The God Culture: Philippine Gold Jewelry Found in 1st Century Egypt

The God Culture claims that Philippine gold jewlery has been found in 1st century Egypt. This claim is just one of the many Timothy Schwab and his gang have made in order to prove that the Philippines is the land of Ophir, the Garden of Eden, and that Filipinos are members of the lost tribes. Here is the original unedited screenshot from their video Clue #3 in the 100 Clues Series.

It is important to use this unedited screenshot because it lists all the sources they use to substantiate their claim.

1. Laszlo Legeza, "Tantric Elements in pre-Hispanic Philippines Gold Art," Arts of Asia, July-Aug, 1988, pp 129-136 

2. J.T. Peralta, "Prehistoric gold ornaments from the Central Bank of the Philippines," Arts of Asia 1981, no.4, p 54 

3. Ramon N. Villegas, "Ginto: History Wrought in Gold", Manila: Bangko Central ng Pilipinas", 2004

These same sources are also cited across the internet on various blogs which make the same sorts of claims about the Philippines as the God Culture does. These blogs include the following:

http://ancientphilippines.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-lost-tribe-of-israel-is-found.html 

https://mythworld.fandom.com/wiki/Chryse 

https://sightedmoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/The-Philippines-is-the-ancient-Ophir.pdf 

http://moments-salamera.blogspot.com/2013/02/philippines-old-name-is-it-ophir.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chryse_(placename) 

This post will therefore not be directed towards the God Culture alone but to all who utilize these three citations to assert that Philippine gold jewelry has been found in first century Egypt.

All three sources are out of print. In each of the above blogs source 2 is cited incorrectly and none of them, including the God Culture, show what is in these sources to verify their assertion that Philippine gold jewelry has been found in first century Egypt. Source number three is also cited in all places aside from the God Culture in the following way:

"Legeza, Laszlo. "Tantric Elements in pre-Hispanic Philippines Gold Art," Arts of Asia, July-Aug. 1988, pp.129-136. (Mentions gold jewelry of Philippine origin in first century CE Egypt)" 

What I aim to do in this post is set the record straight by revealing what these sources actually say.  I  ordered the two out of print articles from Arts of Asia and have in my possession PDF files of these documents. I also have a PDF file of the relevant material from "Ginto: History Wrought in Gold." They are available upon request.

Send me an email using the contact form on the sidebar and I will send them to you for the low, low price of a "please" and "thank you." Do they give proof of Philippine gold jewelry being found in first century Egypt? Do they say something else entirely? Let's find out.

I will start with source number 3 and work backwards to Legeza which is the most important source allegedly having the strongest proof of Philippine gold jewelry being found in Egypt.


3. Ramon N. Villegas, "Ginto: History Wrought in Gold", Manila: Bangko Central ng Pilipinas", 2004

I was unable to get hold of a physical copy of this book so I did the next best thing. I found a place on the internet where the text is searchable, I searched for the words Egypt and Egyptian, and then I went to my local library and had the librarian contact the library in Manila where a physical copy is and send me pictures of each of those pages.  Surprisingly there were only two pages where the word Egypt showed up, 45 and 48, and one where Egyptian showed up, 78. Chryse does not show up at all.

pg. 45

Some of the non-Indian borrowed designs found only in their original sources and in the Philippine area suggest direct linkages with other cultural currents from the Indian Ocean. Among these are kamagi necklaces (Aldred 1978: 105) and penannular, barter rings which both show Egyptian influence (Aldred 1978: 20, 94). The earliest insular Southeast Asian products reached the Mediterranean through a port on the Arabian Gulf, which were transported overland to the headwaters of the Nile, then shipped down to Alexandria. Austronesian traders are also known to have reached Madagascar (Miller 1969; Taylor 1976), so the African connection is an established fact.

pg. 48

A related Philippine aesthetic principle was articulation, or the movement of joined parts. A prime example is the penannular earring with multiple pendants of floral forms. Ear ornaments constructed on the same principle, made of glass beads and similar cut-out forms in shell and sheet metal, are still made and worn by isolated mountain groups in northern Luzon, and eastern and central Mindanao (Ellis 1981: 234, 244, 246, 248; Rodgers 1985: 306-68). Very similar barter ring and pendant types are also found in Egypt (Aldred 1978: 111.94; Wilkinson 1971: ills. XLV and XLVI).

pg. 78 

This spread: Massive pennular gold farther runs. Rings, also in other metals, were used for exchange since Egyptian times in Africa. The form reached the other side of the Indian Ocean, up to East Asia. The great value of these barer runs suggest a major transaction, perhaps a dowry for a royal wedding. Note the wave-like engraving reminiscent of the sea.

Not one of these citations from "Ginto: A History Wrought in Gold" says a word about Philippine gold jewelry being found in Egypt. Taken as a whole these three brief statements tell us only that Egyptian influences made their way to the Philippines and were incorporated into Philippine gold art. Page 45 does make the claim that Austronesian traders had reached Madagascar and that the connection between Africa and Southeast Asia via trade routes is an established fact but says nothing about what was traded or how it was traded. We are certainly not told that Philippine junks sailed to Egypt which is a claim Timothy Jay Schwab of the God Culture makes.

How did the gold get there? Well, you will know by the end of this series because the Philippines had ancient ships that are gonna blow your mind.

https://youtu.be/Sc6sJB3t_As

Actually they don't make the exact and specific word-for word claim that Filipinos sailed to Egypt but it is explicitly implied that such is the case. What they do claim is that Filipinos had large ocean going ships and traded with China which is disputed by neither me nor anyone else.

https://youtu.be/Sc6sJB3t_As

The video for Clue #3 does not prove that Filipinos sailed to Egypt or explain how Philippine gold jewelry ended up in Egypt or that Philippine gold jewelry was even found in first century Egypt. All in all it's a rather pointless video that does not fulfill its promise.

Likewise "Ginto: History Wrought in Gold" does not support the claim that Philippine gold jewelry has been found in first century Egypt either. Admittedly we can infer from it that there might have been because of the trade routes mentioned but anything definite cannot be drawn from this book.


2. J.T. Peralta, "Prehistoric gold ornaments from the Central Bank of the Philippines," Arts of Asia 1983, no. 4, p. 51 

This article does not mention Egypt whatsoever. Instead Peralta discusses trade between China and the Philippines. Filipinos trading with the Chinese is an established fact and is not under dispute.

3. Laszlo Legeza, "Tantric Elements in pre-Hispanic Philippines Gold Art," Arts of Asia, July-Aug, 1988, pp 129-136 

There are two references to Egypt in this article.

pg. 129

Historically, our starting-point has to be a brief reference to the rich sources of natural gold in many Philippine islands, like Mindanao and Samar, and the desperate search, mainly by Indian maritime traders, to find fresh sources of gold as the Hellenistic Roman empire's resources ran dry in West Asia by the first century A.D. Hellenistic trade beads of West Asiatic and Egyptian origins found in early burials in many places in the Philippines, prove that such early trade contacts, no matter how irregular, existed between the Philippine archipelago and West Asia by the first centuries of the first millennium A.D. The earliest Carbon 14 date of A.D. 320 for one of the Butuan balangays (native seafaring boats) provides evidence of early Filipino participation in this trade.

pg. 131

Apart from India and China, Butuan is known to have had extensive trading connections with Arabia and in all probability with Sumatra and Java. The locally produced gold necklaces comprising of dentate interlocking beads seem to have reached Egypt, later to be mistakenly identified by European collectors as Egyptian.

Legeza is in agreement with Villegas in discussing established trade routes between Southeast Asia, West Asia, and Arabia. They also agree in telling us that Egyptian gold made its way to the Philippines. While Villegas only mentions Egyptian influence on Philippine gold art Legeza tells us that actual artifacts of Egyptian origin are to be found in Philippine burial sites.

The claim for Philippine gold jewelry being found in first Egypt rests solely on a cursory reference on page 131. But Legeza does not write that Philippine gold necklaces were found in Egypt, only that they seem to have been found. While he does state that trade contacts were established between the Philippines and West Asia by the first centuries of the first millennium A.D. he does not give a date for the jewelry allegedly found in Egypt. He provides no support for his claim. There are no references and no pictures to back up what he writes. The whole assertion that Philippine gold jewelry has been found in first century Egypt is based on a single sentence, or rather two sentences pages apart, which has no proofs. That is a very shaky foundation on which to make this claim.

Given that there was a trade connection between Southeast Asia and the Roman Empire it is likely that Philippine gold jewelry did make its way to the West. But that is only to be inferred from these two sources. Absolute proof of Philippine gold jewelry being found in first century Egypt as well as an explanation of how it got there such as Filipino junks sailing to Egypt or Philippine artifacts being traded across Asia until they reached Egypt will have to be looked for elsewhere. I will not be expanding beyond the bounds of these three sources.

It is not my intention to speculate here in order to prove the claims of the God Culture and others. My intention is only to look at the three sources commonly cited to prove that Philippine gold jewelry has been found in first century Egypt. Anyone who has read these sources could not honestly use them alone to support that claim. Even if the claim were true that does not prove the Philippines is Ophir. 

It is beyond dispute that the Philippines is a land full of gold. There is much testimony to that fact. But is the Philippines really the mythical islands of gold and silver, Chryse and Argyre, as Timothy Schwab of the God Culture claims? Reading through Legeza and Peralta's articles we find that it is Mindanao where most gold has been found. Butuan in particular is a source of many golden artifacts. That would mean of all the islands in the Philippines Mindanao is the isle of gold. However Timothy Schwab says the opposite.

Tim designates Luzon as the island of gold and Mindanao as the island of silver. Tim puts a lot of faith in the existence of the non-existent mythical islands of Chryse and Argyre as being proof that the Philippines is Ophir and Tarshish. They both play a key role in his list of proofs. Chryse and Argyre are essential puzzle pieces in the God Culture's mythology. In a recent video Tim uses, along with the descriptions of Dionysius Perigetes, Martin Behaim's map of 1492 to prove that Chryse and Argyre are the Philippines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chryse_and_Argyre

On this map we see the same mistake that Mindanao (Argyre) is the island of silver while Luzon (Chryse) is the island of gold. Mindanao is also erroneously placed below the equator. But dare I say that Martin Behaim was not thinking at all of the Philippines or depicting them because they had not yet been discovered by Magellan? Behaim had never even been to this part of the world. Undoubtedly what was in his mind was not the Philippines but Chryse and Argyre as known in legend and myth. He also contradicts Mela's map by placing them in a very different location, much further to the East. Aside from depicting these two mythical islands his map also includes the equally mythical St. Brendan's Island and the dragon's tail which is a non-existent peninsula in East Asia. Needless to say Martin Behaim's map is worthless for telling us about the real world.

Instead of relying on old and unreliable maps to give us a true picture of our world let us quote the words of a man who has actually been to Chryse and Argyre. That is Sir John Mandeville.

"On the East there are two islands near this one, of which one is called Oriell and the other Arget [Pliny's Chryse and Argyre]; in those two isles the earth is full of gold and silver ore. And they are near the Red Sea, where it enters the Great Sea Ocean. And in those isles no stars can clearly be seen shining, except for one they call Canapos [Canopus]; nor can the moon be seen there except in the second quarter."

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, translated by C.W.R.D. Moseley, Penguin Books, pg 182-183 

No stars shine in the islands of Chryse and Argyre and the moon is only seen in its second quarter. Every night the stars shine big and bright over the Philippines. The moon is also seen in each of its stages as it passes overhead. Does Mandeville's description of Chryse and Argyre's night sky match that of the Philippines? As Tim would put it: " Ugh. Nope, that's not it! So really this is not rocket science folks."

This same Sir John Mandeville also tells us the exact location of the lost tribes!

In this same land are the hills of Caspian which are called Uber [ubera aquilonis, ‘breasts of the north wind’, the Caspian mountains]. The Jews of the Ten Lost Tribes are shut up in mese hills; they are called Gog and Magog, and they can get out on no side. King Alexander drove them here, for he intended to shut them up with the work of his men. When he saw he could not, he prayed to God that He would finish what he himself had begun. And although he was a heathen, God of His special grace heard his prayer and closed the hills together, and they are so big and high that they cannot be passed. And on the other side is the Caspian Sea; but no one can escape on that side because the sea comes up out of the earth under these hills, and runs on one side of the country through a great desert, reaching as far as the land of Persia. 

Even if it is called a sea, it is not one in fact, but a lake, the biggest in the world. So if the folk that are enclosed there desired and attempted to cross that sea by ship, they would not know where they would arrive and would not understand [any language except their own. And so they cannot get out]. And know that now the Jews have no land of their own to live in in all the world except among those hills. Even so they pay tribute to the Queen of the Amazons, and she has those hills guarded very well so that they do not cross them into [her] country, which borders those hills. Nevertheless it sometimes happens that one of them climbs over those hills and gets out, but no great number of them could climb out together because of the great height and the difficulty of the climb. And there is no other way out except by a little [path] made by men’s diligence. That track is about four miles long, and then there is a great desert where no water or shelter is to be found for men because there are dragons and snakes and other poisonous animals; so except in winter no man can travel that way. 

This narrow path they call Clyrem; and as I said the Queen of the Amazons has it guarded very carefully. If it should happen that any of them get out, they can speak no language except Hebrew and so cannot speak with other men when they come among them. Folk in the country nearby say that in the time of Antichrist those Jews will sally out and do much harm to Christian men. And so all the Jews in the different parts of the world learn to speak Hebrew, for they believe that the Jews who are enclosed among those hills will know that they are Jews (as they are) by their speech when they arrive. And then they will lead them into Christendom to destroy Christian men. For those Jews say they know by their prophecies that the Jews enclosed among the hills will issue out and the Christians will be under their sway, just as they have been under Christian domination. And if you would know how they will find a place to get out, I shall tell you what I once heard said. 

In the time of Antichrist a fox will make his earth in the very place where King Alexander had the gates of the hills shut up, when he enclosed this people. And this fox will dig for so long in the ground that at last he will emerge among those people. When they see him, they will marvel at him greatly, for they never before have seen an animal like that. (Nevertheless they have all kinds of animals except the fox among them.) They will be so intrigued by this fox that they will chase him hither and thither; and they will pursue him until they come to the hole whence he came out. Then they will dig after him for so long that they will come to the gates that Alexander had stopped up with great stones and cement, and then they will break down these gates and find the way out.

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, translated by C.W.R.D. Moseley, Penguin Books, pg. 165-167 

Is Timothy Schwab ready to give credence to Sir John Mandeville? Columbus did. Even Leonardo da Vinci had Mandeville in his library. Mandeville is the first to mention a possible route to circumnavigate the globe so it is certain that Magellan read him and took him to be truthful.

Today we know Mandeville's description of the world is utterly fantastic. It is only people like Timothy Schwab, Anna Rose Lipshy, and the God Culture who, unlike the rest of the world, but just like Dionysius Perigetes, Sir John Mandeville, and Martin Behaim, grasp at the legends of Chryse and Argyre as being true. Why doesn't Tim use Sir John Mandeville as a source to prove his claims about the Philippines being Ophir and Filipinos being part of the lost tribes? Because his eyewitness descriptions do not conform to Tim's agenda.

It's better if Tim forgo Mandeville and every other legendary travelogue altogether for some good old fashioned common sense.

For to endeavor to determine the first settlers of these lands, whence and how they came, whether they were Carthaginians, Jews, Spaniards, Phoenicians, Greeks, Chinese, Tartars, etc., is reserved for God, who knows everything; and this task exceeds all human endeavor. And if such study obtain anything, it will amount only to a few fallible conjectures with danger of the judgment, and without any advance of the truth or of reputation.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Vol. 40, pg. 296-297 

Indeed Timothy Schwab’s wild and unfounded speculations about the Philippines and Filipinos amount only to fallible conjectures without any advance of the truth.