Briefly about the article: The onset of the apocalyptic 2012 excited the imagination of writers and filmmakers writing doomsday scenarios. One of the most curious, undeservedly little represented in art, is the Flood and, possibly, the subsequent survival in a flooded world. "The world of fantasy" is sure: the new life of the old legend is yet to come!

All around the water

GLOBAL FLOOD

To make it clear to you, we shouldn't argue in vain so that
Think about the terrible flood.
A terrible terrible downpour flooded everything then ...
It is not beer that kills people - water kills people!
Song from the movie "It Can't Be"

2012 has come, and fans of fatal dates and numbers froze in anticipation: is the Apocalypse coming? And if it is, what will it be? Among all possible versions of the end of the world, one of the most plausible (in the light of data on global warming) is the flooding of all land, or at least part of it. That is, the Flood, which, according to legends, has already happened. Let's remember what we know about him and how true these legends are.

FROM THE SUMERS TO THE INDIANS

The Flood myth is a wandering story that is found almost unchanged in a wide variety of cultures. Once a god (or gods) is angry with humanity, opens up the abyss of heaven, and all living things perish under water. Except for a handful of those who are destined to revive the human race again, because the god (or gods) is angry, but easy-going. In many versions of the myth, these rescued help restore the lost flora and fauna, since they took representatives of all biological species with them on a ship or other shelter. It ends with a general reconciliation of the divine and the human. With a warning: if people misbehave, a repetition of the water show is inevitable.

The ancient Sumerians and their heirs - the Akkadians and Babylonians, the inhabitants of Syria and Palestine, India and Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, Australia and Polynesia - spoke about this. Even the myths of Indian tribes, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, tell the same story. At the same time, there are no legends about the flood in the folklore of Europe (except for Greece, Wales, Lithuania and some gypsy tribes), most of Asia and Africa. Why this is so is a separate story, to which we will return when we talk about hypotheses about the origin of the myth.

The oldest variation of it is the Sumerian one, known from the epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest literary works in the history of mankind. The protagonist of the poem goes to wander the world in search of the herb of immortality. At the end of the earth, Gilgamesh meets King Utnapishtim (his name means "who found life for long days"), the same "antediluvian" hero who escaped the wrath of the gods. Those, for unknown reasons, vowed to destroy humanity. Only the god Ea, bypassing this oath, warned Utnapishtim about the impending catastrophe and showed him the drawings of the ship that needed to be built in order to be saved. Our hero loaded his family, property, animals and birds, as well as artisans on the ship in order to preserve the crafts after the flood. The gods sent a storm that raged for seven nights and six days and only on the seventh day subsided, allowing Utnapishtim's ship to land on the top of the mountain. Three times he released various birds so that they could find out if the water had come down, and only the third bird - the raven - did not return, because it had found dry land. After the flood, Utnapishtim made sacrifices to the gods, who gave him and his wife immortality.

It is believed that Utnapishtim's story is an insertion of an early, independent work into a later and large-scale one. This hypothesis is supported by the texts of the Sumerian and Akkadian flood stories, discovered later in the epic of Gilgamesh. The main character in them is called Ziusudra or Atrahasis, respectively (these catchy names mean the same as Utnapishtim). The records of the second legend were better preserved, and from it it became known why the gods decided to destroy people. It turns out that there were too many people and they ... made too loud a noise, annoying the gods in the sky! Here is a demographic crisis in Akkadian style. If the ancient gods really existed, by the beginning of the third millennium they should have gone completely deaf, so the supporters of the second Flood version may not be so wrong.

A similar legend was told in Babylon. And the biblical story of Noah with his ark in general practically repeats it word for word. There is only one difference: a moral motive appears in the legend. According to the Old Testament, the god Yahweh (Elohim) decided to destroy humanity because it committed too many sins, and Noah was the only righteous man. It was this version of the legend that became canonical, leaving in our language the expression "every creature in pairs" (that is how many animals Noah took on his ark) and the word "antediluvian".

The apocryphal Book of Enoch gives curious details of the Fall. According to her, humanity was seduced from the true path by giants - the descendants of the marriages of angels with mortal women. It is they who are guilty of wars, social inequality, the emergence of black magic and other indecent deeds.

The ancient Greeks had their own flood, and not even one: in different sources, from two to "many" are mentioned. The most famous is the Deucalion flood, from which only the son of the rebellious titan Prometheus Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha were saved. They were not helped by the gods, but by Prometheus himself, who told his son how to build a ship. After the water subsided, they, on the advice of the river goddess Thetis, restored humanity in a very original way: throwing stones behind their backs. Those thrown by Deucalion became men, and those thrown by Pyrrha became women. Another legend says that not only they were saved, but also the inhabitants of the whole city of Parnassus, because its founder, the son of Poseidon Parnassus, mastered the art of divination. It is believed that the anger of the ancient Greek gods caused human sacrifice, which Zeus did not want to accept.

In Hindu mythology, not a couple of people were saved during the flood, but only one - Vaivasvata, one of the Manu (ancestors of the human race). A wife for him was born from the sacrifice he made. But the Zoroastrians believe that during a flood (which either was a long time ago, or will still be), it is best to save themselves not on a ship, but in a specially built shelter where people, animals and plants should be gathered.

Many peoples familiar with the flood myth believe that the catastrophe will repeat itself sooner or later, and again only a few will be saved. One Polynesian tribe even kept special rescue boats "in case of a flood." In a word, the idea of ​​the death and subsequent rebirth of humanity due to the large amount of water seems to be firmly rooted in our collective unconscious. Where did it come from there?

GREAT LITTLE FLOOD

There is a great temptation to bring all the stories about the flood to one denominator and declare that such a catastrophe really happened in the history of mankind, and so global that it was remembered throughout the world. Such interpretations, similar to the script of a Hollywood blockbuster, are no less exotic than some myths about the flood. One of them, actively circulated by books and sites like "The Great Secrets and Mysteries of the Earth", says that the Flood was caused by the collision of the Earth with the Moon. Allegedly, our satellite was originally the core of the dead planet Phaethon, captured by the gravitational field of the Earth. The collision of two cosmic bodies caused tsunamis and floods throughout the planet, and along the way - the death of either dinosaurs or Atlantis; here the authors of the hypothesis are confused in the testimony. The idea, of course, is gorgeous, it's a pity - not supported by any scientific data.

The hypothesis that the water that flooded the planet came from its bowels, from the mysterious oceans, enclosed in the depths of the earth's mantle, also seems fantastic. The very existence of such oceans is only a version, albeit based on data from seismographs from around the world. It was nominated by the American researcher Michael Wayseshn. In this case, the global flood could look like an unexpected breakthrough of hot waters from the earth's crust. Ocean levels rose and water vapor condensed in the atmosphere, and the showers did the trick.

More plausible is the hypothesis of William Ryan and Walter Pitman of Columbia University. In their opinion, the legend of the Flood reflected the global rise in sea level due to the melting of glaciers. In this case, mainly people who lived on the shores of the seas and in the deltas of large rivers suffered - and it was in such areas that myths about the flood were usually told. This version is confirmed by studies of the shores of the Black Sea: around 5500 BC, its level rather quickly rose by about 50 meters, and the area increased by about one and a half times.

According to another version, everything is much simpler. Since they do not talk about the flood all over the world, it means that these floods were not everywhere and not at the same time. At least about the ancient Sumerian flood, we can say for sure that it was local. During the excavations of the ancient city of Ur in 1927, a 20-meter layer of obviously alluvial clay was discovered without any traces of human presence, which may indicate a large-scale flood caused by a rainstorm for many days. Archaeologist Leonard Woolley, who led the excavation, made a bold assumption that Utnapishtip, aka Noah, could have been a historical person who took measures in time to save his tribe from the flood. In general, the spills of the Tigris and Euphrates are not uncommon: their traces have been found more than once during excavations. True, they happened at different times. But mythological thinking does not know the historical countdown of the years, and the hometown with its surroundings really was the whole world for the ancient man. So the myths of different peoples could reflect the real floods or tsunamis that actually happened in a given area. It is not clear only why, in this case, there is no myth about the flood in Japan, where tsunamis are in the order of things.

Finally, legends may not reflect any real history at all, but be a kind of "scientific hypothesis." Folklorists who collected the tales of Polynesia paid attention to the fact that the aborigines showed them, as proof of the reality of the flood, the imprints of sea mollusks found on the tops of the mountains. The ancient Roman author Tertullian also considered such finds as confirmation of the biblical myth. We now know that the geological transformation of the earth's crust is a slow process. But back in the 19th century, before Darwin, one of the leading scientific theories was the "catastrophe theory", explaining all changes in nature by global cataclysms. It seems that ancient people had their own "catastrophism": a gradual, evolutionary change in their heads did not fit, so they composed colorful legends. And to the legends, a morality was often added about the inadmissibility of violating taboos and ethical norms, because they were established by God (or gods) and their non-observance could cause the wrath of heaven.

DRESSING AROUND THE ARK

Spectacular, visual and with an accessible morality, the legend of Noah's ark has always been in the top five most popular Old Testament stories. Artists loved to portray her, but writers not so much: after all, there is little that can be added to this plot. Is that a little mock at him - already in the twentieth century, when it became possible.

A natural question arises: where to start? ..

The answer is the simplest - from some very specific myth.

But from which one? .. After all, there are not just a lot of legends and traditions, but a lot. Especially when you consider that there is hardly a people on our planet that would not have their own mythology. In addition, peoples on the same territory have often changed over time, which makes the task even more difficult ...

However, it turns out that making the choice is not that difficult. The fact is that various studies of mythology, which have been conducted for a long time, come to the general conclusion that among the whole variety of ancient legends and traditions, one can find a number of those that coincide in the described plots and events. Such myths are especially attracting the attention of researchers, and much has already been studied. And among such myths, studied in sufficient detail, there is such a well-known plot as the myth of the Flood.

The Flood myth turns out to be the most convenient for choosing the beginning of an analysis based on several criteria at once. Firstly, it is one of those legends that are found among a huge number of ancient peoples. Secondly, the events described in this myth are of a global nature, and therefore the search for real archaeological, geological and other traces can be carried out practically over the entire surface of the planet - wherever they could have survived at all. And thirdly, according to the testimony of the legends and legends about the Flood, the events associated with it did not take place many millions of years ago, but in a fairly foreseeable historical past. Accordingly, our chances of finding confident, well-preserved traces are high enough. In general, it is perhaps difficult to find a more favorable combination of conditions for testing the ancient myth for compliance with real facts ...

In summary, the Old Testament Flood story is as follows.

At some point in time, people on Earth began to sin so that they angered God, and he decided to destroy them with the help of the Flood, flooding the entire Earth. The only one for whom he decided to make an exception was the righteous Noah with his family. Noah was tasked with building the Ark - a voluminous wooden ship - and at the appointed time to climb on it with his family, taking animals (each creature in pairs so that they could reproduce) and plant seeds. Then heavy rain poured down on the Earth.

The water arrived for many days, until, finally, it flooded the entire Earth - right down to the highest mountains - and destroyed all life on its surface. Only Noah remained with the inhabitants of the Ark.

After some time, the water began to gradually subside. Noah went ashore on the slope of Mount Ararat, released the animals, planted plants - and life began to revive ...

I think it is quite natural that such a version of events caused and causes great doubts not only among historians, but also among all those who are inclined not to adhere to blind faith in the texts of the Old Testament, but to try to understand the real past.

First of all, it is absolutely not clear where this amount of water could have come from and where it would go later. After all, the height of the highest mountains on our planet is about nine kilometers. If you multiply this height by the surface area of ​​the Earth, you get a tremendous value - the amount of water compared to the present (taking into account the entire volume of the World Ocean) should have increased at least twice (in the most rough approximation)! .. And this should have happened for a negligible, by geological standards, time! .. And worse than that: then the amount of water should have also rapidly halved ...

There is a very exotic version that once our planet was surrounded by a water dome, which collapsed on its surface during the Flood. But firstly, it is absolutely not clear what forces could keep it in the air - the presence of such a liquid dome in a gaseous atmosphere contradicts all known physical laws. And secondly, the question of where the water went after the Flood does not receive an answer either. In the atmosphere, no new dome has formed at all - it is not there. And if such an amount of water simply evaporated, then we would receive such a pressure of water vapor that our planet would now resemble Venus with its four hundred atmospheres on the surface ...

The version that the water was taken from the bowels of the Earth and then went there also does not pass, since nowhere under the surface - according to the data of seismic surveys of the bowels, carried out in sufficient mass quantities - nothing similar to cavities that can accommodate such a huge volume of water has been found.

So the picture of the Flood in the Old Testament version seems more fantasy than something real. And it is not at all surprising that it was rejected by historians ...

Therefore, now, if they recognize the possibility of some real event at the heart of this biblical plot, it is only as a relatively small local flood, which, as if only in the imagination of our ancestors, grew to planetary proportions. And the most common version at the moment is associated with events that took place (according to different opinions) in the period somewhere between 6-9 thousand years BC.

The fact is that after the end of the so-called "Ice Age" as a result of the melting of glaciers, the level of the World Ocean began to noticeably change. According to existing estimates, before these events its level was 100-150 meters lower than the modern one, and this is a very significant difference.

Before the rise in the level of the World Ocean, both the Mediterranean and the Black Seas were lakes. As the water level rose, first the Strait of Gibraltar was formed, connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic, and then the straits that now connect the Mediterranean Sea with the Black Sea. The process of the appearance of the straits was not smooth and calm - in both cases, water accumulated behind the land isthmuses that connected Africa with Europe in the place of modern Gibraltar and Europe with Asia in the place of the modern straits of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, and then burst through them with a powerful stream.

Judging by the archaeological data discovered so far, the most catastrophic events were those associated with the formation of the Bosphorus and the breakthrough of water into the Black Sea. In a relatively short time, the level of the Black Sea increased significantly, and it flooded rather large coastal areas.

It is quite natural that such a cataclysm could serve as the basis for legends and legends about a powerful flood among the peoples who inhabited the shores of the Black Sea at that time. But, firstly, this cataclysm still has the character of a local event, not a global one. And secondly, after that, the water does not go anywhere, as the Old Testament claims ...

However, the Old Testament is far from the only source that mentions some kind of global flood ...

For example, during excavations in Mesopotamia - the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - cuneiform tablets were found, which contained a plot very close to the descriptions in the Old Testament. Legends about this event have been preserved among different peoples in this region, which were recorded later. True, not only the name of the saved person changes - instead of Noah it is Atrahasis, Utnapishti or Ziusudra - but also the means of salvation. If the biblical "ark" is a ship, then in the Mesopotamian myths a submarine is mentioned.

A similar plot was found in India - in the Dravidian text "Shatapatha Brahman" and "Mahabharata". The local "Noah" under the name of Manu was helped by a fish, which was the incarnation of the creator of the world Brahma (according to other versions, the incarnation of the keeper of the world Vishnu). God warned man about the coming flood, sent him a large ship and ordered him to load a couple of all living creatures and the seeds of all plants into it, and then sit there himself.

The myths of Laos and northern Thailand tell that the flood was caused by the inhabitants of a certain "upper kingdom", the powerful creatures of the tena. They announced that before eating anything, people should share their food with them as a sign of respect. The people refused, and in response, the enraged shadows set up a flood that devastated the land.

In Japan, there are legends according to which the islands of Oceania appeared after the world was destroyed by a flood and then recreated by the god Tangaloa. And the people of Samoa believe in the flood that once wiped out all mankind from the face of the Earth ...

If the similarity of the plots of the Old Testament and Mesopotamian legends can somehow be explained by migration and the influence of peoples on each other, transmitting messages about a certain local flood, then for India such an explanation already seems strange, and for Japan and Samoa it is generally beyond reality. And it turns out to be absolutely fantastic for the inhabitants of North and South America, where a mention of the Flood is also found.

In Linda's book "Stories of the Dakota Indians" there is a myth about how the sea and waters once washed over the earth, destroying all human life. The Chickasaw Indians claimed that the world was destroyed by the waters, but one family and a couple of animals of each species were saved. The Sioux also talked about the time when there was no dry land and all the people disappeared.

In the traditions preserved among the peoples of Mexico, destruction appeared in the form of torrential rain and floods. The mountains disappeared and people turned into fish. And in the legends of the Aztecs, a man escapes from a flood on a hollowed-out log ...

It is clear that if we look for an explanation of the reasons for the appearance of these myths and legends in real events that once took place, then we should not talk about the local at all, but about global cataclysm, manifested in the most different parts of our planet. And the breakthrough of waters from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea is clearly not suitable for the role of such a cataclysm ...

But it is also clear that it is also impossible to rely solely on the texts of the Old Testament in this search. After all, not only Noah was saved ...

This is even more emphasized by the legends and legends of other peoples, where it is said that water did not completely cover the Earth entirely.

In Ecuador, the Canary Indian tribe keeps an ancient story of a flood, from which two brothers escaped by climbing a high mountain.

“In the province of Ancasmarca, which is five leagues from Cuzco, the Indians told the following fable. A month before the flood, their sheep (lamas) were curled up, during the day they did not eat anything, and at night they watched the stars. In the end, the shepherd asked what worried them, and they replied that the location of the stars predicted the death of the world from water. Hearing this, the shepherd consulted with his six children, and together they decided to collect as much food and sheep as possible and climb to the top of a very high mountain called Ankasmarka. They say that as the water level rose, the mountain became higher and higher, and therefore the flood could not completely cover it, and when the water subsided, the mountain also decreased. Thus, the six children of that shepherd re-settled that area ... ”(Cristobal de Molina).

In Chile, the Araucans have kept the tradition that there was once a flood, from which only a few Indians were saved. They fled to a high mountain called Tegteg, which means "thundering" or "sparkling", which had three peaks and was able to swim in water.

The legend of the Yaman people from Tierra del Fuego says that the Flood was caused by the woman-Moon, who hated people. At that time, everyone drowned, except for those few who managed to escape the five mountain peaks that the water did not cover.

The Luisens of lower California have a flood story that flooded the mountains and wiped out most of humanity. Only a few escaped, escaping to the highest peaks, which, like everything around them, did not disappear under water. Similar myths were recorded among the Hurons who lived to the north ...

However, diverging in details, ancient legends and traditions agree on the main thing - in the past there was a powerful flood, from which only a few were saved.

One could, of course, try to write off everything as "strange coincidences", but too many peoples have preserved legends about events similar to the Old Testament Flood.

“There are more than 500 such legends in the world. After examining 86 of them (20 Asian, 3 European, 7 African, 46 American and 10 from Australia and Oceania), Dr. Richard André came to the conclusion that 62 are completely independent of the Mesopotamian and Jewish variants. "(G. Hancock," Traces of the Gods ").

The conclusion about the complete independence of the myths of different peoples from each other is extremely important. He directly points out that the reason for such a similarity of plots is not at all that there was some kind of "migration" of peoples, as a result of which the same legend spread throughout the world, but that it really in the distant past, there was some kind of global event such as a flood... A real event, traces of which could well remain to this day ...

And they really stayed! ..

In India, where there are several versions of the Flood myth, excavations at Shanidar Cave have unearthed footprints that clearly indicate major floods. This discovery made Shanidar cave quite famous and even famous among those explorers who consider the Flood to be a real event.

“Its uniqueness is that ancient people constantly lived in it. The oldest cultural layer dates back to 65-60 millennia, the later - to the 11th millennium BC ... The type of person called homo sapiens stopped using the cave as a dwelling just in the 11th millennium ... The main thing was that the cultural layers the Shanidar caves were interspersed with layers of silt, sand, shells and small pebbles. And this is in a cave that has never been the seabed! Archaeologists have discovered four catastrophes that befell not only the cave itself, but also the person who lived in it ... Only the last Great Flood "drove" the ancient people from under the natural arches of Shanidar into primitive round dwellings ... "(V. Batsalev, A. Varakin, "Secrets of Archeology").

In another region that also has its own versions of the Flood myth - in North America - at a depth that corresponds to the age of deposits of about 10-12 thousand years, the researchers discovered a distinct layer of black color. The study of the composition of this layer made it possible to conclude that it indicates its formation in a highly swampy area, that is, when the surface of the earth was covered with a layer of water. And this black layer can be traced in the largest areas in the United States, covering entire states.

In South America, there is also evidence of a similar cataclysm, dating from the same time period as the sediment in the Indian Shanidar cave - XI millennium BC. High in the mountains - in the Andes on the territory of Peru - geologists and archaeologists have repeatedly discovered traces of marine sediments.

In addition, in Lake Titicaca, located at an altitude of about four kilometers above the level of the World Ocean, marine species of plants and animals were found that are absolutely not typical for fresh lake water. How could they be here? ..

There is a version that the lake is a "piece of the sea", which was raised up in the course of some powerful tectonic processes. However, this version seems to be highly questionable for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is unlikely that such a "piece of the sea" would have remained intact during such large-scale processes that would be needed to raise it to a height of four kilometers. And secondly, this version is absolutely inconsistent with local geology.

The fact is that as a result of tectonic processes that would accompany such a rise of a "piece of the sea", one would expect the formation of local mountains from sedimentary rocks, such as those that can be seen on the Mediterranean coast. Meanwhile, around Lake Titicaca, outcrops of magmatic minerals - granite, basalt and other similar types of volcanic rather than sedimentary rocks - are observed everywhere.

Moreover, the Altiplano plateau itself, in the north of which Lake Titicaca is located, is formed by clearly loose sedimentary rocks with clearly horizontal layers (this can be seen in those places where small rivers flow along the plateau, easily dissecting these sedimentary rocks). Such a strict horizontality of the layers could not be preserved in the course of such powerful tectonic processes. This, however, is indicated by the most diverse arrangement of layers in those rocky outcrops of igneous rocks that periodically occur here - sometimes the layers in them are even arranged vertically! ..

Rice. 1. Exit of granite rocks on the shore of Lake Titicaca

Everything is much more consistent with the fact that a tsunami from the Pacific Ocean rose to a height of four kilometers. Having swept over the mountain passes and bringing with it not only marine life, but also a mass of debris collected along the way, it ended up in a depression between two mountain ranges, where it remained with all its contents. Subsequently, the bulk of the water gradually evaporated, and its contents formed the very horizontal sedimentary layers that now form the very flat surface of the Altiplano plateau.

This development of events, by the way, explains not only the presence of marine species in Lake Titicaca, but also the presence in the southern part of the plateau of huge salt marshes - the consequences of the fact that not fresh, but salty sea water evaporated ...

And the finds of archaeologists here correspond exactly to this development of events.

“... fragments of human and animal skeletons lie in a chaotic disorder along with processed stones, tools, tools and countless other objects. It can be seen that all this was dragged, broken and piled up by some force "(G. Hancock," Traces of the Gods ").

“Ice Age fossils have also been found throughout South America, in which the skeletons of incompatible animal species (carnivores and herbivores) are randomly mixed with human bones. Equally important is the combination (over fairly extended areas) of fossil land and marine animals, randomly mixed, but buried in the same geological horizon ”(ibid.).

During our expedition to Peru and Bolivia, which was organized under the auspices of the III Millennium Science Development Foundation in autumn 2007, we had a chance to talk with a local archaeologist who spoke about the discovery of human and dinosaur bones nearby. Moreover, sometimes the bones of people were located even deeper than the bones of dinosaurs, which, in his opinion, meant their simultaneous existence on the territory of South America during a period of about ten thousand years ago. However, if we consider that the huge tsunami, which was able to reach the height of the Altiplano, should have literally ripped off and shoveled the top layer of the earth on its way, mixing all its contents, such an arrangement of the bones of people and dinosaurs receives a much more prosaic explanation. This is not at all the result of their simultaneous existence, but only the consequences of the impact of the tsunami.

However, during this expedition we came across other traces of this tsunami. The traces that she left, however, were already on her way back - when the water splashed onto land returned to the Pacific Ocean. It is clear that the powerful stream flowing down from the mountains was not "pure" water, but a mudflow — a mixture of water, earth and stones. We observed many meters of mudflows in the vicinity of the famous Nazca plateau with its mysterious lines and drawings on the surface.

Rice. 2. Mudflow deposits near Nazca (Peru)

However, to all appearances, the Nazca plateau itself is the result of the return of the tsunami waters to the Pacific Ocean. If you look at the footage from space on this region, you can see that even in appearance it is only a small part of a powerful frozen mudflow with pronounced "tongues" descending between the surrounding mountains. Moreover, the width of the front of the frozen mudflow, reaching many tens and even hundreds of kilometers, indicates that this was not a local local event (after all, mudflows in the mountains happen even without the Flood), but had a huge scale ...

Rice. 3. The region of the Nazca plateau (view from space)

But back to the archaeological data.

In Europe, in those layers that date back to the XI millennium BC, one can observe a picture similar to that of South America.

“... cracks in the rocks at the tops of isolated hills in Central France are filled with the remains of the bones of mammoths, hairy rhinoceroses and other animals. The top of Mont-Genet mountain in Burgundy is dotted with fragments of skeletons of mammoth, reindeer, horse and other animals "(G. Hancock," Traces of the Gods ").

However, the most impressive traces of a powerful cataclysm of the same period are found in the northern regions.

“The permafrost in which the remains of ... animals are buried in Alaska is like fine, dark gray sand. Frozen into this mass, in the words of Professor Hibben from the University of New Mexico: “... lie twisted parts of animals and trees, interspersed with layers of ice and layers of peat and moss ... Bison, horses, wolves, bears, lions ... Whole herds of animals, apparently, died together, slain by some common evil force ... Such heaps of bodies of animals and people are not formed under normal conditions ... "" (ibid.).

“In the permafrost of Alaska ... one can find ... evidence of atmospheric disturbances of incomparable power. Mammoths and bison were torn to pieces and twisted as if some cosmic hands of the gods were acting in rage. In one place ... they found the front leg and shoulder of a mammoth; on the blackened bones, the remains of soft tissues were still adhered to the spine together with tendons and ligaments, and the chitinous membrane of the tusks was not damaged. No traces of dismemberment of carcasses with a knife or other instrument were found (as would be the case if hunters were involved in dismemberment). The animals were simply torn apart and scattered over the area like wickerwork, although some of them weighed several tons. Mixed with the accumulations of bones are trees, also torn, twisted and entangled; all this is covered with fine-grained quicksand, subsequently frozen firmly ”(ibid.).

“These animals in Alaska died so suddenly that they immediately froze to death, not having time to decompose - and this is confirmed by the fact that the locals often thawed carcasses and ate meat” (A. Elford, “Gods of the New Millennium”).

The nature of the fossil remains of plant and animal origin, and especially the conditions in which they were found, clearly indicate that this is the result of the action of a powerful tsunami, which collected everything along the way and threw out its contents in an area of ​​extreme cold.

“The same story happened in Siberia - and here, too, many animals were found buried in the permafrost, most of which were typical of temperate regions. And here the corpses of animals were among the trunks of trees and other vegetation uprooted and bore signs of death from an unexpected and sudden catastrophe ... Mammoths died suddenly, and in large numbers, in severe frost. Death came so quickly that they did not have time to digest the food they had swallowed ... ”(ibid.).

“The northern regions of Alaska and Siberia, apparently, suffered the most from the deadly cataclysms 13000-11000 years ago. It was as if death had waved a scythe along the Arctic Circle - there were found the remains of a myriad of large animals, including a large number of carcasses with intact soft tissues and an incredible number of perfectly preserved mammoth tusks. Moreover, in both regions, mammoth carcasses were thawed to feed sled dogs, and mammoth steaks even appeared in restaurant menus ”(G. Hancock,“ Traces of the Gods ”).

Thus, archaeological research provides us with evidence of the cataclysm of the 11th millennium BC, no less terrifying than the picture of the Flood in ancient legends.

However, if one is guided not only by biblical descriptions, but also by the legends of other peoples, then the matter is not at all reduced to a total flood or a giant tsunami.

“Volcanic events and earthquakes are also frequently mentioned in relation to flooding, especially in the Americas. The Chilean Araucans directly say that "the flood was caused by volcanic eruptions, which were accompanied by strong earthquakes." The Mayan Mamas from Santiago Chimaltenango, in the western highlands of Guatemala, cherish the memory of a "torrent of burning tar," which they say was one of the tools to destroy the world. And in Gran Chaco (Argentina) the Matako Indians talk about “a black cloud that came from the south during a flood and covered the whole sky. Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled. But the drops that fell from the sky were not like rain, but like fire ... ”(G. Hancock,“ Traces of the Gods ”).

“Meanwhile, the wolf Fenrir, whom the gods had diligently chained long before, broke the chains and fled. He began to dust himself off, and the world trembled. Ash Yggdrasil, which served as the axis of the earth, turned upside down. The mountains began to crumble and crack from top to bottom, and the dwarfs desperately but unsuccessfully tried to find the familiar, but now disappeared entrances to their underground dwellings ... The universe turned into a huge furnace. Flames burst from cracks in the rocks, steam hissed everywhere. All living creatures, all vegetation were destroyed. Only the bare earth remained, but it, like the sky, was all covered with cracks and crevices. And then all the rivers and all the seas rose and overflowed the banks. From all sides, the waves collided with each other. They rose and boiled, hiding the sinking earth under them ... ”(Teutonic legends).

These indications of ancient legends and traditions are also confirmed by archaeological and geological data, which indicate significant increase in volcanic and tectonic activity all in the same period - XI millennium BC.

“... along the arc of death that passed through Siberia [including the New Siberian Islands], Yukon and Alaska ...“ in the depths of the permafrost, sometimes interspersed with piles of bones and tusks, layers of volcanic ash lie. There is no doubt that volcanic eruptions of terrifying power occurred simultaneously with the pestilence "" (G. Hancock, "Traces of the Gods").

“... thousands of prehistoric animals and plants drowned in one moment in the famous bitumen lakes of La Brea near Los Angeles. Among the creatures dredged to the surface are bison, horses, camels, sloths, mammoths, mastodons and no less than seven hundred saber-toothed tigers ... The remains found by La Brea ("broken, crumpled, deformed and mixed into a homogeneous mass") clearly speak terrible volcanic cataclysm "(ibid.).

“Similar finds of typical birds and mammals from the last Ice Age have been made in two other asphalt deposits in California (Carpinteria and McKittrick). In the San Pedro Valley, skeletons of mastodons were found in a standing position, buried in a layer of volcanic ash and sand. Fossils from the Floristan Glacial Lake in Colorado and the John Day Basin in Oregon have also been found in volcanic ash ”(ibid.).

Hancock's reference to the term "Ice Age" is not accidental. The fact is that just in the XI millennium BC there is the end of this very period, which is associated with a sharp change in climatic conditions on our planet.

The data accumulated by modern science about the events of this time can significantly add to the overall picture. In particular, they testify that the case was not at all limited to the "one-time" death of a part of the living.

“... the mass extinction of animals really happened as a result of the confusion of the last Ice Age ... In the New World, for example, over 70 species of large mammals became extinct between 15000 and 8000 BC .. These losses, which meant, in fact, a violent death over 40 million animals were not evenly distributed throughout the period; on the contrary, most of them fall on two thousand years between 11000 and 9000 BC. To feel the dynamics, let us note that during the previous 300 thousand years, only about 20 species have disappeared ”(G. Hancock,“ Traces of the Gods ”).

“The same picture of mass extinction was observed in Europe and Asia. Even distant Australia was no exception, having lost in a relatively short period of time, according to some estimates, nineteen species of large vertebrates, and not only mammals ”(ibid.).

With such large-scale events, scientists usually correlate the border between eras. The XI millennium BC was no exception. In terms of archeology, this is the end of the ancient Stone Age, the Paleolithic; according to geological classification, it is the boundary between the Pleistocene, the lower section of the Quaternary, and the Holocene, its upper section. Although another name for this moment in time is more widespread - the end of the "Ice Age" ...

Today, few people already know that, in general, the appearance of such a term as "Ice Age" is most closely connected directly with the Flood. However, this is the case ...

In the early 19th century, geology was actually dominated by the notion that events in the past developed exactly as described in the Old Testament. Including it was believed that the Flood was in reality and took place in full accordance with the biblical text.

But there were also those who doubted this approach and expressed quite fair claims against it. A number of features of the relief in some regions and the nature of the occurrence of geological layers absolutely did not correspond to the biblical version of the Flood. These features simply physically could not form in the conditions of complete flooding of the land with water.

The researchers noticed that quite a few geological features are strikingly reminiscent of the effects of glaciers in mountainous areas. The tongues of glaciers, increasing in winter and decreasing in the summer season, left behind quite characteristic traces, to which scientists drew attention. But there was one serious problem - such traces were present in very vast territories where in the foreseeable past there was a warm climate, and there were no conditions for the formation of glaciers. Therefore, a version arose that earlier climatic conditions on the planet were completely different - much colder, and the glacial shell covered vast territories in Europe and North America. This is how the theory of the "Ice Age" appeared, which soon gained recognition, removing the bulk of the contradictions in the explanation of the existing geological facts. And now it occupies a dominant position.

Having arisen as an alternative to the version of the Flood, the theory of the "Ice Age" is now used to try to explain the facts that just indicate the reality of this very Flood. Facts indicating both the "one-time" mass death of animals in the XI millennium BC, and the complete extinction of a large number of species after that.

Although a variety of reasons are put forward as the reasons for the sharp warming, in general, the majority of scientists believe that it is the global climate changes, which led to the rapid melting of glaciers in vast territories and the rise in the level of the World Ocean, that became the main factor that led to the catastrophic consequences. the peak of which fell on the XI millennium BC.

However, the nature of the fossil remains and geological deposits clearly does not correspond to the smooth change in the level of the World Ocean, which should have occurred during the gradual melting of ice at the end of the "Ice Age". The observed facts are much more like the result of the impact of a powerful water flow, very short-lived and comparable precisely with a cataclysm, and not with a gradual change in weather conditions.

It is curious that this discrepancy was noticed already when the theory of the "Ice Age" was just making its first steps - at the beginning of the 19th century. Archaeological finds in Siberia and Alaska were already known by this time, and they clearly indicate a catastrophic course of events. Moreover, they provide evidence that the climate in these regions was not colder at all (as it should be, based on the theory of the "Ice Age"), but on the contrary - much warmer than it is now. And this discrepancy was also noticed at the beginning of the 19th century - during the confrontation between the two concepts.

“In the northern countries, these events left the carcasses of huge four-legged animals frozen into the ice, which have survived to this day along with their skin, wool and meat. If they had not been frozen immediately at the moment of death, the decay would have destroyed their bodies. But on the other hand, such a constant cold could not have been characteristic of those places where we find animals frozen in the ice: they could not live at such a temperature. The animals died, therefore, at the very moment when the glaciation struck their areas of habitation "(Cuvier G. (1825). Discours (3 rd edn.), Vol. 1, pp.8-9).

However, the center of geological thought was then in Europe. Siberia and Alaska were far from this center, and it was extremely difficult to get there. It was much easier to conduct research close by - in a warm and well-equipped Europe. Therefore, the data on finds in Siberia and Alaska were actually lost in the volume of material that was collected on the European continent. And the theory of the "Ice Age" outweighed the version of the fleeting catastrophe, the version of the Flood.

Meanwhile, the finds in Siberia and Alaska not only do not fit into the theory of the "Ice Age", they put a cross on it! .. Indeed, in order for mammoths, deer and other animals of the temperate climatic zone to inhabit these regions, the temperature the planet should have been not lower (as the theory of the "Ice Age" suggests), but on the contrary - higher than the modern one! .. And vice versa, if the temperature on Earth was so low that powerful glaciers covered Europe (as the theory of the "Ice Age" ), then in Siberia and Alaska, located to the north, it should have been even colder. And the glaciers should have been such that there could be no question of any animals at all! ..

Evidence was found that at the end of the so-called "Ice Age" it became noticeably colder not only in Siberia and Alaska, but also in the southern part of South America, which should not have happened either. After all, if the general temperature background of the planet increased, then in South America one should expect warming, and not cooling at all.

Recently, data have also been obtained that not everything is so simple with glaciers in Antarctica. Usually it is indicated that their age is at least hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years. But the problem is that this conclusion is made on the basis of the analysis of individual samples in limited regions (where the ice shell is thicker), but for some reason it spreads to the entire continent at once. Meanwhile, studies in some coastal areas indicate that not all glaciers in Antarctica are of such venerable age. And the climate in some parts of this continent was previously so warm that rivers even flowed here! ..

“In 1949, during one of Sir Byrd's Antarctic expeditions, sediment samples were taken from the bottom of the Ross Sea by drilling. Dr. Jack Hoof of the University of Illinois took three core samples to study the evolution of the climate in Antarctica. They were taken to the Carnegie Institute of Washington, DC, where a new dating method was used, developed by nuclear physicist Dr. W. D. Uri ...

The nature of bottom sediments varies greatly depending on the climatic conditions that existed at the time of their formation. If they were carried out by rivers and deposited in the sea, then they turn out to be well sorted, and the better, the further they fall from the river mouth. If they are ripped off the earth's surface by a glacier and carried out into the sea by an iceberg, then their character corresponds to the coarse-detrital material. If the river has a seasonal cycle, flowing only in summer, most likely from melting glaciers in the inland regions, and freezing every winter, then precipitation will form in layers, like annual rings on trees.

All of these types of sediment have been found in bottom cores from the Ross Sea. Most striking was the presence of a series of layers formed from well-sorted sediments carried into the sea by rivers from the ice-free land. As you can see from the cores, over the past million years, Antarctica has had at least three epochs of temperate climates, when the coast of the Ross Sea should have been ice-free ...

The timing of the end of the last warm period in the Ross Sea, as determined by Dr. Uri, was of great importance to us. All three cores indicated that the warming ended about 6,000 years ago, or in the fourth millennium BC. This was when glacial sediments began to accumulate at the bottom of the Ross Sea during the Ice Age near us. Kern argues that this was preceded by a more prolonged warming "(C. Hapgood," Maps of Ancient Sea Kings ").

Are there too many "annoying misunderstandings"? ..

It is actually possible to get out of this tangle of climatic contradictions in a very simple way, if we draw a rather banal logical chain: the closer to the pole, the colder the climate, the greater, respectively, the likelihood of glaciers formation. Expanding this logical chain and starting from the facts, we get the following conclusion.

Glaciers in Europe and Canada were formed because earlier in the 11th millennium BC, these regions were closer to the north geographic pole than they are now. The climate in Siberia and Alaska was warmer, because at the same time these regions were located farther from the geographic north pole than they are today. Likewise, South America, with the nearby regions of Antarctica, was further from the geographic south pole than is the case today. In other words, earlier the geographic poles of our planet occupied a different position.

There was actually no "Ice Age"! .. At least in the sense of it, as we understand it now - as lower temperatures throughout the planet as a whole. The "Ice Age" was in Europe and Canada (after all, there were ice there), but it had not a planetary, but only local character! .. And it ended not because of the general increase in temperature on the planet, but because, as a result of the change in the position of the geographic poles, Europe and Canada ended up in warmer latitudes.

The "ice age" in geology (as a kind of planetary characteristic) can be sent after the "caloric" in physics - to the archive of erroneous theories ...

The transition from the biblical version of the Flood to the theory of the "Ice Age" was in fact just an absolutely unjustified throw from one extreme to another - from the literal perception of the texts of the Old Testament to the complete denial of the Flood as such. Truly: the child was thrown out along with the water ...

Now we can return to the version of the reality of the Flood, but at a completely different level and in a different capacity - meaning by it a whole series of catastrophic events, one way or another associated with a change in the position of the geographic poles of the planet.

There is nothing strange or surprising in the very change in the position of the geographic poles. Scientists have long been using such a term as "pole drift", describing the gradual displacement of the north and south poles of our planet. The only problem is that the drift is very slow, and climate change in the 11th millennium was clearly abrupt - and even catastrophic - which indicates a much faster change in the position of the poles.

But was there such a sharp change? .. Are there any other indications of it besides climatic data? .. It turns out that such indications are in ancient legends and traditions! .. True, they do not directly relate to the change in the position of the geographic poles of the planet , and to its consequence - a change in the visible position of celestial bodies. After all, people could not see the displacement of the poles, but they could notice the change in the position of bodies in the firmament, which they captured in their legends.

“The inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego ... said that the Sun and Moon“ fell from the sky ”, and the Chinese said that“ the planets changed their path. The sun, moon and stars began to move in a new way "... The Tarahumara in northern Mexico preserved legends about the destruction of the world as a result of the change in the path of the Sun ..." (G. Hancock, "Traces of the Gods").

In China, there is “... a number of legends that spoke of the consequences of how“ people rebelled against the gods and the system of the universe was in disarray ”:“ The planets have changed their way. The sky moved north. The sun, moon and stars began to move in a new way. The earth fell apart, water gushed from its depths and flooded the earth ... And the earth itself began to lose its appearance. The stars began to float away from the sky and disappear into the gaping void ... ”(ibid.).

According to the Greek legend about Phaethon: “The fiery horses quickly felt that an inexperienced hand was holding the reins. Now backing, now rushing to the side, they left the usual path; then the whole earth saw with amazement how the magnificent Sun, instead of following its eternal and majestic path, suddenly rolled over and headlong flew down like a meteor ... ".

It is curious that the Greeks themselves pointed out precisely the change in the position of the earth's axis, that is, the position of the geographic poles, as the cause of this cataclysm! ..

A similar conclusion is held not only by the myths of some other peoples, but also by a number of modern researchers who believe that as a result of some influence (most often the effect of a certain cosmic body is considered), the axis of rotation of our planet has changed its position in space. However, this hypothesis does not withstand even the simplest analysis from the point of view of physics.

The fact is that the rotating Earth is a gyroscope with a very impressive proper angular momentum (with a radius of 6400 kilometers and a mass of 6 10 21 tons, the Earth makes a revolution in just a day!), That is, it is a very inertial object - in simple terms , is an object that very strongly "resists" attempts to change the parameters of its movement.

In addition, to obtain the desired effect, a very specific type of action is needed - not a simple physical force, but a rotational-overturning moment - from which it follows, in particular, that such a sudden change in the inclination of the Earth's axis cannot be caused, say, by gravitational interaction with any A "passing by" cosmic body.

The necessary rotational-overturning moment can arise, for example, during a tangential (or close to tangential) impact of a meteorite. But with rather simple calculations from the mechanics of gyroscopes (which I will not give here), one can easily conclude that for such a rotation of the earth's axis, which would provide the climatic changes that have occurred, a meteorite with a diameter of about 1000 kilometers would be required.

There are, of course, similar meteorites in our solar system. For example, Ceres - the so-called "small heavenly body" - has this size. However, the consequences of a collision with this "small celestial body" will not only be catastrophic for our planet, they will be "final" - the Earth will simply fly to pieces. And if it survives by accident, then all living things will certainly perish on it ...

It is clear that such a scenario does not suit us for explaining the events of the 11th millennium BC. After all, the planet not only remained intact itself, it managed to maintain conditions suitable for the survival of those who remained intact in this catastrophe. So something else is needed instead of changing the position of the Earth's axis of rotation in space ...

The option that makes it possible to bypass the problems with the large inertia of our planet was proposed back in the first half of the twentieth century by Schultz, who put forward the theory crustal slippage.

In order to understand the essence of this theory, you need to remember the structure of the Earth. The hard earth's crust (or lithosphere), like a shell in an egg, rests on thick layers of the mantle, consisting of liquid molten rocks. In this case, the thickness of the crust, in order of magnitude, ranges from 5 km in the oceans to 50 km in the region of continental plates, which is incomparably less than the radius of the Earth, which is approximately equal to 6400 km.

Rice. 4. The structure of the Earth

It is clear, even purely speculative, that this makes it possible for the earth's crust, under certain conditions, to slide along the liquid layer of magma that makes up the Earth's mantle, without any noticeable change in the rotation of the entire gyroscope called "planet Earth". How "easy" this can happen, you can imagine if you remember how easily and quickly hot lava (the same magma) can move along the earth's surface during volcanic eruptions.

Such slipping of the crust can provide both a change in the position of the earth's poles, which causes global and heterogeneous climate changes (that is, in different regions the climate changes in different ways), and a change in the position of specific points on the surface of the planet relative to the firmament. Accordingly, the apparent motion of celestial bodies also changes during "slippage", although the position of the Earth's axis of rotation in space does not change.

Schultz just suggested that the mechanism of events in the 11th millennium BC is associated with the displacement of the lithosphere (that is, the earth's crust) as a whole.

According to Schultz, this effect may be due to fluctuations (fluctuations relative to a certain average value) of the Earth's attraction by the Sun and the precession of the Earth's orbit, which, together with the centrifugal forces acting on the planet's ice caps, eventually generate an overturning moment.

“When the shape of the Earth's orbit deviates from the ideal circle by more than one percent, the gravitational influence of the Sun on the Earth increases, more strongly attracting the entire planet as a whole, and its massive ice caps. Their enormous weight, in turn, presses on the crust, and this pressure, combined with the increased tilt of the earth's axis, makes the crust move ... ”(C. Hapgood).

However, for all the seeming simplicity and attractiveness of this theory, it has a number of serious problems.

First, according to the well-known laws of celestial mechanics, the shape of the Earth's orbit does not change, although it is far from an ideal circle in advance, representing an ellipse, in one of the foci of which is the Sun. So either the "somersault" of the crust would have to occur every year (which we do not actually observe), or the change in attraction from the Sun (due to the change in the distance to the Earth) is clearly not enough for this.

Secondly, the simplest estimates show that even with the growth of ice caps at the poles to a thickness of several kilometers, their contribution to the mass distribution remains negligible - within the usual fluctuations of the impact from the Sun and the Moon.

And thirdly, there is a clear asymmetry in the location of the continents on our planet - there are obviously more of them in the northern hemisphere than in the southern. Meanwhile, the mass of continents is several orders of magnitude greater than the mass of ice caps. And if centrifugal forces played any significant role in the relative position of the earth's crust, they would have long ago shifted the continents so that their mass was distributed approximately symmetrically relative to the equator, which, again, we do not observe.

So this version also does not pass in physics ...

However, it does not pass in its original version, in which the slip of the crust occurs precisely under the influence of centrifugal forces. But in the corrected version - when the reasons for the slippage of the cortex change - it turns out to be much more attractive.

Moreover, the ancient legends and traditions also indicate precisely the fact that the reasons were completely different ...

According to the myths preserved on the territory of modern Iran, as a result of the attack of the evil spirit Anghro Mainyu, the "pleasure garden" turned into a lifeless desert, "where ten months are winter and only two are summer."

“Ahura Mazda turned to Yima and said to him:“ Oh fair Yima ... A fatal winter is about to fall on the material world, bringing with it a violent destructive frost. A disastrous winter, when a huge amount of snow falls ”” (“Avesta”).

In another Zoroastrian sacred book, Bundahish, one can read: “When Anghro Mainyu sent a violent destructive frost, he also attacked the sky and made it into disarray. The Bundahish says that this attack allowed the wicked to take possession of "one third of the sky and cover it with darkness," while the creeping ice squeezed everything around.

“... in South America, the Toba Indians from the Gran Chaco region, located at the junction of the modern borders of Paraguay, Argentina and Chile, still repeat the myth of the coming of the“ Great Cold ”. In this case, a warning comes from a semi-divine figure named Asin: “Asin ordered the man to collect as much firewood as possible and cover the hut with a thick layer of reeds, because the Great Cold is coming ... Ice and slush lasted a very long time ...” (G. Hancock, "Footprints of the Gods").

"In the Mayan book Popol-Vuh, flooding is associated with" heavy hail, black rain, fog and indescribable cold. " It also says that at this time it was "cloudy and gloomy all over the world ... the faces of the Sun and the Moon were hidden." Other Mayan sources say that these strange and terrible phenomena have befallen humanity “at the time of our ancestors. The earth darkened ... At first the sun shone brightly. Then in broad daylight it became dark ... ”(ibid.).

Even in Europe, where the "Ice Age" ended in general, there is a description of a temporary cold snap.

“In a distant forest to the east, an elderly giantess gave birth to a brood of wolf cubs, whose father was Fenrir. One of these monsters chased the Sun to take possession of it. The chase was in vain for a long time, but with each season the wolf gained strength and, finally, managed to catch up with the Sun. Its bright rays were extinguished one by one. It became a blood-red hue, and then completely disappeared ... Following this, a terrible winter came in the world. Snowstorms flew from all sides ”(Teutonic legends).

Thus, although it is a flood or flood that is most often mentioned in legends and traditions, in a number of regions of the planet there are references to a sudden cold snap, which is caused by the fact that the Sun is hiding behind a dense veil of clouds. However, after a while the Sun appears again and the cold recedes.

All these details of the cataclysm, captured by ancient myths, very much resemble the so-called " shock winter", Which (as long ago calculated by scientists) may arise when a large meteorite falls to Earth... The explosion of the meteorite raises a mass of dust into the air, which for some time forms a dense curtain, blocking the access of heat from the Sun to the planet's surface, as a result of which the temperature drops noticeably.

And by the way, more accurate climatic data for the same Europe show that before general warming began here, there was a period of sharp cooling, which exactly corresponds to the scenario of “shock winter” that occurs when a large meteorite falls. Climatic data once again coincide with the "testimony" of ancient legends and traditions, which, by the way, often directly link the causes of the cataclysm with celestial bodies.

“A number of Australian Aboriginal tribes ... have a belief that they owe their origin to a great flood that washed away the pre-existing landscape along with its inhabitants. According to the myths about the origin of a number of other tribes, the responsibility for the flood lies with the cosmic serpent Yurlungur, whose symbol is a rainbow "(G. Hancock," Traces of the Gods ").

Among the ancient American Indians, the events of the Flood were often associated with the symbolism of lightning. But just as the aborigines of Australia and Oceania could mistake the atmospheric trail of a falling meteorite for a "rainbow", so the American Indians could well use the image of "lightning" for this.

At the same time, for example, the Aztecs considered the stars to be the direct culprits of the cataclysm. Moreover, a very specific group of stars is the Pleiades cluster, which is part of the constellation Taurus. But the constellation Taurus is adjacent to the constellation Gemini, which is mentioned in connection with a cataclysm in another region of the planet - in South America.

"... that region of the sky that was associated with the Western Gemini in their intersection with the Milky Way is associated in Andean mythology with the place of origin of heavenly fire" (W. Sullivan, "Secrets of the Incas").

In fact, it turns out that in ancient legends and traditions we are talking about the same area of ​​the starry sky (Pleiades-Taurus-Gemini), which is responsible for catastrophic events. And it is quite possible that it is not at all accidental. After all, the constellation Taurus is now known for the fact that one of the largest meteorite streams falls on the Earth annually from its region ...

And apparently, ancient mythology indicates the fall of a large meteorite to the Earth as the immediate cause of the cataclysm.

Since meteorites very rarely fall on the Earth strictly vertically, then when they hit the surface of the earth, both the vertical and tangential components of the force impact take place. It is clear that with a sufficient impact force, this tangential component can cause displacement of the earth's crust along the mantle layer, that is, cause "slippage".

Rice. 5. Components of the force impact when a meteorite falls

Obviously, since the mass of the earth's crust is much less than the mass of the entire Earth (compare at least the thickness of the crust with the radius of the Earth and take into account the increase in density with depth), insofar as the effort required to displace only the earth's crust is much weaker than that which would be required to influence the angle the tilt of the axis of the entire planet.

Estimated calculations (which we will not present here, so as not to overload the reader, albeit rather simple, but differential equations) show that with a "successful" coincidence of circumstances for slipping the earth's crust to such a distance that would correspond to the recorded climatic changes, it would be enough a meteorite flying towards the Earth just a few tens of kilometers in diameter. As you know, there are quite a lot of such "debris" in our solar system ...

This size of the meteorite no longer leads to the complete destruction of the planet. But its collision with the Earth, causing, moreover, a noticeable displacement of the earth's crust, is quite capable of determining all the effects that have already been mentioned. In particular, the "explosive" nature of the processes, confirmed by both myths and real geological and archaeological data - rapid climate change, sudden onset of "shock winter", intensification of tectonic processes and a powerful tsunami (Flood).

The scale of what happened can be represented by an approximate map drawn up both according to geological and archaeological data, and according to the "testimony" of ancient legends and traditions (see Fig. 6).

Rice. 6. Fixed traces of the Flood

However, it turns out that it is possible not only to assess the fundamental possibility of the Flood due to the fall of a meteorite, but also to more accurately determine the place of this fall by the consequences that were caused by it. Moreover, the very picture of these consequences can be significantly detailed.

But here mythology is unlikely to be seriously able to help us, since it gives a very general picture of the catastrophic events that have taken place without reference to any exact position of their epicenter. Only the most general hints can be found in ancient texts.

Natural sciences provide much more material. And above all, climatic data, which determine that before the Flood in the region of northeastern Canada (Labrador Peninsula) and in Europe, glaciers dominated, and Siberia, Alaska and the Arctic Ocean were in the temperate zone.

If we proceed from the fact that where the pole is, it is colder there (that is, it is there that the formation of glaciers is most likely), then the climatic conditions quite unambiguously indicate that the "antediluvian" North Pole was approximately somewhere between the 20th and 60th meridian of the western longitude and between 45 and 75 north parallel.

For the pole point, the latitudinal component of the force impact upon the impact of a meteorite, which rotates the Earth's crust around the same axis of the planet's own rotation, does not matter, and the pole shift occurs under the influence of only the meridional component. Therefore, the fall of the meteorite must have occurred somewhere on the circle passing through the old and modern poles. That is, to have coordinates either in the range of 20 o - 60 o west longitude, or 120 o - 160 o east longitude.

Even a cursory glance at the map of the Western Hemisphere shows the complete absence in the mentioned area of ​​at least some traces of the fall of such a large meteorite, which inevitably had to leave behind a solid crater. But the eastern hemisphere turns out to be more attractive. And here the tectonic map gives the greatest information ...

It is clear that a meteorite of this size, shifting the earth's crust as a whole, could well cause faults and cracks in it. Especially when you consider that in the place of the approximate fall of such a "pebble", the thickness of the earth's crust is comparable to the size of the meteorite itself.

Rice. 7. Tectonic map of the Philippine Sea region.

The nature of the tectonic plates and faults indicates that the site of the meteorite that caused the Flood may well have been in the Philippine Sea region. It is there that there is a kind of small "fragment" of the crust - the Philippine plate, which is much smaller than any other on our planet. There are no other ones, with the exception of only the Scottish plate, the size of which is comparable to the Philippine.

However, the origin of the Cattle Slab may well be explained by other reasons. In particular, the fact that the load on the earth's crust during its sliding should inevitably cause strong internal stresses in it, which, according to the theory of elasticity, significantly increase near sharp edges or corners. The result of this we can observe in the form of the Scottish Plate, as if sandwiched between the sharp tip of the South American continental plate and the sharp protrusion of the Antarctic (again, continental) plate ...

But back to the Philippine Sea, which (together with the nearby islands) itself strongly resembles a crater.

Rice. 8. Physical map of the Philippine Sea.

This place is characterized not only by the fact that a number of tectonic faults converge to it. This is the region where the maximum number of earthquake foci is located, and it is here that there are most of all deep foci. This is also well associated with the tectonic consequences of the meteorite impact.

Another result of the fall of the meteorite may also be the fact that the region of the Philippine Sea, according to geology, is characterized by the fact that here sedimentary layers of different ages are, as it were, in a mixed state.

Another aspect of the impact of a meteorite on the earth's crust can be the occurrence of a rotational moment acting on the "fragments" of the crust at the site of the meteorite's fall. The point is that a meteorite, splitting the earth's crust, does not necessarily pierce it right through. The impact generates a network of cracks in the weakest places of the crust, and the meteorite, acting on some place of a separate "piece" (the Philippine plate), makes it rotate around its own center of mass. As a result, this "piece" deviates from the horizon and takes a slightly inclined position.

Since the displacement of the earth's crust occurred in such a way that the point of the old North Pole shifted towards the Atlantic Ocean, the meridional component of the trajectory of the meteorite that fell in the Philippine Sea region should have been directed from south to north. In addition, since the Earth rotates from west to east, the force effect of the falling meteorite with a high degree of probability could have a latitudinal component directed from east to west. Thus, the tangential component of the meteorite impact had (roughly) a direction from southeast to northwest. And the slope of the "piece" should have the same direction.

As it is easy to see by looking at geographical maps, the general topography of the bottom of the Philippine Sea is remarkably consistent with the given considerations: the Philippine plate has a slope in the direction from southeast to northwest, which should be the case for a given trajectory of a falling meteorite.

Rice. 9. The bottom profile of the Philippine Sea

It should be noted that this region is also characterized by the fact that it is framed by the deepest depressions on Earth, which completely coincide in location with tectonic faults (read - cracks) in the earth's crust. It is here that the famous Mariana Trench (11022 meters deep) is located ...

There is also quite specific geological confirmation of not only the given place of the meteorite fall, but also the very fact of this fall. The fact is that the area around the Philippine Sea is literally strewn with tektites - small pieces of glass that have the characteristic shape of droplets frozen in flight.

According to the most common hypothesis, tektites are formed just when a meteorite falls - at the moment of falling, a colossal amount of energy is released, which melts small particles that fly in different directions from the place of fall, and in the process of this expansion, the drops just cool down again to a solid state. Tektites are usually named after the place of their discovery (Australites - in Australia, Indoshites - in Southeast Asia, Filipinites - in the Philippine Islands, and so on).

And here's the curious thing. Typically, tektites vary quite a lot in composition. However, the tektites found around the Philippine Sea, from Vietnam in the north to Australia in the south, are extremely similar not only in composition, but also in shape. This clearly indicates their common origin, that is, the formation in the course of a single process - when a meteorite falls into the Philippine Sea! ..

However, there is also "testimony of witnesses", which also point to this particular area. The Philippine Sea is located southeast of China, and the ancient Chinese treatise "Huainan Tzu" narrates:

“The firmament broke, the earthly weights broke off. The sky tilted northwest, the sun, moon and stars moved. The land in the southeast turned out to be incomplete, and therefore water and silt rushed there ... "

In its original version, the theory of crustal slippage considers the lithosphere as something monolithic and indissoluble, shifting simultaneously and consistently at different points. This, as they say in scientific parlance, is a first-order model.

In a real process, the result of the impact of a meteorite on the earth's crust will not be the emergence of a force at every point of the earth's surface, but the appearance of a shock wave - a compression wave generated by the tangential component of the force action of the meteorite at the point of impact and propagating in the earth's crust at the speed of sound. The result of the impact of such a shock wave has a number of predictable consequences that can be compared with the archaeological and geological traces of the disaster that have come down to our time.

First. The most obvious consequence of the shock wave, which in a matter of moments accelerates the crust from zero to tens of kilometers per hour (according to preliminary estimates, to a value in the range from 30 to 100 km / h), is the collapse of mountains and caves, massive avalanches, etc. along the wave front. Such a general increase in tectonic activity in the XI millennium BC is noted throughout the planet. But it is not possible to separate these consequences from ordinary earthquakes.

Second. As a result of the impact of shock

global flood- This is a monstrous disaster, the consequence of which was the flooding of the entire planet with water, including the mountains. The water came not only due to the incessant 40 days of rain, but first of all, due to the covering of giant underground sources.

Flood as a premonition

The creation of the world in God's plan presupposed universal harmony. The world created by God was perfect. All nature was in balance, and people were immortal and did not know any need. However, due to the fall of man, everything changed: both people and their world around them. Along with sin, evil entered the life of mankind. The terrible result of sin was Cain's murder of his brother Abel, to the horror of their parents - Adam and Eve. Subsequent generations of people were divided: onehonored their Creator and tried to do good, while others disregarded His commandments and did evil. The clan of pious people descended from the third son of Adam and Eve - Seth, while the wicked generation originated from Cain. Cain's civilization succeeded in material activities (they built cities, achieved success in mastering crafts), but the spiritual was completely alien to it. In those days, the life expectancy of people could exceed 900 years, since the natural conditions still reflected the splendor of the originally created world. But humanity has directed all its intellectual and physical capabilities to evil. Sin multiplied more and more, and even the descendants of the faithful Seth gradually became like the rest. A little over 1500 years have passed since the creation of Adam and Eve, and only one family remained faithful to God - righteous Noah. Humanity was confidently approaching a terrible catastrophe - the Flood.

Seeing the extreme depravity of this society, the Lord nevertheless gives it the opportunity to correct and in fact warns humanity when, in front of everyone's eyes, a ... He utters the words of the last warning: “... it is not forever for my Spirit to be neglected by men; because they are flesh; let their days be one hundred and twenty years ”(Genesis 6: 3). It was the time given to prepare Noah and his family for the Flood, as well as to call the rest of humanity to repentance. The Bible does not give details of the atrocities that resulted in the Flood, but it is obvious that this was an incorrigible evil: “... And the Lord saw that the corruption of people on earth was great, and that all the thoughts and thoughts of their hearts were evil at all times” (Gen. .6: 5). In this course of events, some special role was played by the mysterious giants who came from the marriage unions of the “daughters of men” and “sons of God” (Genesis 6: 1-4). There is no consensus among Bible scholars on this issue, but some of them consider the evil giants to be the root cause of the Flood. Noah and his family were the only people who did not succumb to the general madness. For faithfulness to the truth, the Lord reveals the future to Noah: the inevitable Flood, however, the way to salvation from it for Noah with his family, and through Noah and the entire future world. God gives the righteous a blueprint for a gigantic three-tiered ark capable of taking on board Noah with his wife, as well as his sons (Shem, Ham, Japheth) with their wives, as well as numerous living creatures in pairs: “And now, I will bring a flood of water to the earth, to destroy all flesh, in which there is the spirit of life, under heaven; everything on earth will lose its life. But with you I will establish My covenant, and you will enter the ark, you, and your sons, and your wife, and your sons' wives with you. Bring also into the ark of all animals, and of all flesh, in pairs, so that they may remain alive with you; male and female, let them be ”(Genesis 6: 17-19).

Bible - Flood

At that time it did not rain, and the Earth was irrigated with steam, so it was very difficult to believe in rain, or, even more so, in the Flood. Noah believed unconditionally and built the ark, doing everything that was told to him by God. Such a large-scale construction, like the ark, could not go unnoticed by others, however, judging by the results, no one believed Noah - people continued to live as before. But the appointed time came, and Noah and his family went on board the ark, and with it, according to the word of the Lord, animals, birds and reptiles. Seven days after that, the Flood came, in the possibility of which mankind did not believe. The Bible says that all the “fountains of the deep” were opened, and the “windows of heaven” were opened. What apparent reason caused such a catastrophe is unknown: an asteroid, comet or something else, but this led to the appearance of cracks in the earth's crust (traces of which still exist throughout the Earth), and the eruption of lava and a gigantic amount of water onto the surface. At the same time, a shower of incomprehensible power came down from the sky. As the Biblical text says further, the rain lasted forty days, and arrived from the bowels of the Earth for a total of one hundred and fifty days. The water of the Flood rose to such an extent that all the tops of the mountains were covered (which in those days might not have been as high as they are now). All living things, moving on land and through the air, perished.

At the end of one hundred and fifty days global flood stopped, and the water began to decrease, and in the seventh month the ark stopped on the Ararat mountains. On the very first day, the tops of the mountains appeared. Noah opened the window of the ark and released a raven, which flew and flew until land areas appeared. After that, Noah released a dove, which he released three times, and only fourteen days later the dove did not return, which indicated the drying up of the earth. When it became possible to get out of the ark, God told Noah to bring everyone in the ark to the earth - they had to revive the world anew. Having lived through the terrible days of the Flood, Noah, as a token of deep gratitude to God for the miraculous salvation, made a sacrifice: “And Noah built an altar to the Lord; and took from every clean cattle and from every clean bird ... ”(Gen. 8:20). The Lord saw the grateful heart of Noah and made a decision: never to repeat the Flood again, since the evil of the human heart lies in his youth and inexperience. Sowing and reaping, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will no longer stop until the end of the age.

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"Everything that is on earth will lose its life." When Noah was already 600 years old, and three sons - Shem, Ham and Japheth - grew up in his family, a terrible calamity happened on earth.

By that time, there were already a lot of people, and they behaved badly: they deceived, robbed, killed each other. Only Noah and his family lived honestly and did nothing before God. And God looked and looked at the bad deeds of people and repented of having created them. He decided to destroy the entire human race, sparing only Noah and his family. The rest of the living creatures on land should have perished as well.

But God said to Noah: “Make yourself an ark [something like a ship, but without masts] gopher wood [probably cedar or cypress]; make compartments in the ark, and pitch it inside and out with pitch. And make it like this: the length of the ark is three hundred cubits [elbow - about 50 centimeters] and it was fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. And make a hole in the ark, and bring it at the top of the elbow, and make the door in the ark on its side; arrange in it the lower, second and third dwellings. And so, I will bring a flood of water on the earth, in order to destroy all flesh in which there is the spirit of life. [that is, every living thing]... Everything on earth will lose its life. But with you I will make a covenant [make an alliance], and you will enter into the ark, you, and your sons, and your wife, and your sons' wives with you. Bring them into the ark, of all animals and of all flesh, in pairs, so that they remain alive with you: let them be male and female.

Of birds after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of all that creep on the earth after their kind, of all of them, a couple of them will come in to you to stay alive.

But you take for yourself all the food that they eat, and gather it to you; and it will be food for you and for them. "

"Of the inhabitants of the earth, only those who were in the ark survived." Noah built the ark, and seven days before the flood began, God ordered him to begin loading. When the ark was filled with food and living things, Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives entered there, and God closed the door tightly behind them.

Then immediately “the windows of heaven were opened” and from them streams of water poured onto the earth. The rain continued for forty days and nights. The ark surfaced, and the water rose higher and higher, until it covered the peaks of the highest mountains by fifteen cubits. Of the inhabitants of the earth, only those who were in the ark survived.

The water continued to arrive for one hundred and fifty days (except for “windows in the sky,” God opened all water sources on earth) and only then began to subside. Five months after the start of the flood, the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat. Another forty days passed, and Noah decided to open the window and release the raven. But he did not even fly far away, but began to circle around the ark, at times sitting on it: only the endless expanse of water was visible around. Then Noah released the dove, but the dove also returned to the window.

Another seven days passed. Noah released the dove again. He returned only in the evening, holding a fresh olive leaf in his beak. So Noah learned that the water came off the ground. But out of caution, he waited another seven days, released the pigeon again, which this time did not return. Then Noah set free all the inhabitants of the ark, and he himself built an altar of stones on the top of the mountain and offered a sacrifice to God. God smelled the pleasant smell of the burnt sacrifice and told himself that he would no longer send a flood to earth to destroy humanity. As a sign that He was building a covenant (making an alliance) with Noah and his descendants, God put a rainbow between the cloud and the earth and told Noah that now the rainbow would remind each time of the end of the rain and that after the flood an alliance was concluded between God and all living things.

Noah and his sons began to rule over the deserted land. They learned how to grow grapes and make wine. One summer heat, Noah drank wine and fell asleep without clothes in his tent. Ham, his youngest son, saw it. Such a sight seemed very funny to him, and he told the brothers about it. But Shem and Japheth took a garment, turned away, entered the tent and threw it over the sleeping father. When Noah woke up and learned about what had happened, he cursed Ham and his son Canaan and predicted that their descendants would be slaves to the descendants of Shem.

Noah's offspring. Noah lived after the flood for another 350 years and died when he was 950 years old. His descendants gradually settled all over the land. Japheth became the ancestor of the northern peoples, from Ham came the peoples of Africa, and from Shem - the Semites who lived in Asia. One of the Semitic peoples were Jews, and further the Bible tells mainly about them.

The great flood in the myths of different peoples.

The Flood - a terrible catastrophe described in many religions and mythologies - a large-scale flood that was the punishment of God or gods for human sins.
Ethnological scientists have discovered more than two hundred flood legends among the peoples of Europe, Asia, America and Australia, the plots of which are strikingly similar in details and differ little from the biblical version.
Archpriest Rostislav Snigirev identifies three key points in his book "Biblical Archeology".
First, the flood is heralded by various deities who command their chosen ones to build a large ship.
Secondly, among the survivors there are two people - a man and a woman, sometimes accompanied by children.
Third, those who survived land on the top of the mountain. 4
The famous ethnographer and religious scholar James Fraser in his works (for example, "Folklore in the Old Testament", 1923) directly indicates that the biblical story of the flood is not unique, it is contained in the ancient myths of many peoples. Based on this, he concludes: the Christian point of view is that the content of such information in myths is the clearest proof of the truth of Scripture, since the legends about the flood of various peoples overlap with each other.
Reconstructions of the absolute age of the flood also give roughly similar data sets from 8,000 to 10,000 years ago.
It is known from paleogeographic data that the last ice sheet (Laurentide ice sheet in North America) in the Northern Hemisphere disappeared from 8 to 10 thousand years ago.

From this arose the Ryan-Pitman hypothesis (William Ryan, Walter Pitman, University of Columbia) that the flood story is a kind of reflection of the global process of rising sea levels.
It has been established (based on the analysis of flooded coastlines and the distribution of sedimentary layers) that in At that time, the sea level rose by tens of meters from -50 to 0 meters (in the modern system of absolute coordinates), one of the consequences of which was the formation of the Bosphorus Strait and an increase in the Black Sea area by almost 1.5 times.
So the effect of such flooding of significant coastal areas certainly played a role in the emergence and global spread of the flood story.
The other side of the issue was the change in the basis of river erosion and the corresponding sharp restructuring of all river valleys on Earth (naturally for the rivers of the World Ocean basin).
This restructuring consisted in the widespread flooding of river floodplains and river terraces adjacent to the valley.
In theory, the entire space from the river's edge to the melting of the ice sheets and up the slopes of the river valley to a height of 50 meters should have been flooded by the river and carried by its sediments. Naturally, such areas adjacent to rivers were a place of increased concentration of people, and observing such processes, a person could draw certain conclusions (create a story about the flood).
Receiving information about the "flood" on the coasts of the seas and data on the "flood" along all the rivers of the Earth, any reasonable person (and even more so a group) will create a myth about the universality of the observed phenomenon.
Creationists (i.e. researchers who view the planet Earth, as well as the world as a whole, as deliberately with created by some super-being or deity) defend the real historicity of the Great Flood, based on various studies, although most modern archaeologists and geologists do not share this point of view.
Many researchers tried to find the remains of the ark in the area of ​​Mount Ararat - where, according to the Bible, it landed on the shore after the flood.
According to Ron Wyatt, an anesthesiologist and amateur archaeologist, his research in these areas proved the existence of the Ark, and therefore the reality of the Flood.
In 1957 in the USA, one of the magazines published interesting photographs of the Ararat Mountains (about 20 miles from Mount Ararat), taken from aircraft.
The captain of the Turkish army, Lihan Durupinar, found an interesting formation in the photographs. After reading this article, Ron Wyatt decided to study this phenomenon and came to the conclusion that this formation is nothing more than Noah's ark.

But not all professional historians take this statement seriously.
The fact that the Earth could be completely covered with water for forty days before Expect, for many it causes a certain skepticism and, admittedly, quite reasonable. It is believed that this in fact could not be.
But those who carefully read the Bible know that the phenomenon, which is commonly called the Flood, lasted exactly one year. The pouring rain was just a prelude to a global natural cataclysm, in which "all the sources of the great abyss opened up."
If we translate the biblical story of the flood into modern language, then we can talk about a powerful volcanic eruption, as a result of which underground waters rushed through the faults in the earth's crust to the surface of the Earth.
According to the calculations of scientists, the energy of the volcanic eruption was so great that the height of the rock outbursts reached twenty kilometers, and the ash that rose to the upper atmosphere caused active condensation of the layers of the atmosphere, which led to such a prolonged rain.
The escaped underground waters, coupled with pouring rain, covered the Earth in a matter of days.

The water level also rose after the cessation of rain for five months.
Among the general chaos caused by the flood, there was only one island of safety - this the ark drifting in the raging elements, built by Noah, whom God warned about the impending punishment for the corrupted humanity.
The dimensions of the ark are striking: length - 150 meters, width - 25 and height - 15 (according to other sources - 135, 23 and 14 m. 4). The dimensions of this building are impressive even by modern standards.
The three-deck vessel of tightly fitted, tarred planks resembled modern all-metal vessels. The length-to-width ratio of 6 to 1 minimized rolling in any sea and made the ark (in modern Russian this word means "box" or "casket") practically unsinkable.
The dimensions of the ark involuntarily suggest how Noah managed to build such a huge structure with the help of only three sons?
But it turns out that this is not surprising, because the construction of the ship lasted a hundred years. For a hundred years Noah worked tirelessly, and all this time he warned his fellow tribesmen about the impending disaster. But no one believed him.
If we consider that the average life expectancy of people living before the flood was 900 years, then there is nothing surprising in the figure of a hundred years. Such a long life span is explained by the peculiarity of the antediluvian climate.
The Bible says that before the flood, "The Lord God did not send rain to the earth ... but steam rose from the earth and watered the entire face of the earth."
It follows from these and other biblical texts that a layer of water vapor surrounded the earth on top of the air layer, the presence of which led to the existence of a number of climatic conditions that were different from those of today.
Sunlight, passing through a layer of water vapor in the upper atmosphere, was evenly scattered in different directions, reaching all latitudes with the same intensity.
Thanks to a kind of water vapor screen, the heat radiated from the Earth's surface was retained inside the Earth's atmosphere.
This created a greenhouse effect throughout the area.
the globe from pole to pole.
The delay by the atmospheric water shell of harmful cosmic rays and ultraviolet rays of the Sun significantly lengthened the lifespan of people and animals, which, in turn, explains the enormous size of antediluvian dinosaurs, since it is known that reptiles grow throughout their life.
After the water cover disappeared from the atmosphere as a result of 40 days of rain, the Earth was left unprotected from harmful radiation, which led to the acceleration of the aging process of the inhabitants of the Earth.
After the flood, God set the limit for human life - 120 years. Other inhabitants of the Earth began to live less. So it is entirely possible that the alligators and dragons of the Indonesian island of Komodo are just under-grown dinosaurs.
Other types of dinosaurs, unable to withstand the new extreme habitat conditions, gradually became extinct, remaining in the people's memory as folk dragons and
mountain snakes. Some species, the living conditions of which have changed insignificantly, have survived to this day.
For example, in 1977, a dead plesiosaur about ten meters long and weighing about two tons was caught in the net of a Japanese fishing vessel in the New Zealand region. A photograph of this monster being unloaded from a ship has gone around the world.
Naturally, a plesiosaur could not live in a single copy. Surely there is a whole population of these, and quite possibly other creatures living in the depths of the sea.
The Flood explains many of the archaeological mysteries.
The school curriculum in zoology tells about the ice age, as a result of which mammoths became extinct. But at the same time, it remained unclear why, with the gradual icing, death caught them suddenly: some individuals died with unchewed grass in their mouths.
Sudden death can only be explained by a sudden sharp cold snap. And this is exactly what happened in the early days of the flood.
The disappearance of the protective atmospheric coating led to an almost instantaneous cooling in the polar regions of the planet. Into the permafrost
which is nothing more than layers of instantly frozen water-mud mass, frozen in mammoths, saber-toothed tigers and other antediluvian fauna.
The same individuals taken by Noah to the ark and survived the flood were never able to adapt to the new climatic conditions and gradually died out.

Considering that young individuals were taken on board, they occupied only a third of the vessel, while the rest was intended for eight crew members and supplies of food and feed. However, there is an opinion that there was no particular need for large reserves of food, despite the annual voyage. A sharp decrease in the value of atmospheric pressure as a result of the destruction of the water-vapor protective layer should have led to a sharp decrease in the metabolic processes of living organisms.

Such fluctuations lead to drowsiness, and it is quite possible that the animals were in a state close to suspended animation all the time they were swimming, and care for them was minimal.
So there is nothing in the Flood story that cannot be explained in terms of natural laws.
After Noah descended to solid ground, the Lord promised that the flood would never happen again, Noah's descendants would be fertile and repopulate the Earth, and all living things in the ark would multiply and serve as food for man. 4
On October 18, 2001, the Quick Bird geodetic satellite was launched from the American Vandenberg airbase in California. His task is unusual - the search for Noah's ark.
Project manager Porcher Taylor, professor at the University of Richmond, says:
“On a sunny June day in 1947, an American reconnaissance plane was filming in the area of ​​Mount Ararat, near which the Turkish, Iranian and Soviet borders converged. When the photographs were developed, an anomaly was discovered on the western plateau of the ridge - an oblong object, unusual for the shape of rocks, about 162 meters long.
At first, they thought it was the fuselage of a crashed plane. Although such large planes were not produced then and do not even now.
Others in the photographs saw a submarine - but where is it from? Then they already remembered Noah, who, according to the Bible, built an ark, put “a pair of each creature” on it, and after a 150-day voyage moored precisely to Mount Ararat.
The version scared the military. The reconnaissance aircraft missions were highly classified.
In 1973, I was a cadet at the West Point Military Academy and, among other things, studied space photography. We talked about a CIA satellite that was filming in the area of ​​the Soviet-Turkish border from a height of 300 kilometers.
His cameras were accidentally turned on earlier than expected, and their lenses caught the slope of Ararat with debris sticking out of the ice, similar to the skeleton of a huge ship.
Then I heard for the first time that this could be the very ship of Noah.
The Cold War was going on, and there was no question of access to secret photographs. But I turned to history and found some interesting support for the ark hypothesis.
The Babylonian historian Berossus mentioned the ship on Ararat in 275 BC.
At the end of the 15th century, the famous traveler Marco Polo wrote that "the wreckage of the ark is still visible on the top of Mount Ararat."
In 1800, the American journalist Claudius Rich published a report from a Turkish traveler who reached Ararat and saw the remains of the ark.
In 1840, a Turkish expedition, which was outfitted to investigate the avalanches of Ararat, discovered a giant frame of almost black wood protruding from the glacier.
Having penetrated inside the ship, the members of the expedition stated that it was arranged for the transport of livestock and consisted of several sections. 4
In 1887, Prince of Persia and Archbishop John Joseph Nuri reported that he had found the remains of the ark on Ararat. Six years later, he tried to organize an expedition to disassemble the ark and bring it to the world exhibition in Chicago. But he did not receive permission for this from the Turkish government.
“To get one hundred percent evidence of the existence of the ark, it is necessary to climb the Ararat mountains, dismantle the entire glacier, and only then it will be possible to make some more or less accurate interpretations,” says historian Oleg Mumrikov. - So far, we have only a few photographs taken during the First World War. In August 1916, Russian pilot Vladimir Rostovitsky, exploring the Turkish border, found himself over Ararat and observed a frozen lake in the eastern part of the summit, on the edge of which was the frame of a giant ship, partially submerged in ice.
Despite the war years, an expedition was formed by Nicholas II, which returned with various descriptions of the area under study and with photographs.
Unfortunately, this data was lost during the revolution. After that, the ark was seen several times from airplanes during the Second World War. 4
It turned out that the dimensions of the mysterious object on the mountainside coincide with biblical description of Noah's ark. According to the Bible, the ship was approximately 152 meters long, 25 meters wide and 15 meters high. What may be his remains is an object 162 meters long and 25-30 meters wide. It is impossible to measure the height because it is stuck in the snow.
The quality of the pictures taken then is incomparably lower than the current capabilities. But some of the specialists examined fragments of the crossbeams and keel on them.
The design has 90-degree angles, which indicates its man-made origin. We asked seven independent experts to study the photographs and draw their conclusions. As a result, the four came to the conclusion that in front of them was a construction made by human hands.
Two believe that the photographs are just stones, and one felt that new filming is required to establish the truth. "
On July 6, 1955, the French climber Fernand Navarra illegally climbed Mount Ararat and found the remains of a giant ship on a mountainous spur. Radiocarbon analysis of fragments of the ship's skeleton showed that the find is about five thousand years old.
In 1969, a scientific expedition organized by American archaeologists discovered several pieces of wood on Mount Ararat, at about the same place Navarra pointed to. However, their analysis showed that the remains are no more than one and a half thousand years old.
The fact of finding an object in the shape of a ship, which we call the ark with full confidence, indicates that it survived only due to the fact that it was covered with lava, which covered it like a “cap of time”.
However, the mountain on which the ark is located is not volcanic.
The facts show that the lava escaping from the crater of the volcano traveled many miles south towards present-day Iran.
The lava was thrown into the air so that it flew to the top of the ridge, which is located above the existing location of the ark.
The existence of this volcano is confirmed by a dilapidated stele found in 1984 on this ridge, which depicts a unique limestone ridge and a volcano next to it in the south.
Today this volcano is destroyed, and it cannot be seen either from the top of the ridge, or from the position of the artist who painted the stella.
Lava reached the top of the ridge and began to flow to the foot of the mountain, covering the ark. The path of the lava is clearly traced by the frozen traces of the mud flow. Mudflows are formed when water emerges from slowly cooling lava.
When lava goes into the ground, a huge amount of water, captured with it, sometimes begins to flow very rapidly. These streams are called mudflows.
The severity of the enormous amount of lava that covered the ark caused the two upper decks to collapse.
If so, then why didn't the ark burn?
There are two possible answers.
The first - the ark was very quickly covered with lava, which blocked the access of oxygen and ignition became impossible. But if we assume that the object was covered more slowly, then there are confirmed facts that lava does not always cause a fire.
But whichever option you choose, the fact that if the ark was covered with lava, it does not mean at all that it should have burned down. The fact that the tiers were destroyed approximately evenly indicates that the ark was covered with lava very quickly, which cut off the oxygen supply.
We have some samples that show signs of burning, but to a very small extent.
Lava covered the ark and sealed it in an airtight "capsule".
Why is it visible now? Why isn't it covered in lava anymore?
Because lava loses its properties over time, collapses and after a while turns into soil. The soils that have formed due to the decay of lava, volcanic sediments and ash are very rich in potassium, lime and phosphates. Many areas of the world with well-developed agriculture owe this volcanic material.

The ark is located on a rather sloping mountainside. The stern of the vessel is located at about 6,350 feet (about 1935.5 m) above sea level, the bow of the vessel is at 6250 feet (about 1950 m).
Over time, the lava began to deteriorate - it was no longer airtight, and therefore waterproof. Winter in the area lasts for several months and is accompanied by snow and low temperatures. In the spring, the snow slowly melts, and the water flows down to the foot of the mountains. This means that through the collapsed lava, water began to penetrate to the ark.
As the water slowly seeped through the preserved structures of the ark, it began to wash away the finest particles of wood and metal. All this happened at the molecular level - the molecule was washed off by the molecule. But since the molecule was washed out, after it there was a space of its own size, which was replaced by a molecule of another substance. This process is called petrification or molecular replacement.
For an object to petrify, two conditions are always required: the first is the rapid burial of the object (the cessation of oxygen access), and the second is the constant flow of water through it. If it is not an airtight object, and water does not wash it, then it undergoes decay and does not persist. Evolutionists will happily inform you that the petrification process takes millions of years, but it is not. If the process of petrification is slower than the process of decay, then the object will simply collapse.
As the water flowed down the side of the mountain and then soaked into the soil and reached the ark, the structural molecules upstream of the water were petrified along with the molecules of the soil minerals. Then the water flowed through the middle part of the ship, so the petrification of the ark began with substances of its own structure in addition to the substances of the soil covering it.
This is exactly what should have happened if this object is the ark. Evidence from the excavation shows that this is exactly what happened.
A sample of the deck timber, which was recovered from a crack after an earthquake from the middle deck of the ship, contained more than 13% iron - the iron of the metal joints of the structure above the middle section. Most of the molecules involved in fossilization are naturally occurring earth and lava molecules. The first studies of these samples from the excavation site showed 51% silica content.
Magma consists of molten quartz mass of different composition. In fact, all fossilized objects contain a large amount of quartz (silica), due to the fact that it is contained in the soil surrounding the object.
But there is one substance that is not found in natural minerals. The composition of the carbon in a substance indicates the organic or inorganic origin of the object.
Therefore, in order to determine whether the object was an organic compound or not, a carbon content test is carried out.
Analysis of a sample of petrified deck flooring at Galbray Laboratory showed that it contains 0.0081% inorganic carbon and 100 times more organic carbon - 0.7019%.
Any fossilized object ever found - a tree branch, bone, or seashell - will show the presence of carbon upon analysis. Obviously, the decking pattern was once living matter. Now the collapsed lava reveals fossilized objects that resemble wood and contain large quantities of iron and other metals.
In order for such a large amount of iron to be in the petrified wood, the water that affects the petrification process must first pass through the iron object. The soil covering the ark does not contain as much iron. A special soil sample taken in this area for analysis showed the presence of 0.54% iron and 0.77% iron oxide.
If we assume that the petrified wood got its iron content from the iron found in the soil near the ark, then all the iron from the soil should have gotten only into this petrified wood.
In other words, it is not possible.
The huge amount of metal contained in the petrified wood could come from only one place - from the water passing through the metal contained in the structure of the ark - the metal that, as we now know, held together the thousands of joints in the wooden structures of the ark.
So, the ark was hidden for many, many years, and no one knew about its existence since it was covered with a stream of lava, which accidentally (and most likely not accidentally) carried it down the mountain until it stumbled upon a huge ledge rock.
In the late 1950s, a photograph taken from the air during military research showed this unusual outline of a ship on a mountainside in a mudflow ...
In 1978, an earthquake caused soil to fall from a mysterious object. The object then took on a more recognizable ship shape ...
Many scholars believe that looking for an ark on Mount Ararat is pointless. Their arguments are as follows: Ararat is a dormant volcano, as a result of the eruption of which in the first half of the 19th century, the Akhur Gorge was formed. If the ark was there, then its remains were completely destroyed as a result of the cataclysm of 1840.
Some enthusiasts suggest looking for the ark on another Ararat, which is located in the vicinity of Gelendzhik. This rocky mountain, with a height of only 350 meters, is located at the beginning of the Caucasus Range and theoretically could also be the end point of Noah's journey.
But the Turkish scientist Faruk Ongel is sure that the ark is located on the slope of one of the mountain ranges in the province of Sanliurfa. 4
Modern secular archeology admits that the biblical text can carry historical truth, and modern genetic research suggests that all of humanity is the descendants of a small group of people, perhaps. Noah and his family. Of course, there are a number of problems associated with dates, and these will be clarified in the course of further research.
But already now there is information that indirectly confirms the fact of the reality of the great flood in the past.
Turkish oceanographer Seda Okay is confident that the Black Sea was formed as a result of such a cataclysm, when the melting of glaciers across the planet raised the level of the World Ocean. The waters of the Mediterranean Sea, breaking through a natural dam, which was the current Bosphorus, with monstrous power fell upon the East European Plain.
Okay has been actively studying the problem for five years, examining, in particular, the bottom of the Bosphorus at the entrance to the Black Sea. It was found that the water level in the Black Sea during the ice age was 110 meters lower than today.
Seda Okay: "Analyzing sedimentary rocks, we found that the waters of the Mediterranean entered the Black Sea, which was once an enclosed basin, about seven to eight thousand years ago, and this happened as a result of a natural disaster, better known as the Flood." 4
Is it so?
So, was there a Flood and did Noah's ark really exist or not?
If he really existed, then could he survive to this day?
If it has survived, how and where can it be found?
If we find him, what will it mean to us?
Do we even need Noah's Ark?

Sources of information:
1.Wikipedia site
2.the site of the Newest Biblical Archaeological Discoveries
3. S. Golovin “The Flood. Myth, legend or reality? "
4. A. Vartikov, E. Gordeeva "Memory of the Flood"