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MEXICO CITY – Darren Aronofsky's biblical epic Noah got a mixed reception at its world premiere in Mexico City Monday evening. Hundreds of screaming teens attended the red carpet event at the Pepsi Center, many on hand to see actors Logan Lerman, Jennifer Connelly and Douglas Booth. Co-writer Ari Handel also joined Aronofsky onstage before the screening. The film's star, Russell Crowe, wasn't present.

One of the world's most respected Islamic institutions has issued a fatwa against a Hollywood epic about Noah's Ark because it 'contradicts the teachings of Islam'. Russell Crowe's £75million film Noah has also been banned in three Arab countries after religious leaders complained that it depicted the Biblical figure - who is also a holy messenger in the Koran. Due to premiere later this month, the blockbuster will not show in Qatar, Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates and several other countries are expected to follow suit.

LOS ANGELES – Paramount Studios has poured an estimated $125 million into the production of “Noah,” casting big names like Emma Watson and Russell Crowe, and trusting their baby to Oscar-nominated director Darren Aronofsky. But six weeks ahead of its theatrical release, concern is brewing that the flick may not be popular with Christians at the box office. Since early drafts of the script were leaked a couple of years ago, “Noah” has been plagued by suggestions that it portrayed the famous flood as a punishment for man’s disrespect for the nature, as opposed to sins against God.

How about you ? Will you go to see : Noah ? The Son of God ? [ a poll]

Dr Irving Finkel In 1985 a man called Douglas Simmonds brought a bag of miscellaneous antiquities to the British Museum for inspection. Dr Irving Finkel, the museum’s assistant keeper of ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures, went through the curiosities and quickly discovered that one of them, a small Babylonian tablet covered in cuneiform (an ancient form of script) was a historical document of great significance. As an expert in Assyriology and cuneiform, Finkel only needed to read the first few lines of this small, craggy tablet to realise that this was a segment of an ancient Mespotamian myth, the...

Director Darren Aronofsky initially described his vision for Noah, the big-budget interpretation of the Biblical story, as a look at the world's first environmentalist. A person who caught an early test screening of the film says Aronofsky's template is still present in the movie's rough cut. The Hollywood Reporter's new feature on the film, set for a March 28 release, details the behind-the-scenes wrangling between the film's director and the studio, all with an eye on the people of faith curious to see the story on the big screen. Test screenings haven't softened worries that spiritual audiences may not embrace...

Tools unlock secrets of early man By Mark Kinver Science reporter, BBC News website Researchers are confident the tools are 700,000 years old New research shows that early humans were living in Britain around 700,000 years ago, much earlier than scientists had previously thought. Using new dating techniques, scientists found that flint tools unearthed in Pakefield, Suffolk, were 200,000 years older than the previous oldest find. Humans were known to have lived in southern Europe 780,000 years ago but it was unclear when they moved north. The findings have been published in the scientific journal Nature. A team of scientists...

Lost world warning from North Sea By Sean Coughlan BBC News education How a homestead might have looked in the flooded area Archaeologists are uncovering a huge prehistoric "lost country" hidden below the North Sea. This lost landscape, where hunter gatherer communities once lived, was swallowed by rising water levels at the end of the last ice age. University of Birmingham researchers are heralding "stunning" findings as they map the "best-preserved prehistoric landscape in Europe". This large plain had disappeared below the water more than 8,000 years ago. Scientists at the University of Birmingham have been using oil exploration technology...

Channel's key role in pre-history By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News, Gibraltar The remains we find today tell a story of Britain's ancient past A study of prehistoric animals has revealed the crucial role of the English Channel in shaping the course of Britain's natural history. The Channel acted as a filter, letting some animals in from mainland Europe, but not others. Even at times of low sea level, when Britain was not an island, the Channel posed a major barrier to colonisation. This was because a massive river system flowed along its bed, UK researchers told a palaeo-conference...

Flood Expedition Inspires 'Noah's Ark' in Bulgaria Tue Aug 27, 7:17 AM ET SOFIA, Bulgaria (Reuters) - An expedition looking to prove that the great biblical flood occurred in the Black Sea has inspired Bulgarian entrepreneurs to build a replica of Noah's Ark aimed at luring tourists. The wooden vessel, 368 feet long, will shelter exotic animals while actors play the biblical figures of Noah and his family, project manager Nikolai Kanchev said Monday. The Ark will be built near the Black Sea resort of Slanchev Bryag and open for visitors next year, Kanchev told Reuters. Last year U.S. geologist...

Ballard Chases History Again In The Black SeaExcavation of shipwreck part of 3-leg research trip By Katie Warchut Published on 8/14/2007 It's a painfully slow process, watching a robotic arm brush, inch-by-inch, the sediment off a 900-year-old shipwreck 400 feet underwater in the Black Sea. But when the dust settles, Robert Ballard, president of the Institute for Exploration at Mystic Aquarium, and his team hope to have a better look into a time capsule of early human history. About 6 miles off the coast of Ukraine, Ballard watched from a NATO research vessel Monday on a high-definition plasma television screen....

Questions about Noah's Flood Theory Many scientists accept the idea that the biblical story of Noah's flood was inspired by a sudden inundation of the Black Sea by the Mediterranean 7500 years ago. But new research suggests no such flood occurred. Geologists Bill Ryan and Walter Pitman of Columbia University crafted the "Noah's Flood Hypothesis" in 1997 to explain the sudden appearance of saltwater mollusks in 7500-year-old Black Sea sediments. They proposed that during the last Ice Age, some 18,000 years ago, sea levels dropped enough to isolate the Black Sea from the Mediterranean Sea. Rain and rivers then turned...

Bulgarian scientists have found the ancient shores of the Black Sea, currently deep beneath the waves, which they claim were the original shores about 7500 years ago, when the Black Sea at the time was just a fresh water lake... The team, led by Professor Petko Dimitrov of the Institute of Oceanology in Varna, which is part of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), returned from an expedition aboard the research vessel Akademik, saying that they have found the ancient coastline close to the Cape of Emine. Archaeological evidence suggest that this particular spot was part of the ancient coastline,...

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...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. July 30, 2004 — Four years ago, scientists thought they had found the perfect place to settle the Noah flood debate: A farmer's house on a bluff overlooking the Black Sea built about 7,500 years ago just before tidal waves inundated the homestead, submerged miles of coastline and turned the freshwater lake into a salty sea. Some believed the rectangular site of stones and wood could help solve the age-old question of whether the Black Sea's flooding was the event recounted in the Biblical story of Noah. That story told of a calamitous flood occurring over 40 days...

Making Waves Over Noah’s FloodSome research backs the biblical story and some finds no evidence of the catastrophe By Robert Cooke STAFF WRITER January 14, 2003 Scientists are seriously challenging a recent, fascinating proposal that Noah's epic story - setting sail with an ark jam-full of animal couples - was based on an actual catastrophic flood that suddenly filled the Black Sea 7,500 years ago, forcing people to flee. In a detailed new look at the rocks, sediments, currents and seashells in and around the Black Sea, an international research team pooh-poohs the Noah flood idea, arguing that all the...

<p>In 1994, archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert rode around northern Turkey in a dirty white Toyota van looking for evidence of ancient civilizations around the Black Sea. Every time he and his team would ask locals for the whereabouts of centuries-old ruins, they'd get the same response. "Everyone kept pointing us to the sea," Hiebert recalled.</p>

Posted 7/16/2003 2:45 PM Scientists hunt for evidence of Noah's flood in Black Sea NARRAGANSETT, R.I. (AP) — In 1994, archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert rode around northern Turkey in a dirty white Toyota van looking for evidence of ancient civilizations around the Black Sea. Every time he and his team would ask locals for the whereabouts of centuries-old ruins, they'd get the same response. "Everyone kept pointing us to the sea," Hiebert recalled. Hiebert knows now why they did. After some preliminary trips, the University of Pennsylvania professor and other scientists will go on a first-ever effort to excavate ancient ships...

The Mediterranean Sea as we know it today formed about 5.3 million years ago when Atlantic Ocean waters breached the strait of Gibraltar, sending a massive flood into the basin. Geologists have long known that the Mediterranean became isolated from the world's oceans around 5.6 million years ago, evaporating almost completely in the hundreds of thousands of years that followed. Scientists also largely agree that the Mediterranean basin was refilled when the movements of Earth's crustal plates caused the ground around the Gibraltar Strait to subside, allowing the ocean waters of the Atlantic to cut through the rock separating the...

Researchers have analysed the oldest obsidian bracelet ever identified, discovered in the 1990s at the site of Asikli Höyük, Turkey. A high level of technical expertise Using high-tech methods developed by LTDS to study the bracelet's surface and micro-topographic features, the researchers have revealed the astounding technical expertise of craftsmen in the eighth millennium BCE. Their skills were highly sophisticated for this period in late prehistory, and on a par with today's polishing techniques. This work is published in the December 2011 issue of Journal of Archaeological Science, and sheds new light on Neolithic societies. Dated to 7500 BCE, the...