Searching for Noah's Flood in the Black Sea

Gatekeeper · July 22, 2003, 02:39

Everyone:

OK, here's the article I promised over the weekend, but had to hang on to due to an embargo that conveniently expired earlier on Monday. Read through it — it's fascinating, but quite lengthy — and contribute to this thread as you see fit afterwards.

***

Quote:

Scientists hunt for evidence of Noah’s flood
Examine ancient ships in Black Sea

By RICHARD C. LEWIS
Associated Press Writer

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. — In 1994, archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert rode around northern Turkey in a dirty white Toyota van looking for evidence of ancient civilizations around the Black Sea.

Every time he and his team would ask locals for the whereabouts of centuries-old ruins, they’d get the same response. ‘‘Everyone kept pointing us to the sea,’’ Hiebert recalled.

Hiebert knows now why they did. After some preliminary trips, the University of Pennsylvania professor and other scientists will go on a first-ever effort to excavate ancient ships and a possible human settlement left mummified in the Black Sea’s oxygen-free waters.

Scientists hope what they retrieve will help them understand vastly unknown chapters in human history, covering perhaps the Bronze Age, the Roman and Byzantine empires, and when Christianity first made inroads into Russia.

Another goal of the $5 million, two-week expedition beginning July 27 is to find evidence of a great flood about 7,500 years ago that inundated the Black Sea, turning the freshwater lake into a saltwater ocean. Some scholars have said the engulfing could be the Biblical flood of Noah. Others say the theory lacks any scientific premise and complain it could overshadow the more noteworthy experiments that will take place.

The expedition will be watched live by academics and experts worldwide who may be called upon by those on the ship to comment on any discoveries. Schoolchildren also will able to tune in, at Robert Ballard’s Institute for Exploration in Mystic, Conn., and other places.

The so-called ‘‘telepresence’’ is the brainchild of Ballard, the underwater explorer who discovered the Titanic. He has established the Black Sea’s command center at the University of Rhode Island. There, engineers will take satellite feeds from the ship, and broadcast them on a separate Internet channel.

‘‘Exploration by its very nature means you don’t know what you’re going to find,’’ the 61-year-old Ballard said. ‘‘So, in fact it’s very probable you’re not going to have the right mix of specialists when you make a discovery.’’

Ballard chose Rhode Island as the mission’s nerve center because he’ll chair a first-ever graduate program in oceanography and archaeology beginning in fall 2004. Ballard got his doctorate in marine geology and geophysics from the school in 1974.

The team will be working off the coast of Sinop. Scholars have determined it was a major trade hub for centuries. Scientists believe the locals transported olive oil, honey and iron in carrot-shaped shipping jars called amphorae north to Crimea in exchange for wine and other goods.

Hiebert and other archaeologists had thought the traders hugged the coast on their routes. But Ballard suggested explorers look for north-south trade lanes in the middle of the Black Sea, which would have been a direct, shorter route for the merchants. He knew the deepest waters had no oxygen, meaning any finds would be in immaculate condition.

Searchers have found four shipwreck sites in previous expeditions. One of them, dubbed ‘‘Shipwreck D,’’ is so well-preserved in the Black Sea’s anoxic waters that its hand-carved mast protruding above the seabed looks as good as new.

On this trip, archaeologists hope to get a better look at ancient shipbuilding, and if they’re lucky, some cargo. The ship could contain burlap bags with grapes, a trader’s lunch of lentils, or goods such as silk from Asia, said Cheryl Ward, a nautical archaeologist at Florida State University.

‘‘It’s the wood and what’s inside that is a secret,’’ said Ward, who’s leading Shipwreck D’s study.

Underwater settlement

At another location about 330 feet underwater, the explorers think they may have found a settlement that could be more than 7,500 years old. Scientists theorize the rectangular-shaped site was a hunter or fisherman’s house on a bluff overlooking the water before the Black Sea flooded, wiping out the homestead.

Ballard and his team of engineers have built a 7-foot-tall robot named Hercules that will gingerly dig around the ruin and gather artifacts, much like an archaeologist would on land.

‘‘If we’re successful with this, we’re going to change the field of archaeology,’’ said Hiebert, the 42-year-old who’s leading the settlement project. ‘‘It’ll open coastlines all over the globe (to excavation).’’

Scientists also are interested in the ruin, because it could finally clinch the Noah flood theory that has gained the most attention for the trip — and the most criticism.

Monstrous Black Sea Flood

There’s no dispute that the Black Sea was flooded when rising world sea levels caused the Mediterranean to fill the Black Sea. Prior expeditions show the flood was so monstrous it raised water levels by 511 feet, and submerged up to 60,000 square miles of land, an area the size of Georgia.

The questions are when did it happen, and how rapidly? Until recently, scholars believed the drowning occurred about 9,000 years ago and was gradual. But marine geologists Walter Pitman and William Ryan wrote in 1997 that the flood was sudden and took place about 7,150 years ago. The scientists’ conclusions reinvigorated the Noah flood debate, which the Bible chronicles as a calamitous event spanning 40 days and 40 nights.

Scholars are wary of the revised theory, saying it’s virtually impossible to prove an event from an ancient text. Also, some scholars note that the Bible’s version has Noah living in a desert in Mesopotamia, while the pre-flood coastline of Turkey was a lush, forested area.

‘‘It bugs me a little bit,’’ Hiebert said, ‘‘because I like the Noah story as much as anybody. I think we shouldn’t try and peg what we’re doing to either prove or disprove it. We’re never going to get there.’’

Nevertheless, even skeptics such as Hiebert acknowledge the debate has given the expedition more attention than it would have gotten otherwise.

‘‘I wish all my classes had a million and a half people in it,’’ he joked.

On the Net:

Institute for Exploration: http://www.ife.org

National Geographic Society: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea

University of Rhode Island: http://www.uri.edu

***

If these scientists really do uncover drowned settlements hundreds of feet beneath the waters of the Black Sea, it will really upset the established historical record, IMO.

Also, in regards to the Great Flood story, it's well-known that stories often change and are embellished as time passes by. It's likely the same thing happened here — perhaps Noah's people came across the story (which is possible; I've read that it may have ties to the Gilgamesh epic) and simply "customized" it to fit their own experience.

I'm rooting for a shocking discovery ...

Gatekeeper

laurentius · July 22, 2003, 02:47

WANHA!11, saw this couple of years ago

But it's still exiting as hell

Berzerker · July 22, 2003, 02:56

One problem is that the legend of the deluge is worldwide. The flooding of the Black Sea pales in comparison to the flooding that occured at the end of the ice age. The Sunda Shelf (Indonesia) and the Bering land mass were thousands of square miles. Coastlines all over the world became submerged, and according to the Tlingit (Alaskan Indians), the "Flood" occured 13,000 years ago. This date corresponds to the end of the ice age. So I believe this is the origin of the flood "myth"...

monkspider · July 22, 2003, 03:00

Interesting, I think that if they ever found Noah's Ark it would be in this region. I am not sure that Noah' Ark ever necessarily existed, but if it did, this is it's best shot. In any event, it would seem that civilization is much older than we have always thought it to be.

Gatekeeper · July 22, 2003, 04:53

I think the retreat of the last Ice Age spawned a series of great floods, so it may be hard to pinpoint the "Great Flood," itself that seared its way into our collective memory.

One line of thought that I've read suggests that early humanity may have had a focal point in the Black Sea region, and was forced to migrate outward from the "cradle," so to speak, after it became indunated. They carried the story of the Great Flood with them, and it was transmitted to other groups they encountered along the way. Thus, we have flood legends from all over the planet, and a number of them (but not all) may have a common origin.

Gatekeeper

Jack the Bodiless · July 22, 2003, 05:17

Quote:

Scholars are wary of the revised theory, saying it’s virtually impossible to prove an event from an ancient text. Also, some scholars note that the Bible’s version has Noah living in a desert in Mesopotamia, while the pre-flood coastline of Turkey was a lush, forested area.

Then "some scholars" are none too bright (let me guess: fundies?)

The Hebrews got the story from the Babylonians, who got it from the Sumerians. Who may have gotten it from older peoples, who may well have come from the Black Sea region. There's no way of knowing how many of the details have changed. "The Bible doesn't say that..." is such a braindead argument.

As for why there are Flood stories all over the place: yes, the rise in sea level at the end of the Ice Age was a worldwide phenomenon, and would have triggered various events like the Black Sea inundation. There's also the fact that civilizations tend to grow around rivers (which flood), and also the existence of marine fossils on dry land: not knowing about plate tectonics, our ancestors could make exactly the same erroneous assumption as modern creationists who get excited about seashells on Everest.

Chemical Ollie · July 22, 2003, 05:35

This has already been on TV a year or two ago. But I assume it takes a couple of years to run a project like this.

Monkspider, I saw on TV that one of the Moon travellers (can't remember who) had put up new goals for himself now that he had accomplished more than any man can dream of. He was travelling around Turkey to look for Noah's Ark.

It also puzzles me why a story about science still uses feet instead of meters? 95 % of the world population use metric units.

aaglo · July 22, 2003, 08:07

Yep, this was a bit old news. But still very interesting.

TheStinger · July 22, 2003, 11:26

Wow a big flood happened in the past.

The Bible must be true.

Gatekeeper · July 23, 2003, 02:36

Old news? Perhaps. I have a book, "Noah's Flood," by William Ryan and Walter Pitman, that I think may have been the catalyst for the interest in the Black Sea. It was published in 1998 and another edition came out in 2000.

What's going on now is likely the culmination of what was proposed in that book: Namely, the thorough exploration of the seabed of the Black Sea.

Gatekeeper

Giancarlo · July 23, 2003, 02:38

No matter what, I am still gonna be atheist.

To me this proves nothing.

geeslaka · July 23, 2003, 03:48

Quote:

It also puzzles me why a story about science still uses feet instead of meters? 95 % of the world population use metric units.

It's probably being done by americans. Those fools are too lazy/stupid/set-in-their-ways to change to the metric system. I know this because in my 7th grade class we were taught the metric system and half the kids couldn't understand it. (Yes, I am an american.)

VJ · July 23, 2003, 05:45

We were taught this in our biology class, in the 6th grade.

I fail to see how this is exciting.

Sikander · July 23, 2003, 06:22

Jack has it right, the Bible has a lot of stuff ripped right from the Babylonians. This incudes the flood myth as well as a lot of those hfksdjfhdsjk begat sladkjsalkjd things, which were found on a stone older than the Bible almost verbatim.

The U.S. military is one institution that uses metric measurements regularly. Stupidity isn't the answer as to why we don't use the metric system generally, IMO it's merely laziness + critical mass.

Tolls · July 23, 2003, 07:25

"...which were found on a stone older than the Bible almost verbatim."

Ooh...you got anything on that?
A reference of some sort...I'm interested in all this stuff.

Sikander · July 23, 2003, 07:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Tolls
"...which were found on a stone older than the Bible almost verbatim."

Ooh...you got anything on that?
A reference of some sort...I'm interested in all this stuff.

Let me see if I can find a source on the web, it's been a while.

Traianvs · July 23, 2003, 07:43

Quote:

Originally posted by Sikander
Jack has it right, the Bible has a lot of stuff ripped right from the Babylonians. This incudes the flood myth as well as a lot of those hfksdjfhdsjk begat sladkjsalkjd things, which were found on a stone older than the Bible almost verbatim.

The U.S. military is one institution that uses metric measurements regularly. Stupidity isn't the answer as to why we don't use the metric system generally, IMO it's merely laziness + critical mass.

You're right, many myths and stories have similar symbolism or the same message where it doesn't really matter what religion it is written for.
The famous story wherein Mozes was thrown in a stream when he was still a baby has about 80 other versions... going back to Sargon, which was a very important and mighty leader of Akkad more than 4000 years ago... Same thing with the flood. It's not necessarily so that every civilization has suffered from a flood... Civs take over myths and stories from eachother all the time. But seeing the myth is known worldwide means it will probably have happened though

Tolls · July 23, 2003, 07:46

"But seeing the myth is known worldwide means it will probably have happened though."

But seeing as the myth isn't world wide....there are myths involving floods all over the world, but they are most definitely not the same myth.

Boris Godunov · July 23, 2003, 08:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
If these scientists really do uncover drowned settlements hundreds of feet beneath the waters of the Black Sea, it will really upset the established historical record, IMO.

How so? We've known for sometime that there was a huge flood in the area of the Black Sea c. 9,000 BC. The fact that there are ancient settlements doesn't change any history--such ancient settlements were all over the ME at the time. Whether or not the flood was a sudden catastrophe or gradual is interesting, but it will hardly change the historical record significantly.

Lung · July 24, 2003, 01:35

I love it how creationists are salivating at this prospect, as though somehow the flood at the heart of the Noah myth will prove the myth, hence the ark, hence the bible, hence god

And they dare criticise scientists of using circular reasoning!

In any case, lies usually are originally based in truth. The happenstance of a flood proves nothing more than that there was... a flood

Giancarlo · July 24, 2003, 02:54

I don´t see how this proves anything, lung. The creationists are going up the wrong tree. They already know they are wrong. The world isn´t 6,000 years old.. they are trying so hard to prove it.. lol... there is solid evidence to disprove their reasoning.

And as you said, there probably was a flood... but that is all it was. There are floods all the time. It is called climate, not some supernatural force called god...

Gatekeeper · July 24, 2003, 03:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
How so? We've known for sometime that there was a huge flood in the area of the Black Sea c. 9,000 BC. The fact that there are ancient settlements doesn't change any history--such ancient settlements were all over the ME at the time. Whether or not the flood was a sudden catastrophe or gradual is interesting, but it will hardly change the historical record significantly.

Actually, it was quite controversial to even suggest — until the last few years, anyway — that the seabed of the Black Sea might contain the remnants of indunated home, villages and whatnot.

Furthermore, it's fascinating that what they suspect they're finding is often *hundreds* of feet beneath the waters of the Black Sea. This isn't some podunk settlement washed out beneath 30 feet of water 2000 years ago. This could be settlements — advanced settlements, given the timeframe — that were wiped out between 7,000 and 9,000 years ago by a rapidly-rising sea. Who knows? Maybe these lost civilizations were the true source of the Atlantis myth, hmm? Perhaps Noah's Flood and Atlantis are entertwined, and now we're just beginning to uncover this commonality.

Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper · July 24, 2003, 03:27

Quote:

Originally posted by Lung
I love it how creationists are salivating at this prospect, as though somehow the flood at the heart of the Noah myth will prove the myth, hence the ark, hence the bible, hence god

And they dare criticise scientists of using circular reasoning!

In any case, lies usually are originally based in truth. The happenstance of a flood proves nothing more than that there was... a flood

Insofar as I can tell, Lung, there's not a single creationist quoted in the article I posted. It's all about scientists who are using ancient source material to see if there's anything to events such as the Great Flood other than mythology or legend.

I am certainly not a creationist, nor a Bible-thumping religious person. But that doesn't mean you simply disregard everything that's written in these ancient tomes. They're often decent *starting* points for serious archaeological exploration (although that has been abused in the past by, ahem, religous-minded "researchers").

Ballard, et al., are hardly ones to go after something like this on a whim. It's a serious effort to ascertain if the Black Sea is hiding ancient secrets about our common past. Hell, if they find anything, they'll start looking all over the Med next (recently, an ancient Egyptian city ... Alexandria, I think ... was found offshore, sunken beneath water). And off the coast of Cuba, there's supposed to be a mysterious alleged city sitting on the sea bottom.

Gatekeeper

Chemical Ollie · July 25, 2003, 16:14

Homo Sapiens has been around for 100.000 years and had settlements in Europe for a good part of it. This means we must have walked through Middle East to get here, which mean there must have been settlements all over the place. The people 10.000 years ago had the same brain and intelligence as us (but not the same collected knowledge), which means they were just like us in many ways. I assume they had a lot of skills we lack today because we don't need it, skills that are long forgotten.

I think it is a very amazing thought that pre-historic people that we know very little about were as smart and social as us. I wonder how much of their traces that has been destroyed by the ice and how much left there is to learn from hidden caves and excavations. Perhaps I should start to read some Jean M Auel?

St Leo · July 25, 2003, 18:50

Olaf, settlements usually require agriculture. I might be on crack here, but I think that only goes back 15 kiloyears at most and that's not a good part of 100 kiloyears.

Chemical Ollie · July 25, 2003, 19:15

Quote:

Originally posted by St Leo
Olaf, settlements usually require agriculture. I might be on crack here, but I think that only goes back 15 kiloyears at most and that's not a good part of 100 kiloyears.

Did I say that? I said Homo Sapiens have been around for 100 ky, not agriculture. But you can have a rough settlement without agriculture, can't you? A base from were you hunt, then when the area is low on game you move on to another.

Lord Merciless · July 25, 2003, 19:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Olaf Hårfagre
I think it is a very amazing thought that pre-historic people that we know very little about were as smart and social as us.

Smart and ignorant. Without knowledge, you are still a moron regardless how well your brain is built.

chequita guevara · July 25, 2003, 19:26

Quote:

Originally posted by Sikander
Jack has it right, the Bible has a lot of stuff ripped right from the Babylonians.

Including their God.

chequita guevara · July 25, 2003, 19:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
Actually, it was quite controversial to even suggest — until the last few years, anyway — that the seabed of the Black Sea might contain the remnants of indunated home, villages and whatnot.

There's no maybe about it. Last year they had on PBS Ballad's expidition to the Black sea in which they discovered a pre-flood settlement. They were weirdly upset, because that's not what they were looking for, and the importance of their discovery couldn't be ignored. They were actually trying to find ancient ships (they found a 1500 year old ship on the last day).

Chemical Ollie · July 25, 2003, 20:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Lord Merciless

Smart and ignorant. Without knowledge, you are still a moron regardless how well your brain is built.

Yeah, at least we know much more about them than they knew about us.

But we don't know all the things that filled their clever minds instead of the things we know today. Accurate astronomy without technology, philosophy, herbal medicine, Greek fire (a later invention, I know, but still lost), etc.

A little off topic - Excavations may also lead to very wrong conclusions. Anyone excavating a Christian church in the far future may come to the conclusion that Christians practiced human sacrifice, because we were so obsessed by people hanging at a cross.