Welcome back to 100 lies The God Culture teaches about the Philippines. Today's lie concerns Timothy Jay Schwab's claim that the Philippine Islands are the mythical island of gold and silver known as Chryse and Argyre. This claim is central to his teaching that the Philippines is Ophir. Let's take a closer look.
Tim claims, with absolutely no proof, that the ancient source of Greek gold and silver was the land of Chryse and Argyre which was really the Philippines. Why would they sail all that way for gold? He never tells us and he totally ignores the fact gold was available in Greek mines. Here is what that looks like according to Timothy Jay Schwab.
The top island is Chryse which Tim claims is Luzon and the bottom island is Argyre which he claims is Mindanao. Hello?? Where are the Visayas? What he is telling us is that the Greeks sailed to the Philippines, set up colonies, but were not able to accurately map the area! That is ridiculous and makes the Greeks appear dumber than they actually were. But Tim also says the Greeks kept this route secret. How would he even know that especially when he uses Ancient Greek descriptions of the world to prove his claim that the Greeks sailed to the Philippines?
A close look at Ancient Greek maps show that out of 9 maps only 4 have a location marked Chryse. Two of those maps show Chryse as an island while the other two maps show it as the Malay Peninsula. Only one map has Argyre. If Argyre corresponds to a real island, Mindanao says Tim and the God Culture, then why is it on only one map in all of antiquity? The only map with Argyre is that of Pomponius Mela. Mela places Chryse near point Tamus and Argyre near the Ganges River.
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| https://topostext.org/work/145 |
Alongside Point Tamus is the island of Chryse, beside the Ganges the island of Argyre.
Beside the Ganges is absolutely nowhere near the Philippines. Yet Tim has several videos where he goes on and on and on attempting to prove that the Greeks really had no idea where Chryse and Argyre were because they had lost the directions and how we have to get into their mind set. The fact is the Greeks were familiar with India having marched there with Alexander and engaging in trade with the Indians. What Tim wants us to believe is that the ancient Greeks were stupid and we all know that is not the case. Beside the Ganges means beside the Ganges.
While Tim has quite a few videos where he misinterprets maps from the Greeks, Romans, and Portuguese in a vain attempt to prove that Chryse and Argyre are the Philippines I only want to review what he has to say about the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea because it illustrates how daft the man really is and proves that not only is he lying but he has no idea what he is talking about.
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| 100 Clues #2: Philippines Is The Ancient Land of Gold: Gold Found - Ophir, Sheba, Tarshish. Edited. |
2:20 "Periplus of the Erytheaen Sea in the first century records Chryse and Argyre as being located in "the last part of the inhabited world toward the east, under the rising sun itself beyond the land of China which brought silk to India." Gee, umm I don't know which islands are east of China? Wait! Ethiopia? Nope, that's not it! Yemen? No. India? Ugh! Someone must know their geography very well in speculating that those guys could possibly be this ancient land of gold. It's the Philippines. Oh yeah! And they also map it. So really this is not rocket science folks."
This is all wrong. First of all the Periplus of the Erytheaen Sea does not mention Argyre. Only Mela mentions Argyre. Second of all he flubs the directions. Chryse is not located "beyond the land of China." That phrase is an addition by Tim. He sure does love inserting his own emendations into older texts to make them say what they do not. We saw he did the very same thing with Pigafetta when Tim claims he saw elephants in the Philippines. Here is what the Periplus actually says:
63. After these, the course turns toward the east again, and sailing with the ocean to the right and the shore remaining beyond to the left, Ganges comes into view, and near it the very last land toward the east, Chryse. There is a river near it called the Ganges, and it rises and falls in the same way as the Nile. On its bank is a market-town which has the same name as the river, Ganges. Through this place are brought malabathrum and Gangetic spikenard and pearls, and muslins of the finest sorts, which are called Gangetic. It is said that there are gold-mines near these places, and there is a gold coin which is called caltis. And just opposite this river there is an island in the ocean, the last part of the inhabited world toward the east, under the rising sun itself; it is called Chryse; and it has the best tortoise-shell of all the places on the Erythraean Sea.
64. After this region under the very north, the sea outside ending in a land called This, there is a very great inland city called Thinae [i.e. China], from which raw silk and silk yarn and silk cloth are brought on foot through Bactria to Barygaza, and are also exported to Damirica [=Limyrike] by way of the river Ganges. But the land of This is not easy of access; few men come from there, and seldom. The country lies under the Lesser Bear [Ursa Minor], and is said to border on the farthest parts of Pontus and the Caspian Sea, next to which lies Lake Maeotis; all of which empty into the ocean.
https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/periplus/periplus.html
In paragraph 63 Chryse is located near the Ganges and it is described as both "the very last land towards the east" and "an island in the ocean." Paragraph 64 starts off "After this region." What region? Chryse. After Chryse and to the north is China. Remember we are traveling East. China is not East of the Philippines. It is West. So, after Chryse going eastward and to the north is China. Chryse is not the Philippines according to these directions. It looks like this:
Now, this is just a short article to prove that Tim is lying about Chryse and Argyre being the Philippines. I have a much more in depth article you can read here. In that article I examine 9 Ancient Greek maps and prove beyond doubt that the Greeks new of nothing past the Malay Peninsula. Oddly enough Tim says the Malay Peninsula on Ptolemy's map is actually Burma!
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| The 1st Century Mapping Mindset. Greece to Ophir, Philippines? Solomon's Gold Series 16C |
7:15 Of course he's taking Ptolemy who didn't even know what the Maylay Peninsula was and claims he says it was the Malay Peninsula. That's stupid that's what that is. And then he never mapped it okay as he only goes as far as Burma in his directions, duh.
So, and then there are those who use Ptolemy principally as the primary source of Southeast Asian geography yet one could not be more inept as Ptolemy thought the Indian Ocean was enclosed after Burma. Hello uh that's tens of thousands of islands that are non-existent on its map. The entire Pacific Ocean is gone and you call that geography? Again that's not academic that's stupid. In other words he not only is no expert on Southeast Asia at all let's be clear he didn't draw it it's not there. Uh, what he did draw is way out of place and he didn't know what it was. He just knows legends that's in that area and that's really all he's showing. Don't beat up on the guy, okay. I mean he he goes back to before this era even so he just didn't know. But, literally, uh, he was not a Greek sailor in terms of from Greece. He was an Egyptian. So, uh, though he served for Greece and he was Greek or at least appointed by the Greeks, his family was, uh, he was not in the know. Sorry but he wasn't and that's very obvious because again his map ends at Burma and encloses the Indian Ocean.
Everything about that rant is factually wrong. It's concrete proof that Timothy Jay Schwab has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to ancient cartography and that we ought not to trust his interpretations of ancient maps. But that's another lie for another day.
