Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Explorer Who Discovered The 'Titanic' Sets Out To Prove That Noah's Flood Formed Black Sea
Independent (UK) ^ | 7-23-2003 | David Usborne

Posted on 07/22/2003 6:51:44 PM PDT by blam

Explorer who discovered the 'Titanic' sets out to prove that Noah's flood formed Black Sea

By David Usborne
23 July 2003

The Bible tells us how the Great Flood happened, compelling Noah to herd all of animal life into his Ark.

The skies opened and it rained incessantly, in fact for 40 days and 40 nights. But some scientists have another theory altogether and this week an expedition will leave for the Black Sea to try to prove it.

Among the team will be Robert Ballard, the American underwater explorer who became famous when he found the Titanic beneath the Atlantic in 1985. He will be going with a special piece of equipment, a remote excavating submarine namedHercules.

No one disputes that the Black Sea was once a fresh-water lake that in ancient times became inundated by the salty Mediterranean. The arguments have been over how quickly it happened - was it only gradual? - and in what period. Until recently, most experts dated the flood to about 9,000 years ago.

But Mr Ballard thinks it was more recent, perhaps 7,500 years ago, which could more credibly make it the same flood that gave us the story of Noah. Moreover, he thinks it was sudden. As the ice age ended, sea levels rose and a strip of land dividing the Mediterranean and the Black Sea was breached.

It was, according to Mr Ballard, 61, a truly cataclysmic event. Previous expeditions tell us that the invasion of Mediterranean waters pushed up water levels in the Black Sea basin by about 500 feet (155 metres) and drowned about 60,000 square miles.

Mr Ballard thinks it was so rapid that salt water pushed in with 200 times the force of the Niagara Falls and that the rate of increase in the water level was six inches a day.

Demonstrating all of this is hard. And Mr Ballard faces scepticism from several quarters. Critics accuse of him pursuing the Noah's Flood legend for the sake of the inevitable publicity. He has never suggested that he will find the actual Ark. But even the vaguest possibility is enough to stir excitement.

Indeed, the $5m (£3.1m), two-week expedition, which begins from the Turkish Black Sea port of Sinop on Sunday, has been set up to garner maximum worldwide attention.

Its progress will be watched live by academics, archaeologists and even schoolchildren around the globe, thanks to a satellite link from the expedition's ship to a nerve-centre at the University of Rhode Island in the United States.

Mr Ballard says the relay is vital because it will allow as many specialists as possible to analyse what he uncovers. "Exploration by its very nature means you don't know what you're going to find," he said. "So in fact it's very probable you're not going to have the right mix of scientists when you make a discovery."

There will also be film crew on board and a full television series is planned for next year.

Sinop, a scenic and popular tourist destination, was chosen because it might have been an important hub for north-south trading across the Black Sea among ancient civilisations. Local populations may have sent olive oil, honey and iron in small amphora-like jars northwards in return for wine and other foods.

Archaeological activity became possible when the Black Sea was opened up with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The interest in exploring beneath its waves was all the more intense because the waters are not oxygenated, offering the prospect of shipwrecks and other remains that should be perfectly preserved. Indeed, what lies beneath the Black Sea could help archaeologists and historians to fill in blanks about periods of human existence going as far back as the Bronze Age and spanning the Roman and Byzantine empires.

Leading this latest expedition with Mr Ballard, is Fredrik Hiebert, a professor of archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania. He hopes to relocate wrecks that have already been identified, including one called "Shipwreck D", which has already revealed an intact and intricately carved mast protruding from the seabed.

He and Mr Ballard also plan to return to another earlier find - an arrangement of stones about 330 feet beneath the water that might have been a human dwelling. Critical to the venture is Hercules. A remote-controlled submersible, it is just 7 feet long from tip to tail and was built by Mr Ballard at the Robert Ballard Institute for Exploration, in Mystic, Connecticut. The plan is to send it down as far as the stone settlement. Equipped with lights and cameras, the vessel will send pictures to the ship and back to Rhode Island.

In addition, the Hercules has two remote-controlled arms, which will excavate around the site. "If we're successful with this, we're going to change the field of archaeology," Mr Hiebert said. "It's open coastlines all over the globe" for further expeditions.

Mr Ballard first located the stone settlement during an earlier expedition in 2000. It consists of quarried square stones arranged in a rectangle of 33 feet by 40 feet (10 by 12 metres) on a rocky outcrop.

He is hopeful that he will be able to trace the site to a period about 7,500 years - which would bolster his theory that there were human habitations on the shore of the old lake before the flood struck and the area was drowned. "Mother nature does not make square stones," he commented. "Humans make them."

Mr Ballard is not entirely alone in his beliefs. In 1997, the same theory to support the origin of the Noah legends was rehearsed in Noah's Flood, a book written by two leading American marine biologists, Walter Pitman and William Ryan. They concluded that the flood devastated the area 7,150 years ago. But there are problems with the idea. The Bible, for example, tells us that Noah lived in the arid deserts of Mesopotamia - in what is modern-day Iraq - whereas the Turkish shores of the lake where the Black Sea is today would have been lush with vegetation.

"The Noah's Flood idea is very sexy one, but it's wrong," Ali Aksu, a geologist at Memorial University in Newfoundland, told Newsweek.

He says that he can demonstrate that the Black Sea was already at current levels 7,500 years ago. Nor, he says, was there ever a dramatic and sudden flood.

Water from the Mediterranean, Mr Aksu counters, sloshed back and forth over countless years.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aliaksu; ancientnavigation; black; blacksea; blackseaflood; catastrophism; danuberiver; explorer; flood; godsgravesglyphs; grandcanyon; greatflood; liviugiosan; nauticalarchaeology; noah; noahs; noahsark; noahsflood; nohedoesnt; richardhiscott; robertballard; rubbish; sea; titanic
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-34 next last
"Water from the Mediterranean, Mr Aksu counters, sloshed back and forth over countless years. "

If the Back Sea 'sloshed back and forth', there would me many shore lines underwater at various depths. All that has been found is one well defined shore line dated at 5,600BC. I support the Ryan & Pittman theory of a sudden, massive flood.

1 posted on 07/22/2003 6:51:45 PM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: blam
For anyone further interested in the subject, I recommend Noah's Flood by William Ryan and Walter Pitman. The subtitle is: The new scientific discoveries about the event that changed history.

They are marine scientists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia U.

The book discusses at length the geological, oceanographic, archealogical, and linguistic evidence to back up this theory.

2 posted on 07/22/2003 6:59:02 PM PDT by Molly Pitcher (Is Reality Optional?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Molly Pitcher
"I recommend Noah's Flood by William Ryan and Walter Pitman. The subtitle is: The new scientific discoveries about the event that changed history."

Thanks, I have it and also highly recommend the book.

3 posted on 07/22/2003 7:04:04 PM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: msdrby
ping
4 posted on 07/22/2003 7:05:05 PM PDT by Prof Engineer (I won't FReep at work, I won't FReep at work, I won't FReep at work, I won't FReep at work)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
"The Noah's Flood idea is very sexy one

Sexy? Perhaps his concept of sex is a bit different than mine.

5 posted on 07/22/2003 7:10:33 PM PDT by Jemian (Carter and UOx42: the South's revenge for Sherman)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Molly Pitcher
I speculate that the ancestors of The Desert Mummies,in China, were also refugees from this flood. They spoke the language Tocharian A & B which is an extinct Indo-European language.

Another excellent book is The Tarim Mummies by Victor Mair.

6 posted on 07/22/2003 7:11:26 PM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: blam
Either Noah's Flood was mythological or miraculous. That is there is no geological evidence for a world-wide flood in historical or near-historical times.

Given the mythological explanation, it is still possible that the myth is based on some historical event. There is for example a world-wide flood in Ovid's Metamorphoses which parallels but does not agree with the Biblical account in all respects.

He may be right about the geological history of the Black Sea, but this isn't Noah's Flood even given the mythological explanation. Too early.

Another theory is a tsunami in the Mediterranean caused by the volcanic eruption on Crete which destroyed the Minoan civilization around 3000 BC.

And if you like your theories wild, there is always Velikovski's Worlds in Collision scenario.

7 posted on 07/22/2003 7:24:40 PM PDT by Salman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam; phasma proeliator
What a deep subject.
8 posted on 07/22/2003 7:28:45 PM PDT by da_toolman (Closed Captioning providing for the posting impaired.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam; phasma proeliator
What a deep subject.
9 posted on 07/22/2003 7:28:47 PM PDT by da_toolman (Closed Captioning provided for the posting impaired.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jemian
calling stories "sexy" must be a British thing. The first I'd heard it was in reference to Dr. Kelly's "sexy dossier."
10 posted on 07/22/2003 7:29:52 PM PDT by bethelgrad (for God and country)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: blam
They need to dredge up some wood pieces from the drowned villages at various depths and using dendrochronology nail down the date. That ought to do it.
11 posted on 07/22/2003 7:32:47 PM PDT by RightWhale (Destroy the dark; restore the light)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
Indo-European isn't that old. Maybe 2000 BC. There is a cuneiform font for IE, but it isn't related to the old Mesopotamian font or language.
12 posted on 07/22/2003 7:36:10 PM PDT by RightWhale (Destroy the dark; restore the light)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Salman
"That is there is no geological evidence for a world-wide flood in historical or near-historical times. "

The 300-500ft sea level rise at the end of the last Ice Age flooded the continents sometimes hundreds of miles inland.

Take a look at this map of the world's oceans lowered by about 300 ft. Notice that there's no Persian Gulf, the Red Sea is land locked, the Mediterranean was seperated into at least three segments and I speculate that the Gulf Of Mexico was sealed off also, etc. That was a worldwide flood.

13 posted on 07/22/2003 7:40:54 PM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: RightWhale
"They need to dredge up some wood pieces from the drowned villages at various depths and using dendrochronology nail down the date. That ought to do it."

Yup. I expect that's on the schedule, recall that they have already seen structures down there.

14 posted on 07/22/2003 7:42:55 PM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: RightWhale
"Indo-European isn't that old. Maybe 2000 BC. There is a cuneiform font for IE, but it isn't related to the old Mesopotamian font or language."

Early History Of The Indo European Languages

"Our work indicates that the protolanguage originated more than 6,000 years ago in eastern Anatolia and that some daughter languages must have differentiated in the course of migrations that took them first to the East and later to the West. "

15 posted on 07/22/2003 7:48:19 PM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: farmfriend; JudyB1938; FreetheSouth!
...more.
16 posted on 07/22/2003 7:50:06 PM PDT by blam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: blam; *Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Gods, Graves, Glyphs
List for articles regarding early civilizations , life of all forms, - dinosaurs - etc.
17 posted on 07/22/2003 7:51:32 PM PDT by farmfriend ( Isaiah 55:10,11)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: blam
"...as the ice age ended, sea levels rose..."

When they can prove that, then I'll listen to them.

18 posted on 07/22/2003 7:52:40 PM PDT by wcbtinman (Only the first one is expensive, all the rest are free.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
I've always wondered if there wasn't more to the Flood story that meets the eye. There are just too many mysteries surrounding it. For example: We know from Scripture that a wicked and quasi-human race called the Nephilim (a term meaning something very much like "space giants") dominated the civilization that preceded the Flood, resulting in a civilization that was evil beyond any other the world has seen. (The bloodthirsty and psychotic Harappan and Aztec civilizations come to mind here.) Could it be that this civilization was far more technologically advanced that anyone knows today? Such a civilization could have developed cloning, mind-control technologies, who knows what!

Our own society is infected with the notion of using technology to create what H.G. Wells called "men like gods"; it could be that these evil ancients did the same -- only they got further along. Perhaps they ended up creating some technological blasphemy that was so hideous that the Lord rightly decided to rid the Universe of them.

I realize that this is all pure speculation, but perhaps the destruction of this ancient technological civilization is the source of the Atlantis myth.

Another mystery is the Ark itself. We know from Scripture its exact dimensions. We also know that Noah took aboard a breeding populaton of every land-dwelling and flying animal on Earth prior to the Flood. Obviously, no handmade wooden boat could carry such a huge menagerie, plus food, fodder, and space for their wastes; how, then, did these creatures survive?

Maybe because the Ark wasn't an actual boat. Maybe it was something else -- something bigger on the inside than on the outside. Or maybe the animals didn't physically come along -- but their DNA did, in the form of some sort of data.

And then there's the Flood itself. "The gates of Heaven were opened", Scripture says; "The fountains of the deep were broken up". It is worth noting that Biblical scholars are far from being in agreement on what precisely that description means. Could it be that the flood is a metaphor for some other form of judgment?

Whatever the Flood was, it was much more than an ordinary rainstorm -- and the Ark much more than a big wooden boat. The details of the Flood story seem fantastic, like the stuff of legend, but the tale itself is told in a literalistic, matter-iof-fact way, like history. Perhaps the reason for that is that the Flod story is a description of something that people of Biblical times literally could not imagine. Maybe the "flood" was some kind of cosmic disaster, described in terms that the people of ancient Mesopotamia could grasp. We don't know.

I'm no Biblical scholar. Eevery bit of the above speculation is worth precisely what you paid for it: zero. The important thing about the Flood -- however it happened -- is the spiritual lesson behind it.

Still, every time I see a rainbow, I wonder...
19 posted on 07/22/2003 7:56:00 PM PDT by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
SPOTREP
20 posted on 07/22/2003 7:58:26 PM PDT by LiteKeeper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-34 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson