Who Really Discovered “The New World?”
What if Christopher Columbus wasn’t the first European to visit the North America? What if everything that has been taught about the pilgrims and Indians and the Mayflower is a lie? Who really “discovered” The New World? The answer may lie inscribed in a seemingly ordinary boulder also known as Dighton Rock.
From the ancient Phoenicians to the Native Americans, from a Portuguese Scouting ship to the Norse Vikings, there are many speculations about where Dighton Rock came from. According to the article “Who Really Engraved Dighton Rock,” this mysterious stone slab stands at “5 feet high, 9.5 feet wide & 11 feet long” (Web). Dighton Rock was like a college grad standing among high school freshmen. The …show more content…
These people relied mainly on sea trade for their day-to-day lives and are believed to have traveled most of the ancient world without fear and hesitation (Heilbrunn). This is why the theory of the Phoenician being responsible for the appearance of Dighton Rock is readily accepted in the Dighton Rock community. If this theory is proven to be correct, that would mean that not only did the Phoenician create the first verified and oldest constonal alphabet but they also discovered what is now America (Fischer). With the belief that Dighton Rock’s owners are Ancient Phoenicians would bring a couple “sub-theories.” One being that the Phoenicians had carved the rock as a commemoration of a visit of would had to been a foreign group to them. Antoine Court de Gébelin had believed that the petroglyphs were Hebrew and were written to celebrate a group of sailors from Carthage, the Phoenician homeland. Gébelin had also made the comparison to carving found on Mt Sinai and Mt Horeb which had been proven to have been Phoenician alphabets (Colonial Society of Massachusetts.). There was another theory written in 1996 by the Professor of Geology of Syracuse, Mark McMenamin. He stated “[t]he copies appear to be very old and…[i]f authentically minted by ancient Phoenicians...these coins represent definitive evidence for a Phoenician presence in pre-Columbian North America” (Web). He also believed that on the back of the Phoenician coin was a what seemed to be map that told sailors how to cross the Atlantic Ocean (McMan.). This last theory was then later disproved four years later in the article “Phoenicians, Fakes and Barry Fell: Solving the Mystery of Carthaginian Coins Found in America” When Professor McMenamin revealed that the coins had turned out to be modern day forgeries.
What if Christopher Columbus wasn’t the first European to visit the North America? What if everything that has been taught about the pilgrims and Indians and the Mayflower is a lie? Who really “discovered” The New World? The answer may lie inscribed in a seemingly ordinary boulder also known as Dighton Rock.
From the ancient Phoenicians to the Native Americans, from a Portuguese Scouting ship to the Norse Vikings, there are many speculations about where Dighton Rock came from. According to the article “Who Really Engraved Dighton Rock,” this mysterious stone slab stands at “5 feet high, 9.5 feet wide & 11 feet long” (Web). Dighton Rock was like a college grad standing among high school freshmen. The …show more content…
These people relied mainly on sea trade for their day-to-day lives and are believed to have traveled most of the ancient world without fear and hesitation (Heilbrunn). This is why the theory of the Phoenician being responsible for the appearance of Dighton Rock is readily accepted in the Dighton Rock community. If this theory is proven to be correct, that would mean that not only did the Phoenician create the first verified and oldest constonal alphabet but they also discovered what is now America (Fischer). With the belief that Dighton Rock’s owners are Ancient Phoenicians would bring a couple “sub-theories.” One being that the Phoenicians had carved the rock as a commemoration of a visit of would had to been a foreign group to them. Antoine Court de Gébelin had believed that the petroglyphs were Hebrew and were written to celebrate a group of sailors from Carthage, the Phoenician homeland. Gébelin had also made the comparison to carving found on Mt Sinai and Mt Horeb which had been proven to have been Phoenician alphabets (Colonial Society of Massachusetts.). There was another theory written in 1996 by the Professor of Geology of Syracuse, Mark McMenamin. He stated “[t]he copies appear to be very old and…[i]f authentically minted by ancient Phoenicians...these coins represent definitive evidence for a Phoenician presence in pre-Columbian North America” (Web). He also believed that on the back of the Phoenician coin was a what seemed to be map that told sailors how to cross the Atlantic Ocean (McMan.). This last theory was then later disproved four years later in the article “Phoenicians, Fakes and Barry Fell: Solving the Mystery of Carthaginian Coins Found in America” When Professor McMenamin revealed that the coins had turned out to be modern day forgeries.