I don't know when I became such a nerd, but instead of watching the latest popular series on cable television, in my free time I like to watch documentaries, mostly on the internet. One of my favorite channels on YouTube is Timeline - World History Documentaries, where I am always learning interesting facts about ancient civilizations and cultures. Watching them investigate ancient myths and legends is fascinating!
In an episode I was watching recently, called "Is there a sunken civilisation in the black sea?", a comment the narrator made caught my attention. The clip starts at 42 minutes 35 seconds, transcribed here:
Phoenicians were presumed to have come from the sons of Sidon who was the namesake for the ancient, now-submerged port city off the coast of Lebanon. In addition, the Thracians were also presumed to have come from Tyrus, a son of Japheth. Ancient historians even linked the Ashkenaya region of the Ukraine with Ashkenaz who was also a son of Japheth. The Cimmerians are linked with Gomer, another son of Japheth, known to the ancient Persians as Gomera this seems to represent further evidence that the roots of the ancient people around the old black sea are corroborated by the Biblical counts in Genesis.
Japheth was one of Noah's three sons, who was spared during the Great Flood. You can read about it in Genesis 7.
This is interesting to me is because my DNA shows I am 4.56% Ashkenazi and, until now, I wasn't sure exactly what that meant. My father's results show 4.3% Ashkenazi and my maternal grandfather's results show 4.63%, proving it is from both sides of my family. It doesn't show up on my Ancestry DNA test but after downloading my raw DNA from Ancestry and uploading it to Gedmatch, I was able to view much more detail about my ethnicity.
According to Wikipedia:
"Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or, by using the Hebrew plural suffix -im, Ashkenazim are a Jewish diaspora population who coalesced in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium. The traditional diaspora language of Ashkenazi Jews is Yiddish, developed after they had moved into northern Europe: beginning with Germany and France in the Middle Ages."
Tip: You can view your admixture after uploading your raw DNA results to GedMatch. Click "Admixture (heritage)" and then select the "Eurogenes" project and click Continue. Enter your kit number and for Calculator Model, select "J Test" and click Continue again for your results.
Noah's Ark
