Flood of the 18th century. There are many publications on this topic now. But how did it affect those territories where the "water flowed"? This is the Black, Azov, Mediterranean Sea. There are simply no open sources that are clear to everyone. But there are free access to old portolan maps and maps of Gerard Mercator of the 16-17 centuries, they will allow us to lift the curtain, dive into the depths and see the sunken cities that few people know about.
Once on the Internet I saw an old portulano map of the Black Sea - Pontus Euxine Gracios Benincasa of the 15th century. This card put me in a stupor. Before my eyes were absolutely unknown shores, with many Genoese and Byzantine trading posts along the entire Black Sea coast.
To understand the scope of the Genoese emporias on the Black Sea, let us turn to history. Genoese colonies in the Northern Black Sea region are fortified trading centers of Genoese merchants and colonies of the Genoese Republic in the XIII-XVII centuries (my version). In Western European sources, called Ghazaria.
Since 1261, their active trading activity begins in the Crimea and other territories of the Golden Horde - Tartaria. In 1266, Khan Oran-Timur, to whom the Crimea was given in possession, by the Golden Horde khan Mengu-Timur, allowed the Genoese to establish a trading post and a colony in the Cafe on the site of the old (antique) Feodosia.
Kafa monopolized trade in the Black Sea and served as the main port and control center of all Genoese colonies in the Northern Black Sea region. During this period, the city experienced its heyday. The population of the city exceeded 70 thousand people, the city had a theater and its own mint, where coins were minted.
The Genoese maintained allied relations with the khans of Tartaria, who were formally the supreme rulers of the territories of the colonies, granting them full self-government within the city walls, and appointing a special prefect from the Crimean natives to manage the rural district of the Kafin possessions.
On the Black Sea and Azov coasts between Tan (Azov) and Sevastopolis (Sukhum), the Genoese have 39 colonies, trading posts, and settlements. The most important of them are concentrated in the area of the Taman Peninsula. These are Bosporo (Kerch), Matriga (stanitsa Tamanskaya), Mapa (Anapa), Mavro Lako (Gelendzhik), Mavro Zikhiya (Krinitsa), etc. Now everyone is hearing more ancient ancient colonies on the Taman Peninsula, and about medieval ones is almost never heard … But on the old map of 1610 by Gerard Mercator of the Crimea, Tavrik, the icons denoting ports, fortresses, religious and residential buildings are clearly visible. Where are all these objects now I will try to find out.
As we can see on the depth map, the shelf has a very complex mountainous relief. Long narrow underwater ridges go to considerable depth. Outwardly, they resemble fox tails. We see a similar coastal relief on the Mercator map of 1610. But on the gold tray, presented to Catherine II in honor of the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Empire, the relief is completely different, more like fingers apart.
Promotional video:
In the conclusion of the first part, the question arises: Why did the Tsemesskaya and Gelendzhik bays remain in approximately the same cartographic form when the water melted, and the rest of the bays and capes disappeared, because the water level was the same for everyone?
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If we know that the flood was in the 18th century, is it possible to determine a more accurate year of the event? Let's use old maps of the Turkish Empire from the 1626 century. But this and other maps of the 16th century, we see that Crimea is signed as Gazaria, all Genoese colonies are in place, on the territory of other states there are no Turkish designations either.
Very strange cards.
The Caspian Sea has an unusual shape: as we remember, it is elongated in the meridional direction, but on these maps on the 16th it is elongated in the latitudinal direction and does not at all resemble the current one in outlines.
The 18th century arrives. Maps are actively found only around 1720. We open the portolan map of 1720, possibly earlier. We look at our native shores, and again we do not recognize anything. The names are no longer Genoese trading posts, but completely different, and, most importantly, the shape of the coast has changed dramatically. From this we can conclude: before us is the first post-Flood map of the Black Sea.
It follows from this that such an event as the “GREAT FLOOD” took place in the first decade of the 18th century, which served as a powerful reason for a change in the economic formation in Europe. All coastal cities of the Mediterranean, Marmara, Black and Azov seas were flooded.
To understand this map, you need to select reference points, i.e. large fortresses, settlements, and "tie" them to the modern relief. For this, judging by the designation icon, the fortress and port of Batan Abbaza are suitable. To find its location on modern maps, we will use the floodmap.net site. These are interactive maps of possible flooding, taking into account the relief. When the coast was virtually submerged by 25 m, the relief immediately became recognizable. We determine that the port of Batan Abbaza was on the territory of the present village in Abkhazia Tsalkoti, and the heights are suitable here: 25-30 m above sea level. Similarly, it was possible to determine the location of all ports with unknown names.
So what happened in the early 18th century? Researcher Andrei Kadykchansky talks about this in detail in the article "Kursk will really sink".
Studying old maps, you can raise forgotten cities and even countries from the depths of oblivion. Doubt the dating of entire eras. Using already existing articles on the causes of the flood by experienced researchers, I tried to describe the scale of the flood, as far as you can judge.
Author: Elena Topsida