My Journey to Recognizing the 1800s Adze Used to Assault a Tennessee Black Man Having its Origin in Africa

Years ago I stumbled upon a historical figure called Robert Renfro, also called Black Bob. I was intrigued by him as he was considered a hero in his day by Nashvillians and became the first emanepated black and first black business owner in Tennessee. Actually, he helped found Tennessee. Many Africanims emerged from his story as I read into his life. Kemetic Africanisms. He was on the boat that founded Fort Nashboro with masonic surveyors from Virginia. Initially this was call the district of Meroe, and later became the state of Tennessee. This term was famiar to me from my African studies of Nubia and Kemet and the Moors. Black Bob was a friend of Andrew Jackson, a freemason. When I went to Andrew Jackson's home, which is a museum now, I saw a book from his lodge, the first lodge in Tennessee, it was the first book and listed the names of the first head people of the lodge. Those names were the same names that I read on Black Bobs emancipation papers signed 5 years after Tennessee became a state. He did not fit the mold of the story of who black people were in America during the 17-1800s. "Bob" has a dual meaning in freemasonry. Part of it comes from the plum bob surveying tool. Which is an interest to me and my studies of Seshat. Which is also see with her holding it in the Temple of Edfu. 

One of the things about Black Bob that I found interesting was his lawsuit won at the hands of his friend and former attorney, now judge, Andrew Jackson. It was a lawsuit against a schoolmaster, Anderson Lavender, who assaulted Black Bob for talking proper  on April 25, 1800. The Grand Jury of Davidson County indicted him on this charge. Andrew Jackson, Archibald Roane (future Governor) and David Campbell were the judges when the suit was before the Superior Court, all freemasons in Nashville. 

John Hamilton, the attorney for the State wrote in May of 1800 that Anderson Lavender, “Did make an assault and battery with an intent him the said Bob then and there feloneously, wilfully and of his malice aforethought to kill & murder, against the Statue in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of our State.” Tr, TdaCo-MDSC Law Min. Bk., 1788-1803, pp 316-317. From Legal Papers of Andrew Jackson pg 162. What does the foot-adze that Lavender carried in his right hand to kill Bobb look like?

This brings me back to Kemet and its tools. The iron for why people settled in Tennessee during the frontier days. Why they needed Africans in the first place to conquer this land. The knowledge. Metorietic iron on a wood handle was used in the Opening of the Mouth Ceremony. The irony (no pun intended), of Black Bob being assaulted with an adze, similar to the instrument used in rituals to Open the Mouth, or be seen. 

The adze is depicted in ancient Egyptian art from the Old Kingdom onward.[1] Originally the adze blades were made of stone, but already in the Predynastic Period copper adzes had all but replaced those made of flint.[2] While stone blades were fastened to the wooden handle by tying, metal blades had sockets into which the handle was fitted.

A depiction of an adze was also used as a hieroglyph, representing the consonants stp, "chosen", and used as: ...Pharaoh XX, chosen of God/Goddess YY...
The ahnetjer (Manuel de Codage transliteration: aH-nTr) depicted as an adze-like instrument,[3] was used in the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, intended to convey power over their senses to statues and mummies. It was apparently the foreleg of a freshly sacrificed bull or cow with which the mouth was touched

The Egyptian terms for the ceremony are wpt-r and wn-r, both translating literally to "opening of the mouth." The verb wpi denotes an opening that entails splitting, dividing or separating, and is used to describe the separation of two combatants, the dividing of time or even a determination of the truth. The verb wn emphasizes accessibility and exposure, used in contexts such as wn-hr, literally "open the face", but more correctly meaning "see" or "be seen".

1. Setep

Wood; New Kingdom
From the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut
Rogers Fund, 1925
The Metropolitan Museum of Art 25.3.40
2. Adze
Bronze, wood and leather; New Kingdom
From the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut
Gift of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 1896
The Metropolitan Museum of Art 96.4.7
3. Pesesh-kef knife
(replica)
"offering ritual in which two blades of meteoric iron, called the ntjrwy, are said to open the mouth. Faulkner translates this spell as "O Osiris the King, I split open your mouth for you gods iron of Upper Egypt, 1 ingot; gods iron of Lower Egypt, 1 ingot."
The ritual was thus be performed with various implements, most commonly a wood-carving adze, which were touched to the lips by the officiating priest. An adze was an arched metal blade fasted across the top of a wooden handle with leather thongs, used in woodworking. The ceremonial adze was made from the metal of heaven, bi3 n pt, meteoric iron. The adze mimicked carving and sculpture, logical if the Funerary ceremony evolved from the ritual performed on a statue.

Another implement often depicted in the ceremony was the psh-kef knife. The psh-kef knife is first attested in prehistoric tombs as early as the Naqada I period.
Psh-kf sets were limestone platters with recesses that usually hold the two ntjrwy blades, a blunt psh-kf knife, two tiny bottles and four tiny cups. The bottles and cups are half of light-color and half of black. The same set of implements is listed together in the inventories of temple equipment found at the mortuary temple of Neferirkare at Abusir.

The implements used in the Pyramid Text ritual continue to appear in private tombs of the Middle Kingdom, but a rather different version of the ritual also appears in the Coffin Texts. Now Ptah joins Horus to open the deceaseds mouth, then Ptah and Thoth transform the deceased into an akh, and Thoth replaces the heart in the body, so that the deceased remembers what has been forgotten and can eat bread as desired."

Give us this day our daily bread. After the opening of the mouth with the iron instrument from heaven we today call from a meteor because it is not found on earth, the deceased could eat bread. Then the mouth is opened with the ntjrwy tool, and the mummy is presented to the son "who loves him." More scenes depict the son coming to the House of Gold, opening the mouth with the mdjdft-tool, and touching the mummys mouth with the little finger again.

Carpenter's Adze from a Foundation Deposit for Hatshepsut's Templeca. 1479–1458 B.C.

Akitu Festival Poetry for the New Year: Elish

I came across the creation story of the Enuma Elisha today while watching Billy Carson. I decided to add this story to my musings about Seshat since my fiirst born son's name is Elisha (born around the Asian New Year), its for the New Year Festival, and its from 7 tablets. Therefore, it must be related to Seshat right? of course, glaringly so!

The Enuma Elish is Akkadian. "Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language - meaning that it has no speakers and is not used anymore (in other words, it is a dead language). It was used from mid-3rd millenium BC to the 8th century BC." Akkadian 𒂊𒉡𒈠𒂊𒇺 (Enûma Eliš), literally 'when on high'



The Seven tablets were like a written program of the festival. This is what the 7 tablets looks like:

It was found over a century ago in a ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq). Mosul is about 250 miles North of Baghdad. Mosul stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank. Iraq is where the US went to war and many on the fringe complained that it was for the relics and artifacts, not what was stated. That the real fight was a battle for things unspoken. There were even reports of UFOs. Many ancient sites were destroyed in the process of this fighting among men and soldiers. The battle has been with none other than ISIS. Think what you wish about this but lets put things in context, shall we?.. I digress.

Ashurbanipal as High Priest

Back to the House of Books or Library of Ashurbanipal which was established inthe 7th century BC. It was found in modern times in 1849 and most of the tablets are at the British Museum. Ashurbanipal was a scribe and he hired scribes and scholars to travel and copy text. He was in contact with Africans. He was known for using stolen objects from his wars to stock his library. He emassed over 30,000 tablets, of particular interest to him was divination text. Ashurbanipal's father, Esarhaddon,also known as King of Kings among his people, had conquered Egypt in 671 BCE but the Egyptians had revolted soon after, he died just before reaching to Egyptian border to save the Assyrians from the Egyptians revolt. Esarhaddon had faught the Pharaoh Tirhakah/Taharka, King of Kush and Egypt, but had not killed him. Tirhakah’s family had been brought back as captives to Nineveh and remained there but he and his extended family had fled south to Nubia. He boasted about taking Taharka's wife. At the end ofhis telling of his side of the story he echos sentiments found in the Quran an in Revelations 22:19, sursing whoever adds or takes away from his story where instead of mentioning Tree of Life, he says Istar. In the Hebrew Tanakh (the Christian Old Testament) Ashurbanipal is called As(e)nappar or Osnapper (Ezra 4:10), while the Greeks knew him as Sardanapolos and the Romans as Sardanapulus.

The Enuma Elis is from the Akkadian era. It means "when on high" or "when skies above". Kinda like the story of Elisha in the Bible whose father (maybe literally, maybe figuratively) was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. In 2nd Kings 2 Elisha picks up a device that fell off of Elijah as he was beemed up by God. Elisha used this device to part water, in a similar way that Jesus did in other books. Then men bowed down to him. This is another UFO story from biblical times. When I named my son it was because of the bible. After I read the pregnancy test the bible fell and when I looked down to the page my eyes first saw Elisha, a name I hadnt seen before. Then when I lift the bathroom the TV had Elisha on the screen, so I said, ok, I will name this child Elisha, not knowing if it was a name for a girl or a boy or if I would be having a girl or boy. Luckily everything lined up.

Elisha said a strange thing. 2 Kings 2:9 Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I can do for you before I am taken from you.” So Elisha answered, “Please, let me inherit two shares of your spirit.” Two shares is the inheritance of blessing for the firstborn son.Interestingly enough in the Enuma Elish there is a division of 2. Could the author one one story have been harkening on older text? In the Elish Tiamat takes the form of a gigantic snake, and Marduk/Bel (Babylon) battles and defeats her using an arsenal of super-weapons. After his victory Marduk is made the leader of the Gods by acclamation.

"Tiamat was the "shining" personification of salt water who roared and smote in the chaos of original creation. She and Apsu filled the cosmic abyss with the primeval waters. She is "Ummu-Hubur who formed all things"."

Elisha of the bible in 2 Kings also has a salt story. 2-19 happens to by my son's birthday so I thought this correlation between the two text was interesting. "19 Then the men of the city said to Elisha, “Even though our lord can see that the city’s location is good, the water is bad and the land unfruitful.” 20 He replied, “Bring me a new bowl and put salt in it.” After they had brought him one, 21 Elisha went out to the spring of water, threw salt in it, and said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘I have healed this water. No longer will death or unfruitfulness result from it.’” 22 Therefore, the water remains healthy to this very day according to the word that Elisha spoke."




High priest of the god Ashur was integral to the New Year festival. This event was secret and not really for commoners.
  

Arrows, Africa and Nashville Pyramids

When people think of Africa they don't usually think of Cupid, Valentines Day, or love being shot by a bow and arrow. However, for the month of February I am going to write about this topic from my perspective. How I came to connect Ancient African history of the Bow and Arrow to the Greeks and Romans as well as early Freemasons in America, for whatever its worth. I found the connections startling.

Some years ago I conducted some Egypt in Nashville tours to share with the Nashville community my research on the connections of Egyptian thought and architecture in Nashville. I drew from an Egyptian Architecture course I took while an undergraduate student in Anthropology and African Studies at Vanderbilt University. As well as talks with William Henry, local African Americans and Native Americans with a history of the land there. Moreover, my research on Seshat led me to see many connections between all with a common thread of the Freemasons.

Lake Watauga, Nashville, TN

One Freemason in particular that I found an interest in was the founder of the Tennessee Centennial Celebration in 1897,  It previously had been a farm purchased in 1783 by John Cockrill, the brother-in-law to James Robertson and houses Lake Watauga. At the time we were the foremost western state. President Theodore Roosevelt wrote that the Watauga settlers were the "first men of American birth to establish a free and independent community on the continent." Watauga river at Centennial Park is my Nashville version of the Nile.



This is the pyramid that once stood next to The Parthenon which now, since 1990, houses a spear touting Athena, Nashville's Athena stands 41'10" tall, making her the largest piece of indoor sculpture in the Western World. There is now a parking lot at this site. It was called the "Pyramid of Cheops" and measured 1\6th its size. There is also still standing at the park a memorial to James Robertson who came from the Watauga settlement to found Tennessee. A second boat on that trip included a man named Black Bob or Robert Renfroe. He was known for being good with the bow and arrow, and communicating with the Native Americans. He was credited with helping to save the boat that included a young Rachel Donelson who later married Andrew Jackson. He had archery skills, and thus they made it past the spear throwing natives who were protecting their land.

My interest in Black Bob and WHY he was the first free black man of Tennessee, and WHY so many Freemasons signed his freedom papers let me to look at who the Freemasons were in Nashville and how the name Nashville could have come about.

Union Station

7 acre cannonball cotton gin assault, franklin, tn

Turns out the founder of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition was a Freemason, Major Eugene Castner Lewis. He also helped develop Union Station, the train station in Nashville with a statue of Mercury/Hermes at the top of its obelisk. His father managed the Cumberland Iron Works, which enslaved Africans to extract iron from Dickson, TN and make cannonballs. I had a dream about him I heard horses and a train, happened to be on his birthday, so I decided to check out his grave site at Mt Olivet, Confederate Circle. It was a pretty surreal dream so I went with it and dug into this man's life. It lead me to making a connection between the native american pyramids of Middle Tennessee to the Freemasons. Mr Lewis owned a home with multiple "mounds" from the Mississippian period near Mound Bottom State Archaeological Area. His home and land happened to be up for sale at the time I was researching him but the agent wasn't available to show me the property. Because it is a private property the mounds there have not be studied for public knowledge. So we really don't know whats there. We do know what's nearby, however. 

"Native Americans migrating from the present-day St. Louis area founded the once-thriving community along the Harpeth River about 1,000 years ago. in the late 900s or early 1000s A.D. a complex society arose on what is now the Mound Bottom site Intensive use of the site lasted until about 1350 A.D.

Recent research at Mound Bottom suggests a connection to Cahokia, which was the largest city in America before Europeans arrived, the documents say. Cahokia is located in what is now southern Illinois across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.... No known descendants of this culture have been found. Around 1450s AD they left in what appears to be a hurry based on the number of broken pottery. This abandonment of the region is part of a larger pattern seen in parts of the Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Cumberland River valleys known as the "Vacant Quarter" hypothesis. The Natchez Indians chief was called the "Great Sun". They recognized the same Kemetic sun symbol as the sun and drew it on a cliff on the Harpeth River bend near three pyramids...If on the mountain overlooking Mound Bottom you can see a Macehead at Mace Bluff. Moreover, a Hawk petroglyph with crown mace wings, can be seen at' Devil Step Hollow Cave, Tennessee."' Toye E. Heape provided me and my group with a tour of the area and explained to us the astronomical alignment of the site, as well as the hand and eye motif Native American significance.

His grave site is at the top of a hill overlooking Nashville at Mt Olivet. The name Olivet alone peaked my interest because of its kemetic connotations and biblical significance. With all these replica's going on and copying of names I wanted to tie these things in together to see what they meant to the ancients and the Freemasons. His tomb is a mini replica of Cheops pyramid. As I stood there i thought what a nice view atop this Confederate hill. Many confederates took over ancient native american burial "mounds" and occupied them, re-purposed the ancient pyramid sites. Mt Olivet isn't designated an ancient pyramid site as far as I know. However, it is flooded with obelisk and sarcophagi. 

9/4/2013 7th Ave Nashville Masonic Lodge with a ritual sphinx similar to the two flanked at Eugene Lewis tomb

Top Left, Arrow and star at Eugene Lewis' tomb. Top right, beyonce dancing over star and arrow.
bottom right Russian Tula Arrow in Star (post 1928). Photo I took in 2013.

Outside of the fact that I was doing a cemetery walk looking at a pyramid tombstone atop a Confederate mound surrounded by obelisk overlooking Nashville's ancient native american pyramid sites, there was nothing unusual about the scene. But the one thing I couldn't figure out was the arrow on the ground in front of the Cheops replica. I wanted to know what it meant, what it was pointing at. I just couldn't figure it out. I came back May 11, 2013 a second time to look again and there was a blue tree at his pyramid. It was small, but bizarre, as it wasn't Christmas. And even if it was, why in the world would someone put it at a gravesite? I had just wrote about the color blue.

Eugene Lewis was the president of a railroad company and went to school at the Pennsylvania Military Academy in the mid 1800s. Strangely, he was born the same month that President Andrew Jackson, also a Freemason and friend to Black Bob, died-June 1845. While they didn't cross paths they were connected outside of their 7th Ave lodge affiliation. Lewis' Sycamore Mills was the parent of World War I powder mills at Old Hickory built by Du Pont. The Du Pont family from France, Freemason friend of Thomas Jefferson in Paris, who had the government use them as the supplier of gunpowder.

On August 2, 2014 I happened to drive by Du Pont in Old Hickory, TN, a suburb of Nashville.. I took some pictures and noted:

"Home of the 7th President of the United States and featured on the $20 bill. I see Obelisk everywhere. This time down the street from Andrew Jackson's home and the Du Pont plant. Not far from the river. They were around the corner from each other one on the Triangle in a pentagram." "Friend to Robert "Black Bob" Renfro. Obelisk in pentagram on square base, horus/bird/eagle emblem. Du Pont factory in the background. " The Du Pont funded TVA damns were built to rival those of the Nile Valley."

I wondered about the origin of the term old hickory and found a native connection:: "Artemis Caryatis. in Ojibwe, hickory is called "mitigwaabaak", a compound of mitigwaab "bow" and the final -aakw "hardwood tree" The Ojibwe (also Ojibwa or Ojibway) or Chippewa (also Chippeway) are among the largest groups of Native AmericansÐFirst Nations north of Mexico.They are historically known for their crafting of birch bark canoes, sacred birch bark scrolls, use of cowrie shells for trading, cultivation of wild rice, and use of copper arrow points. In 1745 they adopted guns from the British to use to defeat and push the Dakota nation of the Sioux to the south.... According to the oral history, seven great miigis (radiant/iridescent) beings appeared to the peoples in the Waabanakiing (Land of the Dawn, i.e., Eastern Land) to teach them the mide way of life. One of the seven great miigis beings was too spiritually powerful and killed the peoples in the Waabanakiing when they were in its presence. The six great miigis beings remained to teach, while the one returned into the ocean.
The six great miigis beings established doodem (clans) for the peoples in the east, symbolized by animal, fish or bird species. The five original Anishinaabe doodem were the Wawaazisii (Bullhead), Baswenaazhi (Echo-maker, i.e., Crane), Aan'aawenh (Pintail Duck), Nooke (Tender, i.e., Bear) and Moozoonsii (Little Moose), then these six miigis beings returned into the ocean as well. If the seventh miigis being stayed, it would have established the Thunderbird doodem.
At a later time, one of these miigis appeared in a vision to relate a prophecy. It said that if the Anishinaabeg did not move further west, they would not be able to keep their traditional ways alive because of the many new settlements and European immigrants who would arrive soon in th..."

Let's go back 100 years before the Centennial Celebration to the founding of Tennessee. I'm digressing and must get back to Ancient Nubia, its capital Memphis, African Iron, and the bows and arrows that came with the legacy of African warriors who were pyramid builders. Amidst all these pyramids in America there is only one place on the planet that has more pyramids than even Egypt, Meroe, land of the Nubians, experts of the bow and arrow. While pyramids are associated with Egypt, the nation of Sudan has 220 extant pyramids, the most numerous in the world built around the 300s BC. If Cahokia Mounds includes the mounds in Tennessee, Ohio, and Georgia it would rival Nubia in pyramid structures but on the American continent, its sister continent as deemed by Freemason founding fathers. Meroe also happens to the the first name of Middle Tennessee.

The ancient Egyptians called Nubia land Ta-Seti. Land of the Bow. The people of the Nile Valley called their land Ta-merau, land of Mera -Egypt. Mer(i), Meroe, Meru, and the people the Moors. "We find the name Moor, in reference to whom the Greeks called “Ethiopians” mentioned in ancient records of the Chaldeans (Babylonians) under the name “Mirukh.”The Hindus knew our ancient fathers by the name “Meru.” The Greeks knew our ancient ancestors as the Meropes. And the Egyptians, who kept the best records, recorded themselves as TA-MERAU with the “au” denoting plurality as in the name of the people collectively. We can safely assume that the “ukh” in Mirukh, the “u” in Meru and the “opes” in Meropes, is merely there in that ancient vernacular to represent plurality."

Cherokee-Cumberland war of 1794

The first nine month of 1794 witnessed more than forty raids on the Mero District by the Cherokee as well as the Muscogee. A major invasion by a joint Cherokee-Muscogee army collapsed in the face of dissension between warriors of the two nations. The Nickajack Expedition in September by federal, territorial, and Kentucky militia forces destroyed the towns of Nickajack and Running Water, leading the Cherokee to sue for a final peace.

tbc...