A Critical Review and Update of Robert Graves "The White Goddess" - An Investigation (Page 5)

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Summary so far: The date for the events of the Cad Goddeu ('The Battle of the Trees') suggested by Graves seems too early for any supposed event involving replacement of an older alphabet with a newer alphabet in Britain to have taken place. However, the events may have happened earlier. If we explore 1700 BC as their possible date of occurence, there were several alphabets or collections of sounds that might have been the 13-consonant alphabet that Graves calls the "Beth-Luis-Nion", which Graves suggests was already in use in Britain by some group living there, at the time when what he suggested were the "Celts" arrived. And there may have been a Semitic language spoken in Britain around 1700 BC, by the Picts who were there mining tin.

THE SMOKING GUN: I had gotten this far in my investigation when I found this discussion at: http://britam.org/now/now257.html

Piotr Gasiorowski: I think the tradition of erecting hilltop cairns and mounds as orientation marks, and of using beacon fires for long-distance communication was very strong in Celtic (also Roman) Britain; the landscape of much of the country is as suitable for this purpose as could be. One trace of that is the occurrence of the Brythonic element tan- 'fire' (Welsh tan) in hill names (there are many Tan Hills in England). -- not only in ancient times but all through history down to the invention of the telegraph. For example, a network of beacons set up on hilltops was used in England in 1588 to signal the approach of the Spanish Armada, and once it was spotted off the Scillies the news reached the English commanders in no time at all.

Adapted from "Lost Israelite Identity", by Yair Davidy:

"The Chronicles of Eri, being the history of the Gaal Sciot Iber, or the Irish People, translated from the Phoenician dialect of the Scythian
language", by Roger O' Connor were published in London in two volumes in 1822. It is not certain what sources this work is based upon but internal evidence indicates that it derived from similar ancient traditions as those known from elsewhere from Irish sources. The Irish had Oral traditions, written Chronicles of their own and also were privy to Early Medieval scholarship that developed from Latin records and much of which was genuine and most of which has been lost.

The Chronicle says that the Gaali had been in Armenia, and the Caucasus. They were traders and metallurgists, and archers. Oppressed by the Assyrians they fled via Hamath in northern Syria.

The Chronicles tells how the Gaali sail to Spain which was then ruled by the Phoenicians who in turn were directed from (Assyrian-controlled?) Hamath. In Spain at first they are forced to work for Phoenician overseers. They move from the southern area of Tartessos to Galatia in the northwest and shake off Phoenician control. Together with the Phoenicians from their base in Spain they establish mining operations in Cornwall, in Britain. Some of them move to Aquitaine in Gaul. Due to war and famine, those in Spanish Galatia all eventually emigrate to Ireland. Though not Phoenicians they worship God under the form of baal, receive instruction in Phoenician ways, bear Hebrew-sounding names and seem to have Israelite-values such as an aversion to images and other characteristics.

These people (the Gaal of Sciot) had the custom of lighting beacon fires on the coasts.

"All the headlands and promontories belonging to the Gaal of Sciot on the northwest coast of Spain were called in the Phoenician
language Breoccean, that is, The Land of Flaming Fires, because of the blaze that was kept up and could be seen at a great distance out to sea. The same custom was observed on the coast of Cornwall and Devonshire after the Gaal of Sciot joined with the Phoenicians in their mining operations there, and that land was called Breotan, Breo meaning Flaming Fire" [cf."BIAR" = burn in Hebrew].