Ikom monoliths to change status of Cross River by Andy B on Monday, 07 January 2008

Friday, October 28, 2005 Tourism for Development Adekunle Adekoya In earlier editions of this page, and also in this column, pictures of carved stone monoliths from Alok have been published, as well as legends surrounding cotton trees planted at age grade initiation rites in the village of Alok, in the Ikom area of Cross River State. However recent work by Dr. Catherine Acholonu on the Ikom monoliths present a different vista that, when completed, along with relevant formalities and protocols on the global stage, will permanently change the status of Cross River and re-position that state as a prime tourist destination. In short, the gist of Dr. Acholonu's work is the unearthing of a linkage between Calabar and the ancient port city of Tilmun, mentioned in archaeological and anthropolical works. The key is in the deciphering of the inscriptions on the monoliths which unspringed an ancient orthography of the type used in the civilisation of Tilmun. I hereby present extracts from a letter from Dr. Acholonu to the Cross River State Governor, Dr. Duke on her works, titled "Completion of the Ikom monoliths project and request for audience to present our findings to the state. "Your Excellency, after four years of toiling and searching through mountains of material, ancient writings, mythologies, artifacts, ancient scriptures, libraries, anthropological records from the five continents of the globe, I am elated to report that on the 24th July 2005 with the aid of my Indian colleague, Engr Ajay Prabhakar, an IT consultant and computer scientist, I was able to decipher the ancient writings on the Cross River Monoliths. What we saw was beyond words. The work is slow and tedious. But we found that the inscriptions contain the names of Gods of Egypt and Babylon. We have matched the monoliths inscriptions with the Hebrew Cabbala and found more than ample evidence that the latter is modeled on the former. "Induced by these findings we ranged through the materials we had gathered from ancient records of Egypt, Babylon, Akkadia etc., and we found, with more than ample proof, that the Nigeria/Cameroon axis was the seat of an ancient sacred city of the gods known in all ancient texts as Tilmun. As recorded in ancient Egyptian and Babylonian texts, Tilmun was the Holy City-of the ancients around 11,000 B.C. It was built with an underground system of tunnels which was regularly visited by Egyptian kings on pilgrimage because Tilmun was famous as the Land of the Gods or the Land of the Living. Its sea port was the most famed sea port in antiquity for it supplied the Old World with gold, copper, iron, palm produce, etc from the interior lands of Africa. "Anthropologists, Archeologists and ethnographers from all over the world have been falling over themselves for decades, trying to find Tilmun. They have tried to locate it in the Middle East, even though the evidence they provide as proof is insufficient. But you know that even in academics there is politics. They have chosen the Middle Eastern city of Bayrein as the location of ancient Tilmun and now tourists from all over the world are flocking to that city as a result of that false claim. "HOWEVER, OUR RESEARCH HAS PROVED BEYOND ALL DOUBT THAT TILMUN IS LOCATED IN THE NIGERIA/CAMEROON AXIS AND THAT THE FAMOUS SEA PORT OF TILMUN CELEBRATED IN ALL THE WRITINGS OF THE ANCIENTS WAS THE CALABAR SEA PORT ON THE SHORE OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. CALABAR WAS THE ROME AND THE MECCA OF ANTIQUITY: IT WAS THE HOLY CITY OF THE PHARAOHS FASHIONED BY THE. SAME GODS THAT RULED EGYPT WHOSE REIGN ENDED IN 3,000 B.C. "WE ALSO FOUND THAT THE QUA PEOPLE, THE FIRST INHABITANTS OF CALABAR, ARE OF THE DIRECT LINEAGE OF CANAAN WHOSE NAME IS SPELT ‘QA-IN’ IN HEBREW(Emphases hers). "This is just the tip of the iceberg. Our findings are, to say the least, earth-shattering! And everything is based on facts and scientific procedures." Dr. Catherine Acholonu is Country Ambassador for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (Forum of Arts and Culture) and also Africa Renaissance Ambassador. When Dr. Acholonu completes her work, and it becomes public knowledge in Nigeria and the rest of the world, her findings will permanently alter the status of Calabar and Cross River State and perhaps, as a nation, we will have another World Heritage Site. See how academia can contribute to the growth of tourism? Source: Vanguard Media

[ Reply to This | Go Back up a level ]