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Deluge (mythology)

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Myths

   The Deluge by Gustave Doré.
   The Deluge by Gustave Doré.

   The story of a Great Flood sent by a deity or deities to destroy
   civilization as an act of divine retribution is a widespread theme in
   Greek and many other cultural myths. Though it is best known by the
   biblical story of Noah, it is also well known in other versions, such
   as stories of Matsya in the Hindu Puranas, Deucalion in Greek mythology
   and Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh. A large percentage of the
   world's cultures past and present have stories of a "great flood" that
   devastated earlier civilization.

Flood myths in various cultures

Ancient Near East

Sumerian

                              Fertile Crescent
                                                              myth series

   Mark of the Palm

                                Mesopotamia
                               Levantine myth
                                Arabian myth
                              Yazidic religion
                           Mesopotamian mythology
                                                                   Topics

                                                                      Gods
     * Anu & 7 who decree fate
     * Ishtar & astrology
     * Tiamat & Tablets of Destiny
     * Annunaki & fiction
     * Marduk & Babylon

                                                                    Heroes
     * Utnapishtim & world-flood
     * Tammuz & new life
     * Gilgamesh & Cedar Forest
     * Enkidu, the man-beast

                                                                  Monsters
     * Zu, the winged lion
     * Qingu, mankind's blood
     * Resheph, plague and war
     * Namtar, deadly illness

                                                                   Related
     * Me, divine decrees
     * Ma, primeval land
     * Irkalla, the underworld
     * Mesopotamian religion
     * The Fertile Crescent

   The Sumerian myth of Ziusudra tells how the god Enki warns Ziusudra
   (meaning "he saw life," in reference to the gift of immortality given
   him by the gods), king of Shuruppak, of the gods' decision to destroy
   mankind in a flood - the passage describing why the gods have decided
   this is lost. Enki instructs Ziusudra to build a large boat - the text
   describing the instructions is also lost. After a flood of seven days,
   Ziusudra makes appropriate sacrifices and prostrations to An (sky-god)
   and Enlil (chief of the gods), and is given eternal life in Dilmun (the
   Sumerian Eden) by Anu and Enlil.

   The Sumerian king list, a genealogy of traditional, legendary and
   mythological Sumerian kings, also mentions a great flood.

   Excavations in Iraq have shown evidence of a flood at Shuruppak about
   2,900-2,750 BCE, which extended nearly as far as the city of Kish,
   whose king Etana, supposedly founded the first Sumerian dynasty after
   the flood.

   The myth of Ziusudra exists in a single copy, the fragmentary Eridu
   Genesis, datable by its script to the 17th century BC.

Babylonian (Epic of Gilgamesh)

   The "Deluge tablet" (tablet 11) of the Epic of Gilgamesh in Akkadian.
   The "Deluge tablet" (tablet 11) of the Epic of Gilgamesh in Akkadian.

   In the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, toward the end of the He who saw
   the deep version by Sin-liqe-unninn (tablet 11), there are references
   to a great flood. The hero Gilgamesh, seeking immortality, searches out
   Utnapishtim (whose name is a direct translation into Akkadian of the
   Sumerian Ziusudra) in Dilmun, a kind of terrestrial paradise.
   Utnapishtim tells how Ea (equivalent of the Sumerian Enki) warned him
   of the gods' plan to destroy all life through a great flood and
   instructed him to build a vessel in which he could save his family, his
   friends, and his wealth and cattle. After the Deluge the gods repented
   their action and made Utnapishtim immortal.

Akkadian (Atrahasis Epic)

   The Babylonian Atrahasis Epic (written no later than 1700 BC, the name
   Atrahasis means "exceedingly wise"), gives human overpopulation as the
   cause for the great flood. After 1200 years of human fertility, the god
   Enlil felt disturbed in his sleep due to the noise and ruckus caused by
   the growing population of mankind. He turned for help to the divine
   assembly who then sent a plague, then a drought, then a famine, and
   then saline soil, all in an attempt to reduce the numbers of mankind.
   All these were temporary fixes. 1200 years after each solution, the
   original problem returned. When the gods decided on a final solution,
   to send a flood, the god Enki, who had a moral objection to this
   solution, disclosed the plan to Atrahasis, who then built a survival
   vessel according to divinely given measurements.

   To prevent the other gods from bringing such another harsh calamity,
   Enki created new solutions in the form of social phenomena such as
   non-marrying women, barrenness, miscarriages and infant mortality, to
   help keep the population from growing out of control.

Hebrew

   In the story recorded in the book of Genesis, God is saddened by seeing
   all the evil which has entered man's heart, and decides to destroy
   mankind. He selects Noah, who alone with his family is righteous, and
   instructs him to build an ark, and preserve two of each creature (or
   seven if they're " clean"). After Noah builds the ark, God makes it
   rain for 40 days and 40 nights. After 150 days, the ark comes to rest
   on the mountains of Ararat.

   The 2nd century BC 1st Book of Enoch is a late apocryphal addition to
   the Hebrew flood legend, in which God sends the Great Flood to rid the
   earth of the Nephilim, the titanic children of the Grigori, the "sons
   of God" mentioned in Genesis and of human females.

Asia-Pacific

China

   Shanhaijing, "Classic of the Mountain & Seas", ends with the Chinese
   ruler Da Yu spending ten years to control a deluge whose "floodwaters
   overflowed [to] heaven". (see: Shanhaijing, chapter 18, second to last
   paragraph; Anne Birrells translation. note: Nuwa is not mentioned in
   this translation in the context of a flood)

   There are many sources of flood myths in ancient Chinese literature.
   Some appear to refer to a worldwide deluge:

   Shujing, or "Book of History", probably written around 700 BC or
   earlier, states in the opening chapters that Emperor Yao is facing the
   problem of flood waters that reach to the Heavens. This is the backdrop
   for the intervention of the famous Da Yu, who succeeded in controlling
   the floods. He went on to found the first Chinese dynasty. (see:
   Shujing, Part 1 Tang Document, Yao Canon; James Legges translation)

   Shiji, Chuci, Liezi, Huainanzi, Shuowen Jiezi, Siku Quanshu, Songsi
   Dashu, and others, as well as many folk myths, all contain references
   to a personage named Nuwa. Nuwa is generally represented as a female
   who repairs the broken heavens after a great flood or calamity, and
   repopulates the world with people. There are many versions of this
   myth. (see Nuwa article for additional detail)

   The ancient Chinese civilization concentrated at the bank of Yellow
   River near present day Xian also believed that the severe flooding
   along the river bank was caused by dragons (representing gods) living
   in the river being angered by the mistakes of the people.

India

   Incarnation of Vishnu as a Fish, from a devotional text.
   Incarnation of Vishnu as a Fish, from a devotional text.

   Matsya (Fish in Sanskrit) was the first Avatara of Vishnu.

   According to the Matsya Purana and Shatapatha Brahmana (I-8, 1-6), the
   mantri to the king of pre-ancient Dravida, Satyavata who later becomes
   known as Manu was washing his hands in a river when a little fish swam
   into his hands and begged him to save its life. He put it in a jar,
   which it soon outgrew; he successively moved it to a tank, a river and
   then the ocean. The fish then warned him that a deluge would occur in a
   week that would destroy all life. Manu therefore built a boat which the
   fish towed to a mountaintop when the flood came, and thus he survived
   along with some "seeds of life" to re-establish life on earth.

Indonesia

   In Batak traditions, the earth rests on a giant snake, Naga-Padoha. One
   day, the snake tired of its burden and shook the Earth off into the
   sea. However, the God Batara-Guru saved his daughter by sending a
   mountain into the sea, and the entire human race descended from her.
   The Earth was later placed back onto the head of the snake.

Europe

Greek

   Greek mythology knows three floods. The flood of Ogyges, the flood of
   Deucalion and the flood of Dardanus, two of which ending two Ages of
   Man: the Ogygian Deluge ended the Silver Age, and the flood of
   Deucalion ended the First Brazen Age.

The flood of Ogyges

   Map of eastern Mediterranean and Greece during 10.000 BCE.
   Map of eastern Mediterranean and Greece during 10.000 BCE.

   The Ogygian flood is so called because it occurred in the time of
   Ogyges, a mythical king of Attica. Ogyges is synonymous to "primeval",
   "primal", "earliest dawn". Others say he was founder and king of
   Thebes. The Ogygian flood covered the whole world and was so
   devastating that the country remained without kings until the reign of
   Cecrops. Plato in his Laws, Book III, estimates that this flood
   occurred 10,000 years before his time. Also in Timaeus (22) and in
   Critias (111-112) he describes the "great deluge of all" during the
   10th millennium BCE. In addition, the texts report that "many great
   deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years" since Athens
   and Atlantis were preeminent. The theory of the flood in the Aegean
   Basin, proposed that a great flood has occurred towards the end of the
   Miocene. This flood coincides with the end of the last ice age
   estimated approximately 10,000 years ago, when the sea level has risen
   as much as 130 metres. The map on the right shows how the region would
   look like 12.000 years ago, when the sea level would be 100 meters
   lower than today. The Peloponnese was connected to the mainland and the
   Corinthian Gulf was not formed. Islands around Attica, such as Aegina,
   Salamis and Euboea were part of the mainland. The Cyclades formed a big
   island known as Aegeis. These geological findings support the
   hypothesis that the Ogygian Deluge may well be based on a real event.

The flood of Deucalion

   The Deucalion legend as told by Apollodorus in The Library has some
   similarity to Noah's Ark: Prometheus advised his son Deucalion to build
   a chest. All other men perished except for a few who escaped to high
   mountains. The mountains in Thessaly were parted, and all the world
   beyond the Isthmus and Peloponnese was overwhelmed. Deucalion and his
   wife Pyrrha, after floating in the chest for nine days and nights,
   landed on Parnassus. An older version of the story told by Hellanicus
   has Deucalion's "ark" landing on Mount Othrys in Thessaly. Another
   account has him landing on a peak, probably Phouka, in Argolis, later
   called Nemea. When the rains ceased, he sacrificed to Zeus. Then, at
   the bidding of Zeus, he threw stones behind him, and they became men,
   and the stones which Pyrrha threw became women. Appollodorus gives this
   as an etymology for Greek laos "people" as derived from laas "stone".
   The Megarians told that Megarus, son of Zeus, escaped Deucalion's flood
   by swimming to the top of Mount Gerania, guided by the cries of Cranes.

The flood of Dardanus

   According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Dardanus left Pheneus in
   Arcadia to colonize a land in the North-East Aegean Sea. When the
   Dardanus' deluge occurred, the land was flooded and the mountain on
   which he and his family survived, formed the island of Samothrace. He
   left Samothrace on an inflated skin to the opposite shores of Asia
   Minor and settled at the foot of Mount Ida. Due to the fear of another
   flood they didn't built a city, but lived in the open for fifty years.
   His grandson Tros eventually built a city, which was named Troy after
   him.

Germanic

   In Norse mythology, Bergelmir was a son of Thrudgelmir. He and his wife
   were the only frost giants to survive the deluge of Bergelmir's
   grandfather's ( Ymir) blood, when Odin and his brothers ( Vili and Ve)
   butchered him. They crawled into a hollow tree trunk and survived, then
   founded a new race of frost giants.

   The mythologist Brian Branston noted the similarities between this myth
   and an incident described in the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, which had
   traditionally been associated with the Biblical flood, so there was
   probably a corresponding incident in the broader Germanic mythology as
   well as in Anglo-Saxon mythology.

Irish

   According to the apocryphal history of Ireland Lebor Gabála Érenn, the
   first inhabitants of Ireland led by Noah's granddaughter Cessair were
   all except one wiped out by a flood 40 days after reaching the island.
   Later, after Partholon's and Nemed's people reached the island, another
   flood rose and killed all but thirty of the inhabitants, who scattered
   across the world.

Americas

Aztec

   There are several variants of the Aztec story, many of them are
   questionable in accuracy or authenticity.

          When the Sun Age came, there had passed 400 years. Then came 200
          years, then 76. Then all mankind was lost and drowned and turned
          to fishes. The water and the sky drew near each other. In a
          single day all was lost, and Four Flower consumed all that there
          was of our flesh. The very mountains were swallowed up in the
          flood, and the waters remained, lying tranquil during fifty and
          two springs. But before the flood began, Titlachahuan had warned
          the man Nota and his wife Nena, saying, 'Make no more pulque,
          but hollow a great cypress, into which you shall enter the month
          Tozoztli. The waters shall near the sky.' They entered, and when
          Titlacahuan had shut them in he said to the man, 'Thou shalt eat
          but a single ear of maize, and thy wife but one also'. And when
          they had each eaten one ear of maize, they prepared to go forth,
          for the water was tranquil.
          — Ancient Aztec document Codex Chimalpopoca, translated by Abbé
          Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg.

   Note: These Aztec translations are controversial. Many have no credible
   source and there is no proof of their authenticity. Some are based on
   the pictograph story of Coxcox, but other translations of this
   pictograph mention nothing of a flood. Most significantly, the time
   that these myths were heard from the local people was well after
   missionaries entered the region.

Inca

   In Inca mythology, Viracocha destroyed the giants with a Great Flood,
   and two people repopulated the earth. Uniquely, they survived in sealed
   caves.

Maya

   In Maya mythology, from the Popol Vuh, Part 1, Chapter 3, Huracan
   ("one-legged") was a wind and storm god who caused the Great Flood (of
   resin) after the first humans (made of wood) angered the gods (by being
   unable to worship them). He supposedly lived in the windy mists above
   the floodwaters and spoke "earth" until land came up again from the
   seas.

   Later, in Part 3, Chapter 3&4,
     * Four men & four women repopulate the Quiche world after the flood
     * all speaking the same language (but a confusing reference)
     * and gather together in the same location
     * where their speech is changed (affirmed several times)
     * after which they disperse throughout the world.

   Like many others, this account does not present an "Ark". A "Tower of
   Babel" depends upon the translation; some render the peoples arriving
   at a city, others, at a citadel.

Hopi

   In Hopi mythology, the people moved away from Sotuknang, the creator,
   repeatedly. He destroyed the world by fire, and then by cold, and
   recreated it both times for the people that still followed the laws of
   creation, who survived by hiding underground. People became corrupt and
   warlike a third time. As a result, Sotuknang guided the people to
   Spider Woman, and she cut down giant reeds and sheltered the people in
   the hollow stems. Sotuknang then caused a great flood, and the people
   floated atop the water in their reeds. The reeds came to rest on a
   small piece of land, and the people emerged, with as much food as they
   started with. The people traveled on in their canoes, guided by their
   inner wisdom (which, it is said comes from Sotuknang through the door
   at the top of their head). They travelled to the northeast, passing
   progressively larger islands, until they came to the Fourth World. When
   they reached the fourth world, the islands sank into the ocean.

Caddo

   In Caddo mythology, four monsters grew in size and power until they
   touched the sky. At that time, a man heard a voice telling him to plant
   a hollow reed. He did so, and the reed grew very big very quickly. The
   man entered the reed with his wife and pairs of all good animals.
   Waters rose, and covered everything but the top of the reed and the
   heads of the monsters. A turtle then killed the monsters by digging
   under them and uprooting them. The waters subsided, and winds dried the
   earth.

Menominee

   In Menominee mythology, Manabus, the trickster, "fired by his lust for
   revenge" shot two underground gods when the gods were at play. When
   they all dived into the water, a huge flood arose. "The water rose up
   .... It knew very well where Manabus had gone." He runs, he runs; but
   the water, coming from Lake Michigan, chases him faster and faster,
   even as he runs up a mountain and climbs to the top of the lofty pine
   at its peak. Four times he begs the tree to grow just a little more,
   and four times it obliges until it can grow no more. But the water
   keeps climbing "up, up, right to his chin, and there it stopped": there
   was nothing but water stretching out to the horizon. And then Manabus,
   helped by diving animals, and especially the bravest of all, the
   Muskrat, creates the world as we know it today.

Mi'kmaq

   In Mi'kmaq mythology, evil and wickedness among men causes them to kill
   each other. This causes great sorrow to the creator-sun-god, who weeps
   tears that become rains sufficient to trigger a deluge. The people
   attempt to survive by traveling in bark canoes, but only a single old
   man and woman survive to populate the earth.

Polynesian

   Several different flood stories are recorded among the Polynesians.
   None of them approach the scale of the Biblical flood.

   The people of Ra'iatea tell of two friends, Te-aho-aroa and Ro'o, who
   went fishing and accidentally awoke the ocean god Ruahatu with their
   fish hooks. Angered, he vowed to sink Ra'iatea below the sea.
   Te-aho-aroa and Ro'o begged for forgiveness, and Ruahatu warned them
   that they could escape only by bringing their families to the islet of
   Toamarama. These set sail, and during the night, the island slipped
   under the ocean, only to rise again the next morning. Nothing survived
   except for these families, who erected sacred marae (temples) dedicated
   to the god Ruahatu.

   A similar legend is found on Tahiti. No reason for the tragedy is
   given, but the whole island sunk beneath the sea except for Mount
   Pitohiti. One human couple managed to flee there with their animals and
   survived.

   In a tradition of the Ngāti Porou, a Māori tribe of the east coast of
   New Zealand's North Island, Ruatapu became angry when his father Uenuku
   elevated his younger half-brother Kahutia-te-rangi ahead of him.
   Ruatapu lured Kahutia-te-rangi and a large number of young men of high
   birth into his canoe, and took them out to sea where he drowned them.
   He called on the gods to destroy his enemies and threatened to return
   as the great waves of early summer. As he struggled for his life,
   Kahutia-te-rangi recited an incantation invoking the southern humpback
   whales (paikea in Māori) to carry him ashore. Accordingly, he was
   renamed Paikea, and was the only survivor (Reedy 1997:83-85).

   Some versions of the Māori story of Tawhaki contain episodes where the
   hero causes a flood to destroy the village of his two jealous
   brothers-in-law. A comment in Grey's Polynesian Mythology may have
   given the Māori something they did not have before - as A.W Reed put
   it, "In Polynesian Mythology Grey said that when Tawhaki's ancestors
   released the floods of heaven, the earth was overwhelmed and all human
   beings perished - thus providing the Māori with his own version of the
   universal flood" (Reed 1963:165, in a footnote). Christian influence
   has led to the appearance of genealogies where Tawhaki's grandfather
   Hema is reinterpreted as Shem, son of Noah of the Biblical deluge.

   In Hawaii, a human couple, Nu'u and Lili-noe, survived a flood on top
   of Mauna Kea on the Big Island. Nu'u made sacrifices to the moon, to
   whom he mistakenly attributed his safety. Kāne, the creator god,
   descended to earth on a rainbow, explained Nu'u's mistake, and accepted
   his sacrifice.

   In the Marquesas, the great war god Tu was angered by critical remarks
   made by his sister Hii-hia. His tears tore through heaven's floor to
   the world below and created a torrent of rain carrying everything in
   its path. Only six people survived.

Theories of origin

   A few archaeologists, as well as many orthodox Jews, Muslims and
   Christians, believe that the flood actually happened as recorded in
   Genesis. The latter claim that the large number of flood myths between
   many cultures suggests that they originated from a common, historical
   event. Proponents of Flood geology contend that the myths from various
   cultures are corrupted memories of an historical global deluge. Flood
   geology is not accepted by the vast majority of geologists, both
   Christian and non-Christian, who consider it a form of pseudoscience.

   There has been speculation that a large tsunami in the Mediterranian
   Sea caused by the Thera eruption dated ca. 1630-1600 BC geologically,
   but to ca. 1500 BC archaeologically, was the historical basis for
   folklore that evolved into the Deucalion myth. One might argue that
   although the tsunami hit the South Aegean Sea, and Crete, it did not
   affect cities in the mainland of Greece such as Mycenae, Athens, Thebes
   which continued to prosper, therefore it had a local rather than a
   regionwide effect.

   Other scholars believe that the flood recorded in Genesis is actually a
   later version of the story, which was based upon earlier Mesopotamian
   myths (including the Epic of Ziusudra, the Epic of Atrahasis, and the
   Gilgamesh flood myth). Although some scholars dispute the idea that the
   Genesis myth has features that would date it to an even earlier
   Babylonian version, the various claimed points of uniqueness in the
   Biblical tale are actually quite common in the earlier versions of the
   myths as well. According to Biblical scholars Campbell and O'Brien both
   the J and P portions of the Genesis flood text were authored during and
   after the Babylonian exile (after 539 BC) and were derived from
   Babylonian sources. Speaking of the Mesopotamian stories, Georges Roux
   has stated, "The resemblance with the biblical story, is of course,
   striking; furthermore it would seem that the Hebrews had borrowed from
   a long and well established Mesopotamian tradition. The question arose:
   are there traces of such a cataclysm in Mesopotamia."

   Some geologists believe that quite dramatic, greater than normal
   flooding of rivers in the distant past might have influenced the myths.
   One of the latest, and quite controversial, theories of this type is
   the Ryan-Pitman Theory, which argues for a catastrophic deluge about
   5600 BC from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea. Many other
   prehistoric geologic events, including tsunamis, have also been
   advanced as possible foundations for these myths. For example, some
   have asserted that the original versions of the Greek myth of
   Deukalion's flood likely originated from the effects of the megatsunami
   created by the eruption of Thera in the 18th-15th century BC. More
   speculatively, some have suggested that flood myths could have arisen
   from folk stories of the huge rise in sea levels that accompanied the
   end of the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago, passed down the
   generations as an oral history. Another controversial theory is that a
   deluge was caused by one or more asteroid impacts which released a
   large amount of water vapor into the atmosphere and low space.

   Recently, perhaps starting with the publication of The First Fossil
   Hunters by Adrienne Mayor, followed by Fossil Legends of the First
   Americans, the hypothesis that flood stories have been inspired by
   ancient observations of fossil seashells and fish inland and on
   mountains has gained ground. Indeed, there is much documentary evidence
   to support this view, as the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Chinese, and
   Japanese all commented in ancient writings about seashells and/or
   impressions of fish that they found inland and/or in the mountains. The
   Greeks theorized that the earth had been covered by water several
   times, and noted the seashells and fish fossils that they found on
   mountain tops as the evidence for this belief. Native Americans also
   expressed this belief to early Europeans, though they had not written
   these idea down previously.

   Instead of trying to find cataclysmic real life floods to explain these
   stories, some historians point out that early civilized cultures lived
   in the fertile flood plains along river basins such as the Nile in
   Egypt and the Tigris-Euphrates river basin of Mesopotamia (in present
   day Iraq). The latter is especially prone to violent flash floods, and
   extensive traces of riverine silt interrupt human settlements at a
   number of southern Iraqi settlements. It is not unusual that such
   peoples would have deep memories of floods and have developed
   mythologies surrounding floods to explain and cope with an integral
   part of their lives. This plain is extremely flat. To these ancient
   cultures, a flood that covered their known world, from horizon to
   horizon would likely be considered local flooding by First World
   standards instead of literally the entire planet. Scholars point out
   that most cultures living in areas where flooding was less likely to
   occur did not have flood myths of their own. These observations,
   coupled with the human tendency to make stories more dramatic than
   events originally warranted, are all the points most mythology scholars
   feel is necessary to explain how myths of world-destroying
   cataclysmatic floods evolved.

   These myths may be viewed, alternately, as a method of ingraining in a
   large population the consequences of violating a certain taboo. The
   cause of nearly all these mythical floods is said to be the wickedness
   of the masses, and the survivor(s) is typically a man (or couple) who
   exemplifies the virtues of the culture that gave rise to the myth.

Local flood theory

   The Sumerian king list describes a very long period of kingship, by
   which hegemony started with Eridu, the oldest city, and passed to Bad
   Tabira, Larak, Sippar and then Shuruppak. At the end of the entry on
   Unar-Tutu, king of Shurrupak the account says briefly "The Flood swept
   thereover". Kingship when it started again, began with the first
   Dynasty of Kish. Archaeologists have wondered if there was an actual
   Mesopotamian flood event in the Early Dynastic Period. A theory that
   found support with archaeologists Max Mallowan and Leonard Woolley is
   the local flood theory that links the Ancient Near East flood myths to
   one specific flood.

   Sir Leonard Woolley, in the period from 1929-1934, in his famous
   excavations of the "Death Pits" at Ur, sank a series of text trenches
   down to bedrock. Finding early evidence of human habitation, he was
   surprised to find this sequence interrupted by 11 feet (about 3 1/2
   meters) of clean, water-lain silt. Woolley wrote, "Eleven feet of silt
   would probably mean a flood of no less than 25 feet deep; in the flat
   low-lying land of Mesopotamia a flood of that depth would cover an area
   about 300 miles long and 100 miles across....(evidence) ...of an
   inundation unparalleled in any later period of Mesopotamian history".
   Woolley concluded that this inundation of the early Ubaid was the
   Biblical Deluge. Woolley believed that this stories were carried to
   Israel by Abraham, from Ur of the Chaldees to the Promised Land.

   But there were problems. Examining the geology of the Persian Gulf
   showed that this period coincided with the warm Atlantic phase of world
   climatic history, when sea levels were 4 meters (12 feet) higher than
   they are now - the same rise that produced the so-called Black Sea
   Deluge. This rise of the sea level occurred at the rate of a few
   centimeters a decade - hardly capable of producing a flash flood
   described in Biblical or Mesopotamian myth. Furthermore, the Ubaid
   period dates, did not coincide with Jemdet Nasr- Early Dynastic dating
   as suggested by the Sumerian kinglist.

   Excavations at Shuruppak (modern Fara) conducted by the University of
   Philadelphia and others, have confirmed that during the end of the
   Jemdet Nasr period, Shuruppak did boom, as a result of four
   watercourses converging in the town, making it an important transport
   hub. The team of archaeologists found a layer of riverine silt,
   deposited between the late Jemdet Nasr and early Dynastic deposits
   exactly as indicated by the Sumerian texts. This local river flood of
   the Euphrates River that has been radio-carbon dated to about 2900 BC
   at the end of the Jemdet Nasr Period. The Epic of Atrahasis tablet
   III,iv, lines 6-9 clearly identifies the flood as a local river flood:
   "Like dragonflies they [dead bodies] have filled the river. Like a raft
   they have moved in to the edge [of the boat]. Like a raft they have
   moved in to the riverbank." The WB-444 Sumerian king list places the
   flood after the reign of Ziusudra, the flood hero in the Epic of
   Ziusudra that has numerous parallels to the other flood stories.
   According to archaeologist Max Mallowan the Genesis flood "was based on
   a real event which may have occurred in about 2900 BC... at the
   beginning of the Early Dynastic period."

   More recently the cause and extent of this flood has been estimated. It
   has been found that the Shuruppak flood extended as far north as Kish,
   and was associated with a simultaneous flooding of both the Tigris and
   the Euphrates. The Priora oscillation was a brief climatic period,
   about 3,200 BC, which led to a drying of the Middle East and a spread
   of sand-dunes. One of these dunes damed the lower course of the Karun
   River creating an inland lake. In about 2,900 BC, this water swollen by
   winter rains and melted snows in early summer, broke out towards the
   north, inundating the Tigris and hence the Euphrates producing the Fara
   flood mentioned in the Mesopotamian tablets .

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