Hyksos

Published May 31, 2010

The Hyksos is the name applied to two dynasties of foreign kings who ruled Egypt around 1650-1530 BC⁽^a⁾. Gerard Gertoux suggests three dynasties reigning from circa 1750- 1530!^(l)They are generally accepted to have been Semitic people, from an unknown land, who invaded Egypt around 1710 BC. They ruled for over a hundred years until defeated by the Egyptian Pharaoh Amasis I.

Their name was originally taken to mean ‘Shepherd Kings, but more recently, it is accepted that the Egyptian term ‘heqa-khase’ which means ‘rulers of foreign lands’ gives us a simple but credible title of ‘Foreign Kings’. It has been suggested by David J. Gibson (1904-1966) that the modern interpretation indicated that the Hyksos ruled a vast empire and has devoted a book^[1507^] to justifying this view^(g). This empire lay mainly to the east of Egypt with the possible exception of Crete. Gibson identifies the Hyksos with the biblical Edomites!

Walter Baucum summarises his view on the subject as follows, “The Early Hyksos Shepherd Rulers of Egypt were descendants of Shem and identical with Typhon and the Titans, the peoples of Set, and to some degree with the Hebrews. The early Hyksos were to a large degree Israelites but after they left, the Amalekites conquered Egypt and were also referred to as Hyksos”.

Hyksos Pharoah

This identification of the Hyksos with the biblical Amalakites was supported by Velikovsky, Rohl and Donovan Courville^(o). This identification is disputed by Emmet Sweeney ^[1867], who is generally sympathetic to Velikovsky’s revised chronology, but disagrees with him in this instance. In a recent (2023) paper^(r) on the Academia.edu website Donald Keith Mills was highly critical of Velikovsky’s research on the Hyksos and Amalakites in Ages in Chaos.

“Repeatedly, when faced with conflicting accounts of pre-Islamic (and essentially prehistoric) events, Velikovsky selected only those that met his purposes. The damaging aspect of this criticism is the fact that, almost without exception, he did so without discussing the alternatives, without providing reasons for rejecting them, and without even acknowledging their existence.“

There have also been persistent suggestions that there were strong links between the Hyksos and Crete, as referred to both above and below. But the exact nature of the links is unclear and may not be more than you get between nations trading over an extended period. The relevance of such links, if they were ever shown to be political rather than commercial, would take on new significance for supporters of the Minoan Hypothesis. Time will tell.

Peter A. Clayton, an Egyptologist and author of Chronicle of the Pharaohs suspected that the Hyksos had their origins in Crete. E. J. de Meester has suggested links between Crete and the Hyksos, an idea included in an article by Philip Coppens^(b). In a similar vein, Diaz-Montexano claims that a study of the names of the Hyksos pharaohs suggests to him that they were proto-Greek or Mycenaeans.

An example of the diversity of opinions regards the origins of the Hyksos is a brief article written by Emilio Spedicato who identifies them with the Scythians. Gunnar Heinsohn (1943- ) is a German professor emeritus at the University of Bremen, who presented a paper entitled ‘Who were the Hyksos’ to the 6th International Congress of Egyptology in 1993, in which he concluded that they were to be identified with the Old-Akkadians^(j).

Perhaps even more radical is the suggestion by Riaan Booysen that the Hyksos were the fleeing Israelites in the biblical Exodus story^(c). He claims that there were two ‘exoduses’ which coincided with two separate eruptions on Thera. This idea is not as new as it might seem as something similar was proposed by the 1st century AD Jewish historian Josephus^(d).

Nick Austin also identifies the Hyksos as Jews ^[1661.184] but is more generous than Booysen claiming that there were four separate eruptions of Thera. Like many others, he has also associated the biblical Exodus and the Plagues of Egypt with the Theran eruptions.

Ralph Ellis, among others, has endorsed^(e)^(f) the idea that the biblical Exodus and the historical Expulsion of the Hyksos describe the same event. There are theories, many and varied, regarding the origins and post-Egyptian settlement of the Hyksos.

>In March 2024 an undated paper on the Academia website written under the pseudonym of ‘The Mumble’ and titled Mexico City & the Site of Atlantis^(s). Its basic contention is that the Olmecs were originally Hyksos, who ruled an empire stretching from America to India! Unfortunately, real evidence is in short supply here to support this wild hypothesis. The paper is full of misquotations and other inaccuracies that are offered throughout.

One glaring error, at the heart of the claim is that Mexico City was city of Atlantis described by Plato. Unfortunately, Plato’s Atlantis was situated close to the sea, while Mexico City is roughly 200 miles from both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Canals led from the city to the sea – where are the 200-mile-long canals in Mexico? Additionally, Mexico City lies at a height of 7,350 feet and could not have been inundated by either ocean. According to Plato, Atlantis disappeared underwater, but Mexico did not! I think it was a good idea for ‘The Mumble’ to write under a pseudonym.<

In July 2020, it was reported that “new research led by Bournemouth University archaeologists supports the theory that the Hyksos, the rulers of the 15th Dynasty of ancient Egypt, were not from a unified place of origin, but Western Asiatics whose ancestors moved into Egypt during the Middle Kingdom lived there for centuries, and then rose to rule the north of Egypt.”^(k)

The full facts relating to the Hyksos’ rule are only slowly emerging^(m) and I expect that it will be some years before a definitive history can be agreed upon. Just over a year after I wrote this, In March 2021, Diego Ratti published Atletenu, in which he identified the Hyksos as Atlanteans, with their capital situated at Avaris in the eastern Nile Delta⁽ⁿ⁾.

Ratti explains “that the first king of Atlantis called Atlas by Plato was a prince of Ugarit called Shamshi-Shu I who led a coalition of Foreign Kings to conquer Egypt. Plato’s “Critias” mentions the name of the first 10 kings of Atlantis: in “Atletenu” author Diego Ratti explains that the names of these 10 kings provide us with an indication of the origin and ethnicity of the Hyksos.

It was a coalition of 10 foreign Hyksos kings to invade Egypt in 1646 BC: some of them were from Southern Canaan and Northern Sinai while their majority was from Northern Syria and Lebanon. The prevalent ethnicity of the Hyksos coalition was the Amorite one: they had Amorite names, Amorite customs, traditions and religion. The prince of Ugarit leading the coalition of Hyksos was an Amorite.

The legend of Atlantis was the history of the Hyksos: this fascinating thesis is discussed in the book “Atletenu” with supporting archaeological and textual evidence.”^(q)

A paper by the distinguished Austrian archaeologist Manfred Bietak entitled Avaris: The Capital of the Hyksos^(p) should be read in conjunction with Ratti’s theory.

>Arguably, the most exotic suggestion put forward regarding the Hyksos comes from a Chinese geochemist, Professor Sun Weidong^(h)(i) at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei in eastern China stirred up a debate with the suggestion “that the founders of Chinese civilization were not in any sense Chinese but actually migrants from Egypt. He conceived of this connection in the 1990s while performing radiometric dating of ancient Chinese bronzes; to his surprise, their chemical composition more closely resembled those of ancient Egyptian bronzes than native Chinese ores.” Sun specifies these culture bearers as the Hyksos. A paper^(t) by Ricardo Lewis on the Academia.edu website offers more details and background information.<

^(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20180203181622/https://history-world.org/hyksos.htm

^(b) See: Archive 2133

^(c) https://riaanbooysen.com/misc/167-book-announcement

^(d) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_Hyksos

^(e) https://www.bibleandscience.com/archaeology/exodus.htm

^(f) https://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-hebrew/2000-January/006340.html

^(g) See: Archive 3468

^(h) https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/02/did-chinese-civilization-come-from-ancient-egypt-archeological-debate-at-heart-of-china-national-identity/?utm_content=buffer7bb49&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://www.ancientpages.com/2016/09/05/controversial-theory-suggests-ancient-egyptians-were-founders-of-chinese-civilization/

^(j)https://web.archive.org/web/20111202130828/https://www.egyptologie.be/6IECT_1993_hyksos_heinsohn.htm

^(k) https://web.archive.org/web/20200902181329/http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/immigrant-hyksos-dynasty-08646.html

^(l)https://www.academia.edu/2414447/Dating_the_war_of_the_Hyksos

^(m) Did the Hyksos Pull Off a Peaceful Invasion of Egypt? | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)

⁽ⁿ⁾ Book Author | Atletenu (archive.org)

^(o) https://en.everybodywiki.com/Donovan_Courville

^(p) https://www.academia.edu/10071070/Avaris_Capital_of_the_Hyksos

^(q) Hyksos | Atletenu (archive.org)

^(r) (99+) VELIKOVSKY AND THE AMALEKITES | Donald Keith Mills – Academia.edu

^(s) (99+) Mexico City & the Site of Atlantis | The Mumble – Academia.edu *

^(t) Does Chinese Civilization Come From Ancient Egypt? – Foreign Policy *

Tagged Amalakites, Amasis, Amorites, Atletenu, Avaris, Crete, David J. Gibson, David Rohl, Diego Ratti, Donald Keith Mills, Donovan Courville, E. J. de Meester, Edomites, Egyptian kings, Emilio Spedicato, Emmet Sweeney, Exodus, Gerard Gertoux, Gunnar Heinsohn, heqa-khase’, Hyksos, Immanuel Velikovsky, Josephus, Manfred Bietak, Mexico, Minoan Hypothesis, Mycenaeans, Nick Austin, Olmecs, Peter A. Clayton, Philip Coppens, Plagues of Egypt, Ralph Ellis, Riaan Booysen, Ricardo Lewis, Sun Weidong, Thera, Walter Baucum

Garden of Eden

Published April 5, 2010

The Garden of Eden, like Atlantis, has excited the imagination of many over the centuries. Its location has been the subject of what was sometimes wild speculation that offered a range of locations compared with the variety of sites proposed for Atlantis.

The traditional belief was that the ‘Garden’ had been situated in Mesopotamia between the Euphrates and Tigris as noted in the Bible. Athanasius Kircher, who is better known to many for his speculative map of Atlantis located in the Atlantic Ocean also produced a plan of the Garden of Eden in what is now southern Iraq. David J. Gibson (1904-1966) arrived at a similar conclusion placing ‘Eden’ just south of Baghdad in his book, The Land of Eden Located, now available online^(t).

The T&T Clark Encyclopedia of Second Temple Judaism offers a clue to the sort of difficulties that ‘Garden seekers’ must deal with, in the Garden of Eden entry. “as an earthly garden, its specific location within both the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple literature. Thus, some texts place it in the east (Gen 2:8; 1En.32; Jub 8:16; 2 En. [rec.32] 42:3, 65:10; Philo QG 1:7; Leg 1:56; Josephus, Ant. 1.3), while others place it in the west (Gen 3:24; Josephus, JW 2.155), north (Ezek 28:13; 1En. 61.1), or northwest (1 En.24-25, 70:3).”^(ap)

More recently, Robert McRoberts in an article about the rivers of Eden included a map by Arianna Ravenswood, who placed Eden northwest of Babylon in what is now the Iraqi Province of Diyala^(u).

Within the same region is a submerged location at the head of the Persian Gulf promoted by Juris Zarins (1945- ).^(w) In his theory, the Bible’s Gihon River would correspond with the Karun River in Iran, and the Pishon River would match the Wadi Batin river system that had drained the now dry, but once quite fertile central part of the Arabian Peninsula. His suggestion about the Pishon River is supported by James A. Sauer (1945–1999) formerly of the American Center of Oriental Research although strongly criticized by the archaeological community^(x).

>A number of commentators have suggested that the site of Eden is now under water, where lower sea levels during the Ice Age would have revealed land now submerged, such as in the Persian Gulf. The Red Sea has also been proposed.<

Kircher’s Garden of Eden

The conventional idea has been enhanced in the opinion of some by the discoveries of the German archaeologist, Klaus Schmidt, who believed that his excavations at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey have unearthed artefacts dating to 8000 BC when the people there changed from hunting and gathering to agriculture. This region also contains Ur and Harran, mentioned in the Old Testament and since Göblekli Tepe is located between the Tigris and Euphrates and is within view of the Taurus Mountains, it conforms remarkably to the topographical description of Eden in the Bible. Tom Knox speculated on this in an article in the UK’s Daily Mail Online^(aa).

>It was no great surprise when I found at that least one commentator has proposed Göbekli Tepe and the surrounding area was the site of the Garden of Eden^(au).<

Garold Spire jr, an American researcher, offers a strong case for placing Eden in southern Turkey at the Karaca Dag shield-volcano. He studied the sacred books of the Abrahamic religions and drew up a short list of characteristics that the Garden must have;

1) It must have been warm enough to be comfortable without protective clothing. Gen 2:25.

2) It must be uphill geographically, due to the fact that four rivers exited

from it, these are the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Pishon, and the Gihon. Gen 2:10-14

3) The Pishon must compass or border Havila where there is gold and onyx. Gen 2:11, 12.

4)The Gihon must compass or border the whole land of Cush. Gen 2:13

5) It must account for a flaming sword on its east side. Gen 3:24

6) It must be well watered, Gen 13:10 by a mist (in Hebrew) not rain, Gen 2:5-6, which came up from the earth.

Spire maintains that his Turkish location has all these features^(an).

Christopher Columbus believed that the source of the Orinoco River, in what is now known as Venezuela had been the location of Eden. Antonio de León Pinelo (1590-1660) was a Spanish chronicler who spent some years in South America and was also convinced that the Garden of Eden had been situated between the great rivers of South America^(k)!

The imaginative Augustus Le Plongeon claimed the Yucatan as the location of the ‘Garden’^(s)an idea endorsed by his wife, Alice Dixon Le Plongeon.

In more recent times, Ramiro Gonzales Yaksic (1966- ), the author of Earthly Paradise: The Garden of the Andes ^[1055] in which he claims to have identified the biblical Garden of Eden in his native Bolivia^(ar). Dieter Groban has written in support of Yaksic^(as).

General Gordon of Khartoum fame was so impressed by the island of Preslin in the Seychelles that he declared it to be the Garden of Eden and its famed Coco de Mer and breadfruit plants to be the Tree of Life and the Tree of Good and Evil. Science writer, Karl Shuker, has written an extensive article, Forbidden Fruit, for the January 2016 edition of Fortean Times, in which he gives the background to Gordon’s obsession and his inability to garner any serious support for it.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, it was reported^(r) that G. F. Becker (1847-1919) a geologist with the USGS nominated Luzon in the Philippines as the site of the biblical ‘Garden’, while Sven Hedin (1865-1952) a much-decorated Swedish geographer chose Janaidar a mythical city in Central Asia.

George H. Cooper, the American writer, identified Salisbury Plain^[⁰²³⁶^.111] as the Garden of Eden along with its Wiltshire river system matching the Euphrates and Tigris in the Genesis story. W. Comyns Beaumont chose Britain’s Glastonbury as the site of the original Garden.

In the middle of the last century, a Baptist preacher, Elvy E. Callaway, announced that the Garden had been located in the vicinity of Bristol, Florida^(j).

David Rohl has studied the matter in great detail ^[²³⁰^] and located the ‘Garden’ in the northern Iranian province of East Azerbaijan near the city of Tabriz^(ad)(aj). Rohl’s reasoning is worthy of study and perhaps a comparison with the views of Emilio Spedicato, who offers his explanation for placing Eden in Pakistan’s Hunza Valley in two papers on the Internet⁽^b)(y⁾. Rohl was partly inspired by the work of Reginald A. Walker ^[1388/9].

>The inventive David Hatcher Childress published an article in issue 31 of the Atlantis Rising magazine with the title of Central Asia’s Ancient Heart and a subtitle that asks the question ‘Could Afghanistan Once Have Been the Garden of Eden?’ He then proceeds to offer a couple of pages about ancient Mongolia, with little reference to either Afghanistan or the Garden of Eden!<

Andrew Collins claims ^[⁰⁷³^] that the original Mesopotamian name for Eden was Kharsag, a view echoed by the late Christian O’Brien^(q). O’Brien’s nephew, Edmund Marriage, identifies the Bekka Valley in Lebanon as the location of Eden of Genesis. A new Lebanese location site is the subject of a website and forum^(h)(i). An excerpt from O’Brien’s book, relating to Eden, can be read online^(v).

Ari Zuker bravely suggests that the land of Israel was the Garden of Eden^(ao). John Appelt, an American pastor also supports this idea ^(at).

The Sabbah brothers, Roger and Messod, controversially place Eden in Egypt ^[³¹⁰^]and offer a range of evidence to support this contention. Ralph Ellis has also opted for Egypt in his book, Eden in Egypt^[⁰⁹⁵¹^] and claims that Adam and Eve were in reality, Akhenaton and Nefertiti! Ellis also supports his theory with two online papers providing excerpts from his books^(o)(p).

A Christian website, logoschristian.org, used to also claim that Eden had been located in the eastern Nile Delta, specifically named Al Mansura. In 1933, John G. Jackson wrote a paper advocating an African origin for the legend of the Garden of Eden. Jackson’s extreme Afrocentric views may have coloured his view of this subject!

Further to the west is the Tunisian town of Oudna, which has been nominated as Eden by one Patrick Archer on his somewhat sparse website⁽^d⁾.

Gerald Wells also identified some of his Algerian Atlantis territories as having included the biblical Garden of Eden^(aq⁾.

Another African location was put forward by Georg Hinzpeter over half a century ago when he suggested that the Ethiopian plateau had been the home of Adam & Eve before their eviction^(z).

Stephen E. Franklin has also opted for an African location for the Garden of Eden, placing it south of the Ahaggar Mountains near the Wadi Tafanasset in southern Algeria.^(ah⁾ He also claims that Mt. Tahat, the highest peak in the Ahaggars, was, according to Franklin, the original Atlas mountain referred to by Herodotus as the home of the Atlantes (sometimes Atarantes^(ai⁾). Sprague De Camp noted ^[194.191]that Paul Borchardt also identified the ancient Mt. Atlas with the Ahaggar Mountains rather than the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb! I should add that this identification of Mt. Atlas remains moot.

In 2014, Stan Deyo chose Tanzania as the location of the Garden of Eden^(h). Paulo Riven has also supported the region as the site of the ‘Garden’^(ak). This idea has been echoed elsewhere and more recently on a website dealing with the history of Israel^(f) and on a Christian website where the Ngorongoro Crater is specified^(g).

Carl Seaver has also offered an African location for the Garden. In a 2022 article, he reports that according to recent research, Botswana is the most likely location of the Garden and where humans originated. Eden sat in the Kalahari Desert, which used to be a wetland where the early humans lived. During this time, Lake Makgadikgadi stretched from Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe^(am).

In 2023 an African location for the Garden was again proposed by journalist, Tom Hale, who wrote^(al) “The so-called Cradle of Humankind can be found in South Africa around 50 kilometers (31 miles) northwest of Johannesburg. This site is home to the largest concentration of human ancestral remains anywhere in the world. Among the thousands of fossils found here, researchers have unearthed the remains of Australopithecus, an early ape-like human species dated to around 3.4 to 3.7 million years old.

It wasn’t until 200,000 to 300,000 years ago that modern Homo sapiens evolved. Once again, Africa was the location of this development, with modern humans most likely first emerging somewhere around modern-day Ethiopia.

So, if we’re looking for a scientific Garden of Eden, it looks like South Africa and Ethiopia are our best bet. Whether these sites were once home to a paradise where four rivers once met remains to be seen, however.”

What may appear just as implausible to many is the claim by Felice Vinci^[⁰¹⁹^], that the Eden story was imported from northern Europe, specifically from Finnish Lapland^(af⁾. At the end of the 19th century, William Fairfield Warren placed the Garden in the Arctic ^[0078].

Even more incredible is the assertion by the likes of William C. Chappell that the Garden of Eden was situated in the United States. His Mormon-inspired views are available as a free eBook⁽^c⁾ on the Internet. Interestingly, Jackson County, Missouri was the location of Eden revealed by Joseph Smith^(ac). the founder of Mormonism and well-known collector of wives.

A more ‘commercial’ suggestion has come from Dennis Brooks who suggested that Tarpon Springs, Florida, was originally the location of the Garden of Eden and that Tampa Bay contained the port of Atlantis.

The Urantia Book promotes the idea of two Edens, one near Cyprus and a second further east! In 2003, Robert Sarmast compiled a list of similarities between Plato’s account of Atlantis and the description of the Garden of Eden in the Urantia Book^(l).

In his 2004 book Finding Atlantis he claimed one of the Edens, noted in The Urantia Book, along with Atlantis had been situated near Cyprus, now in waters a mile deep! Two expeditions were organised to verify his claims, but nothing conclusive was found. Although very little has been heard from Sarmast in recent years, in 2018, Robert S. Bates attempted to breathe new life into Sarmast’s ideas that the Mediterranean region around Cyprus had been home to both Atlantis and the Garden of Eden^(ae).

Stephen Oppenheimer has pointed out^[⁰⁰⁴^] that Genesis 2:8 reads that “the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden”. He argues (p.409) that this supports the idea of a ‘paradise’ in the Sundaland region. However, Oppenheimer does not equate Eden with Atlantis.

As Monty Python used to say “now for something completely different” – The North Pole. This suggestion has come from Gene Matlock who advocated that ‘Eden was the North Pole’ in a paper of the same name^(ab).

The Garden of Eden has been suggested by some as another name for Atlantis, representing as it does a mythical time of peace and abundance. However, Eden is never spoken of in terms of military might and commercial success attributed to Atlantis. One of the better-known proponents of this idea of an Atlantean Eden was the late Professor Arysio dos Santos⁽^a⁾ who was convinced that it was located in the South China Sea before the ending of the last Ice Age submerged large areas of Sundaland. Confusingly, he referred to Eden as ‘Lemurian Atlantis’, but added that “This Lemurian Atlantis of ours should not be confused with the purely fanciful counterparts of the Theosophists and other such followers of Mme. Blavatsky. Their ‘Lemuria’ is a hypothetical sunken continent of the mid-Pacific region, one which never existed at all.

Shortly before his death in 2005, Santos published ^[³²⁰^] his theories, expanding on material that he had made available on the Internet for some years. Frank Joseph also claims ^[¹⁰⁶^][¹⁰⁷^] that the Garden of Eden was located on the lost island of ‘Lemuria’ located in the Pacific.

Bill Hanson, who has authored a number of books on ancient ‘mysteries’, has recently written a work ^[³⁵²^] that links the Garden of Eden with Atlantis. He identifies five similarities between the two accounts:

Both prehistoric locations are regarded as ‘lost paradises’
The four rivers of Eden are reflected in the four waterways of Poseidon the island capital of Atlantis.
Atlantis started with ten kings and the Bible speaks of ten patriarchs.
Zeus destroyed Atlantis because mortals and gods mated, whereas the Bible records the mating of the ‘sons of God’ and human females.
Atlantis was flooded just as the Age of the Patriarchs ended with the flood of Noah.

The late Joseph Robert Jochmans identified^(g⁾ Atlantis with Eden in a comprehensive article on his website. John Nichols also wrote a long article^(e⁾ identifying Atlantis with the Garden of Eden and placing it on the Celtic Shelf about a hundred miles off the coast of France due west of Brest.

Frederick Dodson in a hefty 523-page book^[989]claims an Atlantis-Garden of Eden connection⁽ⁿ⁾. In 2018, the Catalan researcher, José Luis Espejo also equated Atlantis with the Garden of Eden^[¹⁶⁰⁷^].

In 2022, a writer, hiding behind the nom de plume of ‘gserpent’, produced a lengthy article blending Atlantis, Eden and Lemuria into one heap of literary manure⁽^ag⁾.

Currently. the sadly benighted Iraq is trying to lure tourists to spend their holidays in ‘the Garden of Eden’^(m⁾!

⁽^a⁾http://www.lost-civilizations.net/atlantis-corroborating-evidence-page-12.html

⁽^b⁾kharsag (grazian-archive.com)

⁽^c⁾http://losttruthfound.com/gardenofedenfound.pdf

⁽^d⁾https://patrickofatlantis.com/

⁽^e⁾ https://jjswn35.wordpress.com/article/atlantis-eden-how-to-find-2vfxjftuay98o-9/

⁽^f⁾ https://sites.google.com/site/tribesofatlantis/Home/the-garden-of-eden

^(g) See: Archive 3602

^(h)The Garden of Eden – Found in Rashaya El-Wadi – the-lebanon.com (archive.org) *^or Archive 3182

⁽ⁱ⁾ https://www.christianforums.com/threads/the-garden-of-eden-origin-of-agriculture-found-near-rashaya-el-wadi-lebanon.7535161/*

^(j) https://www.weirdus.com/states/florida/fabled_people_and_places/garden_of_eden/index.php

^(k) See: Archive 2999