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3. Mythic continuity (god-swaps)
Melqart > Herakles: Tyrian sea god recast as Greek hero, but worship patterns at trade ports stayed identical.
Baal > Saturn/El > Yahweh: Old Levantine storm/sky god gradually absorbed into new state religions, but the port cults (offerings, festivals) continued.
Saint Nicholas > Santa Claus > Global Commerce: An Anatolian sea-saint, beloved of sailors and merchants, morphed into Coca-Cola’s Christmas mascot - but he still anchors the same gift-exchange economy.
Christ > Roman Imperial Idol: The rebel against empire becomes the new imperial mascot, locking the masses into a controlled form of escape.
4. Fear cartography
Phoenician Sea Monsters: Early maps mark “beyond here are dragons” to keep rivals from exploring routes they monopolized.
Medieval Taboos: Forbidden seas, cursed isles narrative tools to protect trade secrets.
Cold War Zones: Nuclear “doomsday zones” map almost perfectly onto strategic shipping lanes and oil choke points.
Modern Regulatory Blacklists: OFAC sanctions, no-go investment zones, and “terror finance” blacklists function like sea monsters: keeping others away while insiders move freely with back channels.
5. Shell migrations (after “falls”)
Babylon > Persia: Phoenician mercantile classes aided Persia against Babylon, but Persia ends up running Babylon’s trade networks intact.
Rome > Church > Venice: As Rome “fell,” the Church and later Venice inherited the very same trade law, weights & measures, coinage models.
Nazis > U.S. & Zion:
VW, Siemens, IG Farben, Krupp, etc. survive the “fall of the Reich” and flow into NATO-era economy.
NASA absorbs Nazi rocket science (Operation Paperclip).
