Israelite Connection With Ancient Gaul
The following information is taken from appendix 8 in, "The Story Of Celto-Saxon Israel", but without the many valuable illustrations found in the book. This excellent resource with over 170 maps, charts, and illustrations, is considered the best study available on the subject of the European connection with the lost House of Israel. It may be purchased from our web bookshop at www.migrations.info
OUR BRITISH ANCESTORS:
WHO AND WHAT WERE THEY?
An inquiry serving to elucidate the traditional history of the
early Britons, by means of recent excavations, etymology, remnants of
religious worship, inscriptions, craniology, and fragmentary collateral
history.
By the Rev. Samuel Lysons, M.A., F.S.A.
Published by John Henry and James Parker, Oxford and London,
1865
Extract from pages 174-181
Another name of the moon which supplies us nationally with
much matter for interesting enquiry is that of Gal or Gula, which according
to Rawlinson was the female power of the sun, meaning in primitive Babylonian
‘the great,’ in Hebrew ‘the round,’ and is identical with the Gad-lat
of the alter Chaldean mythology.
In Babylonian Gula was worshipped as the great goddess-wife of the meridian
sun, the deity who presides over life and fecundity. This too was the
religion of the Gauls, and it may be a question of some interest to determine
whether they did not derive their name from the worship they professed.
If the Sennones derived from Sin or Sen, ‘the sun,’ the Aviones from
Aven, also ‘the sun,’ the Canaanites from Can-aan, the associated deities
of sun and moon, may not the Gauls have derived from Gal, Gul?
Gal means anything round; it implies circularity of form or motion. The
moon would have this name on both these grounds.
It is the root which enters into all words which imply rotundity of shape
and motion – so also of rolling. The rolling of stones together is in
Scripture called Gal-eed.
Gilead means precisely such heaps of stones as our British tumuli. “Jacob
said to his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones, and made an
heap… And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this
day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed.”
The same idea of rotundity is conveyed in Gol-gotha, ‘a place round like
a skull.’ Our translation, “a place of a skull,” imperfectly conveys
the meaning.
Gil-gal is a reduplication of the power; and it is not a little singular
that “the French,” says Mr. Thomas Wright, “still call the mounds of
stones Gal-gals.” We know from Scripture what the idolatrous worship
of Gilgal was, when “Balaam answered from Shittim to Gilgal.”
Agalma, ‘a shrine or monument, a place heaped up for devotion,’ probably
had its origin in this root. Gaaul in the British language also meant
a rolling of stones together. Nennius tells us that the great wall which
Severus rolled together across Britain was in the British language called
Gaaul. Pen-guual was precisely what is now called Walls-end, from which
the London coals come. This shews us the transition from Gaul into Wall,
and Gualish to Wallish, or Welsh. The G and W were evidently interchangeable.
The name leaves its traces in many parts of England, Wales, and Ireland,
as gall-oway, Gallway, Gal-tee mountains, Gal-by; and with the W, in
Wales, Walesby, Wallsworth, Wal-ford, Wal-den, Wal-wyn, Wal-cot, Corn-wall,
etc. In Gloucestershire, where from its vicinity to Wales remnants of
British language still remain, the hay when rolled together in a long
row ready for carting is said to be ‘put into walley.’
Gal meant everything round. The Phoenician round galleys were gauloi,
hence the word ‘galley.’ The round excresence which grows on an oak-tree
is an ‘oak-gall.’
Gal means ‘the moon,’ in Irish. Gwawl is British for Julia. Julia is
from Jul, or Yul, or Gal, which is ‘the moon,’ the Gillian of our ballads
and the Jill of fairy-land. The deceptions of Jill or Gul, ‘the moon-light,’
are perpetuated in the words ‘to gull’ and ‘to jilt.’
Julia, the sister of Helena and aunt of Constantine, is called Gwawl
in Cymric song.
Gal also means the colour of the moon, and is referred sometimes to pale
yellow, (‘yellow’ or ‘yal-low,’ from Gal,) at other times to bright yellow,
almost red; hence the word ‘gules’ in heraldry. In Suffolk and Essex
‘goel’ or ‘gole’ is still used for bright yellow.
Golan was the chief town of the region of the Gaulonites. The Gallim
were mound-makers; also those who wrapped themselves in a peculiar dress.
Gallimi were cloaks such as the Chemarim, and Melanchlaeni, and Cassiterides
wore. Gallimi, 2 Kings 2:8.
The Gauls (Galli, Galati, Gad-lati, by syncope, Celti or Celts) were,
upon every discovery we make, moon-worshippers, or mound-makers to the
moon.
The worship of the moon and sun involved everything circular – circular
temples, circular dances, circular processions. The sacred writing of
these people was also circular. Ogham, from the Hebrew for ‘round,’ was
the name given to the character of their sacred letters. The temples
of Vesta (Greek, ‘Hphaista), another name for the moon or moonlight,
at Rome, Tivoli, and elsewhere, were all round. The Gaulo-British temples
at Avebury and Stonehenge were circular. The name of Gaul seems therefore
to be derived from the moon as the object of worship, the form of which
was adopted in all the ceremonies of the peoples addicted to that religion.
The Galli were priests of the moon, Cybele the mother of gods, whose
worship was carried from Phoenician and Phrygia to Carthage, and thence
to Rome; their chief was called Archigallus. These priests were also
called Agyrtae, Metragyrtae, and Menagyrtae, from gyrare, ‘to turn about
in circles,’ as the Druids are said to have done. Camerius Crescens,
according to Gruter, was the name of an Archigallus. In these names we
recognise the Chemarim or Cymry, and the crescent, the recognixed emblem
of moon-worship. Hesychius calles Cybele (the moon) “Cimmeris.” She is
also called Enthea mater, the ‘frantic mother,’ from the frantic mode
of conducting her rites. Martial shews us what this was:
“Etsectus ululat matris Entheae Gallus.”
‘And howls the lacerated priest of the infuriated mother.’
The Sectus Gallus, the ‘lacerated (priest) Gaul’ (they are synonymous) pointing to the way in which these sun-moon worshippers lacerated themselves, as described in 1 Kings 18:28. In short, these few words of Martial convey exactly the sense and spirit of that passage, exhibiting a remarkable coincidence between sacred and profane history, and explaining the uses of those flint knives which we so invariably find in the sacrificial and sepulchral monuments of the British Gauls. Prudentius, Lactantius, and Juvenal, mention the fanatics of Bellona (another name for the moon, the female impersonation of Bel) lacerating themselves with knives. We learn from M.Morier that cutting with knives and lancets in certain religious ceremonies is used in Persia to the present day.
The notion of circularity may be again conveyed in the name given to the priests of the British worship. It has been usual to derive the name of Druids from the Greek word, drus, ‘an oak,’ that tree being an object of worship among that people, and groves of them having been their temples. Pliny indeed assigns this as a probable etymon of the name. He does not say that they were actually called Druids from their employment of the oak in their religious ceremonies, but rather that they paid such honours to that tree, and looked to it under so many circumstances, that they might almost seem to have had the Greek name of Druids given them. His words are, “Nec ulla sacra sine ea fronde conficiunt, ut inde appellati qauoque interpretatione Graeca possint Druidae videri.” He evidently uses it as a sort of apposite play upon the word, drus, and not as a true etymon. It would nevertheless be quite as appropriate a play upon the words, and not further from the ark, than if we were to say that the Britons were so called from being the Bright-ones… Now the words Dru and Gaul are nearly synonymous; they both mean anything round, and to go about in a circular progression.”
