Rhesus, Seafaring, Red Hair and Phoenicians

A myriad of things today. Firstly, I'll start with a few things I read on the Wikipedia page about the Thracians. It states that several Thracian tombstones have the name Rufus inscribed on them, meaning redhead. And also that;

Rhesus of Thrace, a mythological Thracian King, derived his name because of his red hair and is depicted on Greek pottery as having red hair and beard.

It's mildly odd that a king named Rhesus would be described as having red hair, as red hair is often associated with the rhesus negative blood type on various sites and forums. In fact, red hair and rhesus negative blood are often weaved into the tapestry of the reptilian/grail bloodline stories of modern conspiracy lore.

In other news I also came across the word/name Leroux. According to Wiki this is;

[A] surname of French origin meaning "red-haired" or "red-skinned" and may also come in certain cases (with the spelling Le Roux) from Breton Ar Roue meaning "the King".

The fact that it possibly means both red-haired and kingly is particularly revealing.

On the topic of names I recently received an interesting email from someone with the surname Flanagan. He pointed out to me that Flan, in Gaelic, means red. He also speculated that the agan part of the name could possibly relate to seafaring - giving the general sense of the name as 'red-haired seafarer'. Like myself he was interested in the notion that the seafaring Phoenicians were red-haired.

I've also been thinking about the name Robert and its possible relation to the words ruby and ruddy.

On a different note I've also came across another red-haired figure from history. The description comes from a book titled Postcolonial Moves by Patricia Clare Ingham and Michelle R. Warren.

The great caliph 'Abd al-Rahman III, for example, had red hair, light skin, and blue eyes, and is reported to have dyed his hair black "to make himself look more like an Arab."

Al-Rahman III was a caliph who ruled in Muslim Spain during the 10th Century.

My final little bit of redhead info comes from The Phoenician Origins of Britons, Scots and Anglo-Saxons by L. A. Waddell. I read this book a few years back and at the time it really fascinated me. I recently re-found this passage relating to red hair when I was refreshing my thoughts on the Phoenicians. In it he quotes the findings of a Professor Parsons;

The upper and middle classes are fairer than the lower. Regarding Red Hair, which so frequently accompanies a fair and freckled skin and blue or light eyes, he finds it "is more common in the upper [including middle] than in the lower classes."