TruthVid's 100 Proofs that the Israelites were White, Part 77: 101, Dura-Europas, Huqqoq other early synagogues prove Judaeans were White; 102, Early Christian Art; 103, Phoenician Art of Iberia and the British Tin Trade

TruthVid's 100 Proofs that the Israelites were White, Part 77

Last week we discussed how the magi had been portrayed throughout history, and how all of the art of which they were the subjects had always portrayed them as three White men, until certain of the Dutch and Italian artists of the 15th century and later began to make innovations. We also discussed early Ethiopian Church art, and how up to the 10th or 11th centuries it depicted Christ and the apostles as being White, at least apparently, in wall paintings and printed illustrations. We found no such art which depicted Christ or the apostles as being black until the building of more recent churches during the colonial period. So here we made the assertion that these are both instances of cultural appropriation, first where White men injected blacks into a historical setting in which they had no part, and later where black Ethiopians changed the nature of early historical figures in order to suit themselves.

Now we shall discuss early Judaean and Christian art, dating generally from the 2nd or 3rd to the 5th centuries AD, where not only were Christ and the apostles always depicted as having been White and European-looking, but that is also how the Judaeans had depicted themselves. If early Judaeans portrayed themselves and their forbears as having been White, then White they must have been. While we had spoken of some of these discoveries in archaeology as part of Proof 5 in this series, they deserve a more thorough discussion and a proof of their own.

101) Dura-Europos, Huqqoq and other early Christian-era discoveries of “Jewish” synagogues in the middle east that proves that the Judaeans were White.

Here we will begin with art which has been discovered in mosaics from an ancient synagogue in Dura-Europos, Syria. Dura-Europos is on the Syrian bank of the Euphrates River, very close to the border with Iraq on both the south and east. On a straight line, the town is 200 miles northeast of Jerusalem. Having been built around 300 BC by the Seleucid Greeks, it was held by the Parthians from 113 BC until it was taken by Romans in 165 AD, whereupon it was expanded, and then by the Persians in 256-257 AD, after which its population was deported and it fell into disuse and decay. The mosaics are believed to be from the 2nd century. The ruins were extensive, as nothing was built over the site, however most of what was left was evidently destroyed in recent wars in Syria.

In the art work recovered from an ancient synagogue in Dura-Europos there are several sequences of paintings representing Biblical narratives. One such sequence depicts Moses and Aaron at the parting of the Red Sea, and a later image has Aaron dressed as high priest in the temple, which is anachronistic. Another sequence has David being anointed by Samuel the prophet, and then David sitting as king of Israel. These are only a portion of the many images preserved, all of which portray the ancient Israelites as having been White. While some are dark-haired, many are depicted as having had fair hair, and all have White skin, even the naked daughter of pharaoh retrieving Moses from the River Nile.

If 3rd century Judaeans on the border of Persia had depicted both themselves and the significant figures of Israelite history as having been White, then they must have been White. There is no conceivable reason as to why they may have lied about their own appearance. This leads us to our next ancient discovery, which is from Hukkok, or Huqoq, and ancient Judaean village not far north of ancient Tiberias, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee.

There the discovery of a synagogue which is said to have “incorporated Hellenistic images with biblical stories” gives us a picture of how Judaeans looked which is very much like the earlier site at Dura-Europos. Among the many mosaics discovered in that synagogue are depicted the trial of Jonah, when he was tossed into the sea, a near-blond Judaean man in an image of the astrological sign for Capricorn, and a red-haired Judaean man next to a Hebrew inscription. Most noteworthy, is a depiction of a Hebrew high priest with a group of younger men facing a Greek general and a troop of soldiers. The image has been interpreted in various ways. Among them, it may represent Alexander’s coming to Jerusalem, or an event from the later Seleucid period. The high priest is depicted as white-skinned and having a white-gray beard and hair, and his fellows as White-skinned, fair and with blondish hair. There is no doubt these Judaeans saw themselves as having the same general racial characteristics as both Greeks and Romans.

A mosaic containing a depiction of the building of the tower of Babel contains two portraits of black men participating in the building, with at least two dozen apparently White men. While that in itself is not historical, as there is no real evidence for blacks in Mesopotamia at the time, this demonstrates that the artists at the Hukkok synagogue knew how to portray black or brown-skinned people in their art, and that they were not averse to such depictions. Yet they never portrayed any of their own Judaeans as having been black or brown. They only painted themselves or their ancestors as having been White.

Sepphoris is located in the central part of lower Galilee, just three miles west of ancient Nazareth. Perhaps a century after the time of Christ it became a notable Roman city. It apparently fell into disuse and decay after the Muslim conquest of the area. A synagogue discovered there with several mosaics is esteemed to date to the 5th century AD. One mosaic depicts a zodiac, and features White, blond Judaeans in various related settings. Inscriptions are in both Hebrew and Greek. Another mosaic discovered at Sepphoris features a depiction from an account in the Bible called the Binding of Isaac. It features two fair-haired, fair-skinned White men representing the patriarch Isaac and his father Abraham, or according to some sources, two of Abraham’s servants awaiting his coming.

In an ancient port city of Gaza, a synagogue which was evidently built in 508 AD was discovered in 1965. On the floor of the synagogue was a mosaic containing a portrait of King David playing a harp, which has since been transferred to a museum. David is depicted with blond hair and fair skin, wearing a crown, with his name written above his head in Hebrew letters. Other panels of the mosaic had depictions of wild animals, much of which has been destroyed.

More information about the Gaza synagogue is found in an article at Wikipedia. For another image of the David mosaic from Gaza, there is a version which was apparently modified for the Google Art Project which is colorized and shows David as having red hair, in an article at the American School of Oriental Research titled From Sinner to Model Ancestor: King David in Post-Biblical Jewish and Christian Literature and Art.

Here we have seen four ancient Judaean witnesses, all from different parts of Palestine or Syria, which attest to the fact that the ancient Israelites and the Judaeans of the Roman and Byzantine periods were White. It is for that same reason that they were always pictured as having been White in Christian art.

102) Early Christian depictions of Christ and the apostles

Some of the earliest Christian portraits of Christ and the apostles are found in the catacombs of Thecla and Domitilla in Rome, two early underground Christian cemeteries. The origin of the name Thecla for one catacomb is ambiguous, but Domitilla evidently has its name from a prominent early Christian family which had it built. There are other catacombs in Rome, named for Priscilla or for saints Marcellinus and Peter.

Finding Christian art earlier than the 4th century AD is problematical. Even the Judaeans who had mosaics in their synagogues were breaking with the law in the making of graven images, and early Christians seem to have followed that same law. However from the 4th century, Christian catacombs did contain mosaics and paintings, as did later Christian churches.

So far as churches go, the The Basilica of St. Pudenziana in Rome contains an apse mosaic which was commissioned in 405 AD and completed as late as 415. It features Christ on His throne in a depiction that contains images from Revelation chapter 4, with a number of His apostles on each side. But some of the catacomb paintings are esteemed to be older, such as a depiction of Christ between Peter and Paul, dated to the 4th century and found in the catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter.

In the catacombs of Thecla there is a ceiling painting which contains images of Paul, John, Peter and Andrew esteemed to date to about 380 AD. In another image of Peter painted on a nearby wall, his appearance is alike to that of the ceiling painting. In the catacombs of St. Domitilla in Rome there is another painting of Christ seated on a throne surrounded by his apostles, and yet another of Christ teaching among His apostles. In all of these images, all of the men and women depicted, Christ and His apostles and disciples, are all White, without exception. In the same catacomb is a painting of a reddish-haired, fair-skinned Jonah being spit out of the whale. There is extant Roman art from as early as first century Pompeii which depicts brown people, and it was evidently not a reproach to be brown. But neither Christ nor His apostles were ever depicted as having been brown. They were always White in Roman and Byzantine art. Some commentators on these images like to use only certain ones where the figures portrayed seem to be, or perhaps were even made to be a little darker, such as the image of Moses and Aaron at the Red Sea at Dura-Europos [example], but when all the surviving images are examined as a whole, the dishonesty becomes manifest.

Now perhaps we should go back about eight hundred to a thousand years, to discuss some of the art of Iberia that had belonged to the Phoenicians.

103) Phoenician art of Iberia, tin trade and Britain

The sculpture known as La Dama de Baza features a matronly woman without expression staring straight ahead, seated in a sort of winged chair that appears as if it could be a small throne. It was found in a cemetery in a high tableland in Granada, Spain. It is a funerary statue over four feet tall and almost as wide, and has a compartment believed to have at one time held the ashes of the deceased. A similar sculpture is only a bust, known as the Lady of Elche, and a compartment in its back also leads to the conclusion that it too was a funerary urn. The bust is only about 22 inches tall. Both of these sculptures are esteemed to date to around 400 BC.

Another sculpture from around that same time is the La Dama de Guardamar, a limestone female bust over a foot-and-a-half tall. It was discovered in fragments at the Phoenician archaeological site of Cabezo Lucero in Alicante province, Spain, in 1987. Her dress is similar to the Lady of Elche, as they are both adorned with large wheel-like coils of material on each side of their heads. Finally in our examples, there is the La Dama del Cerro de los Santos, also called the Gran Dama Oferente, a full length standing sculpture of a woman, about four-and-a-quarter feet tall. The statue is esteemed to date to about 200 BC. At least on one side, she had the same coil-like adornment on the side of her head, the other side of the statue having been damaged. All four statues of these women share other common elements in the garments with which they are dressed.

Without a doubt, from their features alone, all four of these Phoenician women appear to be White. Some traces of color from ancient paint remained on the Lady of Elche, and the artist who reproduced it painted her as having been White and fair. These Phoenicians looked just as we should expect Israelites to have looked. Today’s Jews even admit to being descended from the ancient Canaanites, and there are claims that the Phoenicians were Canaanites. But this Iberian art would display women who looked like Jews, if they were indeed Canaanites. But in reality, the ancient Phoenicians were Israelites, and not Canaanites, except perhaps for some of their slaves.

Finally, the Bicha de Balazote, or beast of Balazote, is a man-bull chimera which is very much like an Assyrian cherub, except for the wings, and a Hebrew cherub, except for the wings and the forepart of a lion. It certainly seems to be an adaptation from the cherubs of the east. Carved from two limestone blocks, the sculpture is three feet long and nearly two-and-a-half feet high. A similar figure appeared on coins minted in Sicily in the 5th century BC. While this sculpture is dated to the 6th century, there is really no telling the age of stone, and any of these Iberian sculptures may be that old or even older.

In all of these sculptures, as in an early Roman bust of Phoenician general Hannibal Barca, the Phoenicians are clearly White, having Aryan features. In fact, the bust of Hannibal looks very much like the Judaean high priest in the painting from the synagogue discovered at Hukkok. But to further understand the appearance of the Phoenicians, we need look no further than the modern Britons, who are descended from them. The Phoenicians were said by Herodotus and others to have had a tin trade in the east with tin from the so-called Cassiterides, or “tin islands”. Without a doubt these may be identified with Cornwall and the other islands of the coast of Wales.

The balance of this presentation is taken from the notes for a November 30th, 2014 presentation on the Phoenicians for Christogenea Europe, which was done with Sven Longshanks. The Phoenicians clearly being White, and the ancestors of many White western Europeans, the Bible establishes that the Phoenicians of the golden age of Phoenicia were Israelites, and not Canaanites nor any other people. So it is no wonder that their images are so much like those of the later Judaeans. Once again, history proves that the Israelites were White, and so does their own art.