Frank Joseph - The Lost Treasure of King Juba: The Evidence of Africans in America before Columbus

To Wayne May, without whom

nothing would have happened

Contents

Chapter 1.

Chapter 2.

Chapter 3.

Chapter 4.

Chapter 5.

Chapter 6.

Chapter 7.

Chapter 8.

Chapter 9.

Chapter 10.

Chapter 11.

Chapter 12.

Chapter 13.

Chapter 14.

Chapter 15.

Chapter 16.

Appendix 1:

Appendix 2:

Preface

As the editor in chief of Ancient American magazine, I am regularly prevailed upon by mostly amateur archaeologists to publish their reports of overseas visitors to our continent during pre-columbian times. While many of these submissions may be interesting, sometimes provocative, they are usually unsubstantiated by any credible physical evidence. A story first brought to my attention in 1993, however, was supported by an abundance of material itemsmore than seven thousand, in fact. The sheer volume of such alleged proof combined with the often superb workmanship of numerous individual pieces argued persuasively on behalf of their authenticity.

Even so, I was baffled by not only the magnitude of the discovery, but also the profusion of its disparate cultural imagery. How was one to account for images that appeared to be Romans, Celts, Christians, Jews, West African blacks, Egyptians, and Phoenicians all represented together at a single, subterranean site in, of all places, southern Illinois? Over the next nine years, I not only described the Burrows Cave collection in several feature Ancient American articles, but also undertook my own investigation of the supposed artifacts to determine their authenticity, at least to my own satisfaction.

The conclusions of various authorities in mineralogy and ancient written languages I consulted suggested that retrieval of the seven thousand images found near a tributary of the Ohio River represented the greatest archaeological event in history, far more spectacular than the opening of Pharaoh Tutankhamens tomb sixty years before. The Illinois tomb not only appeared to contain vaster amounts of buried treasure, but, more valuably, also demonstrated that Roman-era visitors crossed the Atlantic Ocean to establish a settlement in North America nearly fifteen centuries before Columbus sailed from Spain. Although the saga of these voyagers is far from completely understood and the unveiling of Burrows Cave signifies a work in progress, both are aspects of a story that must be told.

I have combined years of my own research with the expertise of professional scientists and enlightened enthusiasts alike to create a mosaic from different fragments of evidence. Bringing these pieces togetherfitting them into a complex archaeological puzzlewas my purpose in writing this book. Through its pages march heroes and villains, tyrants and freedom fighters, mystics and profiteers, victors and survivors. Their story is valuable because it is our story, lost for the last two thousand years but now gradually coming to light from its underground burial sanctuary. With its retelling, the dead will live again, and the roots of American history, far deeper and older than suspected, stand revealed.

Introduction

A Shattering Revelation

It is the dead who have a tale to tellthe dead who died centuries agoto people who still live.

C OUNT B YRON DE P ROROK ,

I N Q UEST OF L OST W ORLDS

There are some disclosures that radically revolutionize long established conceptions of the world in which we live. The subject of this story is one of them, because it demolishes what Americans have been led to believe since their country was foundednamely, that Christopher Columbus was its discoverer. An archaeological cave site in southern Illinois suggests instead that tens of thousands of refugees sailing from the murder of their king and the invasion of their homeland preceded Columbus by nearly fifteen centuries. Preferring a perilous transatlantic adventure to slaughter and slavery on land, they entrusted their lives to the sea.

There is a contemporary side to this tale. It tells of the caves discovery, a subsequent twenty-year period of imposed secrecy, the looting of the caves fabulous treasures, an often bitter controversy, and final disclosure. But the first part of this story is much older. It describes what was formerly a splendid kingdom in the ancient world, a vital part of the Roman Empire that was once culturally rich and economically powerful, but which was reduced to obscurity by war. Faced with the choice between almost certain death at home and escape over the uncertain open sea, some of its survivors became first-century boat people. Most successfully completed the crossing to America only a few years after the death of Jesus.

Although the majority of professional archaeologists dismiss such transatlantic voyages as imaginative fantasy, they are contradicted by a vast collection of inscribed and illustrated stone tablets uncovered from a subterranean site in the American Midwest. Often wonderful masterpieces of art, they comprise thousands of portraits of men and women from a distant land in ancient times. There are grim-faced soldiers and sagacious priests, sailors and worshipers, kings and queens. They are accompanied by tablets inscribed in several different languages, some of which have already been partially translated. And there is gold, a treasure trove King Solomon in all his splendor would have envied.

Both stories seem too fantastic for belief. Yet, an abundance of hard and historical evidence supports their credibility. The fabulously rich legacy buried nearly two thousand years ago was known only to the elders of a particular Indian tribe, whose last chief broke the secret before he passed away. Even then, the whereabouts of the cave were unknown until it was found by accident twenty-four years later. The sometimes acrimonious struggle to open the site and unravel its significance has lasted almost as long. That struggle still goes on. But the time has come for its story to be told.

It All Started with Cleopatra

Thabuse of greatness is when it disjoins Remorse from power.

S HAKESPEARE , J ULIUS C AESAR 2.1

Most of the artifacts removed from a subterranean location in southern Illinois since 1982 comprise the portraits of Romans, black Africans, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Jews, early Christians and Native American Indiansall, judging by their attire, from ancient times. Almost invariably, they were accompanied by written languages in hieroglyphic Egyptian, North Semitic (or Carthaginian), paleo-Hebrew, ancient Iberian, Ogham, or an unknown script found nowhere else. Most of the faces are depicted in profile, and the majority of these belong to Roman-style soldiers. Other perceived professions include holy men and sailors. Far fewer women and elderly persons appear, and no children are represented.

Religious imagery includes the so-called Alexander Helios symbol, the circle cross, Jewish menorahs, Stars of David, Christ-like figures, Egyptian pyramids, the Greek Pan, the Carthaginian Tanit, and other, less identifiably pagan creatures. Other tablets are given over entirely to lengthy, largely untranslatable inscriptions or the depiction of ancient sailing ships. Some are Phoenician, but others resemble Roman vessels. Animals frequently portrayed are cows, rams, elephants, serpents, whales, fish, sea monsters, and other fabulous creatures, sometimes half human.