Týr’s Burg and Tyrus

[ott]

Chapter 8d. Tunis and the Tyrians; (manuscript page [058]):

So, eventually, they arrived at the Phoenician coast [PHONISIVS KÁD]. (...) Nearby the coast, they found an island with two deep bays, so that it looked like three islands. On the middlemost, they set up their refuge, and later they built a burg wall around it. (...) the Magyars and the Finns pleaded it should be called Týr’s Burg [THÍR​.HIS​.BURCH].

To this map of old Tyrus, I added a ship sailing between the coast and the island, showing how it indeed looks like three islands, not at once, but when sailing past it.

passing old Tyrus.gif (546.32 KiB) Viewed 2060 times

If anyone has time to look into old sources about (e.g. Herodotus 2:44) or archeology of the former island, it would be interesting to see if more of what is described matches (e.g. Dutch link). I had not looked into this that well earlier. Someone once suggested the description of the seeming three islands would correspond to Chalkidiki, and I may have repeated that sometimes, but that would not agree with Sidon being close:

When they were well settled, they sent some elder navigators and Magyars ashore and onward to the city of Sidon [THÉRE BURCH SÍDON].

[Coco]

That is a superior hypothesis. Further examination indicates that the distance from the island to the shoreline was approximately 750 meters. During the siege of Tyre by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, a causeway was constructed to the island. Subsequently, the extant tombolo (sand dune) was gradually formed by the accretion of sand by the force of waves, thereby turning the island into a peninsula.

The existence of numerous locations bearing the name TÍR in the Mediterranean, including Toroni in Greece, suggests a pattern in toponymy. In the thread on the subject of hunter-gatherers, I proposed the possibility of Troy being another example of this phenomenon.

[ott]

Thank you, Coco.

I checked OL-publications for a reference to Tyre indeed looking like three islands when sailing past it, but did not find anything:

• 1872/1876 Ottema: p. 83 only noted: Thyrhisburgt is Tyrus.

• 1874 Vitringa: Arrival Tyrus mentioned on p. 64, but nothing about its shape.

• 1878 Ottema: no note to his p. 83.

• 1927 De Jong: mentions of Tyrus on pp. 212, 216; nothing about its shape.

• 1933 Wirth: Arrival Thyrisburg on p. 52; nothing about its shape.

• 1951 Overwijn: page 24c: "They then arrived at the Phoenician coast. This appears to be Chalkidiki (...) which has two deep inlets forming three headlands/peninsulas. The mistake of calling this an island is understandable (...) Indeed the middle tongue is entirely Phoinician and there lies »Sithonia«".

• 1972 Los: Arrival Thyrhisburg mentioned on p. 80; nothing about its shape.

• 1978 Van der Meij: no reference found

• 2004 Jensma: no relevant reference.

• 2006 Jensma: note p. 187: "Two deep bays – The city of Tyre was originally located on an island, which according to legend consisted of two rocks, and it had two ports" [ref. to 1976 Dictionary of Antiquity].

• 2010 Raubenheimer: p. 109 Thyrhisburch became Tyre; nothing about its shape.

• 2013 Menkens: p. 100 Thyrisburg (now: Tyrus); nothing about its shape.

Although I do not agree with Overwijn, that Týr’s Burg was on Chalkidiki, the fact that Sithonia is on the middle of three peninsulae made me realise that it may well have been a (somewhat) later colony. The Tyrians soon became very succesful with their naval trading operation and Tyre will have become too small. They will have liked the likeness (2 'bays', three quasi-islands) and named the middle one after Sidon (to please their wealthy clients?). As I pointed out earlier, on and near Chalkidiki there are several toponyms that remind of Fryas names, most stikingly: Thessaloniki (from Texland?). Likewise, it seems obvious that Tunesia and Tunis were also settlements of this succesfull naval trading 'company', named after Nef-Tunis. Add to that ‘Missellia’ (Massalia) and the naval trading 'company' already had a great position in the Mediterranean Sea, probably with ROM/RUM (Rome) as well. No wonder Neftunis became immortal as god of the sea Neptune.

This is just my thinking out loud. There would be much more to say, but I can't put it into good words yet.

For people who still believe the official hoax doctrine, this question will be a very hard one to answer:

What source would Oera Linda's alleged author (a young pastor?) have used in the 1860s to give this accurate description of Tyrus, and why would he have taken all this effort, if the work was only meant as a theological joke?

[ott]

From Feb '24 blog post by Dutch Classicist (translated):

Archaeologists from France and Lebanon have been conducting research here since 2018. They already found one or two Phoenician temples, which means that Tyre is no longer just a Roman excavation. (...) the discovery of harbour works from Phoenician times. Simply put, it is a pier or quay over 180 meters long, which is three meters deep in the sea, and which must once have sheltered ships when the south wind was strong. It was discovered because in a recent storm the waves were so turbulent that sandbars on the seabed shifted and part of the structure was exposed. Satellite photos show the rest. It has since been established that the stones of the quay resemble what was common in the Iron Age. (...) The archaeologists are also reconstructing the landscape in the past. (...) The former island is now about a square kilometer in size, but was once much longer. The northern and southern parts were swept away by the tidal wave of 365 AD. (...) It now turns out that the water is now a few meters higher than it used to be. (...) drilling research has been carried out in the area of the Mosaicstreet, in which the various sediments could be identified and dated. This showed that there was water here in the Iron Age. The actual port basin thus extended more northerly. This drilling study also confirmed that until the fourth century BC seawater lay at the site where Alexander built his dam, making it clear that what we have considered a dam since the 19th century is indeed a dam.

[ott]

With Coco's help, I found a relevant fragment, which confirms that, in Alexander's time, it was possible to sail between Tyre and the mainland, but still says nothing about two bays making the island look like three when passing it on the east side:

Anabasis of Alexander by Arrian of Nicomedia
translation Chinnock 1884
Book II, chapter 18: Siege of Tyre — Construction of a Mole from the Mainland to the Island.

Certainly, the siege of Tyre appeared to be a great enterprise; for the city was an island* and fortified all round with lofty walls. (...) he resolved to construct a mole from the mainland to the city.** The place is a narrow strait full of pools; and the part of it near the mainland is shallow water and muddy, but the part near the city itself, where was the deepest part of the channel, was the depth of about three fathoms [ca. 5.5 m]. (...) as the Tyrians still retained command of the sea, they kept on sailing with their triremes to various parts of the mole

*The island was about half a mile from the mainland, and about a mile in length.
**We learn from Diodorus (xvii. 40) that the breadth of this mole was about 200 feet.

[Nordic]

Excellent finds Ott and Coco. I belonged to the Overwijn camp up until now and agree that the closeness to Phoenician Sidon is a major marker. To my mind it overrides the other details. Up until the best explanation along the Overwijn Chalkidiki explanation was that the Frisian scribes somehow lost sense of the actual distance between Chalkidiki and Lebanese Phoenicia, or mistook the Phoenician Sidon for similarly named Chalkidiki Sithonia.

Some further pro-Chalkidiki pointers not mentioned above are:

• the THÍR or Tiera (Iku-Tiera, Uk[k]otiera) of THÍR​.HIS​.BURCH is in Norse accounts Þorri (Thorri) and Öku-Þor (Ukko-Thor), meaning that there is a linguistical sense why the name would be attested today in form Toroni.

• the Sithonia in itself is a possible Finnic pointer. The Finns who conquer the Scandinavia are the northern Finnish Kvens of Kainuu region in the Norse version. This region east and north-east of Swedes is called land of Sitones by Roman author Tacitus (Germania from year AD 98) and academics match its decription with the stories of Finland as 'Woman-land' (Terra Feminarum, Amazon islands, Kvenland misunderstood as Kvinnaland 'woman-land').

• finally, as noted here, the island off coast of Chalkidiki seems to have been inhabited by ancient people speaking a mixture of Germanic/Indo-European and Finnic language.

Nonetheless, I consider the freshest insight here the best, as it fits the Phoenician Sidon connection literally.

[ott]

the THÍR or Tiera (Iku-Tiera, Uk[k]otiera) of THÍR​.HIS​.BURCH is in Norse accounts Þorri (Thorri) and Öku-Þor (Ukko-Thor), meaning that there is a linguistical sense why the name would be attested today in form Toroni.

Indeed! Toroni on the middle quasi-island.

I think Chalkidiki was a later, larger version of the initial island. More can be found looking closer at toponyms.