58: Phoenicians & Jewish tin-streamers in Cornwall

Written by Linden Alexander Pentecost and published on the 21st of March 2025. Published in the UK. This relatively short article contains 1553 words as measured in libreoffice before publishing to this website. This article discusses something of Afro-Asiatic and Celtic, Cornwall’s connections with the Phoenicians, and suggestions of the possibility that a legend about Jewish tin streamers in Cornwall in more recent times may represent a continuity from those Phoenicians. This article contains no sub-sections. A note about the book I am publishing tomorrow (on the 22nd of March 2025) is included at the end of this article. This article contains in-text references to a folkloric story.

 

For many many years I have suspected that connections exist between the Afro-Asiatic languages and the Celtic languages. In my own research I have looked at this in a lot of detail and found a large number of connections, and despite that these ideas are outright rejected by mainstream academia, I still feel that they absolutely hold truth. My own research often involved, and will continue to involve, comparisons with Afro-Asiatic languages as a whole. But in the past, particularly around a hundred or more years ago, these same or similar ideas were discussed, but generally in terms of trying to link Celtic languages to Hebrew, partially due to that Hebrew was one of the few Afro-Asiatic languages that was well discussed in Europe at the time, and partially because of the Judaic and Christian narratives of history, which sometimes meant that people tried to understand the entire history of the world, and languages, through for example the Hebrew language, and the Judaic and Christian traditions.
Personally, I think that Hebrew is no doubt important in some way in this whole picture, but I do not believe in a single original language, a single sacred language, nor in a single historic and linguistic narrative that applies to and explains all other narratives and languages. For example, I have not looked at similarities between Hebrew and Celtic to the same degree that I have looked at similarities between say Egyptian and Celtic, and the Chadic languages and Celtic, all of which help to demonstrate I think that the connections between ancient languages are diverse and widely interconnected, and that there is not a single “origin” language in any case. 

I also do not believe that Britain was founded by Jewish people, nor that Britain has any specific connections with the Judaic and Christian narratives, that are not present in other parts of Europe; although I do believe that the languages in Britain, including Celtic and Germanic and older languages, do indeed have a special connection to Afro-Asiatic languages; but again, my own thoughts on this are not based on any ideas regarding a specific connection between Jewish people and Britain. However, when it comes to Cornwall, I do think that a specific connection to Hebrew, and to Phoenician, might exist.

Both the Cornish language and the Cornish dialect of English, do, from my research, have relationships to Afro-Asiatic languages, including with Semitic languages like Hebrew. Some have implied stronger relationships between Cornish, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, with Hebrew and Phoenician, others have implied that Phoenician is essentially Welsh, but with more obvious Semitic elements and structures; but I haven’t looked into this too much, again, it implies a specific connection between Britain and Jews, which I am not so sure about.
But when it comes to Cornwall, there is plenty of suggestion, and some evidence, to suggest that the tin and copper mines in Cornwall were connected to Phoenician traders. At least officially speaking, the earlier Phoneician language (not the Punic language) was very close to the Hebrew language. My own research also suggests that some of the mining terms used in Cornwall are of Afro-Asiatic origin; you can read about this in some of my other articles and books. But the evidence regarding this is often debated, and I also think it unlikely that Cornwall can be thought of in any sense as being settled by Phoenicians, or “Phoenician” in nature, despite the likelihood that such connections do exist. We also know that mining was taking place in Cornwall well before the Roman period, although most of these earlier mining sites are either, largely buried by debris, or have been destroyed or altered by later mining activities. 

But there is something in particular that made me ask myself: “Did these connections between Cornwall and the Phoenicians and/or Jews continue into more recent times?” The thing in question that caused me to ask this, is a folklore story I came across in the book Cornish folklore by Robert Hunt. Note that I have previously discussed aspects to different stories in this book in other articles, including discussing the “brass pins” mentioned in this book in relation to Mên-an-Tol, in a few places, including in my article on this website titled: 55: Brass pins and copper rods as spiritual language organs, and connected topics, the link to which is: https://www.bookofdunbarra.co.uk/website-articles-46-55/55-brass-pins-and-copper-rods-as-spiritual-language-organs-and-connected-topics 

 

But anyway, also in the book Cornish folklore by Robert Hunt, there is a folkloric story titled: The tinner of Chyannor, a story about tin-streamers, tin-streaming being a form of mining for tin, in streams. This is a very ancient mining method, it bares some similarity to gold-panning; - from what I understand, tin-streaming involves altering the flow of water so that it washes away softer, tin-baring deposits, which were then disposited further down and processed. It is likely that Bronze Age and other ancient tin and copper miners in Cornwall would have used ore-streaming for tin, and possibly for copper, as well as using surface and underground mining methods.
In the story The tinner of Chyannor, it seems implied that there was once a relatively significant Jewish population in Cornwall who sought tin in places were few others did. Although only one Jewish man is mentioned specifically in the story, there are several implications that he is one of many Jew merchants, and it is implied I think that Tom is employed by him as well as other Jews being perhaps employed by him. This to me implies that the Jewish population were very connected to this landscape and may have known it for a very long time. It is not said specifically in this story that the Jewish people in Cornwall streamed the tin, although the non-Jewish character is a tin-streamer, and a Jewish man mentioned in the story is said to have “farmed the tin ground” (quoted from the story); and it also mentions that he employs Tom, an experienced tin-streamer, which would seem to imply that these Jewish people  were indeed streaming tin, and that farming the tin ground may be a reference to finding deposits of tin lower down a tin-stream. Furthermore, it is implied that the Jewish man who Tom meets, sells his tin at St Michael’s mount, which is particularly interesting, as St Michael’s Mount has previously been linked to the presence of the Phoenicians in Cornwall, and it is thought that ancient tin was traded from there. 

What I find most compelling about this story, is the general implication that these Jewish people are not by any means newcomers to Cornwall; that they sought tin in areas that other people did not, which implies a deep and ancient knowledge of the landscape, and that their tin was sold at St Michael’s Mount, a place already connected to ancient Phoenician trade. So to me, it seems entirely possible that these Jewish people in Cornwall were not newcomers, and could have been in some way connected to, and a continuation of, those ancient traders of Phoenician origin, or at least, having a connection to Phoenician traders and miners thousands of years ago. The story also seems to imply an indigenous level of knowledge possessed by these Jewish people in relation to the Cornish landscape, which is indeed fascinating. Perhaps these Phoenicians and Jewish people were in a sense indigenous to Cornwall alongside its other indigenous peoples. The town Market-Jew is also mentioned in the story, which is interesting, and it is said in the story that Tom finds this Jewish merchant and miner not far from Goldsithney, also near St Michael’s Mount. 

The idea that there could be some continuity between ancient, possibly Phoenician miners and tin traders in Cornwall, and a Jewish population of tin-streamers and traders in Cornwall in more recent times, is indeed fascinating, although of course I cannot say for sure what the truth of this is. I hope that this article was an interesting read. This article is dedicated to my family, in particular to those who (from what I have been told) have some Jewish ancestry, although I have no definitive proof of Jewish ancestry other than what some in my family have told me. 

 

Note that tomorrow I will be publishing a print-only book which is unrelated to this article and with content separate from that in any of my other publications and books, the aforementioned book is titled: Similarities in Quechua and Finnish language words newly noticed in March 2025 and not previously published, and other connected topics not previously published; book published only in print format and not in other formats; book published in the UK.