In the 1930s, Brazilian archaeologist Bernardo de Azevedo da Silva Ramos studied the mountain, hoping that it could provide evidence for his beliefs that there existed a pre-Columbian civilization on the American Continent contemporary with the apogee of Phoenician and Greek expansion in the Mediterranean. Ramos traveled to Pedra da Gávea, wrote down the markings described by the IHGB, and then with the aid of a rabbi in Manaus, he claimed to have succeeded in deciphering the inscriptions. According to him, the inscription (when read from right to left, the direction that Phoenician is written) is 𐤋𐤀𐤀𐤁𐤇𐤕𐤄𐤉𐤁𐤀𐤓𐤓𐤉𐤆𐤃𐤀𐤁𐤍𐤀𐤉𐤔𐤉𐤍𐤄𐤏𐤅𐤓𐤅𐤆𐤕. This inscription, when reversed and transliterated into the Latin alphabet, is said to read TZUR FOENISIAN BADZIR RAB JETHBAAL, which is translated roughly as Tyre, Phoenicia, Badezir, Firstborn of Jethbaal. This supposedly refers to a ruler of Phoenicia named Baal-Eser II who ruled Tyre in the mid-9th century, c. 850 BC. Ramos subsequently published a two-volume book entitled Tradições da America Pré-Histórica, Especialmente do Brasil, that attempted to document all evidence of supposed Phoenician inscriptions in Brazil.