Free Republic

Around 850 B.C. Kommagene appears for the first time in the annals of written history. According to the records of an Assyrian king, the population had to pay an annual tribute to him of gold, silver and the famous wood of the cedar trees. Apparently, the valuable cedar tree not only grew on the hillsides of the Lebanon in those days, but also in Kommagene. Kommagene became a satellite state of the Assyrians. Around 700 B.C. a Kommagenian king rebelled against the Assyrians... Around 300 B.C. one of the heirs of Alexander the Great came into possession of the land....

The Babylonian Gap Revisited Perhaps the greatest disaster to befall ancient Israel was the conquest, at the end of the sixth century B.C.E. and start of the fifth, by the Babylonian empire. The fall of Judah to this new regional superpower occurred in two stages: Major strongholds like the Philistine cities of Ashkelon and Ekron fell to the armies of Nebuchadrezzar (Biblical Nebuchadnezzar) in 604 B.C.E. Jerusalem was besieged in 597 B.C.E. and capitulated to the Babylonians. Under the leadership of the puppet king Zedekiah, the Judahite capital survived another decade. But when Nebuchadrezzar learned that Zedekiah had conspired with...

A watchtower dating from the time of the Kingdom of Judah (8th century BCE - during the reign of King Hezekiah) was recently uncovered by archaeological excavations carried out by IDF soldiers, together with the Israel Antiquities Authority... The tower, whose dimensions in antiquity are estimated to have been 15 x 10.5 ft, was erected on a high elevation site, and served as an observation point on the Hebron Mountains... It was built using very large stones, weighing some 8 tons each. Its height today reaches around 6 ft. According to Sa'ar Ganor and Valdik Lifshitz, excavation directors on behalf...

The Purpose of Exile By Philip Cottraux Assyria. The terror of the ancient world is still infamous for their extreme brutality. When the Assyrians would conquer a city, they were known to have “child fires,” lining up the city’s children and forcing the parents to watch while they burned them en masse. They would flay survivors of defeated armies alive and adorn the walls of Nineveh with the skins. Inside, the streets were decorated with “head pyramids,” large piles of decapitated heads of conquered people. Lines of dismembered limbs were strewn from building to building, adorning the city like gruesome...

..."It is not possible to take seriously the allegations and accusations made by a mentality which massacred thousands of Palestinians, turned the lands of the Palestinians into an open-air prison, in order to suppress its guilt," Erdogan's spokesperson Ibrahim Kal?n said... Israel disregards international law, has "occupied Palestinian people's hundreds-of-years-old homeland and systematically violates United Nations resolutions," ...adding that Israel "must first account for its own actions." "Those, who think they will make Al-Quds, our first Qibla, the capital of the occupying state, are wasting their time. Israeli authorities should end the occupation of Palestinian lands instead of attacking our...

One archeologist was quoted as saying that ISIS's act of “destruction has actually led us to a fantastic find.” A find that shows the Bible to be correct once again. ...snip So here's how it happened. In 2014, ISIS destroyed a site believed by many to be the burial site of Jonah in Mosul because...that's what ISIS does. They destroy. For some reason they went to town on the place, even using dynamite to destroy it. But a few weeks ago, the area was liberated by Iraqi forces from ISIS. But because the site was blown to smithereens, what was...

Giovanni Semerano had to wait 90 years before receiving his first institutional acknowledgement for his important discoveries concerning ancient languages, in particular, the Etruscan language. Semerano has revolutionized the theories tied to the Indo-European languages as the root of the current Mediterranean and European languages. He was defined a "heretic" scholar because he erased centuries of philosophical studies that saw in the Greek-Latin philosophies the origins of European culture. Thanks to his etymological studies the 90-year-old philosopher instead sustains that Western culture derives from the Shiites and the Assyrians.

ISIS barbarians have destroyed a 2,000-year-old gate close to their Iraqi stronghold of Mosul. The breathtaking structure is known as the Gate of God, and used to guard the ancient Assyrian city Nineveh. The destruction of the ancient structure, also called the Mashki Gate, has been confirmed by the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, and the Antiquities Department in Baghdad has not denied the demolition. The terrorists demolished the ancient gate using military equipment, according to activists in Mosul. ISIS thugs have destroyed many of Iraqi historic sites and monuments, including the Assyrian city of Nimrud, the Winged...

Since at least the fifth century, Christians had identified a spot in Jerusalem as the Pool of Siloam and the site of the miracle. But it was not until a decade ago that archaeologists found what they are certain is the ancient pool of Siloam. Like so many such finds, it was almost by accident. During construction work to repair a water pipe near the Temple Mount, Israeli archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron found "two ancient stone steps." According to Biblical Archaeology Review, "Further excavation revealed that they were part of a monumental pool from the Second Temple period,...

“Around the world, Christians are facing violence, persecution, brutality in a way we have not seen in generations.” – Rey Flores, “The Wanderer” The leftist charlatans with their fake “war on women” movement are deafly silent in the face of a real genocide, the deliberate and brutal torture and killings of Christian men and women. Yazidi women and girls are kidnapped, raped, and driven into a life of slavery to ISIS as forced converts to Islam. A small army of resistance is fighting the scourge of ISIS, in a valiant attempt to save what is left of their tribes and...

Archeologist unearths biblical controversy Artifacts from Iron Age fortress confirm Old Testament dates of Edomite kingdom By MICHAEL VALPY Tuesday, January 25, 2005 Canadian archeologist Russell Adams's interest is in Bronze Age and Iron Age copper production. He never intended to walk into archeology's vicious debate over the historical accuracy of the Old Testament -- a conflict likened by one historian to a pack of feral canines at each other's throats. Yet by coincidence, Prof. Adams of Hamilton's McMaster University says, he and an international team of colleagues fit into place a significant piece of the puzzle of human history...

Syria's leading Kurdish militia and several Arab rebel groups that have fought alongside it have formalised their alliance in a new group called the Syrian Democratic Forces. The formation of the alliance comes after Washington said it was abandoning a plan to train and equip rebels to fight the Islamic State group and could provide the US with a new partner in the battle against the jihadist group. The alliance was announced in a statement published online by a spokesman for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). "The sensitive stage through which our country Syria is passing and the rapid...

A U.S.-backed Syrian-Kurdish militia, a number of Arab rebel groups and an Assyrian Christian group in Syria have formed a coalition to build a democratic representation for a number of moderate parties within Syria, according to a statement seen by Reuters on Monday. The new alliance, which is calling itself the Democratic Forces of Syria, includes the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) that beat back the Islamic State (ISIS) with the support of U.S. airstrikes in the Syrian-Kurdish border town of Kobani earlier this year. The YPG continues to battle the radical Islamist group in areas of northeastern Syria and...

The Israeli military said Sunday it struck two Syrian army posts with artillery fire after rockets from the war-torn country landed in Israeli-controlled territory. The military said the two rockets, which landed over the last two days, were errant fire from the Syrian conflict. They caused no damage or injuries. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said in a statement that Israel holds the Syrian military "responsible and accountable for any aggression emanating from Syria." Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said a Syrian army position in the Quneitra region of the...

A Canadian Jewish businessman has spearheaded efforts to rescue Iraqi Yazidi and Christian girls from slavery after the girls were captured by ISIS troops, using money donated privately by business contacts. The businessman has cited Oskar Schindler, who rescued Jewish children from the holocaust, as his inspiration. Last summer the world looked on in horror as ISIS swept through north Iraq, home to Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, and Yazidis. Hundreds of thousands fled before them, but thousands more starved to death in the desert, or were captured by Islamic forces. Girls in particular were bartered for in the markets, standing...

Christians in Syria have welcomed the statement by US General John Allen, the special coordinator of the International Coalition against ISIS, in which he recognised the need for all peoples in Syria to have some degree of autonomy when they are freed from tyranny. The Syriac-Assyrians made their comments in a press release in which they also welcomed the continuing efforts of the coalition against ISIS. "This demonstrates," they said, "that the war against the militant group is a war to defend the whole of humanity." against the militant group is a war to defend the whole of humanity." There...

Ancient Assyrian tablets, dictating social arrangements including women's rights, dating back to 4,000 years have been excavated in the Central Anatolian province of Kayseri, a local newspaper reported Thursday. Prof. Fikri Kulakoglu of Ankara University told Dogan News Agency that the Kultepe-Kanis-Karum trade colony site where the tablets were unearthed was remarkable. He said the tablets revealed detailed information about the Assyrians, spanning from commercial trade to the nitty-gritty of the local social life. "From women's rights to the adoption of children and marriages arranged at birth, the tablets include all kinds of civilizational and social data from Anatolia 4,000...

Syria is believed to be home to about half of the estimated 1.5 million Druze worldwide. Interviews with Druze civilians and fighters here confirm that many regard the rebel advance as a threat to the Druze's existence. Sunni Islamist groups like Al Nusra Front, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, and Islamic State, an Al Qaeda offshoot, view the Druze as heretics. The rebels have acknowledged battlefield coordination with Nusra militants. This month, alarm spread among the Druze population when Nusra fighters killed at least 20 Druze in Qalb Lawzeh, a village in the northwestern province of Idlib. Other reports...

(Full title too long: Eighty Year Old Christian Woman Says To Hell With The Islamic Religion, The Muslims Grab Her, Light Her On Fire And Cook Her To Death) An eighty year old Christian woman in Mosul, Iraq, refused to comply with sharia law, and the Muslims — all members of ISIS, burned her alive and cooked her to death. According to one Middle East Christian report: According to a report by the BasNews agency, ISIS burned an 80 year-old Assyrian woman to death in a village southeast of Mosul. Citing Sa’ed Mamuzini, a representative of the Kurdistan Democratic Party...

On 23 February 2015 while I was giving a talk at the Anti-Terrorism conference in Tokyo Japan ISIL forces were attacking the 37 Assyrian villages of the Khabour River Valley in Syria. Since that attack the Christian Assyrians have been virtually annihilated from Syria and will probably lose their footprint within those historical villages over the next two years. The following day, I participated in a conference and a talk given by Mr. Michael Yon who spoke about the Comfort Women, which in itself is an information operation campaign, which China has used to influence world opinion about Japan. The...