Discovery of Ancient Sunken Mega Cities

By Leonardo Vintini, Epoch Times

They realized that the men had rebelled and decided to exterminate them. Thousands of pumas left the cave and devoured the man who begged the devil for help. But the devil remained unmoved by their pleas. Seeing this, Inti, the god of the sun cried. Her tears were so abundant that in forty days the valley was flooded.”—Inca legend of Lake Titicaca

Consider one anthropological hypothesis that concedes the possibility of a prehistoric humanity enjoying a high degree of technological development. Some evidence suggests that ancient people appear to have crafted a technology significantly more advanced than what we might imagine. Much of the support for this idea comes from the discovery of dozens of ancient cities submerged beneath the oceans across the entire planet.

Surprising cases like that of the Yonaguni structures off the coasts of Japan, or the submerged “Mega City” accidentally discovered off the northeast coast of Cuba, continue to offer researchers clues to what was once considered merely geographical mythology—tales such as those of Atlantis, Mu, or the land of Thule. Every few years a long-sunken discovery lends support for this prehistoric empire hypothesis.

 

Urban Architecture From an Impossible Time

A typical example of the archeological ruins described above was found in waters 120 feet deep in the Gulf of Cambay, located off the western coast of India. It is estimated that the vast city, discovered by chance during an investigation on pollution, could date back some 9,000 years.

Using a sonar tracker, investigators managed to identify defined geometric structures at a depth of about 120 feet. From the site, they recovered construction material, pottery, sections of walls, basins, sculptures, bones, and human teeth. The carbon tests indicate that these pieces were 9,500 years old.

Before this finding, anthropologists thought that the area had not seen civilization before 2,500 B.C. This ancient city, therefore, was even older than the Harappan civilization, once believed to be the oldest of the subcontinent.

Another surprising case came in 1967, when the Aluminaut—an exploration submarine capable of submerging deeper than any craft of its day—casually discovered a “road” off the coastal zone of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.  Found at a depth of nearly 3,000 feet, this road traced a straight line for more than 15 miles.  

Even more surprising, this road had been paved with sophisticated cement composed of aluminum, silicon, calcium, iron, and magnesium. Despite its age, the road was found to be free of debris due to an underwater current that kept it clear.

This forgotten road still proved a worthy thoroughfare as the special wheels of the Aluminaut allowed the sub to actually travel along the enigmatic highway. Later, scientists exploring the area found a series of monolithic constructions at one end of the road. What technology could construct a long paved road that would remain in good condition for 10,000 years?

A more recent discovery of this type took place in 2004 ,when the same tsunami that battered the coasts of Southeast Asia also moved tons of sand from the cost of Tamil Nadu, India. The storm cleared years of dust that led to the discovery of the mythical city of Mahabalipuram.

According to local legend, the city of Mahabalipuram suffered a great flood, submerging it in a single day 1,000 years ago, when the gods became jealous of its beauty. The local inhabitants recounted that six temples were covered by water, but that part of the seventh remained on the coast. The team of 25 divers from the Archaeological Survey of India explored the extensive area covered with man-made structures, ranging at depths of between 15 and 25 feet below the water.

The scale of the submerged ruins covered several square miles, at distances of up to a mile from the coast. Conservative estimates of the age of these constructions range from 1,500 to 1,200 years old, though some investigators say they originate from up to 6,000 years ago.

 

The Yonaguni Structures

Classified by some scientists as the archeological find of the century, the structures accidentally discovered off the Japanese coast of Yonaguni offer ancient architecture in the form of pillars, hexagons, stairs, avenues, arcades, and even a stepped pyramid.

While the most conservative hypothesis postulates that the Yonaguni structures are the product of the marked seismic activity in the area, the precise angles of the rocks and their arrangement in relation to one another suggest that this site might hold remnants of a submerged city.

Evidence in favor of this stance includes the chemical composition of the chalky rocks (which do not naturally exist in the region), two openings about 6.5 feet deep adjacent to the structures—which no archeologist dares to classify as a natural formation—and an oval-shaped rock that does not appear to belong to the set, but exhibits a clear northward facing point. The entire submerged city of Yonaguni is estimated by some to be at least 10,000 years old.

Marine archeology has only become an academic possibility in the last 50 years with the introduction of scuba gear. According to marine archeologist Dr. Nick Flemming, at least 500 submerged sites containing the remains of some form of man-made structure or artifacts have been found around the globe. Some calculations figure that nearly a fifth of these sites are more than 3,000 years old.

Certainly, some of these sites were washed away by floods, but others may have found their place at the bottom of the sea through tectonic shifts. As many of these places were originally built on solid, dry land, Earth may have been geographically quite different than what we know today. Likewise, these people would have come from an era more remote than what we understand as the dawn of civilization.

So, is our current civilization the greatest mankind has ever known, or merely one tiny peak among many in a cycle that stretches far into the distant past? The answer might be found at the bottom of our oceans.

The Legendary Sunken Continent of the Kumari Kandam

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We’ve all heard many stories about the Atlantis, the mythical city that the ancient Greeks wrote about in their literature. They were said to be an enlightened and advanced civilization for their time. It was also believed that the whole city met a tragic end, with the ocean consuming it whole and erasing remnants of its people’s culture and legacy from existence.

No one knows for sure whether or not the Atlanteans truly existed as a thriving civilization at some point in our ancient past and if the land they inhabited really had been swallowed by the ocean. And until now, people are still fighting over this issue heatedly, with neither side having any intention of standing down. But did you know that that the tale of the lost city of Atlantis is not the only story involving a sunken land and advanced ancient civilization?

A similar tale has been told in India although it is definitely the less popular one compared to the myth of Atlantis. This lesser-known legend of another lost continent is known as the Kumari Kandam, which is what we will be talking about in this video.

The Legendary Sunken Continent of the Kumari Kandam

The Kumari Kandam is a supposed to be a lost continent located south of modern-day India that occupied a large portion of the Indian Ocean. Also referred to as Kumarikkantam and Kumari Nadu, this massive landmass below the Indian subcontinent is believed to be the home of an ancient Tamil civilization before a catastrophe resulted to its submersion in the deep sea. 

The Tamil people are a Dravidian ethnic group whose ancestry can be traced back to Tamil Nadu of India and Sri Lanka. Tens of millions of individuals today identify as Tamilans, making them not only one of the oldest but also largest existing ethno-linguistic cultural groups today. Some of these Tamilans say that the missing Tamil continent of Kumari Kandam is what used to connect the continent of Africa and the landmass of south India. And for the last two centuries, they have declared that this legendary continent is also the hypothesized “lost land” of Lemuria which was developed in the 1890s by Western scholars.

The Hypothesized Submerged Continent of Lumeria

Several scholars in the United States and Europe during the latter part of the 19th century were puzzled by the geological similarities between India, Madagascar, and Africa. English geologist Philip Sclater pondered over the possible reason why there is a significant presence of lemur fossils in Madagascar and India but not in the Middle East or mainland Africa. Sclater went on to publish an article in 1864, titled “The Mammals of Madagascar,” in which he proposed a hypothesis suggesting that Madagascar and India used to be a part of a larger landmass he called “Lemuria.”

Sclater’s Lemuria hypothesis was initially welcomed by members of the scientific community as an acceptable explanation to the way lemurs could have migrated in Madagascar and India in the distant past. However, the theory was eventually discarded after the continental drift theory became the widely-accepted theory in modern times. Nevertheless, the concept of a lost continent below southern India continued to remain popular until the 20th century, especially among the Tamil nationalists who believed Lemuria was the same lost continent they referred to as the Kumari Kandam.

Popularization of Lemuria in Tamil Nadu

According to the Tamil revivalists of the 20th century. Kumari Kandam was the land where the Pandiyan kings once reigned and where the first two Tamil literary academies known as “sangams” were established. And in the 1920s, these Tamil revivalists tried to reduce the domination of the Indo-Aryans and Sanskrit by claiming that prior to the disappearance of Lemuria, it was actually the long-lost Kumari Kandam - the original homeland of the Tamilans and the birthplace of their civilization, language and culture.

The Tamil nationalists did not simply regard the lost land of Kumari Kandam as the home of an ancient Tamil society, but as the cradle of human civilization. They described it as a utopic society where the continent’s enlightened citizens were dedicated to higher learning, trade and commerce, and exploration of the rest of the world. They had established an egalitarian and democratic government that allowed the economy to flourish and its people to thrive.

However, when the continent of Kumari Kandam was lost and the ocean swallowed it whole, the Tamil people had no choice but to migrate to different parts of the world where they established new civilizations.

Submerged Lands in Ancient Indian Literature

Various Tamil and Sanskrit literary works from ancient and medieval times contain legends about a land located south of India that was consumed by the ocean, a catastrophic event believed to have been caused by a tsunami or by a devastating flood. For example, a commentary in the Iraiyanar Akapporul - which is a written work on Tamil poetics from the medieval times - mentions the Pandiyan kings of the early Tamil dynasty and their effort to form three sangams that lasted for thousands of years. The commentary also reveals that two of these sangams were “seized” by the ocean, which ultimately led to the destruction and loss of many ancient writings.

It is important to note, however, that none of these ancient texts or medieval commentaries referred to this lost land that was seized by the sea as “Kumari Kandam.” And none of these literary works have also stated that Kumari Kandam was big enough to qualify as a continent. It turns out that the term “Kumari Kandam” first appeared in the 15-century Tamil version of the Hindu scripture Skanda Purana, and according to cultural historian Sumathi Ramaswamy, the Tamil nationalists used the word “Kumari” - which means “virgin” or maiden” - to symbolize their belief in the purity of the Tamilans’ language and culture prior to their association with the Indo-Aryans.

Criticisms of the Concept of Lemuria

Because the concept of Lemuria is largely recognized by mainstream scholars as a debunked hypothesis today, many experts have frowned upon the alleged attempts of Tamil writers to use the pseudo-scientific theory to validate unverifiable, alternative history. Some historians regard the Kumari Kandam as nothing more than mere fiction founded on mythology and not legitimate scientific research.

Moreover, according to geologists, even if the continental drift theory is set aside and the Lemurian continent did exist at some point in the past, its submersion or dismemberment would have taken place tens to hundreds of millions of years ago during the Mesozoic era. Hence, geological theories like the Lemurian hypothesis should not have anything to do with events in human history that supposedly occurred only a few thousand years ago.

In the end, it cannot be said with absolute certainty that the Kumari Kandam - the land lost to the ocean as described in ancient and medieval Tamil texts - is the same as the hypothesized size and location of the Lumerian continent. At best, we can say that there may be some truth behind such legends. By just how much, there is no way to tell just yet.

For now, this means that while we may be permitted to consider the possibility that the Tamil civilization had once lost a part of its former lands to an ocean-related catastrophe, we cannot claim that this lost land was as big as a continent. If this ancient Tamil landmass did exist in the past, its size can only be compared to that of a small city or a district in today’s standards, making its possible submersion in the sea a few thousand years ago a lot easier to believe.

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Sources:

http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/lost-continent-kumari-kandam-001941?nopaging=1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraiyanar_Akapporul
http://www.crystalinks.com/KumariKandam.html
http://www.ancientpages.com/2016/08/05/kumari-kandam-mythical-lost-virgin-continent-and-history-of-tamil-people-shrouded-in-mystery/
http://www.themysteriousindia.net/kumari-kandam-lost-continent/

Malta’s Cart Ruts - Proof of Ancient Advanced Civilizations?

The surface of the islands of Malta and Gozo in the Maltese archipelago is known for the hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of parallel lines that appear to have been carved deep into the country’s stony ground. These ancient Maltese tracks – or what some refer to as “cart ruts” – have been found in obvious locations as well as the most unusual places – be it under the sea, off the coast, or at cliff edges. This has led many to believe that the grooves in Malta’s bedrock are of prehistoric origin. These cart tracks are also deemed to be unique, and they continue to be an enigma to this very day, as they have not been satisfactorily explained by those who have extensively studied them.

Brief Information on the Cart Ruts Found in Malta

Cart ruts are man-made dual channels or parallel tracks and grooves sunken in rock. The ruts themselves can vary greatly in their size – some can be very deep and narrow, others can be shallow and wide, and the rest could be anything in between. They are carved in both smooth and rough rocky surface. And like in the case of the cart ruts found on the surface of the islands of Malta, these parallel grooves can be etched into a limestone bedrock.

In Malta, the cart ruts appear to be in single pairs or in groups, and they are typically perfectly parallel. These ancient channels have an approximate depth of 8 to 15 centimeters, but in some places, they could be as deep as about 60 centimeters. The ruts have a standard gauge of around 1.4 meters, but this can also vary by several centimeters. Some of the tracks cross each other while others branch out to form junctions, which creates an illusion that resembles a large railway switching yard. These grooves run through the island’s valleys but they have also been found on the hills, while some have disappeared into the Mediterranean Sea.

While the cart ruts on Malta are impressive structures, they do not exclusively exist in this country. In fact, similar formations can also be found in Sicily, Sardinia, Italy, Greece, Southern France and Cyrenaica. However, not all of these dual channels in different parts of Europe are of the same origin, neither do they all fulfill the same purpose.

Examples of the Maltese Cart-Ruts

In Malta itself, there are potentially as many as 150 sites that have cart ruts, including the ones found in St. Paul’s Bay, Naxxar, San Gwann and Bidnija. However, the most well-known site in the archipelago is the Misrah Ghar il-Kbir, which is more popularly referred to as the “Clapham Junction.”

The Clapham Junction is located on the southern side of the Maltese island and features an enormous number of tracks, making it the largest concentration of cart ruts in the country. The site was given the nickname “Clapham Junction” because the network of overlapping cart tracks on the surface resembled the busy rail station of the same name in London. The sunken grooves at the site have varying gauges, depths and widths. They are also shaped differently, with some narrowing at the bottom, while others remain flat.

Possible Dates When the Cart Ruts in Malta Were Created

Some researchers have connected the mysterious tracks to the temple sites found in the islands of Malta and Gozo. More than 30 stone temple complexes as well as other ancient structures on the Maltese island were dated to have been built from 5500 to 2500 BC, making them some of the oldest free-standing monuments on the planet that we currently know about. It is even believed that the cart ruts might turn out to be the proof some experts have been looking for in answering the puzzle of how these ancient temples were built during what was supposed to be a primitive time.

It is also hypothesized that these manmade dual channels were created by settlers who arrived in Malta from Sicily sometime in the beginning of the country’s Bronze Age, or around 2000 B.C. However, Maltese archaeologist Anthony Bonanno has also presented an alternative theory about the date of the cart ruts on the island, suggesting that the tracks could be Phoenician constructions that were made more recently, possibly in the 7th century B.C.

How the Cart Ruts in Malta Were Created

How the Cart Ruts in Malta Were Created

As to how the ruts in Malta were made or created, some archaeologists assumed that they were inadvertently carved by using some form of vehicles that were possibly wheeled. These carts, sleds or skids could have carried heavy loads, and with people repeatedly using the same path or route for decades or even centuries, the island’s limestone ground was inevitably scarred over time as a consequence.

However, some have objected to the hypothesis that all of the ruts on Malta were caused by wheeled carts or sleds carrying heavy goods. They argued that some of the tracks appeared to be too perfectly formed as if they might have been carved by hand using special tools. One such individual is author and journalist Graham Hancock, and in his book, “Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization,” he said:

“It is certain, too, that they were not simply worn away in the tough limestone by the passage of cart-wheels over periods of centuries, as many have wrongly theorized; on the contrary, there is no proof whatsoever that cart-wheels ever ran in these ruts - which were initially carved out of the bedrock with the use of tools.”

The Purpose Behind the Cart Ruts in Malta

If the people residing on the island of Malta created and deliberately shaped these enigmatic ruts, then these channels obviously played a valuable purpose in the lives of these ancient people. However, what exactly that role is have been lost with the passage of time, and experts who have allotted much of their time and a significant portion of their lives to study these cart ruts have yet to universally agree on what their original purpose could be.  And because these experts have failed to come into an agreement on this matter, alternative theories have gained popularity in providing more out-of-this-world yet equally-fascinating answers to this mystery.

Theories on the Purpose of Malta’s Cart Ruts

Many different theories have been presented in attempt to provide the most plausible answers to the mysterious questions of when these car ruts on Malta were created, how they were created, and why they were created in the first place.

One of the wildest speculations of what the cart ruts’ intended purpose could be is that the they are the tracks of outer space landing craft. There also those who believe that the scars on Malta’s milestone bedrock might be coded messages to the gods. But a more popular yet also far-fetched theory is that archipelago of Malta is actually an existing part of the legendary lost city of Atlantis.

Of course, there are also other theories that have been presented over the years, which many people find to be a lot easier to consider and believe. One theory is that the cart ruts in Malta were constructed for the purpose of transporting agricultural produce, and that the tracks were designed in such a way that would have allowed cows pulling these carts to get back home on their own.

Australian archaeologist Claudia Sagona from Birmingham University has a different idea on what the ancient channels found in this country are for. Sagona argued that the cart ruts were actually irrigation ditches from the Stone Age. According to her, in ancient times, torrential rains had washed away the island’s topsoil, and so, the farmers of that time had no other choice but to invent new ways of tending to their crops. She suggested that the Maltese farmers carved this network of trenches into the island’s limestone bedrock to channel away and conserve rain water, and to protect the soil.

Another likely purpose of the cart ruts is that they transported stones from ancient quarries across the island. This theory was suggested by archaeologist Anthony Bonanno, and a few of those who conducted a detailed survey of the Clapham Junction agreed that many of the channels found on the Maltese island are associated with the nearby quarries of the time. Transportation of stones from these quarries via the cart ruts found in different parts of the island supposedly made the construction of the ancient temples in Malta possible. This network of tracks is also believed to have been utilized by people for the exportation of quarried stones to Africa.

Though some of these theories are undeniably appealing and quite popular, none of them are completely devoid of flaw in their line of reasoning. And so, until now, there is still no consensus on what the original purpose of the cart ruts on Malta could be, especially since experts supporting one theory have cleverly presented arguments casting doubt on the plausibility of another theory, and vice versa.

For now, there is no doubt that the enigmatic cart ruts found in Malta will continue to remain unsolved in the foreseeable future in terms of its true purpose, the exact means through which they were formed, or the accurate dates of when these tracks were created and how long they were regularly used by the ancient civilization that once lived there.

And while not many are willing to entertain the idea that the cart ruts on Malta are proof that a highly advanced ancient civilization once dominated the area, these ancient networks of parallel trenches and channels are, at the very least, a testament and reminder that perhaps our ancient ancestors are more advanced and enlightened than we give them credit for. Besides, even without insisting its archaeological merits, it remains undeniable that these ancient tracks are truly a fascinating as well as a puzzling sight to behold.

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Sources:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/malta-cart-tracks
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/oct/04/arts.artsnews
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3060511?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/maltacartruts.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misra%C4%A7_G%C4%A7ar_il-Kbir
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/02/the-mysterious-cart-tracks-of-malta.html
http://www.messagetoeagle.com/unknown-highly-advanced-civilization-created-maltas-cart-ruts-with-sophisticated-machinery/
http://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/prehistoric-lines-across-malta-cart-ruts-misrah-ghar-il-kbir-020312?nopaging=1
http://www.cartrutsmalta.com/what-are-cart-ruts/
http://philipcoppens.com/cartruts.html
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/02/the-mysterious-cart-tracks-of-malta.html

5 Ancient Legends Based on True Events

Humans, above all else, are excellent storytellers. Myths and legends have ignited the imagination and fed the souls of human beings for thousands of years. The vast majority of these legendary tales are usually just stories people have handed down through the ages. However, as it turns out, there are plenty of old myths and stories that have more than a kernel of truth to them. In fact, a few of them have roots in real geological and astronomical events of the past, providing warning of potential catastrophic dangers that threaten our existence, while also speaking volumes to the awe we hold for the wonders of our planet.

So, here are five ancient legends from around the world that are somehow based on true events.

1. The Guest Star

The Ancient Story of “The Guest Star.” In April of the year A.D. 1006, witnesses from Asia, the Middle East, Europe and possibly even in North America, spotted what they described as a “guest star” in the sky. Astronomers digging through ancient texts have found lost records mentioning and describing the cosmic phenomenon. Among them is from the multipart opus “Kitab al-Shifa” or “Book of Healing” by the Persian scientist Ibn Sina, who is also known in the west as Avicenna. In the “Book of Healing,” Avicenna took note of a transient celestial object that changed color and “threw out sparks” as it faded away. What he saw started out as a faint greenish yellow light, which twinkled wildly at its peak brightness. Then, it became a whitish color before ultimately vanishing.

For a long time, the “guest star” was suspected of being a comet, but now, it has since been determined that the celestial wonder was really a supernova – a cosmic explosion that took place 7,200 years ago but whose visible light only reached Earth at the turn of the first millennium. In 1006 A.D., the supernova was far brighter than Venus and was visible during the daytime for weeks. At present, though its visible wavelengths have since dissipated from view, the high-energy remnants of the supernova can still be seen through NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

2. The Crater Lake and the Battle of the Gods

The Legend Surrounding the Crater Lake. The most common of the legends centering around the Crater Lake in Oregon involve two powerful mythological beings: Skell, the lord of the Above-world; and Llao, the god of the Under-world. The theme of this legend is essentially “good-versus-evil.”

The Native American Klamath tribe believed that the Crater Lake in Oregon was once a tall mountain named Mazama, which back then was inhabited by Llao. The underworld deity engaged in an epic battle with Skell, the sky god, and fire and brimstone flew across the skies between Mazama and the nearby Mount Shasta. Llao was defeated in the fight, and they had to go back to the underworld. With the intention of imprisoning him forever, Skell collapsed the mountain on top of Llao, before topping off this prison with a beautiful blue lake.

The legend was not exactly far from the truth. However, the crater lake was not the product of a battle between angry gods but Mount Mazama, a volcano that erupted 7,700 years ago. So much molten rock was expelled that the summit area collapsed during the eruption to form a large volcanic depression called caldera. Subsequent smaller eruptions occurred as water started to fill the caldera which eventually formed the deepest lake in the United States.  

3. The Myth of Rama’s Bridge

The Myth of Rama’s Bridge. In the Hindu epic the “Ramayana,” the wife of the god Rama, gets kidnapped and taken to the Demon Kingdom on the island of Lanka. With the help of an army of ape-like men, Rama, along with his brother Lakshman, built a floating bridge between India and Lanka. He led the army in crossing over the bridge, and successfully vanquished Ravana, the demon king, and consequently rescued his wife.

While this elaborate tale is filled with fantastical details, the mythical Rama’s Bridge itself actually exists. Satellite images reveal a 48-kilometer line of submerged limestone shoals and sand that stretches between India and Sri Lanka. The bridge separates the Gulf of Mannar located in the southwest from the Palk Strait, which is in the northeast. Some of the sandbanks are dry and the sea in the area is quite shallow, being only 1 to 10 meters deep in some places. It was reportedly passable on foot up to the 15th century until storms deepened the channel. Temple records seem to tell that the Rama's Bridge was completely above sea level until a cyclone in 1480 brought a huge storm surge into the channel and sunk it beneath the waves.

4. Atlantis

As first described by Greek philosopher Plato in his writings, this myth tells a tale of a civilization at its peak that tragically sank beneath the waves and got lost for all eternity. This great civilization called Atlantis is supposedly founded by a race of people who were half god and half human, and lived in a utopia where they possessed great naval power. However, while at the pinnacle of their power and influence, their home - which were located on islands that were said to be shaped like a series of concentric circles – was destroyed in a great cataclysm.

Atlantis was probably not a real place that have existed in ancient times, but a real island civilization may have been the source of inspiration for the tale. It remains heavily debated, but several archaeologists are of the opinion that the myth of Atlantis could have been based on the collapse of the Minoan empire.

Santorini in Greece is now an archipelago, but thousands of years ago, it was a single island – a volcano named Thera. Around 3,650 years ago, a volcanic eruption, which is considered to be one of the biggest in human history, rocked the island and led to its destruction. The vast magma chamber of the volcanic island was emptied so catastrophically and so quickly that the core of the island collapsed, setting off tsunamis that flooded much of Thera with the inflowing Aegean Sea. The eruption blew tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere where it lasted for years and potentially caused many cold, wet summers. Such conditions would have ruined harvests in the region, which is believed to be a main contributor to the quick decline of the Minoan civilization and why they were never heard from again.

5. Noah’s Ark

In the famous story told among Christians, Jews and Muslims, God, a long time ago, chose to destroy the Earth with a great flood but spared a man named Noah and his family. On God’s command, Noah built an ark and filled it with a pair of every animal. When God covered the Earth with water, it drowned everyone and everything that once roamed the land. Noah, his family and the other animals managed to survive while on the ark, and they were the ones that repopulated the planet after the disaster.

While a boat full of animals of every kind is hardly believable to some, experts say that the epic biblical flood - as often is the case with apocryphal texts - could have been based on a much earlier tale. One such story that comes to mind is the Epic of Gilgamesh. This ancient epic unfolds similarly to its biblical equivalent. In this Mesopotamian saga that dates back to the 7th century BCE, many gods conspired to create a great flood that will destroy the world. One of the gods, Ea, told a man to make a boat to save himself and the rest of his family, along with a group of animals.

So, with similar flood tales told in many cultures, is there any evidence that the great floods referenced in these stories actually happened? Scholars and scientific experts generally agree that there never was a global deluge as there is not enough water in the Earth system to cover all the land. However, some geologists think that the legend of a great flood may have been influenced by a catastrophic flooding event in the Black Sea around 5,000 B.C.

Geological records show that the Mediterranean Sea overflowed into the Black Sea, which is located north of Turkey. It forced the sediment barrier between the two to open in a very dramatic manner, and anyone nearby who witnessed what happened at the time would have seen the creation of waterfall 200 times the volume of Niagara Falls. In a single day, enough water came through the channel to cover Manhattan, and the roar of the cascading water would have been loud enough to be heard at least 100 miles away. And so, anyone who were living in the fertile farmlands on the northern rim of the sea at the time would have had the harrowing experience of seeing the boundary of the ocean move inland at the rate of a mile a day.

Myths are beautiful, breathtaking narratives and literary treasures of our past. But more than that, these ancient tales we have listed - and many other which were not mentioned - were able to provide important clues to our distant past. And these clues were helpful and crucial in filling in the gaps in our scientific and historical knowledge about geological and astronomical phenomena that took place on Earth in bygone eras. So, with the help of science, we can safely say that some tales are not just made-up stories passed from one generation to another; they could be true as well.

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Sources:

http://www.iflscience.com/environment/six-ancient-legends-that-are-based-on-real-events/all/
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ten-ancient-stories-and-geological-events-may-have-inspired-them-180950347/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160427-lost-supernova-sighting-sn1006-arab-astronomy/
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/tapestry.html
https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2002/fs092-02/
https://www.newscientist.com/blog/space/2007/09/bridge-built-by-monkeys.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam%27s_Bridge
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/evidence-for-a-flood-102813115/?no-ist