Mediterranean	Memory Palace	of Measures	Everything between	X. Turkey istaCCaCa	Welcome to Istanbul, the 1st sound of measure X.
			Istanbul and Israel starts	IX. Syria iCCaCaCa	At the northern end of the Arabic speaking world, double your last letter for good measure.
			with a closed	VIII. Lebanon iCtaCaCa	Lebanon is the 2nd most popular TV producer.
			letter “i” elif- casra	VII. Israel inCaCaCa	Israel, having been non-existent for thousands of years, has had a NEW beginning. Is it New Israel?
				VI. Palestine taCaaCaCa	The Phoenicians established their largest settlement in the ancient city of Carthage.  Imagine then that they sent ships to TAKE Palestine back for the Philistines when they periodically lost power.
I. Casablanca, Morocco CaCaCa Off the coast of West Africa we shall start with all of our words in Measure I because they start and end with a Consonant-FataHa pair. Notice how the word Casablanca starts and ends with a simple “Ca” as well.  However, we’re missing the middle “Ca.”  Why?  Because that’s the tricky part of Measure one, the middle vowel varies from word to word.	II. Algers, Algeria CaCCaCa In the middle of the Maghreb, we have the capitol city of Algers, which sounds like a redundancy of the country’s name. Following that theme of redundancy in the middle, notice how the matter for this measure has a shadda over the middle consonant making it redundant as well.  Finally, note Algeria’s redundant mineral wealth: they are rich in both oil and gas.	III. Tunisia CaaCaCa Remember how Hannibal of Carthage raised up an army of elephants in Tunisia and marched over the Alps to sack Rome? Doesn’t elephant sound a lot like elif?  Noting that, we can remember that in early Tunisian history, like in the early part of this measure (the first syllable), we need to add an elif (elephant).	IV. Tripoli, Lybia ‘aCCaCa The capitol of Lybia gives us two hints to remember the spelling of this measure--and we connect this to the tree we used to remember that elif with a hamza was the 1st letter in the alphabet. The first syllable in Tri-po-li sounds like Tree, so we begin this measure with elif ma hamza.  Then notice that the first consonant “Trips” over the first vowel to hit the 2nd C.	V. Egypt taCaCCaCa For a time, the Shia Fatimids ruled Egypt, but then it was taken over again by Sunni Islam like the rest of North Africa. Algeria is the largest and most populated country west of Egypt, so think of them symbolically taking back Egypt from Persian to be reunited with North Africa.

* Underlined C’s in the measure formulas represent the doubling of a root consonant.


The Chart above starts by mapping the letter patterns of the measures, but it does not get at the meaning of the measures. For that I'd like to tell a story with ten historical icons that we can link to these 10 countries listed above. First let's establish the links to the icons, and then we'll get to the story. One, Morocco, is represented by Sultan Mohammad V wearing a turban with a round gold coin on front (a circle is the number 5 in Arabic). So imagine a king-like person wearing a white turban with a round gold royal seal or coin like attachment on the front. Two, Algeria, is a Cave Man with two big clubs, one in each hand. Why? Because Algeria has lots of caves with evidence of early Berber Cave People from 20,000 year ago. Three, Tunisia, is Hannibal, carrying a big straight ivory elephant tusk as a spear. Why, because he invaded Rome from Tunisia with elephants. Four, Libya, is Barbarossa, the famous pirate Red Beard, who defeated Spanish occupiers and reclaimed Tripoli in Libya as a base for North African Berber pirates. I imagine him with a red beard of course, and a patch over his eye. Five, Egypt, is King Tut wearing that long thin Pharaoh's hat. Six is Goliath, holding a massive shield take he futilely tried to protect himself with from David in an ancient battle over Palestine. Seven is little David with his iconic sling representing Israel. Eight is Peter evangelizing Lebanon as the early headquarters for Christianity. I imagine him with a net on the coast there since he was a fisherman. Steven was stoned at Damascus Gate leading to Damascus, Syria, so he and the bloody rocks on top of him will serve as icons for measure number nine which is used for little more than describing things being reddened with blood anyway. Paul of Taurus (in Turkey), with his tents (since he was a tent maker) will be our icon for measure ten. Now on to the meaning!


1. Sultan Mohammad left Morocco


2. and headed his army of Berber Cave Men across Algeria to Tunisia,


3. and Hannibal's army meet him,


4. (the army) which Barbarossa had sent [it] to Carthage.


5. Sultan Mohammed's army advanced on Hannibal's army in Egyptian chariots,


6. and exchanged fire with it over philistine shields,


7. Then the Tunisia army broke under the slingshots of the Sultan's army.


8. and the Sultan occupied every city caught in his net from Tunis to Beirut and killed every man who had fallen as a prisoner into his hand,


9. and the stones on the ground reddened with blood even to the edge of Damascus. Then the Sultan crept forward to Acre,


10. and resumed the war there. But he was not able to conquer (literally, the opening of) the city, and finally he withdrew from Palestine and returned to Egypt a failure.