I know the conversation has spiralled away from Gilgamesh and India, but recent linguistic findings support contact between the peoples of Sumer and the people of the Indus Valley civilisation. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Gilgamesh went into what is now India -- but that's a long way away for saying he found any gods there.

--Jaylemurph

Different theories suggest dates for the Exodus, from 1290 BC up to 1580 BC. If the food rules were made anywhere during that time, the Exodus, then your mention of 2500 BC is irrelevant. Especially since it still falls within the time period since their calendar began, i.e. 3160 BC.

Considering I live on a large hill, in a wooden house, nowhere near the Mississippi and not in a mudbrick dwelling on or near a floodplain of the Tigris or Euphrates, especially as it was nearly 5000 years ago, there is little direct effect. Also, one estimage for the flood in question, 100 miles by 300 miles, is a considerally larger part of Mesopotamia than an equal sized flood in America.



This would suggest that the above supposition by archaeologists you alude to is incorrect. Writing was developed prior to 3000 BC, and from your own words they kept record of everything,yet we are to believe that the absence of records and administrative orders around 2750 BC or earlier due to a flood wouldn't indicate a disturbance. Seems rather unlikely.

cormac

Right, which indicates that those "gigantic floods" were nothing but a reoccurring event...nothing special and nothing worth to keep a record about. Maybe it was a little bigger some year...but did not cause any stir.

ED: an no, those food rules are not irrelevant...because the chronology of the Bible certainly does not put the Exodus at 1500 but at about 2500. That means that the calendar cannot be right... no matter when they put the start date.

Hi Jaylemurph,

Not doubting you, because that would be great if true, but what linguistic findings. It has been my understanding, possibly incorrect, that the Indus Valley writing system hasn't been decyphered. Even if there were evidence of the Indus Valley script found in Mesopotamia, without a "Rosetta Stone" we still wouldn't know what it means.

cormac

Who said anything about "gigantic floods", plural? While there were almost definitely many floods, there is evidence for and only needs to be one extremely large one to be noteworthy and in need of writing about.

Weren't you the one who in an above post warned me against taking biblical chronology literally, yet take it as saying the Exodus occured about 2500 BC. While there are many theories on the timeline of a possible Exodus none, as far as I know, come anywhere near the one you are proposing.

There are two ways to look at the flood story. Either there was one in the area sufficiently large enough to make a lasting impression on the local populace, which they wrote about. Or it is all just a story meant for entertainment purposes.

cormac

That there is a calendar that started supposedly in 3160 BC is your postulate, mine is that that calendar is not accurate and certainly not historically accurate. No matter when it supposedly started. Everything before 750 BC that is chronologically mentioned in the Bible should be questioned as of the age, sometimes even as to the accuracy of the event itself(to the point if it happened at all).

And archaeologically speaking, there were no Jews in Israel before 1500 BC. There is evidence for many tribes but not for the Hebrew tribes. Or even a monotheistic tribe.

And the story of the flood, it happened way before historical times...if it happened at all. Some suggest that it happened at the time of the transition to agriculture in either Anatolia or what is now the Black Sea. The Sumerian's themselves put the big flood at a time before they lived in Mesopotamia, and they say that it happened to the north of Mesopotamia, so it is very unlikely that any geological evidence found in Mesopotamia is that big flood.

ED:Typo

Even though some of my ancestors are screaming for my head now: The bible contains many "embellished" stories that were never factual nor historically accurate. Some of it is only good as propaganda pamphlet.

Let's begin this with a note of agreement. I concur that the Bible is a collection of myths woven into a fabric held together only by faith.

Now, for Ashbinapal .... he would not be the first to brag a little about his capabilities... and certainly not the last.

Whether bragging or not, he clearly suggested that prior to the flood existed civilizations with written languages.

And, according to the Tumal inscription, Gilgamesh was very real and lived around 2600 BC

In almost all academic circles and with historians, there is no concurrent opinion that Gilgamesh was a real person.

Well, I've been reading the other opinion then.... does not take away the Tumal tablet....

And as far as civilizations "before the flood" ... why can't we find them, or any trace of them when we are capable of finding remains of hominids and their culture from 100.000 years ago? Or you mean those civilizations were more like in the Dino times?

ED: Typo

Actually, I made an error in dates and compounded it by doing it more than once. My apologies. The Hebrew calendar supposedly dates to 3760 BC. Regardless of its historical accuracy, the Jews are still using it so it's not my opinion overall. True that before the first millenium BC much in the Bible should be questioned. But if the biblical account is, as I believe, based on the Mesopotamian ones then it should have at least a grain of truth to it.

Whether or not there were Jews in Israel before 1500 BC is irrelevant to the flood story as their version wouldn't be written down for nearly 1000 more years.



Based on what? Even putting the Biblical account aside and strictly using the Mesopotamian versions, there were 5 cities claimed to exist prior to the flood:

Eridu (Tell Abu Shahrain) c.5400 BC
Bad-tibira (probably Tell al-Madain) c.3000 BC
Larsa (Tell as-Senkereh) c.2800 BC
Sippar (Tell Abu Habbah) c.3000 BC
Shuruppak (Tell Fara) c.3000 BC

Utnapishtim, Ziusudra and Atrahasis depending on version used, lived in the city of Shuruppak which is where their flood stories are centered. Shuruppak is in Mesopotamia and not to the north and the previously mentioned flood happened to it early in its history.

Either the Sumerians, and by extension the writers of the biblical account-as a modified copy, had a better idea of when or where it happened, or it's all made up, which is possible.

cormac

We find the ruins of civilizations existing a mere 5,000 years ago under several feet of dirt and silt. One can only imagine how obscure ruins would be from an estimated 13,000 years ago.

Only 90 days ago, a complete city with a 40-meter high pyramid was discovered in the Yucatan. Imagine that in 2008 a city that existed only 900 years ago is just now being discovered.

Moreover, we have no idea of the cause or origin of the Biblical flood. But if it was, for example, oceans moving across continents, I imagine little would be left of any civilization.

A very wise comment, questionmark. The Hebrews as a separate and identifiable culture do not rise until the Early Iron Age. They were johnny-come-latelys, as it were. And it's quite clear how they drew upon the religious traditions of much older cultures when establishing their own. They put their own spin on things and I think they did a brilliant job of it. They created something that is very much alive to this day.

I also concur about the issue of eating pork. That is a modern prohibition in Judaism and Islam, but in the ancient Near East there was no such prohibition. In fact, pork was one of the most frequent sources of meat for the common class of Egypt, and we have evidence from the archaeological record that they were domesticating and eating piggies well before Egypt even became a kingdom (around 3,100 BCE).

I would also shy away from using any chronology based on the Bible to date the flood or anything else. This leads only to confusion and distortions of history. Of course, the ancient Jews weren't the only ones to do this. The Sumerian king list assigns ridiculously long reigns to some of the earliest kings: Ensipadzidana, for instance, reigned for 28,800 years, while Dumuzi reigned for only 100 years (what a slacker).

I was surprised to see in an earlier post written by Expatriate that in "almost all academic circles and with historians, there is no concurrent opinion that Gilgamesh was a real person." LOL One of the museums where I work as a docent is the Oriental Institute in Chicago, one of the world's leaders in the study of the ancient Near East. Some of the finest Assyriologists and other experts on Mesopotamia are on the staff there, and one thing I've learned is that there's no reason to doubt that Gilgamesh was a real king who ruled Uruk during the Early Dynastic II period. The epic that grew around him is the fallacy, although one of the finest works of literature it is.

Even among people such as I, who tend to be somewhat of a minimalist when it comes to biblical study, there's no reason to doubt that the Davidic line was real. We have inscriptional proof of it from Tel Dan, thanks to a Syrian king who invaded in around 835 BCE. So while David was most likely a real king of early Judah, the stories that grew around him in the Hebrew Bible are probably for the most part fiction. It works the same with Gilgamesh, in a sense.

I was impressed with jaylemurph's statement: "...recent linguistic findings support contact between the peoples of Sumer and the people of the Indus Valley civilisation." This is not something of which most people are even aware. We still can not pin down the linguistic family to which the Sumerians belong, but this is an interesting finding.

But as I recall the reason I first clicked this thread was its title: "Before Ancient Egypt and Sumer." It seemed like an interesting topic for debate but admittedly I was worried I'd find just more talk on ancient "lost civilizations." I've never understood the appeal for this odd belief, considering factual ancient history is so much more fascinating. Seriously, treasure hunters and archaeologists have been digging up this whole area of the world for hundreds of years. From the Bay of Naples to the Indus Valley, and from the Black Sea to the farthest cataract of the River Nile, centuries of excavations have painted us a very clear picture of ancient history in this part of the world. Do we have all the answers? Of course not. But in all this time not the tiniest shred of reliable or factual evidence has ever been found to support the existence of some shadowy ancient civilization that preceded the known civilizations of the Near East.

Anyway, I've read many of the threads in this discussion, and I would caution that the weaving of textiles or the making of pots does not necessarily constitute a civilization. Sumeria is not where the first villages sprung up. An earlier post mentioned Çatalhöyük, and what a fascinating site this is! It's is in south-central Anatolia and is one of several such villages dating to the Neolithic period. It's impressive that a people could build such a complex village more than 9,000 years ago, but it doesn't really mark a civilization. It was a big step in that direction, however. I agree with other posters who identify Sumer and other sites like Uruk and Ur as the first civilization. This is where the first large-scale domestication of flora and fauna occurred, and where we first see the rise of a socio-political organization approaching a bureaucracy where an elite class is well developed, and where a sustainable surplus in agriculture and animal husbandry can feed large numbers of people who were not devoted to agriculture or animal husbandry. It's also where we see the emergence of writing--specifically, in the temples of Uruk around 5,200 years ago. Egypt would be a close second and would be separated based on these criteria by perhaps no more than a century, but the honor still goes to Sumeria.

There are structure`s in Cymru/Wales & the rest of the British isles which pre-date`s the middle east by a long way.

That's true. I've also heard of sites in Ireland. I have very little background in the study of Neolithic Europe (it's the Near East that draws my interest) but very ancient sites dot the landscapes there. They are not evidence of a civilization predating Sumer, but might have been something along the lines of the ancient Turkish sites I mentioned. I don't think we see hints of a more distinct socio-political development in Britain till about the time of Stonehenge, which is about the same time the Egyptians built the Great Pyramid.

I should really learn more about some of those sites in Ireland. I have a lot of Irish blood in me.

Hi kmt_sesh,

A few interesting sites I've read about might be of interest to you. The passage tombs of Newgrange, Dowth and Knowth, Ireland dating to around 3000 - 3300 BC.

cormac

I know cormac has already replied to this, but I wanted to add some detail and reasoning.



source

So, Merneptah mention the tribe of Israel late in the 13th century BCE from one of his raids into the Canaanite lands. Thus the exodus presumably happened before this time. Given the supposition the deposing of the Hyksos kings of Egypt (mid-16th century BCE) was the initiator for the ill-treatment of the other Semitic peoples (and other foreign peoples) inhabiting Egypt at that time; the account of the bible stating this ill-treatment lasted a very long time (I don't necessarily hold with 400 years as being terrifically accurate); the time it might have taken for the tribe of Israel to wander to Canaan from Egypt (although they presumably knew the way); and supposing that, at the time Merneptah encountered Israel in Canaan, they were not fully established, a late-14th century/early-13th century BCE date for the exodus is quite probable.

To return to the purpose of this thread, I would ask those interested to read the link below and comment on what (I know this is a little unscientific) these events might represent with respect to the possibility of pre-Sumeric civlisation.

Cheers.

Deluge

Hi Leonardo,

While it was never my intention for this thread to become about the historical accuracy of the flood stories nor what may have come before or after them, I will say this. There is evidence in many places of settlements or other human habitation along the previously existant coastlines around the world. While these settlements certainly existed, there is as yet no evidence they qualified as civilizations. One example of a coastal settlement, now underwater, is Atlit Yam, Israel dating to about 6900 BC.

cormac

Right, so somewhere in between 12 and 16000 years ago we know of events that could fit the ticket... but I cannot recall any sufficiently advanced civilization that left a written record at that time... especially not one that could have been read by an Assyrian king.... Which is the point when I got into this discussion.

The evidence isn't from Indic writings, it's from Sumerian ones. I can't find the appropriate articles right now (I'm on vacation), but there is evidence of contact with a region far to the east of Sumeria, and it mentions trade for objects found in abundance in the Indus Valley. As I recall, there was also a fair amount of correspondance with between the Sumerian name for the region and a city name of an outlying satellite settlement of the IVC.



I'm going to play my "actual working historian" card and say that because of the stelae reference to him, that many historians think there was a historical basis for Kign Gilgamesh. Not to say he did all the things attributed to him. (I even went over to the Central Asia History wing and asked a few of the instructors their thoughts, just to make sure).

--Jaylemurph

I believe I know what you are referring to. The trading center of Meluhha, mentioned by the Sumerians. Guess by your mention of linguistic findings I was hoping that the Indus Valley script had finally been decyphered and we could tell what they were saying. Well, maybe in the future.

cormac

It's a shame that it's so difficult to practice archaeology underwater! I don't necessarily think any of the coastal, and now submerged, settlements would have had the necessary cohesiveness of governance to qualify as a civilisation either, but there is so much history lost to the rising sea levels.

I was particularly intrigued with Bob Ballard's rather limited exploration of the Black Sea and the hints of submerged setllements in about 150 meters (or was it feet?) of water. Given the timescale of the flooding of this body of water it is not hard to imagine it could have been the instigator for the migration of an agricultural society to what would become Mesopotamia. Speculative, I know, but a fascinating thought.



If the flood which gave rise to the mythical 'Flood' (assuming this is a racial memory of a previous, and catastrophic event) was of sufficient scale and rapidity - such as a possible catastrophic flooding of the Black Sea basin by a Mediterranean bloated with water after glacial melting at the end of the Ice Age - then it's possible the survivors would not have had the time or means to transport records with them. Such records as would remain would be oral traditions passed down (and probably much altered in doing so).

As I mentioned above to cormac, this is speculation, but fascinating and fun to consider.

near 500 ...how did he say he got there?

I agree. And there is so much land that is currently under water that wasn't during the last Ice Age. Have you ever been to this site? Sea Levels

If you input -100 to -120, it'll give you a pretty good idea how much land has been lost by the rise in sea levels since the end of the Ice Age.

cormac

It seems to be:



This naturally could lead to an explanation. The problem is that the Black Sea at that depth seldom has more visibility than 7 meters (22 feet), which makes it nearly impossible to obtain a picture with a superficial survey. On the other hand, Ballard is one of the most experienced underwater archaeologists ... when he is not using archeology as cover up for some hush-hush operation.

when did Central American civilizations start?

Leonardo wrote:


The harsh truth is, to this day there remains no evidence that the biblical Exodus ever occurred, period. Writers tend to misinterpret the extant evidence, and the quote Leonardo pulled from Schiffman's article is a good example. The Victory Stela of Merenptah, which was written in year five of that king's reign (around 1220 BCE), contains no such evidence. I refer specifically to this passage from Schiffman's article, which Leonardo quoted:

Here the text designated the people of Israel, not the land, as can be shown from the Egyptian linguistic usage. Many scholars believe that this text refers to the people of Israel before they entered Canaan--that is, in the period of desert wandering.

LOL I love how writers bandy around the phrase "many scholars." I don't know of any leading biblical scholar or historian who believes this; perhaps it was a notion favored by scholars long ago, but it's certainly no longer current. Schiffman comes close in his description of Israel on Merenptah's stela but misses important distinctions with its "linguistic usage." By this he means the hieroglyphic ideogram placed after the name of the conquered city. The word "land" is technically correct but doesn't express the entity well enough. The ideogram is a little set of three hills so it does express "land," but more importantly it denotes to the Egyptians some sort of established polity, in other words a people living under a recognizable civilization (as the Egyptians would see it). The part of the stela mentioning Israel is at the very bottom, and I've grabbed a line drawing of it and did some color coding:



I've highlighted some examples of the polities about which Merenptah boasted conquering in his campaign. In yellow is Tjehenu, one of the ancient Egyptian words for Libya. In purple is Khor (Kharu to the Egyptians), a site probably close to the modern southern border of Syria. Notice in both examples the three little hilltops for the ideogram, expressing a socio-political entity. In green is one the ancient names for Egypt itself, Ta-Mery, "the Beloved Land." Its ideogram uses the crossroads symbol, which to the Egyptians could mean a city or, in this case, kingdom. In red is where we see the mention of Israel. To the Egyptians it was pronounced something like Isriar (there was no "L" in the ancient Egyptian language). Notice the ideogram here: it's a little man and woman surmounting three vertical slashes. This to the Egyptians meant "people" or even "tribe," which is important because to the Egyptians, when they were invading Syro-Palestine during this campaign, the ancient Israelis did not even appear as any kind of established civilization. They were simply a bunch of people with no recognizable social hierarchical system.

This is what is meant by the appearance of Israel on the Victory Stela. I know Schiffman says something very similar in his article, but it in no way provides evidence for the origin of the Hebrews or from where they had come. At the time of Merenptah, during Dynasty 19 of Egypt, the Hebrews had not yet evolved beyond the state of semi-nomadic herdsman with semi-permanent dwellings in the highlands of Judah. The archaeological record confirms this.

And similar to how there is no evidence for the biblical Exodus, there is also no evidence that the Hebrews entered Canaan and conquered it for themselves. A long time ago early archaeologists were intrigued by the finds of destruction layers at such sites as Jericho. Many of these early scholars were out to try to prove the Bible's historicity, and they often jumped to hasty and sloppy conclusions. They were not always to blame; they lacked a lot of the advanced technology which we take for granted. We know now that destruction levels at places like Jericho date to incursions by the Babylonians or Assyrians.

In fact, all evidence points to a much simpler and more logical conclusion: the ancient Jews were simply an offshoot of the existing Canaanite peoples. As a kingdom the Jews do not appear any earlier than the Early Iron Age, and this makes sense when put into context. Nearly all of the Near East experienced a sharp collapse at the end of the Late Bronze Age, around 1,200 or 1,100 BCE, and the myriad of city-states that dotted the Levant were crumbling. A lot of this may have to do with severe climatic changes in the Aegean as well as incursions by the Sea Peoples. At this time, then, a group of Canaanites split off from the western Levant and set out for "greener pastures" in the highlands of Judah. These people went on to become the Hebrews. In the very earliest stages, linguistically and culturally, these people are nearly indistinguishable from many other Canaanites.

So authors go on and try to find other avenues for the biblical Exodus. Some place it as early as the Hyksos period, and some as far along as the Third Intermediate or Late Period. None of it fits unless you really force the facts, and when you have to do that, you're not writing history, you're revising it.

Perhaps other posters can verify this or correct me if I'm wrong because my own specialty is the ancient Near East, but I'm quite certain all of the great Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmecs and Aztecs and Mayas, did not rise to the status of advanced civilization until well into the common era. All of these societies have deep roots into the ancient past, but by the time they were building wonders like Teotihuacan and their own pyramids, civilizations like the Egyptians and Mesopotamians had already faded far into history. We have a very beautiful Mesoamerican exhibit at one of the museums where I'm a docent, but I spend nearly all my time inside the Egyptian exhibit. I should really go check it out some more.

Great post, kmt, and I agree there is no evidence the exodus actually happened. What I said in my post was that Merneptah did encounter the people of Israel (tribe) according to the Victory Stela (the first historical mention of Israel if I am not mistaken) and, if we can accept the bible has some historical validity and that people of that region had migrated to Egypt some centuries beforehand then left due to a xenophobic atmosphere in Egypt following the deposition of the Hyksos kings then we can place the exodus - if it happened - around that time.

I did not state if it happened and that may have given the indication I was convinced it had. My apologies.

I would point out that your conclusion is also supposition. You have evidence for what you consider most likely and I don't dispute that.

As you said...and good luck.

My advice: Take a creative writing course, 'cause you'll need all the creativity you can get....

You are right, by the time the American ancient high civilizations flourished those in the middle East and Europe were already past their demise. Which leads us really to take a closer look at the "civilizing conditions". Some are obvious, like a larger amount of people, technologies that cannot be used efficiently in a family or small village. But are there other ones, like food shortages, weather changes and so on?

And there is an interesting exception, which happens to be the Chinese civilization, despite its up and downs it remained well over 3 millenniums ...which must be the record. There must be some unique conditions there too (except the inclination of the Chinese to assimilate everything that comes their way).

Okay, I see where you were coming from. This Exodus topic is just something that interests me so I tend to go on too much about it, once I get started.

I of course do believe that there is some historical validity to the Old Testament, but the problem is filtering out all of the elaboration and adaptations from other cultures to find the few kernels of truth. You're right that Merenptah's stela is the first historical record of Israel, and to me that's why the stela is significant. I enjoy studying the ancient history of the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel and think that the ancient Hebrews had a fascinating and rich civilization, but the archaeological record demonstrates a rather different version from the one presented in the Bible. That's not difficult to understand, when viewed from the perspective of secular history: many of these ancient cultures composed brilliant literature and wisdom texts to glorify themselves, but the facts were often quite different. Egypt was guilty of it, too.

My conclusion is simply based on textual and archaeological evidence, neither of which shows the scantiest proof for the occurrence of the biblical Exodus. That's where I'm coming from. Should evidence surface at some future time to demonstrate the historicity of the Exodus, I'd have no problem with changing my view. In fact, it might be quite thrilling to find such evidence, but to date no such evidence exists.

Incidentally, an old theory is that the expulsion of the Hyksos at the start of the Egyptian New Kingdom was the progenitor for the biblical Exodus. No group of people identifiable as Hebrews existed at that time, but the Hyksos were almost certainly of Canaanite origin, and so it's possible, this theory states, that scribes of Judah later in history drew on this event for framing the story of the Exodus. Not long before the Hyksos retreated, the eruption of Thera devastated much of the eastern Mediterranean, and this was a disaster which would've been long remembered. All of the biblical plagues except for the death of the first born can be explained scientifically through the climatic devastation wreaked by this volcanic event. The Judaic scribes may have drawn on this, too, in their Exodus story. It all comes together. The death of the first born was probably an exaggeration of a plague, although brilliantly devised. Anyway, not many historians are quick to support this theory of the Hyksos and Thera as the origin of the Exodus, but to me it contains a lot of logic. LOL And this is about as fringe as my own historical beliefs tend to get.

I should delve into Chinese history more than I have because I have very little knowledge of it. As a cohesive kingdom and civilization I believe both Sumer and Egypt still predate the Chinese, and the Egyptian civilization itself lasted for more than three thousand years, but the Chinese must've been very close.

You are right..but it is close, 1700 BC to this day....

Considering the unification of Egypt in the first dynasty is when we start dating Ancient Egypt, one would think the dating of China would start from its unification. Traditionally as a unified country didn't it start with Qin Shi Huangdi in 221 BC?

cormac