Posted on 01/30/2005 2:51:03 PM PST by blam
They were known as the Hai Five.
The Black Sea flood was about 5600 BC."
Falstech who has made a lifetime career of Biblical Chronology, would put Gilgamesh late in the 22nd or early in the 21st century BC--within a a couple hundred years of the Biblical Flood.
I can't think of any reason localized flooding in the Black Sea area as a result of breach of an ice dam has any real relationship to the flood described in Genesis--can you? The Black Sea event clearly occurred several thousand years before the earliest possible date that can be constructed from the Bible chronology.
INTREP - Commodore P.J. Wiseman has demonstrated that Adam wrote the first 4 chapters of Genesis in about 4000 BC
Yup. Ryan & Pittman in their book, Noah's Flood speculate that it was this event that spread farming and the Indo-European language all over Europe. People were able to walk away from this event with what they could carry plus animals. The region around the Black Sea at that time was very arid and everyone was crowded around the fresh-water edge probably doing some sort of irrigation farming. Salt-water wiped it all out and they had to move up the river valleys.
It wasn't an ice dam. As the Mediterranean water level rose from the ice melting from the ending of the Ice Age...it became high enough to break the earthern dam at the Bosphorus and flooded the previous freshwater Black Sea shore-line under 550 feet of salt water. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people would have been scrambling for their lives and fleeing in all directions. This story would have endured.
Fascinating.
I'm only including the link because I remember posting the article here on FR.
Still very interesting!
-CD
Since reading Oppenheimer's books, I'm having second-thoughts also.
I have not read those books but it seems that the flood story crossed continents and cultures. This would point to a global event. Now whether it is biblical or not is open to debate.
Thanks. Someone posted a link earlier up in the thread and I thought I must have missed it. But, I checked on your thread and there I was with a number of comments. Ah...old age.
I just love your posts. I swear I would never know what was happening in the world of archaeology if it weren't for you! (so thanks!)
It's not a problem.
I always enjoy your archaeology threads and I just wanted to include my link on this one.
All the best,
CD
The Black Sea must have been one of the last places to refill after the Ice Age. Remember the Persian Gulf and many other areas were completely dry during the Ice Age...any number (or all) of the could have generated flood stories.
Sundaland was twice the size of present day India and, it went underwater. That would have been a nice warm place to spend the Ice Age, at least, until it flooded. Many humans must have thrived there while many other areas were suffering terribly from the cold.
Sorry, No insult was intended/implied/impute, as more discoveries are made, the more accurate, the history becomes. :))
Oh, sorry. I wasn't trying to say anything about your research, just remarking that it was the same story. I wondered if the BBC had recycled it.
I am writing what the scientists say. I personally don't take dates in the Old Testament literally.
This was a break in the Bosphorus--perhaps as a result of an earthquake. It was at the narrow channel from the Mediterranean/Adriatic into the Black sea. The narrow Bosphorus was blocked off until this cataclysmic event. It was earth and stone, not ice.
It has been proved by scientific tests and core studies to have happened about 5600 BC.
The Black Sea has alternated between fresh and salt water a number of times as shown by core studies in the sea bed.
The flooding had a huge impact because there were many people settled along the Black Sea. It was, before 5600 BC a freshwater lake.
Gilgamesh lived a long time after the flood, about 2700-2500 BC, 3000 years after the flood. I just don't know if oral tradition lasts for 3000 years. I read one time that oral tradition only lasts about 500 years, but I don't really know.
The Black Sea flooding may have caused people to migrate West. There are big migrations around this time. The water also went up the rivers and would have wrecked riverside towns far inland, too.
Core studies in the sea-bed have found evidence of cereal grains being cultivated on land that is now far out at sea.
The water came up very fast and would have innundated these Black Sea civilizations.
I have this book. I thought it was very interesting.
I teach Gilgamesh, and every year I pass out a xerox article that gives the gist of the book. The article was also written by the authors. I will look at work what the magazine is and let you know. It is probably Science, Nature, Smithsonian, or Archeology. I have used the article since the book came out and forget the source now.
I tell my students that I don't know if this was the flood story, but that it may have been. I try to include some science and religion with the literature.
I am a little skeptical because people didn't have writing in 5600 BC and I have read that oral tradition doesn't really last thousands of years. I read one time that oral tradition lasts 500 years.
Still, the ancients dated everything before and after the flood,so I am inclined to think the flood stories from the ME are based on some spectacular cataclysm rather than the normal flash flooding that happens.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.