One of the brightest stories contained in the Bible is the story of the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the five-city of Sodom, which followed by the will of the Lord for the fact that their inhabitants behaved in an extremely inappropriate manner. Josephus Flavius, Jewish historian of the 1st century AD, wrote that "the Sodomite region adjacent to the lake was once a blessed country in its fertility and was decorated with many cities, but now it is completely burnt out." Numerous researchers are sure that the catastrophe that befell Sodom and Gomorrah is a very real natural event. The special works of Bentor [1], Trifonov [2. P.133-142] were devoted to the elucidation of this catastrophe and a very detailed analysis was made by D. Rohl [3] on the basis of the assumption set forth by the German scientist M. Lauden.
There is still no exact answer to two questions: where were these cities and when did the catastrophe that destroyed them take place?
“And the Lord rained sulfur and fire from the Lord on Sodom and Gomorrah from heaven. And he overthrew these cities, and all this neighborhood, and all the inhabitants of these cities, and all the growth of the earth. But Lot's wife looked behind him and became a pillar of salt”(Genesis, ch. 19. 24-26).
The natural disaster that destroyed these cities occurred during the time of Abraham and Lot. Sodom, already in existence in the early Bronze Age, gave refuge to Lot and his tribe after he was rescued by Abraham from the slavery that threatened him in Mesopotamia.
Most researchers associate the location of Sodom with the western coast of the Dead, or Salt, Sea, as it was called at that time. The city was located on a gentle plain bordering the coast of the Dead Sea, the level of which was approximately 120-150 m lower, and Sodom was located opposite the Nahal-Hever gorge. Nearby, but slightly to the north, 2 - 3 km from the steep cliffs, an enduring source of fresh water in the En Gedi oasis, which still exists today, gushed out. He could supply Sodom with water, as well as winter rainwater from the Nahal Khever gorge. At the time of Christ, the sea level was about 50 m lower than today, and even lower in the early Bronze Age. The climate was then arid, and the southern half of the modern saline trough of the Dead Sea did not exist at all. In the extreme southeast of the depression, apparently, the city of Gomorrah was located, south of the city of Zoara. Lot went there and the ruins of the village of Bab ed-Dra are now known there. The remains of Gomorrah are identified with the archaeological site of Numeira, near Bab ed-Dhra. Even ancient authors, in particular Strabo, wrote that Sodom was located somewhere between En-Gedi and Masada, located 7 - 8 km south of En-Gedi.
Rohl cites a piece of a sonar map of the Dead Sea of the Israeli Geophysical Expedition of 1978, which shows two elongated hills near En Gedi - possible locations of Sodom - and even a depression, identified with a quarry, from where a stone could be taken for building the walls of Sodom, or with biblical "pitch pits", where sodomites mined valuable bitumen ("black pitch") and, possibly, sulfur of sedimentary origin. The city of Sodom itself existed as early as the 3rd millennium BC, as evidenced by the treasure of copper items from the temple, found in the Nahal-Mishmar cave.
What kind of disaster struck Sodom and Gomorrah, and when? According to the New Chronology of Rola, this happened in the summer of 1830 BC. All signs speak of a strong earthquake, the precursors of which were felt for at least a month. The walls of the houses were covered with cracks, the bituminous pits fell, and the sea level suddenly dropped by several meters. Lot and his family left Sodom and went through the Lisan salt peninsula to the Zohar. And at this time, a powerful earthquake occurred, the hypocenter of which was probably associated with a powerful fault - a left-hand strike-slip that bounds the Dead Sea rift from the west. Burning liquid sulfur was thrown into the air. Sulfur balls are found in this area today. The fire mentioned in the Bible and the strongest tremors completely destroyed Sodom and, most likely, other cities - Zohar and Gomorrah. Trifonov believesthat the death of Sodom and Gomorrah was associated with a volcanic eruption in southwestern Syria, where abundant bone remains were found under lava sheets [2, p. 133-142], but this is too far from the places described in the Bible. Be that as it may, Sodom and Gomorrah died from a terrible and real natural disaster at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, i.e. 4 thousand years ago, which is reflected in the Bible. Now the level of the Dead Sea is dropping catastrophically, by about 1 m / year. Maybe we'll see the remains of Sodom?years ago, which is reflected in the Bible. Now the level of the Dead Sea is dropping catastrophically, by about 1 m / year. Maybe we'll see the remains of Sodom?years ago, which is reflected in the Bible. Now the level of the Dead Sea is drastically decreasing, by about 1 m / year. Maybe we'll see the remains of Sodom?
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The Biblical Flood - Myth or Reality?
Everyone, of course, has heard about the Flood, so colorfully described in the first book of the Old Testament. The Lord was angry with people "… for the earth was filled with atrocities from them" (Genesis, ch. 7.13), and he wanted to destroy them, sending an unprecedented rain on the earth. But first, he told Noah, a righteous and blameless man of his kind, to make a huge boat-ark and immerse his entire family and all animals in it. And so "… on this day all the springs of the great abyss were opened and the windows of heaven were opened … And it rained on the earth for forty days and forty nights" (Genesis, Ch.7. 11, 12). “And the water on the earth increased exceedingly, so that all the high mountains that are under the whole sky were covered. The water rose fifteen cubits above them and the mountains were covered”(Genesis, ch. 7, 19, 20). Finally, the water began to subside, the tops of the mountains appeared, the earth dried up. Noah opened the arkset foot on the ground and released all the animals. Further it is said that "… the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat" (Ch.8. 4).
It should be borne in mind that the "Ararat mountains" should not mean Mount Ararat in the Lesser Caucasus. Most likely, these low mountains were located east of the Tigris and Euphrates, in the foothills of the Zagros, where the kingdom of Aratta and the Aratt mountains were located. In the book "Antiquities of the Jews" Flavius writes that the mountain to which Noah's ark moored was known for a long time. Perhaps she was somewhere in Kurdistan (Judy "Dag, Mount Cardouyan, land of Kardunia). Sometimes the mountain of descent is called Nisir in the Zagros. In any case, Ararat, more than 5 km high, can hardly be the place where Noah descended from the ark to earth. The biblical flood penetrated deeply into the minds of people as God's punishment for numerous sins and as the salvation of the righteous Noah.
Was there a flood, i.e. catastrophic flood, really? We know that very often myths led archaeologists who believed in them to the greatest discoveries. Suffice it to recall G. Schliemann with Troy and Mycenae.
One Global Flood or “Local” Floods at Different Times? When we talk about the Flood, we always mean the one described in the Old Testament. However, water disasters are known in more than 150 legends of many peoples. Therefore, it is more correct to speak of a universal flood, and not a flood that has captured the entire space of the Earth. In ancient Greek mythology, there is the Deucalion flood, which is described in the ninth Olympic ode of Pindar. Zeus, angry at the king Lycaon in Arcadia, turned him into a wolf, destroyed the palace with lightning and sent a terrible downpour to the earth. All Greece (except the top of Parnassus) disappeared under water, and only Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, and his wife, Pyrrha, were saved. Prometheus told his son to make a huge box, which was nailed by waves to Parnassus, and then Deucalion asked Zeus to repopulate the Earth with people.
In Mesopotamia, tradition speaks of three different “local Noahs”. Sumerian Noah - Ziusudra, Old Babylonian - Atrahasis and Akkadian - Utnapishtim. And they all escaped from the flood in boxes and boats. The legend of Utnapishtim was first read by the Englishman J. Smith in 1872 on a cuneiform tablet from the excavations of Nineveh. According to this legend, the respectable Utnapishtim lived with his wife in the city of Shuruppak (the present Farah in the Afedzha swamps). God Ea warned him about a terrible flood, which he was going to punish the human race. Utnapishtim built a large boat box and put his family and cattle in it. For six days the boat was carried through rough water until it came to rest on Mount Nisir, located in the western spurs of the Zagros, i.e. east of the Tigris River. Utnapishtim released a dove, a swallow and, finally, a crow from the boat. And when the latter did not return, he guessedthat the water began to recede.
It is easy to see that this legend is extremely similar to the story of the flood, set forth in the book "Genesis" of the Old Testament, where it got (and hardly anyone now doubts it) from Mesopotamia.
Hindu Noah - Manu - also managed to survive during the flood in the Indus Valley. The list goes on. In the history of many peoples living on different continents, there are legends about catastrophes - floods. In other words, there were many "floods". But the most important thing is that they obviously took place at different times and covered quite definite areas of land, mainly lowlands with large river systems that began in mountainous regions.
The Deucalion flood dates back to 1500-1550. BC. It should be noted that at that time there was a grandiose eruption of the Santorini volcano in the Cyclades archipelago of the Aegean Sea, which destroyed the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete. It is possible that the eruption was accompanied by waves - tsunamis, which reached not only Crete, but also continental Greece, the Peloponnese.
On the island of Rhodes, which also belonged to the Cycladic island arc - its eastern end - there is a legend about a grandiose flood, before which the inhabitants of the island, the Telkines, moved to nearby Asia Minor. The new culture of heliads (children of the Sun) that subsequently emerged in Rhodes was destroyed by flooding due to prolonged rains. After all the disasters in the Aegean region (Crete, Santorini, Rhodes), the Achaeans rushed there, advancing south from the Balkan Peninsula. These catastrophes in one way or another are associated with "floods" somewhere in the 15th century. BC.
Geological evidence of the Flood. A variety of literary sources, not just the Old Testament, indicate that a flood or severe flood was a very possible real historical event that turned civilizations that were just emerging on the vast plains of the Mesopotamian lowland into nothing.
Archaeologist L. Wooley (1880-1960) in 1928-1934 carried out excavations in the lower reaches of the river. Euphrates, where he explored the ancient Sumerian city of Ur. He excavated 20 m deep and at a level of about 4 m from the bottom discovered a 5 m thick layer of clearly alluvial (river) muddy deposits, absolutely devoid of any archaeological remains. Below this layer, traces of fires are recorded that destroyed some buildings, ash and shards, dating from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Ubaid periods. No traces of human presence were found below the layer of the early Ubaid period. But above the "silent" layer of alluvial deposits, there is also a layer 5 m thick, but containing a huge number of shards, fragments of kilns for ceramics burning and burial, which gave rise to attributing this layer to a later, Uruk period. Rohl [3] believes that the layers are alluvial,very thin silty and sandy deposits can be dated to somewhere between 4000 - 3000 BC. If these are traces of the Biblical flood, then it occurred 5000-6000 years ago, in the early period of the Sumerian civilization, at the turn of the extinction of the ancient ubaid culture. After the Flood, the already higher Uruk culture began to flourish, when, apparently, a potter's wheel appeared. We all know Gilgamesh, the fifth king of the First Uruk dynasty, 1000-1500 years later than the Flood. We all know Gilgamesh, the fifth king of the First Uruk dynasty, who lived 1000-1500 years later than the Flood. We all know Gilgamesh, the fifth king of the First Uruk dynasty, 1000-1500 years later than the Flood.
The above data allow us to conclude that the catastrophic event "The Flood", described in the book of "Genesis" of the Old Testament, could actually take place. It, of course, was not "worldwide", but happened in Mesopotamia, mainly in the lower reaches of the valleys of the Great Rivers - the Euphrates and Tigris. In those days, the waters of the bay, due to the eustatic rise in the ocean level, penetrated far to the north and could increase their level due to the wind surge. However, the layer uncovered in the excavation in Ur is represented precisely by alluvial clays and fine-grained sands, which indicates moving river water, which flows relatively slowly. The composition of the sediments gave Wuli a reason to consider them brought from the middle reaches of the Euphrates. It should be emphasized that the ancient cities of Ur, Eridu, Tell-al-Uband, Uruk and other settlements were located in the mouth of the Euphrates,where the flood should have been felt particularly strongly. The relief in these places is absolutely low, close to the water level in the bay.
From the point of view of climatic conditions that existed 5,000 years ago, there were no obstacles to the occurrence of powerful floods. Conversely, a more humid climate favored heavy rainfall, especially in mountainous areas, where rapid melting of snow could cause flooding in the plains of the valleys of the two great rivers.
Atlantis
You will not find a better place than Santorini Island for Plato's legendary Atlantis. In his dialogues "Timaeus" and "Critias", the great Greek philosopher described in great detail the island, which he himself had heard only from the words of Solon, the legislator of Athens, and the latter from the priests of the Egyptians. Unfortunately for us, Plato placed Atlantis behind the “Pillars of Hercules, or Hercules,” that is, in the modern sense, west of the Strait of Gibraltar in the Atlantic Ocean. After terrible earthquakes and subsequent floods, Atlantis disappeared, plunging into the depths of the sea.
Dozens of books have been written about Atlantis and its whereabouts. Wherever they did not find a place for her! We will not list them, but it is quite possible that this island did not exist at all, and Plato wanted in such an unusual way to tell the Hellenic world his vision of an ideal and just, in his opinion, state structure. And such an idea cannot be discounted. However, we are not so much interested in Atlantis as a state, but as an island, which could have been in ancient times and on which there was a high civilization that disappeared overnight about 3500 years ago.
The first to suggest that the modern Santorini Island is Plato's Atlantis was the French archaeologist Figier (1872), although several years earlier other French archaeologists had already found the remains of houses under the pumice stone in the south of the island near the village of Akrotiri. An interpretation of the geological history of the island 50 years ago was proposed by the geophysicist A. G. Galanopoulos, who showed that an unprecedented volcanic eruption led to a catastrophe not only on the island itself, but also in the entire nearby Eastern Mediterranean. In particular, in Crete in 1900, Schliemann unearthed the palace of Knossos of King Minos, which belonged to an ancient civilization that disappeared in about 1500 BC.
Geological situation. The island of Santorini (Saint Irene) used to be called Strongile (round), Callisto (the most beautiful). It is the southernmost island of the Cycladic island arc in the Aegean Sea, 120 km north of Crete. It consists of several islands - Fira (Thira), Firassia and Aspronisi, framing a huge bowl, in the center of which there are two small islets - Paleokameni and Neokameni. The largest - Fira - has the shape of a crescent, emphasizing the previous appearance of the whole Strongil Island (Round). Any geologist just needs to look at the layers of volcanic rocks exposed in the vertical cliffs of Fira to recognize in the system of islands a giant caldera (up to 15-16 km in diameter and up to 500 m deep), formed as a result of a powerful explosion and collapse of a volcanic structure - a stratovolcano. If we mentally continue up the gentle outer slopes of Fira and Ferassia, then the height of the volcanic edifice will clearly exceed 1 km - much more than the current highest points of the islands.
The vertical cliffs of Fira are horizontally lined with stripes of unusually beautiful colors: black lava flows alternate with red strata of lava breccia; yellow, gray and orange tuff beds; tuff breccias, as well as rocks called tephra, and testify to the alternating explosive (explosive) and effusive (outpouring of lava) activity of the ancient volcano. In some places, the layers expand, such as red tuff breccias in the area of the village of Oia, in others, they pinch out and come to naught, which indicates eruptions of various strengths and of different types that occurred from different centers on the slopes of the volcano. Only two places in Firassia have outcrops of metamorphic Mesozoic rocks. One is Mount Messa Vuno with vertical rocky cliffs protruding into the sea, the second is the cliffs near the port of Athinios in the south of Ferasia,which are the foundation on which the volcano was formed. The oldest volcanic rocks here are 0.527-0.640 million years old.
The surface of all the islands that form Santorini is covered by a layer of light pumiceous or pumiceous pyroclastic material (Minoan pumice), which in places is strongly eroded, but generally well preserved and stands out against the background of dark lavas and tephra. Its thickness varies from several to 150 m. There are three such layers. The upper one is the most powerful, reaching 150 m, others pinch out and have a capacity of no more than 5-6 m.
The most impressive outcrops of pumiceous light yellow tephra are found in cliffs up to 40-50 m high south of Fira. At the end of the XIX century. they were developed and sent by steamers to Egypt for the construction of the Suez Canal. Pumice tephra, covering all the irregularities of the ancient relief, is underlain by black bedded tuffs and tuff breccias. In the latter, imprints of leaves of olive trees are found in abundance, which after the eruption on the island no longer grow.
Pumice tephra contains very few phenocryst minerals (from 2 to 18-20%), represented by plagioclase, augite, and hypersthene, but most often the structure is aphyric (i.e., without phenocrysts). The temperature of the erupting tephra, apparently, was 900-1100 ° C. Judging by the amount of material ejected (about 83 km3), the eruption of pumice tephra was enormous. After him, the volcanic edifice subsided and collapsed. How long this eruption lasted remains unclear. But it was obviously not instantaneous. This is evidenced by two earlier pumice beds.
The consequences of the explosion of the volcano. There were settlements on the island 3,500 years ago, and quite large ones. One of them, excavated by the Greek archaeologist S. Marinatos in the thickness of pumice tephra back in the 60s of the XX century, was named Akrotiri, after a small village in the south of Fr. Fira. In essence, it was a city with two-storey houses, with small squares, a market, workshops, storerooms, and mills. The rooms in the houses were decorated with stunning frescoes, which are now on display in a separate exhibition in the Athens Museum of History. The floors in many houses were tiled. A lot of various ceramic items have survived - pithos, vessels, vases and others, covered with magnificent paintings, images of marine and terrestrial fauna. There were also frescoes with ships on which the inhabitants of Akrotiri sailed to the neighboring islands, Crete, Cyprus and the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. At that time, the Aegean Sea was not an obstacle to communication between continents. It is very important that there are inscriptions on the clay shards that are an exact copy of the Cretan inscriptions. They are made in the so-called Cretan "Linear A". All the islands in this region were linked economically.
The archaeological site at Akrotiri is impressive. Before our eyes appears the most ancient highly developed culture, similar to the Minoan civilization that existed at the same time in Crete. And this civilization, outstanding in its level of development, disappeared like the smoke of an extinguished fire.
The catastrophic eruption of Santorini was preceded by an increased tectonic activity in the region. The harbingers of the catastrophe were apparently frequent earthquakes and the renewed volcanic activity of Santorini. This forced the residents of Akrotiri to leave their homes. During the excavations of the buried city, only a few human skeletons were found, while the population was at least 30 thousand inhabitants.
Delphic Oracle
One of the most popular ancient Greek legends is the legend of the Delphic oracle, broadcasting through the priestess of Apollo - Pythia, who sat on a tripod in the temple of Apollo and gave out her prophecies under the influence of the emanation of gases from cracks in rocks. True, there is a legend that bay leaves were burned under a tripod. Laurel is a tree dedicated to Apollo, who was considered the patron saint of Delphi. And from the smoke of smoldering laurel leaves, the priestess fell into a trance, shouting incoherent words. Homer first told about the Delphic oracle, and seven centuries later Plutarch wrote about him.
Delphi is located west of Athens, at the foot of the famous Mount Parnassus on the northern shore of the Gulf of Corinth. The suspicion that the myth of the Delphic oracle is based on some geological features of this area, arose long ago, and recently a special Italian expedition undertook a study of this problem, which collected all geological, geophysical and geochemical data [4]. At the same time, it turned out that Delphi with their three ancient temples is located on the line of a young latitudinal fault - a fault that bounds Mount Parnassus from the south, which is a fragment of an Early Cretaceous carbonate platform. This fault is at the same time the most northerly of the system of faults of the northern boundary of the Gulf of Corinth graben, which arose at the very end of the Pliocene (about 2 million years ago). The Delphic Fault is seismically very active. In historical time, earthquakes have repeatedly occurred along it and cracks in rocks and in the ground have renewed. On one of them, the temple of Apollo in Delphi is located directly [5]. Therefore, it is very logical to assume that it was to this or another of the cracks of this fault that the phenomena were timed, which gave rise to the inclusion in the legend of the Delphic oracle of the story of a female dragon who lived in a crevasse, spewing poisonous fumes and killed by Apollo.which gave a reason to include in the legend of the Delphic oracle the story of a female dragon who lived in a crevasse, spewed poisonous fumes and was killed by Apollo.which gave reason to include in the legend of the Delphic oracle a story about a female dragon who lived in a crevasse, spewed out poisonous fumes and was killed by Apollo.
The above suggests that many myths, legends, legends are based on quite real natural events, geological phenomena and catastrophes. Geomythology has a great future.
Literature
1. Bentor YK // Terra Nova. 1990. No. 1. P.326-338.
2. Myth and Geology / Eds L. Piccardi, WBMusse. L., 2002.
3. Roll D. Genesis of civilization. M., 2002.
4. Piccardi L., Monti C., Vasseli O. et al. // J. Geol. Soc. London. 2008. V.165. P.5-18.
5. Silkin B. I. Geophysics addresses the oracle // Nature. 2002. No. 4. P.3-5.
Victor Efimovich Khain, Academician, Professor Emeritus of the Geological Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University. Specialist in the field of geotectonics and geodynamics. Laureate of State Prizes of the USSR (1987) and RF (1995). Regular author of "Priroda", for many years he was a member of the editorial board of the magazine.
Nikolai Vladimirovich Koronovskiy, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Professor Emeritus of the Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov, Head of the Department of Dynamic Geology. Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation. Research interests - magmatism, geodynamics, neotectonics.