"Biological Warfare"

We are not the only generations to participate in biological warfare.

Hittite texts from 1500 BC to 1200 BC spoke of plague victims being driven into enemy lands. They had more sophisticated, if not more impractical technology available.

Many Armies, through medieval times, had launched blood and feces at the enemy.

Around 1763 a documented case of alleged germ warfare involved British Commander Jeffery Amherst and Swiss-British officer Henry Bouquet whose correspondence mentions the idea of giving smallpox infested blankets to Indians during the Pontiac Rebellion which included the seizing of Fort Pitt late in the French and Indian War.

There is much more to the story even before we get to our life-long and extensive part in the activity.

Bring us up to date. Tell us more.

Someone mentioned Hawthorn, California.

Before The Modern Flush Toilet

The following timeline info is mostly copied directly from a Wikipedia page.

~ About 3100 BC (A River Ran Through It) Britain's oldest neolithic village, Skara Brae, Orkney used neolithic hydrolic technology. The village's design used a river and connecting drainage system to wash waste away.

~ About 2600 BC flush toilets were first used by the Indus Valley Civilization in what is now India. The cities of Harappa and Mohejo-daro a a flush toilet in almost every house.

~ Around 1800 BC flush toilets were constructed at Knossos on Minoa Crete.

~ Around 1500 BC flush toilets were used in the Minoan city of Akrotiri.

~ 900 BC flush toilets were used on Bahrain Island.

~ 100 to 500 AD flush toilets were used throughout Roman Lands. With the fall of Rome the technology was lost to the West. And blackwater began the Dark Ages.


~ 1206 AD The Arab inventor, Al-Jazri, invented a hand washing device incorporating the flush mechanism now used in modern flush toilets. His device feature and automaton by a basin filled with water. When the user pulls the lever, the water drains and the automaton refills the basin.

There are Old Stories

 There are stories that have been told and repeated for thousands  of years. I want a good story teller to tell them to me. I know bits and pieces of them. I just found some bits and pieces of those bits and pieces repeated in Wikipedia! I feel some validation. I sometimes feel that perhaps what I think I remember is inventive fantasy.


What I recall is often not a complete story, but a sort of broken out of joint thing. The following is what I remember of what wants to be a story. Even with a bit of help from Wikipedia, it is still not a complete story. Maybe one of you can help me mend it. 


Remember, my dates are, at best, my best guess of the day.


Some time between about 1500 BC and 1200 BC(we used to just say long long ago) a certain Amorite king of Bashan was called Og. His army was defeated and he was killed by the men of Moses. He came from  a race of giants. It is said that some of them were twice as high as an ordinary man and twice as wide too. A relative of our Og was also called Og. That Og was on the Ark with Noah and a help to him.


Our Og is mentioned in Jewish legends and in the Qur'an. Some say our Og lived 3000 years and is  the same one who helped Noah. Some men will believe anything; some will say anything to make a good story. Phoenicians knew him as a man of ancient times and use his name as a curse. If you did wrong Og would get you.


Our Og is said to have known the Scythian, the tower of Babel, and the Golan Heights.


It is said that his people of Bashan lived in walled towns in a rugged country. It is said that they lived in strong nicely made homes made of slabs of basalt like iron. In Wikipedia a Porter is quoted of having said in 1867, that he stayed in some of those houses and found them to be in good condition. He added that they my be the very oldest specimens of domestic architecture in the world.


In southern Ireland around Kerry, Cork, and Waterford(where lived Sheehan) and to a lesser extent in Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, and even on the Devon/Cornwall order is a certain writing on stone. Only about 400 inscriptions have been counted and they contain mostly personal names. But other words have been translated; words that mean ring, salmon, war chariot, kindness, badger, raven,  short, peak, young woman, straw life, crab, hare, horse, rabbit, lobster, herring. They are said to be a bronze age language.  Some say the writing goes back only to the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd century BC. Others say that the writing is much older than the inscription on stone. They say that it was customary to write it on wood long before that. They said that it was written on other materials as well, materials that included gold.


Very similar writing was use to write Old Irish and Primitive Irish.


Irish used this alphabet to write on wood and inscribe on iron as late as 700 AD. In 417 AD scholars from Europe and elsewhere were still coming to Ireland to read manuscripts in that writing. Not long after that Irish Missionaries were bringing their manuscripts to Rome.




From about 1150 through about 1550 the English did a good job of keeping the Irish from tilling their own land, of starving them, of killing their language. After 1550 the English really began to do a job of crushing the Irish ...for a time. The old way of writing was lost, Latin and 'English' was learned


The Old language had been used in literature and history. It had been used in hand and finger signals, and in code. It had power and was used for teaching.


"Sheehan" was written with those letters in that language. The speakers of that language may have named us Shee. They may have called us mound livers or 'sid'  It seems sid and Shee sounded more alike in those days. 


The letters were used to write many languages. The Druids knew them. The earliest Christians wrote Sacred Scripture using the alphabet.


Early Irish accounts say that the alphabet was devised shortly after the the fall of the Tower of Bablel. They may have called it Nimrod's Tower. The head deviser, it seems was the Scythian king Fenius Farsa. Farsa was the son of Baath, who was the son of Magog, who was the son of Japtha, who was the son of Noah. He came to the plain of Shinar with Goidel mac Etheoir, lar mac Nema, his own son Nel, and 72 wise men (nobles, scholars) to study the confused languages of Nimrod's Tower. The people had moved so it took ten years to create The Berl a tobaida and two other languages and a writing system was devised for them.


The writing system and the Beithe-luis-nuin was carried to Ireland.


Ogma mac Elathan and Lug mac Elathan, they may have been on and the same person, carried the writing in Ireland.


Ogma played the harp.


Mac Elthan named the letters of the writing after trees known to the Irish. The word for letters may have been 'nin.' There were originally 20 letters; later  five more were added. The five new letters were called 'feda' which may men trees.


The letters and the writing system may have been named after Ogma, a member of the Tuatha de Danaan. This Ogma may be related to the pre- and post-flood Ogias, at lest one of whom was on the Ark with Noah. His father was Elatha, one o those who developed languages and devised  the system of near Babel. Ogham was named after Ogma in Ireland, but it was Ogmas father who did the devising.


The sysem and the letters and the writing is called Ogham to this day.


Ogham was used to write a number of varied languages. Did the Irish have  a 'phonetic' language before the Phoenicians?

Guesses About Happenings Around 1500 BC

A while back I made some guesses as what was happening around 1500 BC. I based my guesses on reading I had  done rather than on my knowledge of man. My guesses follow:


'Great bronze work and the printing of a 40,000 some character dictionary during he Shang dynasty.' [I'm using Wikipedia and other on-line sources to check my guesses.] It seems that the Shang dynasty of China was in full career from 1760 BC to 1122 BC and the Shang were known for excellent bronze work. I couldn't find a date for the printing of the dictionary. Still I'd say I should get half credit anyway.


'There was notable seismic upheaval.' I haven't found and documentation and am not sure what I meant by 'notable.' There was a large earthquake in China noted in the Bamboo Annals,
but I figure a correct guess should fall within  100 years of 1500. So my guess is WRONG.


'There was tin mining in what is now England.' There is agreement that Phoenicians transported tin from England to places around the Mediterranean and they were doing business around 1500 BC. There are those who feel sure that tin was being mined in England by 1500 BC.
Even though there is some controversy as to whether Phoenicians were doing business in what was to become Great Britain as early as 1500 BC, I consider this a correct answer. I bet my Irish ancestors knew those Phoenicians by that time.


'A library at a rebuilt Hittite capital had tablets in eight languages.' I haven't been able to verify this. I do seem to remember a site believed to be Hittite at which tablets in eight langugess were found. I guess this must be called a wrong answer.


'The Rig-Veda was written down.' Authorities seem to think that it was put into writing between 1700 and 1100 BC. Can I get half credit?


'Chiapas de Carzo, the oldest city in Mexico was founded' It might be the oldest. Most experts seem to believe that it was probably after 1400 BC. Close, but wrong again.


'The Dorians conquered or settled in the Peloponnesus.' Historians speak of the conquest, but I haven't been able to verify a date. Most authorities seem to agree that there were Dorians in the Greek highlands at about that time. Close, but no cigar, yet.


'Hammurabi, King of Babylon, published his famous law code. Babylonians of the time were using highly developed geometry as a basis for astronomical measurements. The Zodiac was used as a teaching tool, The Hammuabic code included guidelines  for medical practices and permissible fees for surgery and treatments.' Wrong! The details are probably right, but most authorities agree that the code was written in stone before 1700 BC. 


'Moses received the Ten Commandments.' Haven't found agreement on the date. Couldn't even find agreement on what the Commandments said about killing each other. Wrong again. Is there info that suggests I could be right?


'The first palace at Cnossos, Crete was built.'
I seem to remeber that it was found to have light and air shafts and running water in the baths, but I'm wrong about the date. The palace may have been completed before 2000 BC. Even the one built after the catastrophe, the one of labyrinth legend, was probably completed by 1700 BC. Wrong.


'The Great Labyrinth of Egypt built by Amenemhet the III.' There was  first Suez canal during this period, Contraceptives were in use, A series of labor strikes occured at Thebes. Wrong. Authorities seem to agree that this Amenemhet live or rule from about 1860 BC to 1814 BC, So the happenings I mentioned must have occurred a that time.


'Troy was.' I was thinking of Homeric Troy. I was wrong. It seems to be that no one thinks it was there before 1399. Some think that it was founded after 100 BC.


Maybe this wasn't a complete waste, bu I don't plan to do it again.