Megaliths of Jewish Lost Tribes

By Abraham Benhur

There are two unresolved mysteries in history. One is the disappearance of the ten Israelite tribes that the Assyrians had enslaved and transported to their lands and put them to slave for the empire. They eventually disappeared from history, and the Bible refers to them as the ‘Lost People’.
The second unresolved mystery revolves around the Megalithic dolmens and other burial sites discovered in different parts of Africa, Europe, Asia and the Indian sub continent. There are no clues to the original owners of these monuments which were obviously burial sites. Remains of bones, implements and utensils used by these people have been found from some of the sites. These magnificent relics of an unknown people from remote past have not been claimed by any surviving people as belonging to their ancestors.
Could they be the remains of the "Lost Tribes?" Are there sufficient leads to trace the authors of these unique monuments? What follows is an effort at solving these mysteries for good. And possibly discover their survivors, too!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abraham Benhur
• Release date: Jan 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310064043

Book preview

Foreword

Abraham Benhur (my classmate and since then my colleague

in socio-environment activity for about four decades), is a distinctively brilliant personality with original and path-breaking ideas and chains of thought.

While working on his Ph.D thesis in Economics at the University of Calicut, he published a number of articles on economics

and sociology, in leading newspapers and magazines. He has been

a prominent environmental activist, poet, filmmaker and ethnographer. He is now actively involved in Eco- Spiritual education and conservation of Nature. He and his friends have joined together to found Harithasena (National Green Corps) and Jeevanist International, aimed at promoting environmental awareness among students and youth. He is also an award-winning filmmaker. His educational documentry, Rabiya Moves won the National Award for the Best Educational film in 1997. He has published a collection of poems, namely, Benhur’s Poems, The Location of Eden, The Jewish Christians of India (2009), The Jewish Background of Indian People(2011) and Megalithic Monuments of South India (2012).

In the present work entitled The Megaliths of Jewish Lost Tribes, Abraham Benhur focuses his research on the burial chambers in the Indian peninsula and assigns the authorship of the megalithic age monuments to the Israelites. He states that the megalithic burial monuments found in Egypt, Europe, Caucasus mountains, Korea, Afghanitan, Kashmir, Baluchistan and India are of Jewish authorship. A close scrutiny of the history and tradition of the Jewish Diaspora would make it abundantly clear that the megalithic monuments of unknown authorship found in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkand, Chattisghat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamilnadu, were actually of Jewish exiles who escaped from Assyrian and Babylonian captivities and took refuge in Afghanistan and later moved to India. He asserts that these burial chambers open up the great path way of the Lost Tribes through time and places up to Kerala. St. Thomas according to Benhur had travelled by sea to the trading port of Kodungallur, in search of these Jewish exiles with whom he could speak in Aramaic language and convey the messeage of Jesus. Thus the earliest converts to Christianity in Kerala were actually these Jewish People and the Nazranis of Kerala are their discendants.

Benhur’s study of the megalithic burial chambers of Indian subcontinent and the ethnological and cultural features of certain communities, seeks to link the Pathans of Indian subcontinent, Bhatts of northern India, Bhatrais of Nepal, Bhattacharyas of Bengal, the Mizos in eastern India, the Patels of western India, the Chitpavan Brahmins of Maharashtra, the Gowda Saraswathas settled chiefly along the Konkan, the Reddies and Raos of Andhra, the Coorgies of Karnataka, the Iyers and Ayankars of southern India and St. Thomas Christians or Nazranis of Kerala to the Lost Tribes of Israel.

The present work is based on Benhur’s path-breaking research study: The Jewish Background of Indian People - a historical, anthropological, archaeological and etymological study of the Lost Tribes of Israel

Prof. Sobhindran

Chairman,

Green World Research Centre

Calicut - 673611, Kerala, India.

Mob: [phone]

E-mail: [e-mail]

The Megaliths of Jewish Lost Tribes

There are two unresolved mysteries in history. One is

the disappearance of the ten Israelite tribes that the

Assyrians had enslaved and transported to their lands and put them to slave for the empire. They eventually disappeared from history, and the Bible, the earliest recorded account of the history of the Hebrews, refers to them as the ‘Lost People’.

The second unresolved mystery revolves around the megalithic dolmens and other burial sites discovered in different parts of Africa, Europe, Asia and the Indian sub continent. There are no clues to the original owners of these monuments which were obviously burial sites. Remains of bones, implements and utensils used by these people have been found from some of the sites. These magnificent relics of an unknown people from remote past have not been claimed by any surviving people as belonging to their ancestors.

Could they be the remains of a lost people? Are there sufficient leads to trace the authors of these unique monuments? What follows is an effort at solving these mysteries for good. And possibly discover their survivors, too!

The Jewish Diaspora

There are no other people in history who had been forced to live outside their homeland than the Jews. Diaspora is the word used to denote them. The word is not inclusive of those Jews who had chosen to live in alien lands for trade and other purposes and continued to maintain contact with the homeland. The word has a nationalistic connotation, too. It signified a belief that the people who had been scattered in alien lands would be reunited in the Promised Land [1].

But prolonged life in exile was apt to influence the life of any people, and the Jews who had to live for generations in alien land and without any signs of hope fared no better. They dispersed as refugees to wherever they could and spread throughout the old world. These people gradually merged themselves into the local milieu and disappeared as separate entities. Ten tribes of Israel are believed to have thus disappeared from history, and they are known as the Lost Tribes. But segments of them with strong spiritual leadership managed to cling to their traditions and ancestral identity. They followed the Law of Moses (Torah) and upheld Israelite traditions.

The Israelites’ tribulations had their beginning in ancient Egypt. The Bible bears witness to their enslavement in Egypt and how they were eventually rescued and taken to the Promised Land (Canaan). Their next major enslavement was in Assyria.

In the Assyrian Empire

The Assyrian Empire dominated the West Asian and central Asian landscape for about eight centuries, beginning in the fifteenth century BC. Nineveh, on the Tigris, was its capital. After subduing the entire Mesopotamia, the Assyrians led expeditions to the Mediterranean coast between 900 BC and 700 BC. Emperors Asshur Banipal, Shalmanessar IV and Sargon II successively raided and overran the northern areas of Israel. The Bible states that Sargon II captured 27,290 Israelis and herded them off as slaves to Halah and Habor on the Gozan river banks and in the towns of Media (II Kings18:11) and there are corroborative Assyrian records, too [2]. The Bible also records the testimony of Prophet Ezra that tens of thousands of Israelis lived in the north-eastern parts of the Assyrian Empire for generations (centuries).

In Afghanistan

It is quite logical to assume that the Israeli tribes, proud of their heritage and yearning to return to their homeland, as evident in the Psalms, tried to escape from captivity to wherever they could. It is believed that a section of the Israelis held in Habor and Media in the north-eastern parts of Assyria escaped to the east along the ancient Northern Trade Route. The ancient caravan route ran between Midian in the Sinai Peninsula, passed through Nineveh, Hamdan, Media, Ekbatana, Herat, Balak (Mazar-e-Sharif), Kabul, Peshawar, Taxila, Sialkot, Pathankot, Delhi, Benares, Patna and Tamralipti (Calcutta).The early Israelite refugees must have joined the caravans and first settled near Herat in Afghanistan. These settlers, who came from the Gozan River area, occupied the banks of a tributary of the Amu Darya River, near Meymanh town, where the Aryan tribes of Scythians and Pahlagonians lived. The Israelis named the tributary as Gosan. The river and the nearby town are known as Gausan today. These Israelites engaged themselves in sheep farming, woolen manufacture and Blue sapphire mining in the Bamiyan hills. They traded their merchandize at Balak (modern Mazar-e-Sharif), and gradually extended their activity to Kabul, Peshawar, Taxila, Sialkot, Pathankot and Kashmir.

The Pathans

The Israelis who escaped to Afghanistan apparently belonged to all the ten tribes of Israel. The Indo-Aryan Scythians and Pahlagonians (the Saka-Pahlavas) of Afghanistan, called these newcomers ‘Dhasans’ to

Reviews for Megaliths of Jewish Lost Tribes

[Evangeline Thompson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very interesting facts, enjoyed reading the book and got to know about Jews in exile and their lives in the exiled place.