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Meteor May Have Wiped Out Middle East Civilization
GFD writes "The Telegraph has a story about how a recently discovered impact crater in Iraq could have wiped out several civilizations that 'collapsed mysteriously' about 4000 years ago. This is the first find, AFAIK, of a meteor impact affecting human civilization directly. Very thought provoking."
This is the first find, AFAIK, of a meteor impact affecting human civilization directly.
Well that depends, human civilization or humans for that matter might have never evolved had that meteor 65 million years ago not wiped out the dinosaurs. We might still be rodent like creatures trying to not become lunch if the dinosaurs were still running around.
We have histories in the form of writing or stories when other civilizations were wiped out through catastrophe. At the very least we have ledgeds or religious tales of being smitten by the hand of God. But in this case, these civilizations vanished, to quote the article "without a trace" Wouldn't somebody have survived (maybe somebody who was traveling at the time) and passed the story of this down through history?
Are there any slashdot archeologists who can clarify this?
is did it hit Sodom or Gomorrah?
Isn't it also odd that there is only one legend which tells of this event (Gilgamesh)? I would have thought there would be scriptures and whatnot all over the place.
Any information on what effect this impact had on other wordly civilisations, or indeed the environment? I for one would find it interesting.
Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.
Could a meteorite hit has sucked water from the Red Sea thus emptying it for Moses to cross?
As you can see, I am just making wild assumptions here trying to relate myths (Old Testament) with reality (Meteorite that hit 4000-6000 years ago). Didn't some religious people a long time ago date the beginning of the earth to be like 4090BC or near that anyway?
Wild, brainstorming thoughts that archeologists need to have to piece things together. It was only recently that they connected the volcanic destruction of an island in the mediterranean with the ending of a civilisation on Crete 100 miles away at the same time (i.e., huge tidal waves, killing of trade & crap weather killed the Cretian civilisation off - I forget the name of the civilisation though - Minoan?). Good TV program though.
Anyone else got a fave religious story that could be attributed to this event?
Could a meteorite hit has sucked water from the Red Sea thus emptying it for Moses to cross?
Moses never crossed the Red Sea.
For those Christians/non-Hebrew-speakers who believe in the stories of the Exodus, read that as 'the Red Sea wasn't the one Moses crossed'.
The sea that is referred to in the book of Exodus is not 'red' - the word actually refers to a plant that grew in shallow waters/marshes/etc, and was extremely common. 'Red Sea' is a translation error.
Besides, the Red Sea isn't between Egypt and what was then Israel anyway.
--Dan
This reminds me of article from a few months ago on bad weather wiping out the Old Kingdom of Egypt.
The island you are referring to is Thera, also called Santorini. The idea that the eruption of Thera destroyed Minoan civilization has been around for about 30 years, so it's not exactly a recent idea. What we know is that there was a catastrophic eruption of Thera, an explosion that was approximately 1000x larger than Mt. St. Helens. There are geologic strata throughout the Eastern Mediterranean containing ash from that eruption. The ashfall even made it to Egypt, and there are believed to have been decent size tsunami that made it as far as Egypt (although not catastrophic waves, it seems).
A witty saying is worth nothing - Voltaire
Personally, I think that the "meteor" explanation is more a "buzzword-of-the-moment" phenomenon than anything else. Everyone has been talking about meteor imapacts in the past few years and trying to relate them to just about everything.
Secondly, a two-mile crater causing the downfall of multiple civilisations? No way! Sure, it does affect a much wider range than just two miles, but a civilization is usually something relatively large... it would most definitely not have a significant effect on egyptian or israeli civs, thousands of miles away.
The article says that the impact "must have happened within the past 6,000 years", and then immediately concludes that it is responsible for some specific events 4,300 years ago. Yes, 4300 is "within" the past 6000, but the proposal of cause-and-effect is a rather long stretch until we get the actual date of the crater.
Nor is there anything "mysterious" about the "sudden decline" of the specified nations/dynasties. After all, we know of lots of nations/dynasties that have suddenly declined during the past 6000 years. Do we require meteors to explain them, too?
The basic report of a powerful meteor strike is really interesting -- or at least will be if it is confirmed -- but let's not descend into pseudoscience by "explaining" history with it before there is any evidence to suggest cause-and-effect for specific events.
The claims about Sargonid Akkad seem to be entirely off base anyway. The glory days of Akkad coincided exactly with Sargon's personal reign -- no rare occurence in ancient history. Moreover Akkad saw a revival just a few decades later, during the reign of his grandson Narim-Sin. Not long after that Akkad did collapse altogether, but that can be explained by the ravages of Guti highlanders, without having to invoke meteors, divine wrath, aliens, or Microsoft's predatory marketing.
People are too quick to invoke grand catastrophes to "explain" things that don't need explaining in the first place. Let's stay skeptical until there is some actual evidence for something.
Also, notice that the article was dated back in April. Any more recent publications on it, anyone?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A lot is made of the fact that almost every culture has some version of the Noah myth. (There's an interesting exception, that I'll talk about in a moment.) But why is this suprising? Cultures from this period tended to grow up around small (a few thousand people) cities built in flood basins. The river was source of life -- it provided topsoil, transportation and food. It was often considered divine (the Latin word for "priest" originally meant "bridge-keeper").
But life on the river has its downside, as everybody who lives near one knows. One major flood, and there goes your urban center. Not cataclymisic if you're one river town in a bigger culture. But suppose that town contains your entire government, economic establishment, and cultural elite? Obviously, the River God has decided to mod your civilization down in a big way.
The exception is very interesting -- sub-Saharan Africans don't have a Noah myth. Which is hardly suprising. Altough the pre-colonial Africans did build a few cities none of them were on flood plains.
Other things can wipe out a small civilization too. It can outstrip its resources, be decimated by plague, or simply get sloppy about maintaining its source of wealth. We need to consider the mundane before we start worrying about the exotic.
There is this link. many good links on the page.
Of course, this has been discussed in the fringe areas for a while.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Alas for Velikovsky, a meteor impact makes much more sense than a close encounter with Venus!
I have always been fascinated with Velikovsky but his astronomy obviously didn't make sense. On the other hand, his interpretation of ancient documents made one suspect that something "interesting" must have happened back then. Meteor impacts have become almost conventional wisdom today and could be a rational explanation.
Remember that in Velikovsky's day any mention of global catastrophies(including meteorites) was a taboo subject to most geologists. I had a geology professsor who would go into a wild tirade at the mention of three subjets, global catastrophies, continental drift or water dowsing. At least he is still corrct on the water dowsing bit!
Actually, it's not a typo at all.
The literal Hebrew is "Sea of Reeds", which has caused certain Bible scholars to to argue that the Israelites had merely crossed a swampy region and not the actual Red Sea.
However the amount of water must have been sufficient to cover the Egyptian military... impossible in a mere swamp.
Also Acts 7:36 and Hebrews 11:29 when refering to the same incident use the Greek expression erythra' tha'lassa, meaning "Red Sea".
In fact Herodotus used the same Greek expression to refer to the Indian Ocean which contains the Red Sea.
For more info on usage of "Red Sea" in the OT, check out Jeremiah 49:21 and 1 Kings 9:26... and check out where Edomite territory was known to be at that time. It's quite clear that "Sea of Reeds" was the Hebrew term in use for that region at the time.
-CODiNE
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
The collapse of the Roman Empire and other events around the year 300 were discussed in the recent book Catastrophe, the proposition of which is that the Dark Ages were caused by an upset of the world weather around 535, by a large volcano that Krakatoa is in the crater of. The events of 535, as well as those of 1485BC and 687BC, suggest that it was not the work of a local civilisation, but widespread disasters.
You must understand this about Velikovski's theory. He did not posit that the celestial events occured, and then looked for confirmation, but rather, from the study of ancient legends, using his skill as a psychocharist, suggested that the described events happened, and were suppressed (as victims of trauma usually do). That is, Velikovski's wandering planets are an explination, not a cause. Your "Sun Standing Still" is described as a tippletoe movement of the earth.
The great chorus of people who stood up and said it was rubbish sounds similar to those who stood up and said the earth moves in the sky. There were serious objections to a moving earth, that took centries to overcome [like, how can it move and keep its atmosphere].
To date, I have not seen any reasonable attempt to refute Mr Velikovsky, which, if he were such a widely read author, and Science were so sure of their footing, this aught be addressed. Put simply, there is nothing in Velikovsky that is against the reason of physics, and certianly, one must agree that our understanding has changed in the intervening time.
On the other hand, there are perfectly reasonable explinations to most of the events that Velikovski describes. Check out the Abacus book Velikovski Reconsidered.
Also, Velikovski DID submit his books to peer review. But there was an organised campaign by some scientists to prevent the publication of his book by his first publisher, MacMillan.
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
There have been a lot of cuneiform texts found by archaeologists that spoke about some wind of death bringing an abrupt end to the Sumerian civilization at around the late 2000's BC, and this is something that the archaeologists have been hard pressed to explain, giving far-fetched explanations about barbarian tribes raiding and pillaging Sumer. A cometary impact is a far more plausible explanation, it would seem, given the way the texts are written. Perhaps the comet fragmented on entry to the atmosphere and another fragment landed on the plain of the Dead Sea, destroying the settlements of Sodom and Gomorrah there and turning the area around the Dead Sea into the wasteland it now is. I wonder if there has been any geological study of the Dead Sea plain that could perhaps confirm or deny this conjecture.
So now, somebody kick Saddam out of Iraq so the archaeologists and geologists can study it more closely! :)
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
I can see how the type of content to which you are responding might cause you to disbelieve, but what is portrayed by the poster is not consistent with what the Bible says.
I believe that the existence of God gives a foundation of reason on which we can stand when investigating the universe through the scientific method.
If you have any level of interest in pursuing this discussion, please contact me at tom_cooper at bigfoot dot com.
God loves you and longs for relationship with you.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?