1. The Pillars at the Entrance to the Atlantic Ocean

Hence the proposal, in the context of the Pillars at the Straits of Gibraltar, that the concept of two pillars, one in the North and another in the South, in those times, would be recognised by all sailors as a religious prohibition, a warning that only the approved might pass between them. The Pillar on the right, sailing out of the Mediterranean towards the Atlantic, Westwards, would be Gibraltar, a grey limestone monolith two miles long and 1380 feet high almost evenly along its length, which gathers the humid east Wind and condenses it for one day in every three, at intervals throughout the year. The Pillar on the left, on the North African coast would be a lower mountain about 400 feet high, known as Septa, today's Ceuta, which is covered today in low evergreen bushes which flower yellow in January through to April, presenting the impression of the fiery pillar.

2. Religious Warning and Military Control

Let us now return to the need of the Phoenicians to control access through the Straits of Gibraltar, principally, I propose, in order to keep secret the bearings and directions to the tin mines of the Celts on the Atlantic European coasts. The Phoenicians had competitors in the Mediterranean, the Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean and later the Etruscans in the Western Mediterranean, and customers, the Egyptians, it was important to keep them away from the secret of bronze, the source of their naval power. What better way to warn seamen that arrival at the straits was arrival at a restricted place, that passage through here had to be approved by a higher authority. Hence I have suggested, the origin of the idea of Pillars at the Straits of Gibraltar, one at the North, on the right which would have been silver, or grey, and one on the left which would have been emerald or green. The Phoenicians called Gibraltar Calpe. In Aramaic/Phoenician the consonants in Cala meant Hollow and in Pietra meant stone, hence to them Calpe - Gibraltar (and other similar places) was the Hollow stone, probably a reference to the caves they found here at sea level. It is notable that The Gibraltar Museum Authority, which set up the "Gibraltar Caves Project" in 1998 now controls no less than 140 caves all over the Rock of Gibraltar, which it is subjecting to a scientifically and authoritatively organised Archaeological Programme.

The Two Pillars

As to which the mountains which were considered to be the Pillars which flanked the Straits were, it seems clear that Gibraltar was the one on the right, North, side as one sails from east to west leaving the Mediterranean, it is grey, and on 150 days of the year it gathers a cloud from the East Wind, which condenses over two thirds of its 2-mile length, identifying it as the Silver Pillar of Smoke of the First Book Kings.

Homer, researching this for his own writing 500 years later places his fictional Hercules at the foot of two mountains, one of which was "hollow", and we can see why this might describe Calpe, Gibraltar, and the other of which according to Homer, a good archer could fire an arrow over.

This second, left-hand Pillar would therefore seem to describe Ceuta on the South Shore of the Straits, 12 miles due south of Gibraltar (which is green all the year round and from January to April flowers yellow) rather than Sidi Musa, which people of the Straits area think of as being the other Pillar, but which is 3,000 feet high, (far too high for an archer and which the wrong colour for the left Pillar, grey).

It is interesting that the doors of the Temple at Tyre (now in the British Museum) were made of Bronze. The allegory can be taken a little further, since the space between the Pillars at the Straits is the path to the missing component of Bronze

3. Shrine at Gorham's Cave, Calpe Gibraltar, the contro point

The existence of a Shrine at Gorham's Cave where thousands of items of Phoenician origin, votive offerings, are still being found by the Gibraltar Museum's 1998 'Gibraltar Caves Project' appears to support this hypothesis. A priest could have overseen the contents of a ship, the identity of its crew from their language and appearance by a visit to it anchored off Gorham's cave in the shelter from the prevailing South Westerly winds (known as 'Poniente' in the Western Med. 'the Setting Wind'. Once the Easterly Wind had commenced ('the Levanter' or 'Rising Wind' -- the Wind from the direction of the Rising Sun -- from the daily birthplace of Ra') conditions would be right for passage from east to West into the Atlantic, with a following wind.