme wealth
• luxury
• sexual gratification

through harems and sex-slaves and the enjoyment of power, were the very essence of their lives.

However, it would be inaccurate to say that they had “escaped” from Egypt because, unlike the other groups of Hyksos who were dependant upon whatever livelihood they could gather from the immediate surroundings, these Hyksos tamkarum [merchant moneylenders] were international in their affiliations.

Indeed, each group of Hyksos who had been forced out of the fort at Avaris can been seen in an ascending order of complexity and worldview.

The Hyksos slaves who had been captured and enslaved, were limited to their daily life of toil as determined by their Egyptian masters.

The Hyksos shepherds who had escaped into the wilderness to continue the lifestyle of their forefathers, were limited to whatever livelihood they could gather from their herds and from their brigandage.

The Phoenician Hyksos who had used their wealth and mercantile skills to build a trading empire, were limited to just the places that their ships could dock.

Though this area increased with every trading voyage, it used the same business model as in Babylonia of monopolizing trade routes and using the Sumerian Swindle to increase wealth and influence.

But it is this fourth group of Hyksos, the tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] of Babylonia who were the most sophisticated and wily.

For two thousand years the tamkarum [merchant moneylenders] had made it a part of their business model to make extensive use of spies and informants and to keep their hordes of precious metals carefully removed from places of possible loss.

Through their system of:

• merchants
• peddlers
• beer taverns

they gathered the most minute hints about the politics and economic news of the day.

Their profits from the Sumerian Swindle and its related businesses were so huge that they could afford to pay a small army of spies to keep them informed with gossip and news from across the countryside.

Also, “escaping” is not the correct term for their egress from Egypt because the word usually means moving from one uncomfortable place to a place of relative safety.

For the tamkarum [merchant moneylenders] who sat on Pharaoh’s throne, their places of business extended beyond the borders of any one country.

These Hyksos did not so much “escape” from Egypt as they merely “relocated” their place of residence from Egypt back to Babylonia.

When their trading agents far up the Nile began informing them of the movements of troops and the shipments of grain out into the deserts where they were not allowed to venture, they were well prepared for the war that followed.

It was not necessary for them to actually do any fighting, themselves, because that was what they hired their generals to do.

That was why they hired mercenaries, to fight and die so that they could continue to profit from and to enslave the peoples around them.

They were enormously rich from their frauds and thefts, and that wealth bought them protection.

These tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] Hyksos families had been sending their loot back to Babylonia for 108 years.

In the unlikely event that they would actually have to run for their lives, they would merely be running from one hoard of loot to another hoard on deposit in the temple treasuries of Babylonia.

But their extensive spy networks gave them the time to relocate their wealth and their pampered selves comfortably away from any conflicts before the actual fighting began.

Upon assessing the rumors of war, and just in case the war went against them, the Hyksos tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] moved quietly back to Babylonia, themselves, along with whatever treasures they could carry, leaving their generals to oversee the country and to deal with any trouble that the growing Egyptian rebellion might produce.

As the wealthiest of the Hyksos, they were, if not thoroughly educated, at least the employers of numerous scribes.

They recognized the importance of and the value of written records.

Among the treasures that they took with them back to Babylonia, were the wisdom writings from the libraries of Egypt.

They moved out of Egypt and were comfortably residing in Babylonia months before the Egyptians began their rebellion.

From their residences in Babylonia, the tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] received the reports of the Egyptian victory over the Hyksos.

When Avarice fell, most of the Hyksos generals and mid-level merchants joined the Phoenician branch of these bandit families and did not return to serve them in Babylonia.

This was no concern to the tamkarum guilds of Babylonia because they had no use for military men there since Babylonian security was guaranteed by the king and his generals.

However, losing their Hyksos generals and network of merchants to a competing trade guild in Phoenicia, was just one more problem that they were discovering about relying upon the Sumerian Swindle as their sole business model.

The Egyptian invasion had been a first for the tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] of Babylonia because it was the first time that they had conquered a country using their own resources rather than as mere advisors who were standing behind a king.

It had been an operation that had been coordinated among various of the larger tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guilds as a joint operation.

But as Egypt was being looted, and especially after the defeat at Avaris where the guilds and their soldiers had been scattered, each tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guild took whatever it could for itself alone without regard to previous business agreements.

Especially irksome to the Babylonian guilds were the great losses to them that their previous business partners had absconded with in order to set up the Phoenician trading centers.

And now, instead of being partners, as had been the case when they were all looting Egypt together, the Phoenicians [merchant moneylenders] had turned into business competitors who were monopolizing the Mediterranean trade.

These and many other problems gave the patriarchs of the Babylonian guilds much to contemplate as they feasted and drank and whored in the cities of Babylonia.

One thing needs to be repeated.

The businesses of the ancient people were family operations, and the patriarchs of these families were extremely anxious that their sons follow them in the family business.

No religion of those times offered anything to look forward to after death.

There were no ideas about dying and going to heaven.

What a man could make for himself and enjoy in this life, was all he would ever get.

So, it was important to him to gain as much as he could get in the present life and to leave something for his sons to remember him by.

The common people desired only to leave a good profession for their sons, to train him in the skills of brickmaker or potter or weaver or silversmith.

With these, he could make a living and perpetuate the family line.

Among warriors, the best that a man could leave for his sons was a bit of land but always, always a good name.

The immortality that those ancient warriors desired was to leave behind the fame of a good name.

Likewise, the kings desired this, immortalizing themselves and their deeds and their names in stone reliefs and sculptures and in written records, bragging of their conquests and of the justice and prosperity that they had brought their people.

In this regard, the moneylenders were no different.

Like everyone else in the ancient Near East, they prayed to their gods and desired to teach their sons the ways of business and moneylending so that their families would prosper, and their names would be honored among their descendants.

But there were also some very different perspectives on life that were held solely by the patriarchs of the moneylender guilds, perspectives that only great wealth, ruthless covetousness and malicious hatred can simultaneously engender.

Greedy for gain, obtaining more and more of anything and everything, was always a desirable goal among them.

The entire social prestige of their social class revolved around wealth and the outward showings of wealth over which arrogant pride preens itself.

After all, these were tamkarum [merchant moneylenders] devoting their lives to gaining riches, so of course, the richest among them were the ones whom the less wealthy among them admired.

More profits, more wealth, more land, more slaves, more wives and concubines and more descendants, were all a part of the moneylenders’ goals which resulted in high social standing among his peers.

As their businesses grew, so did their need for more loyal sons to manage the numerous estates and enterprises and more loyal daughters to marry high political officials and marry into rich business families.

Their parasitic system of cancerous growth had worked very well in the nearly 2,000 years that the Sumerian Swindle had provided wealth to the awilum [the Haves].

But their expulsion from Egypt, gave the merchant-moneylenders some new problems along with the changing times.

The world was a bigger place than it had been when Sumeria was young.

The horizons had widened.

No longer was the world limited to how far a man could see to the distant mountains across the Tigris or Euphrates.

Through trade and warfare, the general populace had learned of distant countries and strange people, none of whom practiced the Sumerian Swindle but all of whom desired the goods that the merchants carried.

At their guild meetings in the cities of Babylonia, the successful members of the various tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guilds discussed their businesses and the events in Egypt, just as businessmen discuss their businesses in modern times.

Profits and losses, products and prices are always part of the discussions.

But especially among those who had participated in the Egyptian plunder, the new situation and its resulting problems were a topic that had never before confronted the moneylender guilds of Mesopotamia in their nearly two thousand years of:

• swindles
• frauds
• pimping

and treason.

Although these bankers’ guilds were related to one another through business and marriage, they were also in competition with one another.

Even though they all faced the same problems, how they solved those problems of business and politics was each to his own.

Every city in Baby onia had its own moneylenders’ guild.

And it had become apparent to all of the tamkarum guilds that profitable though it was, the Sumerian Swindle had some recurring limitations.

In their discussions, they identified fifteen problems that were both recurring from ancient times as well as some new problems that had become only too apparent during their Hyksos banishment.

These problems were as follows:

Problem #1:

Wealth attracts robbers so how can it be hidden?

Problem #2:

The gods do not protect tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] wealth.

Problem #3:

When the strongest city is not strong enough, where can one go for safety?

Problem #4:

Wealth escapes into the god’s temples.

Problem #5:

Guild members follow different gods.

Problem #6:

Close relatives are lured away by the gods.

Problem #7:

What keeps people loyal?

Problem #8:

Genealogies link tribes but without a root.

Problem #9:

The Kings gain wealth by taxing both rich and poor.

Problem #10:

Kings are targets, so it is better to hold the target in your hands than to be a king.

Problem #11:

We tamkarum [merchant moneylenders] promote warfare and thereby profit enormously; but while inveigling others to do the fighting, how can we avoid military service without invoking the wrath of our victims?

Problem #12:

Armies are expensive so how can they be induced to fight for free?

Problem #13:

When conquering a country, how can it be secured? (Assyrian deportation? Genocide? Slavery?)

Problem #14:

Moneylenders are despised.

Yet, how can we have honor and prestige?

Problem #15:

The Sumerian Swindle is both a secret and a mystical gift of the tamkarum gods.

How can it be protected forever as a possession of the tamkarum families alone?

Problem #1:

“Wealth attracts robbers so how can it be hidden?”

was the oldest problem faced by the merchant-moneylenders.

Next to using all of their wiles to defraud the people of silver and gold through:

• business
• booze
• slavery

and moneylending swindles, their most important problem was being able to keep what they had made by protecting their silver from thieves.

What was the use of accumulating piles of treasure if thieves could merely cart it away?

The palaces, temples and homes of the Mesopotamia people were made of mud brick.

It was a simple matter for a thief to break through a mud wall with a pick and shovel to raid any residence, even that of the king.

Even a bucket of water to soften the dirt and a sharp stick to dig out the mud, were all of the tools that a thief needed to burglarize a building.

So, from the earliest days of Sumerian Law, breaking through a wall, whether to steal anything or not, was a punishable act.

Yet, regardless of the thickness of the walls, a big enough hoard of silver would attract any number of ambitious thieves.

The only places that no thief would dare to rob were the holy temples which were the homes of the gods.

But even these had been raided at various times by the kings.

So, how could their treasures be protected both from robbers and the confiscations of the kings?

Problem #2 had also plagued the moneylenders repeatedly since ancient times.

It was abundantly obvious that:

“The gods did not protect tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] wealth.”

No matter how much they prayed or how many sacrifices they made to Nabu, the god of accounting and bookkeeping, or to Sin, their mighty Moon God of stealth and subversion, nothing seemed to keep their hordes of gold safe from the kings.

Yet, even so, it was obvious that the safest and most secure place to keep gold and silver bullion was in the temple treasuries.

They could never deposit their wealth into the palace treasuries because the kings were always very happy to claim whatever was in the palace treasuries as their own.

The temple was the safest place because even the kings feared the wrath of the gods.

In the early days of Sumeria, this theory held good and not even the kings would dare to take anything from the temples of the gods.

It was not just the huge temple complex protecting their hordes with thick walls of mud bricks; it was not just the temple guards who protected whatever bullion was on deposit there; but it was the actual fear of both king and burglar of being struck down with a plague or having their persons attacked by snakes and scorpions or having the earth open up and swallow them or by being struck by lightning, that kept the temple treasuries safe from theft.

Even invading armies feared the gods and respected the sanctity of the temples and their treasures in those early days.

All of this changed over the millennia as first one king and then another invaded and seized the temple treasuries or merely took what he wanted from his own city temples during the contingencies of war.

It was observed by everyone that these kings did not turn into toads or contract leprosy or suffer any other displeasure of the gods.

Obviously, the gods were either powerless to prevent theft from their own temples or they didn’t really care if their temples were looted or not.

Or perhaps the gods had decided to favor a particular king for reasons that only the gods knew.

This was a major concern of the moneylenders that had arisen over the millennia.

They had to have a safe and secret place to store their bullion both out of sight of their starving and enslaved victims as well as out of the hands of thieves who were either stealthy enough to steal it or powerful enough to overcome their hired guards and take it.

It was of the utmost necessity to find a safe place for their hoards of bullion.

They could not bury it in the ground or under the floor because there was just too much of it. 

They needed a treasury that was guarded constantly and which they could enter and leave at will.

Temple strong rooms were the only answer.

But Problem #2,

“The gods do not protect tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] wealth”

also created a corollary question of:

“Which of the gods offered the most protection for a moneylender’s wealth?”

None of the gods of Mesopotamia had proven to be powerful enough.

Although the Moon God had seemed like the ideal god of moneylender stealth and secrecy – waning and waxing like the depressions and inflations that the moneylenders created and profited by – in fact, no Mesopotamian god was especially partial to the moneylenders.

The thefts of their bullion by the kings at various times from all of the temples of all of the gods, was enough proof for the moneylenders in this matter.

It was obvious to them that they ultimately needed the protection of the mightiest of gods guarding their money securely in the mightiest of temple treasuries.

The mightiest and most powerful and most awe-inspiring god would have to be found for this task of guarding their bullion because banks with steel vaults and burglar alarms had not been invented, yet.

The money lenders reasoned that because none of the temples had given one hundred percent guarantee of safety for their hoards of bullion, obviously they had been trusting the wrong gods and the wrong temples with their loot.

This was the only conclusion that made sense to these ancient schemers.

This had to be the cause of their problem!

None of the Babylonian gods had offered total protection because they had been trusting the wrong gods.

The moneylenders realized that they needed a god who was particularly fond of and beneficent towards moneylenders and merchants.

But which god?

And where could He be found since He was obviously not residing in any of the temples of Mesopotamia?

This engendered Problem #3:

When the strongest city is not strong enough, where can one go for safety?”

Like all other people of the ancient Near East, the moneylenders were free to worship whatever god they chose.

But if none of the gods were partial to them and their special needs, then it was obvious that they had to find a god who would protect them against all other gods and against the thefts of both king and commoner.

They needed a special “God of the Moneylenders” who would protect them alone, an unknown god who had no connection to the Mesopotamian pantheon.

And this god had to have a temple to dwell in and to guard their treasures.

Since all of the gods of Mesopotamia had proven that they were not partial to protecting the moneylenders, this special god of the moneylenders would obviously have to be found outside of Babylonia and Assyria.

All of the cities of Mesopotamia already had temples dedicated to the god of each location and all of those temples had been robbed by the kings or raided by enemies.

The moneylenders knew for certain that they needed to find a god who dwelled in some location outside of Mesopotamia to protect their hoards of bullion.

The residence city of that god would have to offer the best protection for the temple and its treasury.

The city could be anywhere as long as it was near the trade routes and not already inhabited by a Mesopotamian god.

Also, the temple and the god could not be like any other temple or god because as they correctly observed for Problem #4:

“Wealth escapes into the god’s temples.”

So, even if they could find such a god and locate their treasury in such a city, the fourth problem would still occur.

No matter what god they trusted with their wealth and with their worship and their sacrifices, it was only a matter of time before the temple of this god would begin to acquire its own wealth through donations and offerings.

And this wealth would be money that devotees would take from their own finances and from their own families and from their own tamkarum trade guilds to give to the god in the temple. 

Thus, once again, the silver and gold that the moneylenders coveted for themselves would be given to the god, thereby reducing their own wealth.

Through pious relatives as well as through their own gifts, wealth would be absorbed by the temple no matter to which god the members of the tamkarum guilds devoted themselves.

And so, whatever temple that they found to protect their wealth, would have to be in some way under their personal control.

In Babylonia and Assyria, tamkarum [merchant moneylender] control of the temples was impossible because the temples had been in existence since before there were moneylenders. 

Their priestly staff had passed down their offices to their sons in an unbroken genealogical lineage.

No moneylender could hope to step into such a closed shop except through marriage and even then, the sons and daughters of such a marriage would be devoted to the god and to the temple.

The kings had gained some control over the temples by installing sons and daughters as chief priests and priestesses.

So, between the inherited office of the temple priests and the king’s assigned office to his sons and daughters, there was no opportunity for tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] infiltration. 

The tamkarum could corrupt and bribe the priests but could not take their places.

The only way to solve such a problem, was to establish a temple of their own with themselves as the priests.

But how was something like that possible?

And there was Problem #5:

“Guild members follow different gods.”

This problem was older than any other problem.

Whether a man and his family followed Ishtar or Sin or Marduk, usually didn’t matter as long as his loyalties to his tamkarum [merchant moneylender] guild were not affected.

However, this problem’s harm to their total wealth only became painfully apparent to the tamkarum guilds after their ejection from Egypt.

While family members and relatives usually followed the same gods that were honored by their fathers, it was not uncommon for them to honor other gods of the pantheon.

The gods of Babylonia and Assyria were like a big family in that all of the gods were related to one another.

The ancient stories of how the gods came into being had been passed down from before Sumerian times, long before 3300 BC.

The Epic of Creation was recited during the New Year’s celebration in Babylon each year.

So, everyone in Mesopotamia and the surrounding countries knew where the gods came from and their genealogical relationship to one another.

In general, for the average Babylonian to change loyalties from the god of his father or from the god of his guild and switch to some other god was not a great problem since the Mesopotamian pantheon was all one related family of gods and goddesses.

But for the tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guilds, it was a major problem because a man’s loyalties to another temple would often pre-empt his devotion to the moneylender’s guilds and to the gods of the moneylenders guilds.

It was a problem for the moneylenders because such a man’s new-found devotion often caused him to donate his wealth to that god’s temple, thus depriving the merchant moneylender guilds (as well as depriving specific moneylender families) of wealth that could have been invested to generate more profits.

This became an even more acute Problem #6:

“Close relatives are lured away by the gods.”

The tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guilds were especially affected when, after being ejected from Egypt, many of their guild brothers proclaimed their loyalties to the Canaanite gods such as Ba’al and joined with the Hyksos of the Mediterranean faction to establish the competing guilds of Phoenicia.

Remember, the ancient peoples believed that the gods dwelled in specific geographical locations.

So, when they moved to a new city or country it was common to begin praying to the gods of that country.

The Phoenician Hyksos could not be prevented from leaving through appeal to their loyalty to the Babylonian gods simply because the Babylonian gods resided in Babylonia and the Canaanite gods resided in Canaan. =

It was this local character of the gods that had cost the tamkarum guilds so much.

What the moneylenders needed was a god who was not restricted to a particular city but whose domain extended to the very farthest trade routes beyond the borders of any country.

The tamkarum guilds of Babylonia had lost huge amounts of treasure as well as the entire Mediterranean trade monopolies and their connected trade routes to the competing faction of Phoenician Hyksos.

The Phoenician Hyksos had gained independence from them partially because of the new gods that they worshipped.

Thus, the problem of how to keep their guild members from praying to foreign gods, became a major issue during the retreat from Egypt.

Identical with this problem, but much more personally injurious to the patriarchs of the tamkarum guilds, was Problem #7:

“What keeps people loyal?”

What is the result when a close family member began worshipping another god?

While worshipping some other god was a pecuniary loss to the trade guilds, it was a loss of not just wealth but a loss of power to the patriarchs of the moneylender families.

Remember, the foundation of those merchant-moneylender businesses had been based upon:

• families
• tribes
• marriage connections

and guild brotherhoods since Sumerian times.

They had developed an extended patriarchal system of authority that could transcend individual families through genealogical relationships.

And all of it was rooted in the authority of the individual sheik or chief or patriarch or father of the tribe.

So, for a son or other family member to declare his loyalty to a god other than the god of his father was to remove himself from the authority of his father.

His son could claim independence simply by claiming the protection of some other god, a god who might even be an enemy god in the pantheon.

And so, by 1500 BC, the tamkarum guilds were finding that their control of business and finance was weakened when guild members and family members became devotees of other gods.

Loss of control was a very big problem for them.

Problem #7 had ramifications in all spheres of business and politics:

“What keeps people loyal?”

Certainly, fear of the gods keeps them loyal to certain gods.

But they also knew that material goods were even more important to the ordinary people. 

Plenty of food, a share of the loot, loyalty to their leaders and devotion to the same god, were all a necessary part of the methods that the patriarchs used to control their employees and families.

As Joseph, their Hyksos Minister of the Granary, had demonstrated when he had starved the Egyptian people into submission in order to force them into digging up their gold and silver images and jewelry, people will sell their own children into slavery in exchange for something to eat.

And as their Hyksos generals had demonstrated, as long as they are impoverished enough, men are willing to fight and die in exchange for the mere promise of loot.

The promise is enough because once they began to fight and die, it didn’t matter if they got any loot or not. Just the promise of loot was enough to con them into fighting for free.

And if they won, the loot didn’t cost the tamkarum anything since it was looted from the vanquished and could then be purloined from the victorious soldiers through the Sumerian Swindle.

The merchant-moneylenders had raised an army of shepherds and had conquered Egypt with such an army.

They had done it cheaply, too.

With food and a promise of wealth, loyalty to the leaders could be bought and it mattered little whether their mercenaries even followed the same god or not.

But what an even greater power would they have, if all of them could be induced to follow the same god?

Then, whatever army that they could raise, would have the unifying power behind it of a single god rather than the power of a greedy rabble, each of whom followed different gods.

The guild patriarchs discussed how they could escape from these recurring problems that the Hyksos adventure in Egypt had raised.

Just as they had been able to subvert Assyria and Babylonia with the Sumerian Swindle shared between the interlocking tribal connections of their genealogies, so too did they begin to perceive a way to use such links to put themselves into power over yet another people. 

Problem #8 was actually a part of the solution:

“Genealogies link tribes but without a root.”

Their Hyksos generals had organized the nomadic shepherds into a single army by amalgamating related friendly tribes and by keeping separated those tribes whose genealogical histories preserved ancient animosities.

It was very useful to military morale to use such a system of combining brotherly affection and keeping separated familial bitterness.

The lesson was not lost on the tamkarum patriarchs of Babylonia.

They appreciated anything that would increase efficiency and therefore profits.

Once Pharaoh Ahmose had retaken his country and kicked them all out of Egypt, these competing tribes once again scattered across Canaan and Sinai without a unifying genealogy to keep them governable.

But what if it was possible to take unrelated tribes with unrelated genealogies and link them into a single genealogy?

What would be the possibilities if all of the Amorite tribes could be linked within a single genealogy with the tamkarum [merchant moneylenders], themselves, as the foundational root of that genealogical tree?

And if that root was made worthy and virtuous enough, with plenty of prestige connect to the tribal asl, then a genealogical swindle could be invoked whereby all of those tribes could be induced to obey the central authority of patriarchs at the root of the tree.

Like the fraudulent accounting records “proving” with fake arithmetic that more was owed than was borrowed, such a genealogical swindle could be accomplished entirely in writing. 

Thus, the solution to Problem #8 began to take form.

As for Problem #9:

“The Kings gain wealth by taxing both rich and poor,”

how could that be circumvented?

They had put themselves on Pharaoh’s throne and had profited from all of the taxes that they had placed upon Egypt.

As the wealthy awilum [the Haves] in Egypt, they knew how much more they could have by shifting the tax burden onto the poor.

The poor have less than the rich but since there are so many more poor people than rich people, the government could make more in total taxes by taxing the poor and not taxing the rich.

Even in modern times, this inequality of taxes is observed where the ratio of taxes favors the rich and oppresses the poor simply because the rich write the tax laws.

The Kings gain wealth by taxing both rich and poor.

This loss of profits through taxes to the king was as old as the Sumerian Swindle, itself.

They had circumvented taxes by smuggling whenever they could get away with it.

But smuggling had the unpleasant risk of discovery and punishment.

Besides, it was best policy to always fawn at the feet of the king and show outward signs of complete submission and loyalty.

Getting caught at smuggling always destroyed such hypocrisy.

So, the merchant-moneylenders had always paid the taxes and safe passage licenses when they could find no other alternative.

And they always protected their reputation for loyalty with many layers of middlemen separating them from their smuggling operations.

One alternative that they had developed was to gain control of the tax collection process and turn it into a profitable business.

As tax farmers, they could guarantee the kings a set amount of taxes, beat more than that amount out of the People, and keep the remainder for themselves.

Such power gave them the leeway to tax their guild brothers lightly.

In addition, fear of the tax collector’s office gave them the prestige and fear-induced respect from the People that they craved.

So, from the earliest days, the tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] coveted the office of tax collector for their sons.

With a family member in such an office, they could reduce the taxes on the rich and collect the shortfall from the poor.

Controlling kings was better than being a king.

This was Problem #10:

“Kings are targets, so it is better to hold the target your hands than to be a target.”

When they had had the opportunity to sit on the throne of Pharaoh, the tamkarum guilds had wasted no time in assuming kingship over Egypt.

So, having one of their own as king was a great advantage.

But being a king was fraught with peril.

Yet, who is above a king?

Certainly not a scheming merchant or moneylender.

The only one who was above a king, was a temple priest.

The priest gave the king his authority to rule because such power was passed down from the gods.

But the priests had gained their own power from ancient times and had passed down their priestly office to their own sons.

So, the merchant moneylender patriarchs considered ways in which they could infiltrate the priesthood and put their sons into the position of head priest.

In this way, they could hold the king in their hands and rule both the temple and the palace.

And if the king dies or is assassinated, transferring their “loyalty” to the next king was an easy task for such as they, experts in fawning humility and deceit and hypocrisy.

Problem #11:

“We tamkarum [merchant moneylenders] promote warfare and thereby profit enormously; but while inveigling others to do the fighting, how can we avoid military service without invoking the wrath of our victims?”

Only someone like Terah, the Patriarch of the moneylender guild of Ur and Harran, could both understand the importance of this question and devise a solution.

Through their international spy networks, the tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] could predict with some accuracy the probable winners in any war.

Knowing the amounts of precious metals in every king’s treasury and the amounts of the grain harvests, they could usually predict the winners in any conflict.

The profits from war were tremendous not only from loans to kings, but from the higher prices that they could get for their goods.

Plus, the booze, gambling, and whoring that the soldiers were so fond of, brought in huge wealth. But as profitable as war was, and is, to a moneylender, actually being drafted into the king’s army was a frightful and dangerous hazard.

Let the Have-Nots go to war.

Let the Haves go to war.

There were profits in foreclosing on the surviving widows’ homes and buying the abandoned property of both the Haves and the Have-Nots.

But the moneylenders counted themselves as a superior class of Haves.

They deserved to stay safely at home, counting the profits, and far away from the:

• brutality
• hardship
• bloodshed
• maiming

and death which they promoted.

Terah had moved his family to the city of Harran especially to enjoy the god-decreed immunity of its citizens from military service.

By the time that he had sent his son, Abraham, to Canaan, he had already devised a solution to this problem.

And Problem #12 needed a solution:

“Armies are expensive so how can they be induced to fight for free?”

The Egyptian invasion had been made possible for the moneylender guilds simply because they had not needed a prohibitive amount of silver as payment for the soldiers.

Certainly, the merchant-moneylender guilds had to finance the Hyksos invasion through an actual outlay of silver to pay for supplies and mercenaries.

But they had also been able to save a huge amount of money by paying the shepherds and goat rustlers with nothing but promises, promises of loot.

This system was very workable when the target was a wealthy nation like Egypt because even if they had never seen Egypt for themselves, the poor shepherds of Canaan and Sinai knew very well of the incredible wealth that was in Egypt simply because of the stories that had circulated throughout the ancient Near East about that fabled land.

So, it did not take much to convince them to fight in exchange for a few baskets of grain and the promise of all the loot they could steal.

But finally, the Hyksos had been no match for the determined revenge and joy of combat exhibited by the returning Egyptian forces.

No amount of money could make a man fight with such abandon.

Neither grain nor silver nor promises of loot could induce the Hyksos to match the ferocity of the avenging Egyptian soldiers.

What the tamkarum financiers discussed in their guild meetings in Babylonia as they analyzed their Egyptian adventure, was whether or not it was possible to get soldiers to fight for free in every war.

They could certainly make a lot more money if the soldiers did not have to be paid.

This brought up Problem #13:

“When conquering a country, how can it be secured?

(Assyrian deportation? Genocide? Slavery?)”

In Egypt, they had wanted primarily to steal everything that they could and carry it back to Babylonia.

The reasons that their plans did not entirely succeed have already been mentioned as the other groups of Hyksos carried off some of the loot for their own purposes.

For 108 years, they had siphoned the wealth out of Egypt and had worked the Egyptians as slaves but that had been their only purpose.

They had not originally intended to take the land for themselves because they had plenty of land of their own in Babylonia.

But now that they had been kicked out, they wondered if ravaging a country for riches without physically possessing that country was the best policy.

What if they had actually taken Egypt as their own property or what if some other opportunity arose whereby, they could treat some other country in the same way that they had treated Egypt?

What should they do under such circumstances?

It made no sense to repeat their same mistakes.

Once they had seized a country, why not keep it forever?

And what was the most efficient way to do that?

In Babylonia, they had been disenfranchising their own people for thousands of years.

The tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] had gained huge profits from betraying their countrymen and selling the land to foreigners.

They were resident landlords who invited foreigners to buy up the land that they had swindled and foreclosed.

And once the foreigners became comfortable with paying loans-at-interest, then the tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] would:

• swindle
• dispossess
• enslave

them in turn and sell the land to yet another foreign people.

They were resident traitors and parasites who had been around longer than anybody could remember.

As such, they were already living in the country that they had betrayed.

But the same method would not work in a land that they wanted to capture because they were not already residents of the land but had entered as foreign invaders, themselves.

So, how could they take countries and keep them?

Should they capture a country and deport the population like the Assyrians did?

Should they slaughter and genocide the population?

Should they enslave the population?

Or practice all of those methods?

All of those methods would leave the merchant-moneylenders in complete possession.

If the merchant-moneylenders kept the conquered people alive, it would cost money to feed them.

So, should they capture and enslave the people, or should they murder them?

Problem #14 had always been vexatious.

“Moneylenders are despised.

Yet, how can we have honor and prestige?”

No one in ancient society was more hated than the moneylenders while honor and prestige was always denied to them.

What little prestige that they enjoyed was only accorded to them as they entered villages at the head of donkey caravans or as they were feted by dignitaries who coveted their exotic trade goods.

Thus, it was only prestige that they could buy and not at all heart-felt or genuine prestige.

They were not honored as the great men whom they believed themselves to be.

But they were honored as their whores were honored, a tawdry honor that disappeared as soon as they had given up what they had.

But even this minor prestige of being a new face in town who carried trade goods or of being someone willing to lend-at-interest to a starving family whose only collateral was a pretty daughter, even such minor prestige as this was always over-ridden by hatred, hatred for their profession and hatred for themselves.

So, they wanted to solve this continuing Problem 14:

“Moneylenders are despised.

Yet, how can we have honor and prestige?”

How can hatred for the tamkarum [merchant moneylenders] be turned into love?

Obviously, it cannot.

The moneylenders had:

• stolen
• swindled
• pimped
• debauched

and betrayed the People around them for thousands of years.

Nothing that they could do would make the people love them.

But these parasites had to live among those from whom they derived their living.

This was always very dangerous for them.

The bodily assaults upon their persons and upon their families, they had been able to thwart mainly through repressive and ruthless penalties at law.

But regardless of laws, there was always that one person driven mad from loss of his loved ones to the tamkarum slave market or by the foreclosure of his property, such a desperate person would murder a moneylender just for the pleasure of doing it regardless of the penalty. 

Of course, the hatred that everyone had for the moneylenders was well-deserved.

But they viewed such hatred as a side-effect of the profession, something that they had to get used to.

Although they deserved the hatred, even so, they wanted to figure out a way to avoid its consequences.

This age-old problem of the moneylenders was always with them.

They could make the people fear them but never to love them.

But perhaps there was a way to make the people, if not love them, then at least to hate them less. Perhaps hatred could be turned into pity.

And through such pity for the moneylenders, the oppressed could be deceived into feeling pity for their oppressors.

Pity was not love but at least it tempered the hate.

And those who had pity for the moneylenders, were less likely to want to harm them.

So, the question remained of how could the most loathsome of creatures be pitied rather than hated?

How could the richest of vampires be looked upon with pity by the very victims whose blood they had sucked?

And finally, Problem #15 had always been difficult for them to solve.

“The Sumerian Swindle was both a secret and a mystical gift of the tamkarum gods.

How could it be protected forever as a possession of the tamkarum families alone?”

BOOK: GRAPHIC NOVEL: The Black Monday Murders (2016-2018) – Library of Rickandria

It was a secret because of its immense profits to the moneylenders who didn’t want to share it with anyone.

But it also had to remain a secret because if the People ever learned how they had been: 

• deceived
• defrauded
• enslaved

and betrayed, through a mere arithmetical trick, they would rise up and murder every financier and every banker without exception.

By this time of 1550 BC, the moneylenders had amazed themselves with their own account books.

It was an incredible wonder to them (and to the Reader, too, if you think about it) that the Sumerian Swindle produced so much wealth out of absolutely nothing.

To receive three baskets of grain after you loan out two, is an amazing work of magic.

To be paid two shekels of silver after you loan out one shekel becomes to the lender even more amazingly wonderful the higher that the loan amounts become.

And with compound interest, these numbers increase astronomically until the borrower can no longer pay you.

For the very tiniest of loans, he ends up giving you his farm, his daughters and sons, his wife and finally submits himself to the slave shackles that your sheriffs and goons bind him with. 

The Sumerian Swindle is a diabolical invention that boggles the mind.

And it was the secret power and the personal weapon of the world’s greediest, most ruthless and most treasonous denizens.

It boggled the minds of those ancient scoundrels that such incredible wealth could be achieved with so little actual effort.

To people who believed in:

• gods and goddesses
• witchcraft
• sorcery
• demons
• angelic spirits
• necromancy
• fortune-telling
• omens

and divination, it seemed obvious that such a simple trick of arithmetic was magic.

Vast fortunes were made while their victims bowed at their feet and offered up the interest payments from their hard labor and even sold their children to pay off the loans while the moneylender merely put out his hand to take the offerings.

The Sumerian Swindle was a magical gift of the gods.

That is, it appeared to be a gift of the gods to those who practiced the Sumerian Swindle.

What could be more miraculous than gaining all of the wealth of Mankind plus ownership of the entire world and the enslavement of all of its people in exchange for nothing other than a small loan-at-interest?

But to those who were merely borrowers, it was an invisible and subtle shackle around their necks that they could not remove without incessant labor and privation, believing as they did that:

“it has always been here.”

To an outsider’s view, the merchant-moneylenders monopolized moneylending in order to preserve high interest rates and to protect profits.

And the moneylenders used every tactic from bankruptcy of rivals to murder to keep their monopoly within their own guilds and under their personal control.

But what no outsider realized, was that the moneylender guilds were protecting not just moneylending, itself, but the very secret that moneylending is a criminal conspiracy of swindlers and thieves.

And as long as banking and moneylending could be restricted to their own criminal elite, they could keep their conspiracy to defraud the world their very own secret.

So, more than anything else, these criminals needed deceit and lies.

Regardless of either its business or its criminal nature, what the tamkarum patriarchs of Babylonia realized was that whatever god was the true god of the moneylenders, that god would have to be their very own god unaligned with any other god.

Certainly, it could be none other than an act of a god that the moneylenders, and only the moneylenders, had received the wealth of the world as a free gift from whatever god it was who cherished the moneylenders with his magnanimous beneficence.

Only the hated moneylenders had the people of the world, both kings and peasants, kissing their feet as a result of their debts and poverty.

So, the moneylenders knew that just as the secrets of the Sumerian Swindle was theirs alone, so too must the god of the moneylenders be theirs alone.

Only a god who especially loved the tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] could protect their treasures and keep their secrets.

Only a god who had given them so much and who had secretly blessed them above all other people with such wealth and its resulting power, could be their god.

That special god who had secretly blessed the tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] above all other people, had to exist somewhere other than in Mesopotamia and yet be so powerful as to extend his blessing over the long centuries to the moneylenders in Mesopotamia.

But where could that god be found?

He most certainly had to exist somewhere because the huge piles of silver and gold from their ill-gotten wealth, was proof that they were loved by some god somewhere.

Obviously, this mysterious god had to be a very mighty god whose power extended into the domains of all other gods because the Sumerian Swindle produced wealth for them in every country where other gods also resided.

Such was the power of their god!

The Moon God and the Sun God were mighty gods whose power was spread above all lands. 

But as much as the tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] had honored even the Moon God, their treasures were stolen by the kings never-the-less.

And yet, even if they were left with just a remnant of their wealth, through the Sumerian Swindle, they could gain it all back again.

This was true in every country where the Sun God or the Moon God stood in the heavens.

So, it was obvious that this secret god of the tamkarum was more powerful than any of the other gods.

To the mind of an ancient moneylender, this all made perfect sense.

They had a secret wealth and power from the Sumerian Swindle; and that wealth and that power could only be from the benevolent will of a secret and a mighty god.

The merchants and the moneylenders discussed these problems and considered a variety of solutions during their guild meetings over pots of beer, just as modern-day merchants and moneylenders discuss their own problems today.

They discussed the problems but because they were also competing guilds, they didn’t have to discuss the solutions to those problems.

As it was, only one tamkarum guild actually figured out a way to solve these Fifteen Problems. 

And this was the merchant-moneylender guild in the ancient city of Ur.

But before divulging the solutions to these fifteen problems, it is best to refresh memory of who these ancient moneylenders actually were.

Yes, they were members of the highest level of Mesopotamian society.

They were members of the awilum [the Haves] social class which included the kings and top administrators, the head priests, and all of the people who were not indebted to anyone.

More specifically, they belonged to the secretive, wealthy social sub-group of tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders].

Because they were below the kings and priests in the social hierarchy, it was never wise of them to flaunt their wealth in such a way as to embarrass those kings and administrators and priests. 

Rather, they always found it more beneficial to sell expensive luxuries to those social groups while hypocritically assuming postures of humility and subservience.

The kings and priests were not only their customers but were also their protectors.

They could only claim protection if they were perceived as being both subservient and less wealthy.

For this reason, and because it was good business practice to keep their wealth hidden, the moneylenders feigned a poverty that was not a reality.

They could flaunt their wealth for whatever prestige it would bring from their peers and subalterns but not so much as to arouse covetousness from the kings.

If they appeared to be too wealthy, they could not deny loans with the excuse that they were out-of-money.

Besides being slick salesmen, they were:

• ultimate liars
• carnival barkers
• con artists

and murdering thieves, these merchant-moneylenders of Assyria and Babylonia.

Keep in mind that these tamkarum [merchant moneylenders] had achieved their wealth over a period of 2000 years through the secret mechanism of the Sumerian Swindle.

It was a secret based on swindling money by lending-it-at-interest.

And they profited from side businesses financed by their moneylending scams.

The moneylenders and their extended families became profiteers of:

• real estate swindles
• slavery
• loansharking
• gambling
• liquor
• prostitution
• pawn brokering
• war finance
• bribery
• treason

and murder.

Murder was one of their methods for eliminating competitors and terrorizing their victims.

And they debauched potential business partners with their homosexual perversions, dragging them down to their own level of dissipation and depravity in order to entrap and blackmail them.

These were the moneylenders, merchants and bankers of the ancient Near East.

They were all without exception despicable fiends.

These thoroughly criminal gangsters were the very ones who controlled ancient society, just as they do today, not because that was how:

“it had always been”

but because their criminality was so ancient that it manifested:

“long before anyone could remember.”

No one could remember a time when the moneylenders had not been a part of society.

So, their criminality was accepted as something normal to society rather than the aberration that it was and really is.

The days when Mankind served the gods and lived a good life of peace and harmony with Nature, had been forgotten as the tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] perverted Mankind into living a life devoted to:

• warfare
• debauchery
• paying-interest-on-a-loan

Remember once again the Parable of Joseph’s Penny [see page-30] and you can begin to understand the immense wealth that these scheming charlatans of Babylonia had at their disposal.

Not just the tons of gold that they had stolen from Egypt but the many times more tons of silver and gold, slaves and property, that they had been swindling from their own people for 2,000 years!!!

And can you begin to understand how very, very important it was for them to have a place to store their huge hoards of silver and gold bullion?

There was a lot of it. It had to be safe, and it had to be kept out of sight of both thieving kings and destitute commoners alike.

Only the treasury of a temple could provide such secretive safety where only the priests could enter.

But the temples of Assyria and Babylonia had all been raided many times over the centuries. 

So, a safe temple of a mighty god and its treasury had to be located away from the armies of the kings in some place other than in Mesopotamia.

These are the facts about the profiteers of the Sumerian Swindle in both ancient and modern times.

By the time that the Hyksos had been kicked out of Egypt in 1550 BC, these Babylonian moneylenders had been charging interest on loans worth trillions of times more than just a penny!

And they had been doing it for 2,000 years!

And they had been charging a lot more than 5% interest.

They were charging:

• 20%
• 30%
• 50%

or even 100%, if they could find someone desperate enough.

Of course, their loans were either paid off or foreclosed long before such huge numbers could be calculated in accrued interest on the clay tablets.

Yet, their profits were obscenely astronomical and calculated to never be paid off so that they could seize property and enslave fools.

Just as the bankers do in modern times!

Most of the above Fifteen Problems had been recognized by the various tamkarum guilds of Babylonia during the course of business throughout the centuries.

They were old problems that all of them had experienced but didn’t do anything about.

Some of these problems only became of crucial importance as the result of the Hyksos expulsion from Egypt.

The guild patriarchs traveled from city to city in their duties of overlooking and coordinating the tamkarum monopolies of goods and loan rates.

• Feasting
• whoring
• sharing ideas
• exchanging gossip

and offering business intelligence, was a part of their daily routine.

Furthermore, as traveling guild officials, these patriarchs discussed these problems at their guild meeting halls.

Most of them shrugged off the situation and went back to business-as-usual,

• lending money
• enslaving debtors
• foreclosing properties
• monopolizing trade

and deceiving kings.

All while competing with one another for advantage and profits!

Their marriage-related families had been doing such business for nearly 2000 years, and they were experts at it.

But there was one particular patriarch of one particular moneylender guild who did not shrug off these Egyptian problems as a thing of the past.

This tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] recognized that the great wealth that he had achieved could not be maintained and preserved with the tricks of the Sumerian Swindle alone.

New schemes had to be devised, otherwise the recurring weaknesses of their business model could face destruction at any time.

And with the new Mediterranean markets being developed by the Phoenician Hyksos, with such a huge profit potential for swindling all of Europe and Africa, a solution for these problems had to be found.

His answer for these fifteen problems was devised in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur.

This had been the main tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guild city since the very most ancient of times for one very good reason.

Ur was the southern-most Babylonia city where all of the international traders from the Persian Gulf docked their ships to off-load trade goods for distribution along both the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

The tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guild at the city of Ur, more than any other guild in Mesopotamia, had the first choice of goods and the first news from distant ports.

These guild members knew of the events beyond the horizon in much more detail and much sooner than any king.

The guild members of Ur had traded with Dilmun (Bahrain) and Meluhha (India) and around the Arabian Peninsula and cross the Red Sea for trade with Africa since the earliest times.

And it was from Ur that the ships had sailed to supply the Nubians with trade goods and the shepherds of Canaan and the Sinai with weapons for the Hyksos attack on Egypt.

The moneylender guilds of Ur had a special interest in the Hyksos invasion of Egypt because they had financed and planned it.

And it was in Ur that the highest development of the Sumerian Swindle from which the world had yet to suffer, was conceived.

It was obvious to the Guild Patriarch of Ur that the most vital solution for all of these fifteen problems was to first establish a base of operations that had a secure fortress for protecting their gold and silver.

This had been the number one and most important goal of the tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] since the most ancient times, protecting what they had.

But there was no place in Mesopotamia that had proven to be impregnable.

Indeed, the very fact that even the greatest cities were built of mud bricks, left very little to the imagination of attacking generals as to ways of breaking through and turning such cities into piles of dirt.

With vast fortunes at their disposal, the tamkarum guild at Ur was looking for a city whose walls could be built of stone with a location well-suited to defense.

Stone was absent in the alluvial, riverine lands of Babylonia.

Although stone was found to the north in Assyria, the Assyrian kings had proven to be temple wreckers and treasure thieves.

But closer to the emerging markets of the Mediterranean Basin were plenty of stone and rocks.

In addition to defensive walls, the required city needed to be near to the trade routes which were the lifeblood of the merchants and moneylenders.

It had to be located somewhere outside of Mesopotamia so as to avoid the conflicts between Babylonian and Assyrian kings who were both in a constant need of money for their empires. 

The moneylenders liked to lend silver to the kings at interest but did not want them breaking into their treasuries and taking what they wanted.

During the 108 years of the Egyptian occupation, their Hyksos generals and scouts had apprised the tamkarum guild at Ur not only of the geography and trade potential of Egypt, Nubia and Libya but of:

• Arabia
• Sinai
• Canaan

as well.

Their trade caravans and traveling agents had penetrated into every town and village then known, carrying trade goods in and carrying:

• silver
• gold
• intelligence

back out to Babylonia and the city of Ur.

The guild Patriarch of Ur was informed by his spies and the returning Hyksos generals that the place where all of the moneylenders’ requirements for a temple could be met to the best advantage, was located atop two rocky spurs that were protected on the:

• southern
• western
• eastern

sides by two deep valleys.

Atop these ridges in the Judean Mountains, between the Mediterranean Sea and the northern edge of the Dead Sea, a fortified town already stood.

As a dwelling place, it only had the defensive qualities of its location as its only worthwhile attribute.

The site offered no other advantages other than being a safe place to live.

It did not dominate communications nor was it surrounded by fertile land.

It was not a location that would attract conquering kings because it offered no military or commercial advantages to a king.

The countryside was waterless.

That factor alone made it difficult to attack since the defenders could draw upon water stored in cisterns while the attackers would be forced to travel long distances to replenish their supplies.

With its precipitous valleys and plenty of building stone, the place was an ideal location for a fortress.

But it was a fortress designed not to guard a trade route or a valley of ripening grain because there were none of these in the area.

It was to be a fortress to guard a metallic treasure, a hidden and secret treasure ensconced within a temple.

This small and old town sitting atop this rocky spur was named Urusalim, after Shalim, a deity personified as a god of the dusk.

For the moneylenders of Ur, whose main deity was Sin, the Moon God, this was an omen – a strong fortress location named after a god of the secretive darkness, a god whose “day” began in the evening.

The evening and the morning were the first day.

To begin his scheme, the patriarch of the tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guild at Ur, hired his most loyal servants and his best allies from the south of Ur, the tribe of Amorites known as the Binu-Yamina (Benjamin).

The tribe of Binu-Yamina (Benjamin) had long been the closest ally of the moneylenders of Ur. 

They had made themselves useful as mercenaries and strong-arm gangs for collecting loan payments and as the moneylenders’ troops of private security guards during regime changes of the city state.

Their new assignment was to travel to the region around Urusalim and capture the surrounding territories.

Urusalim, itself, could not be taken because of its defensive strength but the surrounding territories could be occupied.

At this time, around 1520 BC, the major fighting in Canaan between the returning Hyksos shepherds and the established towns of that land had barely begun.

The Apiru tribes were scattered.

So, into the relatively peaceful lands the Binu-Yamina (Benjamin) mercenaries and guild merchants traveled well-armed and with enough silver and trade goods to buy whatever loyalties they needed from the towns and the tribes who lived in the land around Urusalim. 

That their Amorite language was a slightly different dialect from the Hebrew tribes of Canaan, made them unique and odd-sounding to the Hebrew goat-rustlers.

Their pronunciations of their southern Babylonian Amorite dialect along with their loyalty to the patriarch of the tamkarum guild of Ur, made them note-worthy.

Re-establishing control over the various Apiru (Hebrew) tribes that they had enjoyed during their Hyksos days, was a part of the Ur patriarch’s scheme.

The Hebrews were a fighting force of scattered tribes who were willing to fight for nothing more than the loot that they could steal from the Canaanite villages and towns.

So, getting them to fight for free was a good business strategy.

But each tribe was fighting for their individual tribal gain and often against each other.

There was nothing welding them into a single army once again because once they had run away from Egypt, the Hebrew shepherds had broken up into their genealogical tribal factions. 

But the patriarch of the Ur guild had devised a plan to solve that problem.

It was into this bandit-ruled countryside of wandering tribes and walled towns and cities that the patriarch of the tamkarum trade guild at Ur sent his teams of peddlers and traders.

Bandits needed trade goods just like everybody else.

And those particular bandits were carrying huge amounts of silver and gold that they had looted from Egypt.

The Patriarch of Ur wanted to recover that treasure.

• Copper pots and pans
• garments
• grain
• horses
• weapons

whatever could turn a profit was exchanged for looted jewelry or bullion or stolen luxury items.

Sailing the long way around Arabia to the Gulf of Aqaba gave him all necessary supplies without alerting either the Babylonian kings or the competing tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] trade guilds of his investments.

For the short-term strategy of the tamkarum patriarch of Ur, gathering in the Egyptian loot that these Hyksos goat-rustlers still had in their possession, was accomplished through trade.

For his long-term strategy to succeed, the genealogies of those tribes would have to be recorded.

And the only way to do that was to trade with them and swap stories around the campfires.

The patriarch wanted to know their various genealogies because it was his intention to tie them all together into a single army by linking their various family lines into a single genealogy with himself and his family at the root.

These scattered tribes of bandits were to be his soldiers who would fight for free as guardians of his future treasury.

The guild Patriarch of Ur also needed to use the trade routes to tie his scheme together.

While Ur was the one city in Babylonia where the ships of the sea and the boats of the rivers and canals met, in the northern city of Harran there was another convergence of trade routes.

Harran means “road” and was applied to that city because Harran sat upon the roads that converged between the Mediterranean Sea, from:

• Egypt
• Arabia
• Palestine

the major trade routes through Mesopotamia, the routes from the Iranian plateau, as well as the silk road from China.

Miles Williams Mathis: Iran’s Jewish Rulers – Library of Rickandria

All of these trade routes converged at Harran.

Also, the legal status of Harran differed from that of any other city.

In Babylonia, the cuneiform tablets indicated that there were certain privileged cities such as 

• Nippur
• Babylon
• Sippar

And in Assyria, the old capital Asshur and Harran in Upper Mesopotamia were “free cities”.

The inhabitants of these “free cities” were exempt from:

• conscripted labor
• military service
• taxes

The privileges accorded the inhabitants of these cities were under divine protection of the gods and therefore could not be changed or revoked by any king.

Thus, both Ur and Harran were the central-most cities for international trade.

The sea routes converged at Ur and the land routes converged at Harran.

Harran and Ur were sister cities not only in their strategic location on respective trade route terminals but also because they were both the temple cities of Sin, the Moon God, the god of the merchant-moneylenders.

Naturally, the tamkarum [merchant-moneylender] guilds of both cities were intimately linked through:

• business relations
• religion
• marriage

Praying to Sin, the same Moon God, and sharing between them the monopoly of the international trade routes, the two tamkarum guilds of both cities were linked together as the same extended family of swindlers.

Each city had advantages lacking in the other.

The Patriarch of Ur wanted to combine both advantages into the same corporation.

So, to cement relations even more solidly between himself and the guild patriarch of Harran, he adopted that patriarch’s son as his own and named him after the city of his birth, Haran.

We know the name of the Patriarch of the moneylender’s trade guild in the city of Ur because it is recorded in the Old Testament.

Terah was his name (meaning “Ibex” in Babylonian).

He had three sons named Nahor, Abram, and his adopted son, Haran.

Leaving his oldest son and his adopted son in charge of the tamkarum guild at Ur, Terah enlisted the help of his second son, Abram, and the two of them, along with their extended families, traveled to Harran, 600 miles northwest of Ur to set up a courier system linking the guild cities of Ur with Harran, both to be linked to the planned future temple treasury in Urusalem.

Working out of Harran rather than Ur had the advantage that the Harran guild would be excused from conscripted labor, military service and, most especially, free from taxes.

If Terah was going to be successful in moving tons of gold and silver bullion, he wanted to set up his guild office in a tax-free city.

Smuggling operations aside, any bullion that was discovered by the king, would still be tax-free under the holy, god-ordained provisions of Harran law.

To further control his conspiracy in the traditional incestuous manner of the Semites, Terah had his son, Abram, marry his daughter, Sarah, thus assuring obedience from his children and ensuring that his wealth remained in the family and was not dispersed through marriages to unrelated families.

Abram married his half-sister, Sarah, who was his father’s daughter by another wife, thereby beginning the incestuous inbreeding that has given the modern Jews more:

• birth defects
• clubfeet
• hunchbacks
• genetic diseases
• dwarfs

and mental retards than any other people on earth.

In Harran, Abram bought a herd of goats to disguise his mission.

Thus, disguised as wandering shepherds, he and Sarah and their extended family as well as a troop of armed servants and Benjaminites, traveled to the territory around Urusalem.

While the tribe of the Binu-Yamina (Benjamin) where trading with, forcing out, and negotiating with the Apiru (Hebrew) tribes for land, Abram appeared on the scene to offer a tithe of one-tenth of his goods and silver to Melchizedek, the king-priest of Urusalem.

As both a king and a priest of Urusalem, Melchizedek only had about 1500 people under his rule.

This was, after all, a very small town but it was in a very strong defensive position surrounded by deep ravines and waterless rocks.

Behind its stone walls, the residents were safe from the Hebrew bandits.

It really did not matter which god Melchizedek worshipped at Urusalem since all gods lived in their own cities.

In this case, Uru-shalim was the city of Shalim, the Hurrian god of darkness.

All that mattered to Abram was that Melchizedek called Shalim the “most high god” and named his town after his god.

And that was good enough for furthering Abram’s plans.

After all, the gods resided in specific locations so when he left Harran for Canaan, Abram abandoned his Moon God, who was the “most high god” of both Harran and Ur in favor of the “most high god” in whatever location he traveled.

Melchizedek’s “most high god” became the “most high god” to whom Abram prayed.

That little fortress town of Urusalem became known as Jerusalem.

And Abram changed his name to Abraham.

And now tending his flocks in the vicinity of Jerusalem, he took up the worship of Melchizedek’s god, the “most high resident god” of that place.

Abraham offered Melchizedek a tithe of one-tenth of his riches, which was a small fortune, in exchange for Melchizedek’s blessing.

Not being able to resist both the flattery and the prestige that a rich shepherd like Abraham offered him with such a huge bribe for such a paltry blessing, Melchizedek obliged.

Thus, with this blessing, Abraham was able to steal the religious virtue of the priest of the “most high god” at Urusalem.

This “blessing” implied that Abraham was worthy of a blessing, and it became part of the asl (meaning, “ancestry/origin/nobility”) in Abraham’s Aramaic genealogy.

This blessing became available to be claimed by his descendants as their own “inheritance” through the genealogical delusion of asl.

By moneylender standards, it was a good deal since so many descendants could claim to also be blessed by the “most high god” simply because they had “inherited” that blessing from Abraham.

Even to this very day, all of the Jews in the world all claim to have inherited Abraham’s asl. 

That’s a mighty big asl to fit around all of those Jews.

Abraham used Secret Fraud #6 on the unsuspecting Melchizidek:

“High morals impede profits, so debauching the Virtuous pulls them below the depravity of the moneylender who there-by masters them and bends them to his will.”

In this case, a bribe alone was sufficient to swindle a blessing by a high priest into the asl of Abraham’s genealogy.

And since this blessing was from the high priest of the “most high god” who resided at Jerusalem, then by the “logic” of the tamkarum swindlers, Jerusalem became a part of their inheritance, too, since the blessing came from the god who resided there, Salim, the God of Darkness.

Throughout:

• Assyrian
• Babylonian
• Sumerian

history and for nearly 5000 years up until today, the moneylenders have lurked behind the thrones of the kings and the offices of the priests.

From that hidden position of influence, they have used the Sumerian Swindle to steal the wealth of their own people and to betray their own countries.

By bribing and blackmailing kings and priests alike, they have pulled down people who were better than themselves in order to stand upon their graves.

They have enriched themselves by creating:

• war
• slavery
• prostitution
• death
• disease

and starvation for the sake of their own profits.

Using:

• silver
• gold
• sex-slaves
• prostitutes

and alcohol, they have debauched entire societies.

Not only by:

• swindling
• impoverishing
• enslaving

and betraying their countrymen but also by:

• beating
• torturing
• murdering

them, the tamkarum [merchant moneylenders] have put themselves into the position of the most feared and the most hated of all people in all societies.

And as their crowning achievement, the Hyksos moneylenders had plundered Egypt with a ruse and had usurped the throne of Pharaoh.

All of this happened throughout Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian history fueled by and financed from the profits of the Sumerian Swindle.

But it was in Jerusalem that the:

• ultimate
• supreme
• most demonic

fraud of the Sumerian Swindle was to be developed by Abraham and his descendants.

In that city began the conspiracy of the most demonic monsters to have ever walked the Earth.

The tamkarum [merchant-moneylenders] had put themselves upon the throne of Pharaoh, so why not put themselves upon the throne of God?

RELIGION: GOD: The One God – A Perverted & Stolen Concept, Corrupted by Jews – Library of Rickandria

Calling themselves “priests of the most high god”, it was in Jerusalem that these most corrupt and most evil monsters arrayed themselves in stolen gold chains and monopoly Phoenician purple robes that sparkled with imported jewels.

It was in Jerusalem it began that these Monsters of Babylon, monsters who were hated by all of Mankind but who demanded our pity while they stole our wealth, our houses, our children and our countries; monsters who claimed that Mankind was indebted to them forever with an interest-bearing debt that they called the “original debt” or the “original sin”; monsters who considered all of Mankind to be nothing more than mere goyim (insects and cattle); monsters who claimed complete ownership of the entire planet as their “inheritance”; monsters who considered the People of the world to be worthy only as a resting place for their feet.

And when the People cried out in starvation and suffering from the crimes committed against them, these same monsters rolled their hypocritical eyes innocently toward Heaven or humped up-and-down over their “sacred” books like copulating pigs while declaring themselves to be “innocent”, “blessed” and “holy”.

And how can anyone oppose those who are blessed and holy?

The merchant-moneylenders of Babylonia splashed their putrid-smelling and fly-swarming alters with the blood of their victims, wrapped the Sumerian Swindle into a parchment scroll of dead goat skins and declared themselves to be the Chosen Ones of the most high God of Darkness with branch offices in:

• Harran
• Ur
• Babylon

and Jerusalem.

Yes, these merchant-moneylenders of Babylon were monsters, but they had not devolved into Jews – yet.

End of Volume One: The Sumerian Swindle.

To be continued in Volume Two: The Monsters of Babylon, where we will further explore the history of How the Jews Betrayed Mankind.

CONTINUE

BOOK: The Monsters of Babylon: How the Jews Betrayed Mankind – Vol. II – Library of Rickandria

BOOK: The Sumerian Swindle: How the Jews Betrayed Mankind – Vol. I – Library of Rickandria
The Sumerian Swindle: How the Jews Betrayed Mankind – Chapter 8: The Apiru, the Hapiru, the Habiru, the Hebrew 1520 BC