Page:Atlantis - The Antediluvian World (1882).djvu/405

Rh

THE IBERIAN COLONIES OF ATLANTIS.

the farthest point in the past to which human knowledge extends a race called Iberian inhabited the entire peninsula of Spain, from the Mediterranean to the Pyrenees. They also extended over the southern part of Gaul as far as the Rhone.

"It is thought that the Iberians from Atlantis and the north-west part of Africa," says Winchell, "settled in the south-west of Europe at a period earlier than the settlement of the Egyptians in the north-east of Africa. The Iberians spread themselves over Spain, Gaul, and the British Islands as early as 4000 or 5000 B.C.… The fourth dynasty (of the Egyptians), according to Brugsch, dates from about 3500 B.C. At this time the Iberians had become sufficiently powerful to attempt the conquest of the known world." (" Preadamites," p. 443.)

"The Libyan-Amazons of Diodorus—that is to say, the Libyans of the Iberian race—must be identified with the Libyans with brown and grizzly skin, of whom Brugsch has already pointed out the representations figured on the Egyptian monuments of the fourth dynasty." (Ibid.)

The Iberians, known as Sicanes, colonized Sicily in the ancient days. They were the original settlers in Italy and Sardinia. They are probably the source of the dark-haired stock in Norway and Sweden. Bodichon claims that the Iberians embraced the Ligurians, Cantabrians, Asturians, and Aquitanians. Strabo says, speaking of the Turduli and Turdetani, "they are the most cultivated of all the Iberians; they employ the art of writing, and have written books containing