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November 18, 2005
Ancient Relics Evoke Noah's Flood
This story dates back to September 2000 and appeared on ABC News at that time. I use the original articles in my Biblical Studies classes when discussing the historicity of Genesis. I hadn't thought of posting this until the recent "Goliath" discovery. But it is well worth knowing if you haven't heard of it yet.
Just to clarify, "7500 years ago" amounts to 5500 years before the birth of Christ and approximately 3500 years prior to the traditional date of Abraham's existence.
Does that sound about right for the age of Noah's Flood? You bet!
This is from the San Fransisco Chronicle (Sep 2000).
Ancient Relics Evoke Noah's Flood : 7,500-year-old house found under 300 feet of water in Black Sea
American archaeologists have found the remains of a 7,500-year-old building -- probably a house -- more than 300 feet below the surface of the Black Sea, the strongest evidence yet of a catastrophic deluge that may have been the inspiration for the Biblical account of Noah's flood.
In November, explorer Robert Ballard, famed as the discoverer of the Titanic, reported evidence of a submerged shoreline several miles from the current edge of the Black Sea and hundreds of feet below the surface.
The newly found building appears to have been on that beach.
"Now we know that people were living on that surface when (the flood) took place, because we are finding evidence of human habitation," Ballard said yesterday in a telephone interview from his ship 12 miles off the Turkish coast.
"This is amazing. It's going to rewrite the history of ancient civilizations, because it shows unequivocally that the Black Sea flood took place and that the ancient shores of the Black Sea were occupied by humans," said marine geologist William B.F. Ryan of Columbia University.
Ryan and his colleague Walter Pittman III have argued that rising waters in the Earth's oceans caused the Mediterranean Sea to crash through a natural earthen dam blocking what is now the Bosporus Strait near Istanbul.
For as long as two years, sea water from the Mediterranean poured into the Black Sea basin at 200 times the volume of Niagara Falls, eventually inundating an area the size of Florida. The heavier saltwater went to the bottom of the existing freshwater lake and began to fill the basin like a bathtub.
The scientists contended that residents who fled the area carried stories that eventually were incorporated into flood accounts that seem to permeate cultures across the globe -- such as the biblical story of Noah and the flood tale in the Babylonian story of Gilgamesh.
Ballard's team found the rectangular structure 311 feet below the sea's surface, about 12 miles east of the Turkish city of Sinop.
The material of the 39-by-13-foot structure was identified as traditional Black Sea "wattle and daub" construction: wood branches and sticks embedded in a clay matrix.
"This struck a bell, because it was familiar to me from (ancient buildings on) land," said archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert of the University of Pennsylvania, part of Ballard's team. "Literally, my jaw dropped."
The team made the finding three days ago, in the second week of a planned five-week expedition. The expedition also found old tree branches, pieces of wood and a trash heap with polished stones and other debris indicating human habitation, Ballard said.
The team took pictures of the structure and recovered some artifacts from the site using a remote- controlled submersible called Argus that is not much bigger than a washing machine.
The artifacts were extremely well preserved for their age because the depths of the Black Sea have a very low oxygen level -- too low to support the marine worms and bacteria that would normally destroy wood, sails and other materials.
Posted by sdf at November 18, 2005 06:11 AM
Comments
Fascinating. I wonder why biblical archeologists have not been writing on this.
Posted by: Avi at November 21, 2005 05:01 PM
