NEWS re Black Sea Flood

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

This subject has been mentioned before on the list and may be of interest to
some list members.  Aside from matters of chronology, the accuracy of ancient
traditions and perhaps even language paths and contacts, the designation of
the Black Sea as a "lake" by ancient writers has long raised questions among
historians.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/news/pages/Times/timfgnusa02001.html?999
(watch the wrap.)

<<FWD 13: X99Lynx at aol.com[blue list send] London Times USA September 27 1999
(cap) Amphorae from an 8th-century Phoenician shipwreck discovered
by Robert Ballard

(sbhd) Evidence of the Great Flood supports Noah's Ark saga

(text) COMPELLING evidence that there was a Great Flood, as told in the Old
Testament story of Noah's Ark, has been found far below the waters of
the Black Sea by an American expedition.  Underwater surveyors, led by Robert
Ballard, the renowned oceanographer who found the Titanic and other sunken
ships of the 20th century, have discovered an ancient coastline at a depth of
450ft.

"I am not sure whether it is Noah's flood or not Noah's flood, but I do
buy that there was a flood," said David Mindell, one of the surveyors.

The Ballard team was working from a theory about the biblical flood of
antiquity propounded by two marine geologists from Columbia University
in New York, William Ryan and Walter Pittman, in their new book, Noah's
Flood.  As Dr Ballard explained; "During the last great Ice Age glaciers
advanced across the surface of the world. That lowered the sea level
400ft. Then, 12,000 years ago at the end of the Ice Age, the glaciers
began to retreat."

With its lower sea level, the eastern Mediterranean was cut off from the
Black Sea so that when the oceans started to rise, the Black Sea did
not.  Dr Ballard continued: "Around 7,600 years ago, guess what happens?
The Mediterranean breaks through a natural dam at the Bosphorus and
catastrophically floods the land surface. People living there are 400ft
below sea level and in trouble. They are facing a flood equal to 10,000
Niagara Falls."

This flood was on a scale of the one described in Genesis,
which is said to have lasted for 40 days and 40 nights, covering every
living thing on Earth beneath 24ft of water other than Noah, his family
and his pairs of animals carried to safety on the ark.

In the new theory, it is believed that each day for two years ten cubic
miles of ocean water cut through the widening Bosphorus channel as it
flowed into what was then a fresh water lake, raising the level by six
inches a day.

The incoming salt water, more dense than the fresh water it displaced,
plunged to the bottom of the lake bed, transforming it into a sea where
the depths support no life.

This area of inert darkness is known as an abyss that is anoxic, meaning
that the trapped water could not circulate and has lost its oxygen,
according to an account in yesterday's Washington Post. "Such conditions
exist nowhere else in the world," Dr Ballard told the newspaper.

The theory supposes that in this dead zone wooden ships will be
preserved intact, possibly still with their Bronze Age sails, and just
waiting for Dr Ballard and his team. "I want to find the story of Jason
and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece," he said. But
this search for ancient mariners may have to wait until next year when
Dr Ballard wants to employ the US Government's remotely operated
undersea exploration vehicle. The explorers are convinced that there may
be many ships on the bottom because the Black Sea served as a commercial
waterway from Ancient Greece to Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire. But
the waters were known to be hazardous, according to Roman historians.

For his expedition, Dr Ballard has attracted marine archaeologists who
had viewed him sceptically as a treasure hunter but he has not enriched
himself by taking artefacts from the Titanic nor his other great finds,
the liners Lusitania and Andrea Doria, and the German battleship
Bismarck and the American aircraft carrier Yorktown.

Dr Ballard has participated in 120 deep-sea expeditions. This summer he
found two Phoenician vessels more than 3,000 years old.>>

Steve Long