Subject: Noah and the flood
An interesting news item I found at MSNBC.
The biblical story of Noah and the great flood inspired this engraving by
Gustave Dore, titled "Dove Sent Forth From the Ark." Now scientists say
they have found new evidence for a catastrophic flood thousands of years
ago.
New Evidence of Ancient Flood-Modern Science Meets Biblical Legend
Deep in the Black Sea By Guy Gugliotta
WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 - Scientists have discovered an ancient coastline 550
feet below the surface of the Black Sea, providing dramatic new evidence
of a sudden, catastrophic flood around 7,500 years ago-the possible source
of the Old Testament story of Noah.
A TEAM of deep-sea explorers this summer captured the first sonar images
of a gentle berm and a
sandbar submerged undisturbed for thousands of years on the sea floor.
Now, using radiocarbon
dating techniques, analysts have shown that the remains of freshwater
mollusks subsequently dredged
from the ancient beach date back 7,500 years and saltwater species begin
showing up 6,900 years
ago.
Explorer Robert D. Ballard, who led the team that collected the shells,
said the findings indicate a
flood occurred sometime during the 600-year gap. "What we wanted to do is
prove to ourselves that
it was the biblical flood," Ballard said in an interview this week. The
findings offer independent verification of a theory advanced by Columbia
University geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman that the Black Sea
was created when melting glaciers raised the sea level until the sea
breached a natural dam at what is now the Bosporus, the strait that
separates the Mediterranean Sea from the Black Sea. An apocalyptic deluge
followed, inundating the freshwater lake below the dam, submerging
thousands
of square miles of dry land, flipping the ecosystem from fresh water to
salt practically overnight, and
probably killing thousands of people and billions of land and sea
creatures, according to Ryan and
Pitman.
The two scientists described the catastrophe in their book "Noah's Flood,"
based on 30 years of
research that began with coring samples showing the same abrupt transition
from lake to sea that
Ballard confirmed with his dredge. No one had ever actually seen the old
shoreline, however, until
Ballard's team captured sonar images of it in August.
LEGEND OR HISTORY
Ryan and Pitman also suggested that the flood may have triggered massive
migrations to destinations
as diverse as Egypt, western Europe and central Asia, an idea that has
provoked some academic
controversy. Scholars also question whether any natural disaster could be
conclusively identified as the inspiration for the story of Noah's flood.
"All modern critical Bible scholars regard the tale of Noah as legendary,"
said Hershel Shanks, editor
of the Biblical Archaeology Review. "There are other flood stories, but if
you want to say the Black
Sea flood is Noah's flood, who's to say no?" Shanks pointed out that
biblical scholars date the writing of the Book of Genesis, from which the
story of Noah is taken, at sometime between 2,900 and 2,400 years ago, and
a similar event is described in the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh legend, written
about 3,600 years ago.
But while Ryan and Pitman do not prove that the Black Sea flood directly
inspired Gilgamesh or
Noah, their theory argues persuasively that the event was probably
horrific enough for scribes and
minstrels to remember it for thousands of years. And regardless of the
historical context, the science of the Black Sea flood stands undisputed.
Ryan and Pitman dated the event at 7,600 years ago, and they fixed the
likely depth of the ancient coastline almost exactly where Ballard found
it. "It feels good," Pitman said of Ballard's findings, analyzed by the
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution In Massachusetts. Pitman noted that
the new research took place on the Black Sea's southern shore near the
Turkish port of Synope-far from the northern waters where he and Ryan had
worked.
MAPPING THE DEEP
The flood, the underwater coastline and the likelihood that ancient
settlements lie on the submerged
plain have added a new dimension to an already ambitious project.
The region's main archaeological attraction has always been the Black Sea
itself, composed mostly of
dense Mediterranean salt water that immediately plunged to the bottom of
the freshwater lake when
the Bosporus gave way 7,500 years ago. Ever since, the less dense water
on top has acted as a 500-foot-deep lid on a 7,000-foot-deep oxygen-free
abyss-a watery wilderness where scientists suspect there may be 7,500
years of shipwrecks preserved in almost pristine condition. The
tantalizing prospect of exploring this environment piqued Ballard's
interest several years ago. Beginning with the Titanic in 1985, Ballard
has found several historic wrecks in deep water using manned submersibles
and robotic vehicles.
The Black Sea project, funded by the National Geographic Society and the
University of
Pennsylvania, began in 1995, when teams of archaeologists on land and in
shallow water began
mapping Synope and its environs. Synope is about 200 miles directly south
across the Black Sea's abyssal waters from the Crimea-a natural terminus
for an ancient trade route. Ballard said he intends to use a deep-sea
robot next summer to look for a sea lane. "The first thing you find is
trash; you didn't have Adopt-a-Highway then," he said. And where there is
trash, there are sure to be wrecks. "My biggest problem is going to be
trees," he added. If wooden ships can survive in the Black Sea's depths,
then so can trees. The bottom could look like a forest.
'FROZEN IN TIME'
These difficulties, Ballard said, are different from those inherent in the
search for flood-plain settlements. Many of these were probably buried-and
lost forever-when a thick layer of sediment swept into the old lake with
the flood waters. And Ballard suspects many others have been destroyed by
the trawlers that have been scouring the sea bottom for thousands of
years. Still, he said, there are plenty of "relic surfaces" near Synope,
where the water simply rose quickly to submerge intact whatever lay below.
Ballard's sonar sweeps this summer found a gentle coastline "frozen in
time," he said. "In a perfect world you'll see a fence," Ballard said, or
maybe a stockade or even a house. And there will likely be plenty of
artifacts, because "when the flood came, people just had to run."
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 19:58:33 -0500
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