Egyptologists Discover Pits Filled With Giant Severed Hands in “Joseph’s Palace”

“David gave orders to the young men, who killed them; they cut off their hands and feet and hung them up by the pool in Chevron. And they took the head of Ish-boshet and buried it in the grave of Avner at Chevron.” II Samuel 4:12 (The Israel Bible™)

image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/hands.png

The pit of severed hands uncovered at Avaris, Egypt. (Australian Archaeological Institute/Excavation Report)

A creepy find by egyptologists of a pit full of ancient severed hands confirms a theory about a disturbing ancient Egyptian practice. The find connects fleetingly with the Bible, appearing in what some believe to be the throne room of Biblical Joseph.

Egyptologists discovered 16 severed hands in the grounds surrounding buried in four pits in an ancient palace in Avaris, Egypt. The scientists estimated the hands had been separated from their rightful owners approximately 3,600 years ago. All were right hands and remarkably large.

The find was indeed gruesome but not entirely surprising for the egyptologists, as it confirmed their belief that soldiers would cut off the hands of defeated enemies and present them to noblemen in return for a gold bounty. Hieroglyphics have been discovered depicting this practice.

“You deprive him of his power eternally,” head archaeologist Austrian Manfred Bietak explained of the practice in an interview with Archaeology News Network . “Our evidence is the earliest evidence and the only physical evidence at all. Each pit represents a ceremony.” 

“Most of the hands are quite large and some of them are very large,” Bietak told LiveScience. 

Two of the pits, each containing one hand, are in what researchers believe is a throne room of a palace at Avaris. 

According to Bietak, the palace is believed to have belonged to King Khayan of the Hyksos, a foreign semitic-speaking nation that invaded Egypt in 1650 BCE and ruled for a short time. It is believed the Hyksos originated in Canaan or Syria.

There are other theories explaining the origin of the Hyksos and the palace discovered at Avaris. In his documentary Patterns of Evidence, Tim Mahoney suggested that the palace may have belonged to Biblical Joseph and that Avaris was the home of the Hebrews during their sojourn in Egypt.

Mahoney bases his claim on several factors, including the discovery on the grounds of the palace of 12 graves for distinguished personages, one marked by a large statue depicting a yellow-skinned royal leader. 

Though the discovery of the severed hands is disturbing, the practice is actually mentioned in the Bible.

David gave orders to the young men, who killed them; they cut off their hands and feet and hung them up by the pool in Chevron. And they took the head of Ish-boshet and buried it in the grave of Avner at Chevron. II Samuel 4:12

David Rohl, an egyptologist who worked with Mahoney on Patterns of Evidence, did not believe the pits containing the hands concerned his theory of the palace in Avaris belonging to Joseph.

“These were found in the level associated with the immediate post Hyksos expulsion, which would probably mean that these were the severed ands of either Hyksos soldiers or mercenaries in the Egyptian army who had perhaps revolted,” Rohl told Breaking Israel News, emphasizing that he did not have enough data to offer more than an educated guess. 

“If I were to bet on it, I would say that they are most probably part of the ‘hand count’ of Ahmose’s victory at Sharuhen to determine how many of the enemy were killed in the battle. So, having awarded Egyptian soldiers for the number of individual kills they had made, and paid for in gold, they would bury the hands in a mass grave.”

“This is too late to have anything to do with the Israelites in Egypt, in my opinion,” Rohl said.

Credit to breakingisraelnews.com
Read more at https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/97847/egyptologists-discover-pits-filled-giant-severed-hands-josephs-palace/#GUu4O3q0D57lyfTY.99

Venezuela Defaults On A Debt Payment

Did you know that Venezuela just went into default?  This should be an absolutely enormous story, but the mainstream media is being very quiet about it.  Wall Street and other major financial centers around the globe could potentially be facing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, and the ripple effects could be felt for years to come.  Sovereign nations are not supposed to ever default on debt payments, and so this is a very rare occurrence indeed.  I have been writing about Venezuela for years, and now the crisis that has been raging in that nation threatens to escalate to an entirely new level.

Things are already so bad in Venezuela that people have been eating dogs, cats and zoo animals, but now that Venezuela has officially defaulted, there will be no more loans from the rest of the world and the desperation will grow even deeper…

Venezuela, a nation spiraling into a humanitarian crisis, has missed a debt payment. It could soon face grim consequences.

The South American country defaulted on its debt, according to a statement issued Monday night by S&P Global Ratings. The agency said the 30-day grace period had expired for a payment that was due in October.

A debt default risks setting off a dangerous series of events that could exacerbate Venezuela’s food and medical shortages.

So what might that “dangerous series of events” look like?

Well, Venezuela already has another 420 million dollars of debt payments that are overdue.  Investors around the world are facing absolutely catastrophic losses, and the legal wrangling over this crisis could take many years to resolve.  The following comes from Forbes…

S&P says that it expects Venezuela to default on other bond payments. This comes as absolutely no surprise. A further $420m of bond payments are already overdue: unless Venezuela finds some dollars in a hurry, these will also go into default very soon.

S&P also warns that Venezuela could embark on a coercive debt restructuring that would in effect be default. Indeed, it has already announced its intention to do so, though as yet it has produced no plan. But we can imagine what such a debt restructuring might look like: in 2012, Greece imposed a coercive debt restructuring on private sector investors, and Argentina has restructured its dollar-denominated debt twice this century, the second time to sort out the dog’s breakfast Argentina made of the first restructuring. Investors could take substantial losses, and there would no doubt be lawsuits lasting for years. The biggest winners from distressed debt restructurings are always lawyers.

When you add this to all of the other bad news that has been coming out lately, it is easy to understand why things are starting to shift in the financial markets.

In fact, CNBC says that there is “a different tone to the markets in the last week or so”…

Another day, another down open. There’s a different tone to the markets in the last week or so.

It started last Tuesday, when an initial rally faded into a hard sell-off mid-morning. The next five trading sessions generally opened down.

Peter Tchir of Academy Securities, checked off a short list of concerns. There is progress on tax reform “but the reality is it’s not going to be as great as everyone hoped,” he said. There are questions about what the flatter yield curve means. And the recent arrests of high-ranking Saudis in an anti-corruption initiative created uncertainty in the last week and a half.

I keep writing about all of the experts that are warning of an imminent market crash, and yet most investors do not appear to be listening.

In fact, one survey found that the number of fund managers that “are taking higher-than-normal risk” is at an all-time high…

According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s latest monthly fund-manager survey, which includes 206 panelists who manage $610 billion, investors are opting for the latter.

The firm finds that a record number of survey responders are taking higher-than-normal risk. That comes at a time when US stock market valuations are sitting close to their highest in history, creating a precarious situation in which investors are feeling emboldened at a time when they should be exhibiting caution.

This reminds me so much of what we have witnessed just prior to other market crashes.

During the euphoria of the original dotcom bubble, we were being told that Internet stocks would never go down because this was the beginning of an entirely new revolution.

And then investors lost trillions upon trillions of dollars when the market finally crashed.

Just prior to the financial crisis of 2008, we were being assured that there was nothing unusual going on with housing prices.

And then the market crashed and we were suddenly facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Every bubble eventually bursts, and this one will burst too.  Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and it is likely that more money will be lost during this coming crisis than during any other crisis in our entire history.

Credit to Economic Collapse

FDA Approves 'Trackable' Pill: How Far Does The Technology Go Tho?

Nigel Farage Exposes George Soros’ Manipulation Of Western Governments As The Real Threat

India's Sovereign Bond Market In Trouble As Inflation Rebound Surprises

Another day and another Indian inflation reading comes in “hotter” than markets expected. Yesterday, India’s CPI printed at 3.58% for October 2017 - its highest level in seven months - versus the consensus expectation of 3.43%. The September 2017 reading was 3.28%, itself marking a strong rebound from the recent low of 1.46% in June 2017. Market chatter was that the prospect for a rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) when it meets on 5-6 December 2017 was fading.

That prospect faded further today with the release of the wholesale price data for October 2017. The 3.59% year-on-year increase was well above the consensus estimate of 3.01%. As with the CPI, the rebound in energy prices was a major factor in the surge in wholesale prices. Fuel, power and lighting prices rose by 10.52% year-on-year, food prices rose by 4.30% and manufactured products by a more modest 2.62%. The latest CPI and wholesale price data should, however, provide the RBI’s monetary policy committee with the clarity it’s wanted on the inflation path, even if the growth outlook remains more opaque. According to Bloomberg.

This will be the last price print for the Reserve Bank of India before its Dec. 6 decision. Minutes of the previous meeting showed cracks within the monetary policy committee are widening as members disagreed sharply over the path for growth and inflation, resulting in five of the six voting to hold the benchmark repurchase rate at 6 percent until there’s more clarity. The RBI had also raised its inflation forecast and lowered the growth prediction for the year through March, as the lingering effects of last year’s shock cash ban combined with the disruptive roll out of a new nationwide sales tax and climbing global oil costs. Focus now shifts to India’s gross domestic product data for July to September, due Nov. 30. "Inflation has sequentially hardened more than what we had expected," said Rupa Rege Nitsure, Mumbai-based chief economist at L&T Finance Holdings Ltd. said by phone. "The rise in food prices in tandem with hardening fuel prices and a revival in the US markets will keep the RBI’s hands tied -- any chance of a rate cut is now remote."

The inflation data had a negative impact on what has been a surging Indian equity market in 2017, as Bloomberg notes.

India’s stock benchmark was poised to fall for a second straight day after accelerating inflation tempered expectations of a rate cut by the central bank. The S&P BSE Sensex dropped 0.3 percent to 32,945.11 as of 12:25 p.m. in Mumbai, with Larsen & Toubro Ltd. leading losses after lowering a forecast for future orders. The index has climbed 24 percent this year, repeatedly setting records, and sparking concern the rally has gone too far too fast. Data released late Monday showed consumer prices in October rose at the fastest pace in seven months, and may accelerate further amid rebounding oil prices. The Reserve Bank of India meets next month to rule on rates.

A “higher inflation trajectory may reduce room for RBI to cut rates,” said Soumen Chatterjee, head of research at Guiness Securities Ltd. “Investors are booking profits as the earnings season is drawing to a close and valuations look uncomfortable.” 

The NSE Nifty 50 fell 0.4 percent. Forty seven of its constituents have reported quarterly results and of those 28 have met or exceeded analyst expectations, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s helped push the Nifty up 24 percent this year and its valuation to the highest since 2010.

However, the inflation concerns in the Indian economy have been driving a sell-off in the Indian government bond market since the Summer – a sell-off which has accelerated in the last few weeks.

With the 10-year Indian yield testing the 7.0% threshold, Bloomberg notes.

Sovereign bond traders’ worries about inflation are intensifying…

Not surprisingly, the yield on the benchmark 10-year notes climbed above 7 percent Tuesday for the first time since last September. The yield could reach as high as 7.10 percent, according to IDFC Bank Ltd. Nomura Holdings Inc. is predicting CPI to rise above 4 percent this month, and to stay above the Reserve Bank of India’s 4 percent target through 2018. Sovereign bonds have been under pressure on concerns rebounding oil prices would widen the government’s budget deficit, forcing it to boost the size of debt sales just when state administrations are borrowing heavily and the central bank is selling debt to suck out excess liquidity from the system.

India is far from alone in the recent emerging market debt sell-off, the question now is when equities follow suit - maybe India's Sensex will show the way.

 Credit to Zero Hedge