The legends of many peoples tell about the World Mountain. The Sun and the Moon walk around it, the North Star stands above its center, and at the top is the abode of the gods. The Hindus called it Mount Meru, the Chinese - Sumeri, the Sumerians - Masha, the Persians - Khara Berezaiti, the Greeks - the Riphean or Hyperborean mountains, the Germanic peoples - Asgard, the eastern - Koh-Kaf. The top of this mountain is hidden in the clouds, and the base goes into the depths of the Ocean River, which flows around the entire Earth.
At the same time, the ancient authors located the legendary mountain not at the North Pole, but much further south. In their view, the World Mountain as a magnificent crown shining in the rays of the sun surrounds the northern part of the Earth.
WORLD MOUNTAIN MYTH
Aristotle speaks of the Riphean mountains, "lying under the very north, above the extreme limits of Scythia." According to him, fabulous stories are told about their greatness, many and, moreover, the largest rivers after Istra begin from these mountains.
Hippocrates indicates that the plains of Scythia gradually rise to the north, and there are the Riphean mountains. They are covered with snow all year round and “can hardly be inhabited”.
According to Ptolemy, the Hyperborean (Riphean) mountains in Eastern Europe stretch from the Urals to the west slightly above the confluence of the Kama with the Volga, each of which he calls Ra. That is, between 57 and 55 degrees north latitude, approximately, along the northern edge of the uplands: Bugulma-Belebeevskaya, Privolzhskaya, Central Russian, Belorussian-Smolenskaya, along the rivers Belaya, Kama, Volga, Oka, Dnieper, Neman.
Most of the ancient Greek geographers claimed that all European rivers originate from the Riphean Mountains. This opinion was so strong that medieval researchers were shocked not to find the Riphean Mountains. Indeed, the area lying between 50 and 60 degrees north latitude, from the western to the eastern edge of Europe, is mostly flat, even low. The named hills are nothing more than hills, which are very difficult to call mountains, especially for the Greeks, Hindus, Chinese and other peoples living in the real mountains. Could the ancients have been so fundamentally wrong? And if they were not mistaken, how could such a grandiose mountain disappear from the face of the earth without a trace? Maybe the clue is that this mountain was a glacier, which subsequently retreated northward or melted?
Promotional video:
Mount Meru is directly referred to as sparkling with ice. This mountain encircles the entire earth and shines with an ice cover that shines in different colors at sunrise and sunset. The fact that Asgard and the Riphean mountains were icy is indirectly indicated by their names. If you transfer them in a different transcription, like the Icegard and the Rifai Mountains, then they, respectively, will acquire the meanings - an ice fence (ice - ice, guard - a fence) and a ridge of ice mountains (a reef is a ridge, usually protruding from the water). Asgard, like Meru in Vedic legends and Hara Berezaiti in Avestan traditions, is the abode of the gods. Moreover, this mountain is located not at the pole, but in much lower latitudes.
“On the map of Ptolemy, there is a long mountain range - the Hyperborean (Riphean) mountains. This ridge on the Russian Plain exactly coincides with the edge of the ice sheet of the Valdai glaciation”- A. A. Seybutis.
GLACIERS
The glacier, as you know, extended to the south quite far, reaching warm middle latitudes. How did this happen? The idea of a glacier moving southward under the pressure of ice masses growing in the circumpolar regions does not stand up to criticism. The increase in the height of the ice layer itself should not cause horizontal displacement of its lower layers, since ice, unlike water, is a typical crystalline solid.
The sliding into the water of the ice of Greenland and Antarctica is due to the slope towards the ocean of the surface of the earth on which they are located. But nowhere and never was the movement of ice under pressure in the opposite direction noted, that is, its creeping on the coast, for example, the Eurasian one, even by tens of meters. Moreover, it is not possible to move ice under pressure for thousands of kilometers.
The glacier moved south not under the pressure of ice masses from the north, but due to the accumulation of ice on its southern slope due to the condensation of moisture on it brought by air currents from the south.
The glacier, once emerging, could not only persist for a very long time in temperate latitudes, but also move far enough south for the following reasons. The average annual temperature at latitudes 50 ° -60 ° at the surface of the earth is not much higher than the temperature of ice melting (for example, permafrost occurs in Siberia at these latitudes). And at an altitude of two kilometers, which the glacier reached, the temperature was below ice melting even in summer.
The higher the leading edge of the glacier rose, the lower its temperature became, and the more intensive the growth of its head. Additionally, the temperature of the glacier decreased due to the high reflectivity of snow and ice in the visible region of the spectrum, in which the Earth receives heat from the Sun, and their high emissivity in the infrared region of the spectrum, in which the Earth loses heat to its own radiation.
In addition, the leading edge of the glacier was covered from the sun by clouds that formed near it as a result of condensation of moisture contained in the air. For this reason, and also because large masses of ice have colossal thermal inertia, due to their high heat capacity, the glacier did not melt in summer. Moreover, in summer near it, atmospheric moisture could condense in the form of snow. This is reflected in the information of Herodotus.
“They say, - writes Herodotus, - that the area located above the inhabitants of the upper parts of the country (Scythia) in the direction of the north wind, it is impossible either to see or go far inland because of the falling feathers. After all, both the earth and the air are filled with feathers, they obscure the view … As for the feathers, about which the Scythians say that they fill the air and that because of them it is impossible either to see or go deep into the country, then about them I have the following opinion. In the area that is located above this country, it always snows, in summer, naturally, less than in winter. Snow looks like feathers."
OCEAN RIVER
According to the ancients, the Ocean River was located at the foot of Mount Meru and flowed around the entire earth. The stories about it are no less amazing, because the Ocean is called a river. At the same time, the Greeks knew very well about the Atlantic Ocean lying behind the Strait of Gibraltar, but they called it not the ocean, but the big sea.
In our opinion, the Ocean River really existed and was a product of the glacier. The southern edge of the glacier, encircling the entire northern part of the Earth in the latitudinal direction, sagged the earth's crust with its weight and squeezed out in front of itself a huge earthen wall, the so-called "pressure moraine." This phenomenon is known to geologists. The space between the glacier and the head moraine was filled with glacier melt water and atmospheric moisture condensing on its southern slope, forming what the ancients called the Ocean River. It was quite natural to call the Ocean a river due to its great length, relatively small width, fresh water and the presence of a current.
Mark Terentius Varro (116-27 BC), “the most learned of the Romans,” as he was often called, had the story of the writer of the 1st century BC. BC. Cornelia Nepot about the "Indians" who, while sailing on the Ocean, were allegedly carried past the Caspian Gulf and washed up on the shores of Germany.
In the Iliad, Homer quotes the words of Hephaestus, who was hiding from Hera in a cave on the shores of the Ocean: "all around the Ocean before me, frothy, roaring, ran, immeasurable." And in the Odyssey, he conveys impressions about the Ocean and the adjacent lands of Odysseus who visited there:
There is a country and a city of Cimmerian husbands. Everlasting
There is dusk and fog. Never a luminous sun
Does not illuminate the people inhabiting the land with rays
Does it leave the earth, entering the starry sky, Or descends from the sky, heading back to earth.
A sinister tribe of hapless people surrounds the night. (Homer, Odyssey).
According to Hipparchus, the Ocean River was the limit of the inhabited land in the north, which passed approximately at a latitude of 56.5 °. According to him, at the same latitude in Asia lay the outlet from the Ocean River to the Caspian Sea, which he, like Eratosthenes, considered the Ocean Bay.
Posidonius was of the same opinion. The reason for this was the message of Patroclus, who allegedly sailed on the Caspian Sea and proved that it is connected to the Ocean by a narrow and long strait, which can be identified with the corresponding section of the Volga. The beginning of this strait, according to Patroclus, is 6000 stades from the shores of the Caspian Sea. This is reflected in the map of Eratosthenes about the inhabited earth.
All large European rivers from the Danube to the Volga could indeed originate from the Ocean River, flowing at the foot of the glacier, as the ancients claimed. The water content of these rivers at that time should have exceeded the present, since the lion's share of atmospheric moisture brought from the south condensed at their sources (at the southern edge of the glacier).
TRADITIONS OF DIFFERENT NATIONS
So, there is nothing incredible in the above messages of the ancients. Moreover, with their help, our ideas about the ice age can be refined.
Another thing seems incredible. The fact that, according to them, behind the World Mountain in the north there is a land called differently by different peoples (Shveta Dvipa, Aryana Vedzha, Midgard, Hyperborea, Erifhea, Champs Elysees or Elysium, Iaru, Tilmun, etc.), which has fertile climate. This land was famous for its beautiful gardens, known to the Greeks as the Gardens of the Hesperides, irrigated fields on which, according to the Egyptians, barley grew up to two meters high, and spelled and even more. Its meadows were covered with succulent grass-murava, countless herds of wild animals and wonderful livestock, in particular, Geryon's red cows, grazed on them.
In the 109th chapter of the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" it is said that the country of Iaru is surrounded by a wall of bronze (such a glacier seemed in the reddish rays of the sun at sunrise and sunset).
According to Scandinavian legends, the impregnable mountain Asgard fenced off Midgard, convenient for habitation, from the rest of the uncomfortable part of the earth, inhospitable, inhabited by giants and evil monsters. The Younger Edda says: “It (the earth) is rounded on the outside, and around it lies the deep Ocean. On the shores of the Ocean, they (the gods) assigned the lands to the giants, and they fenced the whole world in the depths of the land with a wall to protect them from the giants. For this wall, they took the eyelids of the giant Ymir and named the fortress Midgard."
Some later authors, based on the information of the ancients that the Sun and the Moon walk around Mount Meru, the North Star stands above it, and its foot goes into the depths of the Ocean River, which flows around the entire earth, mistakenly place Mount Meru at the North Pole. And on the basis of information that a huge Northern country is located beyond the Ocean River, they place it in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. So, in particular, it is shown on one of the medieval maps (Mercator). The author apparently finished drawing the land in the Arctic Ocean on an ancient map based on the above incorrect considerations. According to geological data, there was no land at the North Pole, not only in historical times, but hundreds of thousands of years ago.
However, what modern educated person can believe that to the north of the southern edge of the glacier lay inhabited, and even fertile land? At best, out of respect for the ancients, he will try to explain the origin of these fantasies. It is known what a majestic view mountains with snowy peaks have, how many paintings by Roerich alone are dedicated to them. But their height is hidden by the foothills. The glacier, on the other hand, rose to a transcendental height just above the plain and had an immense extent. One can imagine the sacred awe of a person contemplating this brilliant crown of the earth, which is fully reflected in the Avesta, Vedas, Tibetan legends, and suppose that a grandiose spectacle gave rise to equally grandiose fantasies. On this, according to the logic of modern science, skeptical about such messages,the question of Hyperborea located behind the glacier, the country of the blessed, and the like should have been closed.
But what if we once again believe the ancients and take their stories seriously? Then it will be necessary to abandon the concept of a glacier that has developed in science as a continuous ice mass covering the northern part of the Earth, and present it as a relatively narrow ice ridge bordering the northern part of the Earth, which was reflected in its ancient names.
NOT A FAIRY TALE, BUT A BE
Let's try to prove that this could have happened and that the ancient legends about the sacred mountain, about the people who lived behind it, and so on, are not fairy tales, but reality. Apart from legends, there are strong physical grounds for revising the existing idea of the glacier.
If, as mentioned above, the moisture brought by the air from the south condensed mainly at the front of the glacier and at its summit, which reached two kilometers in height, then there was little material for the formation of the glacier outside of it, and the glacier should gradually decrease to the north. - "come to naught".
As a result, the glacier was not a continuous ice mass covering the entire northern part of the Earth, but only a relatively narrow ice ridge encircling the entire Earth, with a steep southern slope and a gentle northern slope. Its width, apparently, was measured in tens of kilometers v. could hardly exceed a hundred kilometers. In the section from north to south, it looked as schematically shown in the diagram.
On the map compiled according to Ptolemy's data, the Riphean Mountains are shown precisely in the form of a ridge crossing the Volga just above its confluence with the Kama, that is, approximately between 56-57 degrees of latitude. However, this binding cannot be considered constant for all times. During general cold snaps, the glacier had to move south due to the accumulation of ice on its southern edge. During warming, when the southern edge of the glacier thawed and its height decreased, the number of clouds passing through the glacier increased, moisture condensed on the northern slope of the glacier, and it retreated to the north. If a coniferous forest appeared on the way of the advancing glacier, then it crushed it under itself and squeezed out the resin, from which deposits of rosin were formed over time, and amber from the squeezed out millions of years ago.
Nevertheless, in some latitudes, the glacier lingered for a long time. Traces of its long standing are marked by lowlands, along which rivers flow in a latitudinal direction, by faults in the earth's crust beneath them, by the presence of sandy deposits and moraine ramparts on their southern edge. The faults were formed under the weight of the glacier, and sandy deposits were formed as a result of the removal of lighter fractions by melt water.
Lowlands are located along latitudes with such characteristic features. Valleys of some rivers pass through them in whole or in part. These include latitudes: 52 ° -53 ° (North of Western Europe from Rhine to Vistula, Pripyat, Seim, Ural, Ishim); 55 ° -56 ° (Baltic Sea, Neman, Western Dvina, Dnieper, Oka, Volga, Kama, Mias); 60 ° (Gulf of Finland, Neva, Sukhona, Kama, Vishera, Konda, Ob).
Thus, behind the I ice ridge appeared a vast area of the Earth, free of ice. As for the climate of this area, one should note one unusual feature of the North. In summer, with a clear sky beyond the Arctic Circle, the earth receives more light and heat from the sun, which shines around the clock, than in mid-latitudes. For example, in Murmansk in summer with a clear sky, the air temperature does not drop below 20-25 ° C even at night. But as soon as the sky is covered with clouds, twilight sets in, and the temperature drops to 6-8 ° С. If the sky in the northern latitudes for some reason remained clear all summer, the climate of the North would be completely different. And there would be no land more favorable for agriculture and cattle breeding than lying between the fiftieth and seventieth degrees of latitude. The ice ridge, which prevented the penetration of moist air from the south to the north,and was such a reason.
In the vast area to the north of it, the climate became dry, the number of sunny days increased, the earth received more light and heat. At the same time, the amount of snow falling in winter decreased. Therefore, it melted faster in the spring, the earth warmed up earlier and more strongly, the summer lengthened.
Hence the paradoxical conclusion that during the ice age the summer in the northern regions was much drier, warmer and longer than now. And that between the ice ridge, which was called Mount Meru, Asgard, Hyperborean, or Riphean mountains and the Arctic Ocean, there could once really be a fertile land for all living things - an earthly paradise, about which ancient legends tell.
By the way, what does the word Paradise mean? Maybe the abode of Ra, that is, the solar abode. The Indian name of the northern land - Shveta Dvipa says the same thing, it translates as "an island of light". And the English name of Paradise (Paradise) speaks of another of its features. It comes from the Avestan pairidaezae, which means walled. What does the name of Mount Meru mean? Maybe the same as in some Slavic languages (Polish, Ukrainian) -mur (wall)?
Archaeological finds confirm the population of the northern lands during the ice age. W. F. Libby, in an article published in the collection Science and Humanity (Knowledge, 1962), writes about facts that do not fit into the ideas of modern science. That a significant part of the American continent was not covered with ice during the last glaciation, and that the oldest traces of human life on the Scandinavian Peninsula and in England are about 10 400 years old.
Victor YANOVICH