In Search of Noah's Flood

[docyabut2]

INSTRUCTIONS FOR AN ARK

The text describes god speaking to Atram-Hasis, a Sumerian king who is the Noah figure in earlier versions of the ark story.

He says: 'Wall, wall! Reed wall, reed wall! Atram-Hasis, pay heed to my advice, that you may live forever! Destroy your house, build a boat; despise possessions And save life! Draw out the boat that you will built with a circular design; Let its length and breadth be the same.'

The ancient Babylonian text describes the ark as a round 220-ft diameter coracle with walls 20-ft high.

According to the tablet, the ark had two levels and a roof on the top.

The craft was divided into sections to divide the various animals into their own sections.

The 60 lines of text, which Dr Finkel describes as a 'detailed construction manual for building an ark', claims the craft was built using ropes and reeds before being smeared with bitumen to make it waterproof.

[Doug1066]

1 minute ago, docyabut2 said:

Was Noah's Ark ROUND? 3,700-year-old clay tablet reveals giant boat was made out of reeds and bitumen

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2545494/Was-Noahs-Ark-ROUND-3-700-year-old-clay-tablet-reveals-boat-coracle-reeds-bitumen.html

Sounds like a good bet.

Of course, I've got a long way to go before I get to boats.

Doug

[Doug1066]

1 hour ago, cormac mac airt said:

How do you reconcile that with Jeffrey Rose's 2010 paper New Light on Human Prehistory in the Arabo-Persian Gulf Oasis where he shows the Persian Gulf only being 5 meters ASL by 4000 BC/6000 BP whereas both Ur and Eridu are above even that elevation. That would suggest that the cores taken from those sites PREDATE your claimed "Noah's Flood" IMO and are therefore irrelevant to same. 

cormac

I found the 5-meter reference.  It's in figure 3.  Just the one.  And nothing about when that would have been, except sometime before 8000 BP.  That would be consistent with a sapropel layer below the Ubaid layer.  So there is nothing inconsistent about a high stand before 8000 BP and a lower sea level around 4550 BP.

There seems to be a lot of trouble nailing down exactly when the maximum sea level would have occurred.

Doug

[Doug1066]

49 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

An absolute chronology for early Egypt using radiocarbon dating and Bayesian statistical modelling  (2013)

Michael Dee1 , David Wengrow2 , Andrew Shortland3 , Alice Stevenson4 , Fiona Brock1 , Linus Girdland Flink5 and Christopher Bronk Ramsey1

1 RLAHA, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford, UK 2 Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, UK 3 Centre for ArchaeologicaYoul and Forensic Analysis, Cranfield University, Swindon, UK 4 Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London, London, UK 5 Natural History Museum, London, UK

You tell me. 

cormac

Aside from this being an EGYPTIAN chronology....

I'll read it anyway.  I'm going to need to know how early Egyptian dynasties correlate with Sumerian ones.

Doug

[cormac mac airt]

2 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

I found the 5-meter reference.  It's in figure 3.  Just the one.  And nothing about when that would have been, except sometime before 8000 BP.  That would be consistent with a sapropel layer below the Ubaid layer.  So there is nothing inconsistent about a high stand before 8000 BP and a lower sea level around 4550 BP.

There seems to be a lot of trouble nailing down exactly when the maximum sea level would have occurred.

Doug

Whether purposely or not you're misrepresenting what the picture shows. It gives a timeframe which is matched with the elevation ASL. 5 meters ASL being circa 4000 BC. One can also get the same from the following: 

 

Quote

 

The mid-Holocene sea-level change in the Arabian Gulf

Show affiliations

• Mauz, Barbara ;
•  
• Shen, Zhixiong ;
•  
• Alsuwaidi, Mohammad ;
•  
• Melini, Daniele ;
•  
• Spada, Giorgio ;
•  
• Purkis, Sam J.

Abstract

The mid-Holocene sea-level highstand is a well-known phenomenon in sea-level science, yet the knowledge on the highstand's spatial and temporal distribution remains incomplete. Here we study the southwest coast of the Arabian-Persian Gulf where a mid-Holocene sea-level highstand and subsequent sea-level fall may have occurred due to the Earth crustal response to meltwater load. Sea-level indicators were established using standard facies analysis and error calculations, then constrained through glacio-isostatic adjustment (GIA) modelling and though procedures based on Gaussian Process and exponential decay analysis. This work allowed to identify the highstand at 1.6 ± 0.4 m occurring 6.7-6.0 ka, in excellent agreement with GIA model results. The subsequent shoreline migration followed the geophysical constraint by prograding in line with the sea-level fall until around 3 ka. Then, the strength of the external control weakened and internal processes, in particular sediment binding through microbial activity, started controlling the geometry of the accommodation space.

 

Publication:

 

The Holocene, vol. 32, issue 11, pp. 1173-1183

 

Pub Date:

 

November 2022

 

DOI:

 

10.1177/09596836221114291 

 

Bibcode:

 

2022Holoc..32.1173M 

 

So again, it's not relevant to your earlier claim of circa 2850 - 2600 BC. 

cormac

[cormac mac airt]

6 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

Aside from this being an EGYPTIAN chronology....

I'll read it anyway.  I'm going to need to know how early Egyptian dynasties correlate with Sumerian ones.

Doug

With the exceptional of ridiculous ages for the earliest mentioned kings the Sumerian King List isn't remotely accurate until after circa 2600 even though Sumer existed for a few millenium  prior. That's not going to help you. 

cormac

[Doug1066]

3 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

This work allowed to identify the highstand at 1.6 ± 0.4 m occurring 6.7-6.0 ka,

That actually fits pretty well.  A highstand at about 6300 BP, falling back to one meter by 5450 BP is easily doable.  And that's based on Wooley's 3500 BC guess, which I think is way to early.

Right now I'm reading the Egyptian chronology.  I'm putting the dating of Noah's Flood on hold.  I'd like to get a better estimate than "2600 BC."

Doug

[Doug1066]

Just now, cormac mac airt said:

With the exceptional of ridiculous ages for the earliest mentioned kings the Sumerian King List isn't remotely accurate until after circa 2600 even though Sumer existed for a few millenium  prior. That's not going to help you. 

cormac

If there was a big flood about 2600, it will help a lot.  We can use 14C dating to establish absolute dates.  Ancient texts seem to be very poor at dates and numbers; don't count on them for accuracy in that regard.

There are enough 14C dates on each of those six chronologies that it should be possible to build equations predicting one set of dates from another one.

Doug

[Doug1066]

8 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

Right now I'm reading the Egyptian chronology. 

Interesting.  This paper turned out to be one I already have.  Note the 2900 BC date of Semerket's reign.  That puts his sed festival flood in the same range as Noah's Flood in Mesopotamia.  So maybe the two are the same flood.

NOW:  How does the dating for the Egyptian kings match up with that of the Sumerian kings?

Doug

[cormac mac airt]

1 minute ago, Doug1066 said:

If there was a big flood about 2600, it will help a lot.  We can use 14C dating to establish absolute dates.  Ancient texts seem to be very poor at dates and numbers; don't count on them for accuracy in that regard.

There are enough 14C dates on each of those six chronologies that it should be possible to build equations predicting one set of dates from another one.

Doug

I'm not but the available evidence won't give you anything to use by comparing Egypt's king list with the Sumerian one while claiming relevancy to both, it just can't happen. 

One would have to separate outdated dates from corrected ones, if you're up for it more power to you. Based on Wooley's (and others) claims I even question those when it comes to dating a flood since I'm not sure they would stand up to current rigorous testing and analysis. 

cormac

[cormac mac airt]

4 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

Interesting.  This paper turned out to be one I already have.  Note the 2900 BC date of Semerket's reign.  That puts his sed festival flood in the same range as Noah's Flood in Mesopotamia.  So maybe the two are the same flood.

NOW:  How does the dating for the Egyptian kings match up with that of the Sumerian kings?

Doug

They don't!

Enmebaragesi is the first attested king IIRC and he is usually given a date of circa 2600 BC. 

cormac

Edited January 9 by cormac mac airt

[docyabut2]

My guess  was Noah's Ark was  two barges put together:)  I believe it was a local flood to save his  oun family and  their animals from the flood   

Edited January 9 by docyabut2

[docyabut2]

And I believe Gilgamesh flooded his own people by breaking the dams of the water 

What caused the flood in Gilgamesh?

If you're asking why the gods sent the flood, then no answer is provided in the epic of Gilgamesh. In the Atrahasis epic that Gilgamesh probably borrows from, the flood is sent because the noise and overpopulation of humanity disturb the rest of the gods.

 

https://www.arthistoryproject.com/timeline/the-ancient-world/mesopotamia/the-epic-of-gilgamesh/gilgamesh-5-the-story-of-the-flood/

Edited January 9 by docyabut2

[Doug1066]

19 hours ago, cormac mac airt said:

They don't!

Enmebaragesi is the first attested king IIRC and he is usually given a date of circa 2600 BC. 

cormac

We're talking about a time before the attested kings.  14C is the best we've got.

Doug

[cormac mac airt]

7 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

We're talking about a time before the attested kings.  14C is the best we've got.

Doug

And yet your question was answered. The dating of the early Egyptian kings DOES NOT match up to the dating of the Sumerian kings. 14C CANNOT validate fictional Sumerian kings. 
 

cormac

[Doug1066]

4 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

And yet your question was answered. The dating of the early Egyptian kings DOES NOT match up to the dating of the Sumerian kings. 14C CANNOT validate fictional Sumerian kings. 
 

cormac

I'm not trying to validate kings.  All I want to know are the characteristics of the flood, including dating.  This isn't about mythical kings.

Doug

[cormac mac airt]

1 minute ago, Doug1066 said:

I'm not trying to validate kings.  All I want to know are the characteristics of the flood, including dating.  This isn't about mythical kings.

Doug

It doesn’t matter whether you’re trying to validate them or not as the King lists of the two civilizations cannot be reconciled, leaving it a comparison of apples and oranges. Better to stick with the available evidence from central and southern Mesopotamia IMO. 
 

cormac

[Doug1066]

30 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

It doesn’t matter whether you’re trying to validate them or not as the King lists of the two civilizations cannot be reconciled, leaving it a comparison of apples and oranges. Better to stick with the available evidence from central and southern Mesopotamia IMO. 
 

cormac

If one could get reliable 14C dates, then it would be possible to array the details on a single scale.  Approximate dates are out there - I have many of them.

Doug

[cormac mac airt]

8 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

If one could get reliable 14C dates, then it would be possible to array the details on a single scale.  Approximate dates are out there - I have many of them.

Doug

I understand your desire for 14C dates, the problem IMO is that the Sumerian/Mesopotamian flood stories show no evidence of any knowledge of the Marine Transgression of the Persian Gulf circa 4000 - 3000 BC but place the flood BEFORE kingship descended to Kish. This IMO would constrain the flood, or floods, to the period of 3000 - 2600 BC. 
 

cormac

[Doug1066]

34 minutes ago, cormac mac airt said:

I understand your desire for 14C dates, the problem IMO is that the Sumerian/Mesopotamian flood stories show no evidence of any knowledge of the Marine Transgression of the Persian Gulf circa 4000 - 3000 BC but place the flood BEFORE kingship descended to Kish. This IMO would constrain the flood, or floods, to the period of 3000 - 2600 BC. 
 

cormac

That's what I think.

Doug

[Doug1066]

I'm thinking that the largest flood was a true megaflood.  There have been no other floods that large in the last 6500 years.  The other three were small, on the order of 100-200-year floods.  They would be easy to overlook when trying to recall a flood story several generations later.  But a 1000-year flood is something you don't forget.

Doug

[Doug1066]

On 12/23/2023 at 6:04 PM, Ogbin said:

The measurements of the site was exactly the same measurements of the boat described in the Genesis account.

Where do you think Genesis got the measurements from, if not Durupinar?

Doug

[Doug1066]

On 1/9/2024 at 2:55 PM, cormac mac airt said:

An absolute chronology for early Egypt using radiocarbon dating and Bayesian statistical modelling  (2013)

Michael Dee1 , David Wengrow2 , Andrew Shortland3 , Alice Stevenson4 , Fiona Brock1 , Linus Girdland Flink5 and Christopher Bronk Ramsey1

1 RLAHA, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford, UK 2 Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, UK 3 Centre for ArchaeologicaYoul and Forensic Analysis, Cranfield University, Swindon, UK 4 Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College London, London, UK 5 Natural History Museum, London, UK

You tell me. 

cormac

It seems to be pretty accurate.

Doug

[Doug1066]

On 1/6/2024 at 1:55 PM, Doug1066 said:

Also, a flood on the Nile about 4260 BP.

That date is wrong.  It should be about 4550 BP.  The flood occurred during the First Dynasty.

Doug

[Doug1066]

On 1/9/2024 at 2:28 PM, cormac mac airt said:

How do you reconcile that with Jeffrey Rose's 2010 paper New Light on Human Prehistory in the Arabo-Persian Gulf Oasis where he shows the Persian Gulf only being 5 meters ASL by 4000 BC/6000 BP whereas both Ur and Eridu are above even that elevation. That would suggest that the cores taken from those sites PREDATE your claimed "Noah's Flood" IMO and are therefore irrelevant to same. 

cormac

I see where the idea that Eridu was not Eden came from.  He makes a good case.  This will likely have an impact on the Bible's other location for Eden.  Researching that is a project for another day.

The OUT-OF-AFRICA hypothesis runs into the problem of how early humans crossed the Strait of Hormuz.  During a time of lower sea levels (There were others before the LGM.), they could just have walked across.

Doug