The Origin of the Guanches

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Vol. 5,Issue 2004

ORIGIN OF THE GUANCHES PARALLELS WITH ANCIENT EGYPT?

by

Reinhard Prahl

Summary

Dr. Joann Fleteber, Prof. Don Brotbwell, University of York., and Joyce.....J..""',"'" of examined an about 500 years old Guancbe mummy from theIslands. They found simiJarities to in

Thc methods were up to now regarded as unique and bave only beenIr'I'IH'lP'lI1 to Egyptian mummies, mummified 1.070 Be. The research results with

.....'r... , 'nt l l" a l ~ C ( ~ I ) t e ( l f l i l """"", of settlement ofi m i m i l ~ M ! l t i o , n waves from Northafrica to tbe lslands bave

"' ......... n 1.100 Be. Due to tbis reason as weil as to further cultural e.g.experts come (0 tbe tbat contacts between Egypt and thelslJmdls, had existed. Both cultures, might have had

THE PYRAMlDS of Guimar onhave world-famous ThorHeyerdahl's have beendescribed and examinedlast few years. LittLe has known asyet, cultural an religious

an about 500 years oldmummy at the University of07.March1999 and came to very

sent in 2001: "Cave MummiesCanaries"l. The teamcould throw a completely newon the prehistory of the Canaries,similarities between the

J results are published in H.: In Search ofthe Immortals: Mummies, Death and the

2001, p. 160-17080


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VaL 5, Tsme 2004

21 stdynasty and the so

111Guanche mummy

were discovered.

on theseresponsible JorperSlms did

lived in

Of course this is a veryand the

to find verymethods also on the

repeatedly Geheimnis der Mumien", p. 1624 Ban;os, Jose,


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with them was avoid, because they wereUf / l v } " , n a impure, since occupied with the

emptying copses, On Ihe other hand Ihetrue embalmers proper, task it was 10embabn the corpses, couldcilizen 's For ancient Egypt it wasthe historian Diodorus who pointed to theunpopularity ofthe corpses openers. hadbeen so unpopular that they to hide

work not to be 6 Diodorus'has even been the pattern for the famousnovet: "Uarda", the German author G.

ANCIENT Canarian mummificationdetermined by Fletcher and her

look typically Egyptian: the Guanches,the exeeuted a cut on the leftregion and removed the

organs. were cleaned and theninto the abdomial carity ofthe mummies. 7 Thecut was then stitched up cleanly in the

sutures , wereEgyptians. But this is

not an indication another mummificationtechnology: the Guanches (for geographicalreasons) did not have access to the samematerials. There was only some farming onthe Plants to produce clothes, werenon same stock farming.Cows were unknown, the nativesthe Canaries used goatskins or kid-Ieather.Understandably is circumstance

in mummification practiees.Whereas inhabitants of the Nile country

linen bandages, made c10thingthe GlIanehes were only able to lIse

was at their disposal: up to 15 layers ofAt last the fmgernails toe

were attaehed with threads. The waswith beeswax and Perhaps

5 Schmidt, p. 84, translated !Tom German to6 Hawass, p.138 7 cf. de Tenerife, p. 35 Braem pp. P. 44, F,

VoL 5, Lrsue Number 2004

most important parallel to the Egyptianmummies of the 21 sr dynasty can be seen mthe fact that the Guancheused subcutaneouscorpses. practiee is known elsewhereon[y from aneient Egypt, and was in vogue

after 1070

Sueh an unusal treatment corpses 1S notunique on the Canary Tslands. we can reade.g. in the exhibition catalog ofArqueologico y der..,,,npl'.1 topart 0/ the rites of the

different child ofoperation per/ormed onlhe corpses: washing,and treatment with

desiccalion and covering. 8 Al1da little below: To some 0/UU;HU,r tCt ' . ) .

annotation the bodies wereeviscarated, even with extraction thebrain. 9

LOOKED at superficially were alsoinstances of difterence in mununificationtechnologies. The did notsame and anointingembalming as the

used inthe Canary Islands. The bandages showdissimilarities for the same reasons. Inexaminations offound up to 15 layers . It is

the Egyptians did not use goatskinsbandages of cloth. But obvisouly what clothfabries were the Egyptians, namely

burial material, were forThe paralleis then altogether

seem to be quite Caution

p- 4782


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,

83


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Migration & Diffusion, VoL 5, Issue Number 19, 2004

Reconstructed Head from a Guanche; Museo Arqueologico y Etnografico de Tenerife; catalog, p.36.

84


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necessary, saysGermer. Availabletoo

e.g. Renateto our own

that the preservation corpses doesn't allowtoo many possibilities, dehydration ist the fIrstsupreme dictate. So it would seem only logicalworldwide have

contaets. For quitemanner of stuffing

doubtful.

been madenewspapers articles.

about the missingAfrica and America In

Thor Heyerdahl, inis it meanwhile hard to seewith pyramids,

the giganticAll

volcanic rock,mainly basalt.on T eneriffa islong the

a base of 35 x 16meters and 6 is just 12 meters high.Braem and Walter R Hhnel indicate an

pyramidsverage meters forof 10 x 20 meters,another one 9 x meters. comparisionwith the chufupyramid with ist meters

rectangular but uneqllally

of height and 23 0 m ofbuildings on theIn other it

onthe Canary Islands cannot be compared tomonumental pyramids of Egypt. are notincidentally only on pyramids,but also on Canaria and Las Palmas.

showswith the pyramids on Canarythree sides it is sOllrrounded by 8 small

it builtof the 1. dynasty, who is

to have lived arollnd 2910 RC. Thishas, however, probably been sitllatedcirca 4 meters depth, and

Though this tomb wasof mud-bricks of 6 meters

veryit been

It Is SllPPOSedAdjib, 7111

nobody wou Id

have lookedpyramids, hadground.A rather directobserved the 11.a;:>la'ua;:>

Can it then

WELL-KNOWN experts likeof thc

II Hhnel, p.359l2 Institutum Austria, telephone callfrom 26. March 2004

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ldllmlsr.lnstitutum Vcklabruck (Austria),Waltel' B. Hhnel, ALMOGAREN, p.367.

86


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IVllPral'ZOn L /41 I f l J , ;VN, Val. 5, iJ'me 19,2004

Some of the Most Important Pyramid Forms; Institutum Canarium Vcklabruck (Austria), Walter B. Hhnel, p.368.

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Vol. 5, Issue Number 19, 2004

Econ, Lehner, "Das Geheimnis der Pyramiden" p.St.

even theirthe pyramids have

Some (mostly 13 Hhne], p. 36288


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built in an exactmanner and, moreover, cornerstones have

cut to which wereessential for the general form, orconfiguration, of these buildings.

the pyramidsas yet, notannot be dated

As yet no method is known to atleast approximately determine wh ich has

lt is also not 10 use the covering ofwhich is extremelyon

light and humidity. Guimar one findsscarcely lichen on the rocks and slones, Iheclimate is ,,15On the other the form or

uJ{\,r la'f1 byge()IO!!lC:il age of the material

but this is forat which point in time the stone

by man. Organic material,been used for C 14

climateCanary Islands volcanic rock,

weathers only very slowly.of ,heespecially

monuments of an as yet unknownshow not only with

but also with the Megalithic culturesThere, these

been between 4500Islands same

period?Also low age most of themummies there, between 500 Re. and the

aAD J6 , not neeessariJy speak

age Guanche ( Iaraldfollows:foundR.P.) in theroofed overthat they werefamily. 10 ccJrbon dating theskeletons were aboul a Ihousand years old

Braem says about the C14-dated"Exaclly 34 skeletons

(near Lachamber, wh ich had

not very much fornot very useful U t ; ' ~ U L ' ' ' ' ' ' """WAU"')c:,discontinuedtradition to useifto lme ,17

Till today the earliestIslands by is thoughtquite late lS.

on and a seeond onMore reeent researches date thefar back as the

16 Kelley and Smeenk17 tanslated from18 Rafael

dates the first settlement of theHhnel p. 362 Islands by man about 500 p. 14315 translated from German, p.364 19 private communication with Mr. Ulbrich

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Verneau,- has a

&

often somewhat higher built.23

average.

they are exactly in ( ' " , ~ i - " , r t ndescribed racial type.

23 taken from p. 89 f. 24 Congreso p. p. 7 I 25 indication from H. Ulbrich

There can

20 Schmidt, p. 65 Schmidt, p. 78

22 Kutzer p.5026 far eXlUDDIe

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http:///reader/full/built.23http:///reader/full/built.23http:///reader/full/built.23


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Another for the origin of Guanchesmay be seen in the famous "whistle language"

Canary calIed "el-Silbo". Wenot a kind of in the

use of which " wordswhisperEspecially interesting in this cormection isfact as late even as our present this

kindamong the of(wh ich has ever been part of

communication has

same marmer 111 1S still used onGomera, to communicate overd istances. 29

we are here on the of thepartial and C O I ' r e : ; p c m d e m ~ e s betweenthe cultures of Egypt, and theGuanches of Islands. In the samemanner, in which it can be madecertain that the Canarian

North Africanfor thefinds Nabta Playa in the Libyandated to the millennium

In thishad never been a

but have beencomposed of Nubian andgroupS30. If one those immigration wavesto Canary Islands which have tenetativelybeen dated to 1100 BC, from North

the cultural wouldconstitute no great

28 Schmidt,p.8J

30 see the important article ofKaiser MDAIKor Egypt

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& Vol. 5, hsue Number 2004

goes to Dr. RenateDr. Fleteher,as well as

aulrmlJlige """lI'"''''.''''''''''''''' Z. B. im l:'y,nunillleoba1u,es Kontakte zwi'iichen

Prahl

D-44225 Dortmund

Tel: 0049-231-97-614-94

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& Val. 5, Issue Number 19, 2004

REFERENCES

jaTenerife

awu',-'/o;;v de Museo Arqueologico y Etnografico pn'>r .TP Momias, los sccretos dei l J a ~ ' a " " . J ,J.

Paul: Weltgeschichte in Kln,o.J.Prestel, MnchenfN.Y. 1997

dies. : Mumien - ArtemisNeuausgabe 2001

Erhart: MitteJgyptische Grammatik fur Anfanger, 4. Aufl., 1994Walter . Die von Tenerife, in: XVII, Institutum Canarium

1996, S.

Edition

Londonder Wissenschaft Dossier:

1996mummies of the

93
http:///reader/full/pn'%3Er.TPhttp:///reader/full/pn'%3Er.TP

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The Origin of the Guanches

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