Flood (mythology)

A flood myth or a deluge myth is a myth in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these myths and the primeval cosmic ocean which appear in certain creation myths, as the flood waters are described as a measure for the cleansing of humanity, for example in preparation for rebirth. Most flood myths also contain a culture hero, who "represents the human craving for life".

The oldest known narrative of a divinely inititated flood originates from the Sumerian culture in Mesopotamia, among others expressed in the Akkadian Athra-Hasis epic, which dates to the 18th century BCE. Comparable flood narratives appear in many other cultures, including the biblical Genesis flood narrative, ''manvantara-sandhya'' in Hinduism, Deucalion and Pyrrha in Greek mythology, also the Cheyenne, Blackfeet and Puebloan traditions.

Mythologies

The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' (c. 2100–1800 BCE) references an early flood myth. This story has some parallels to the 18th century BCE epic ''Atra-Hasis'', in which a group of Sumerian gods begins to transform Mesopotamia into a fertile garden landscape. The hard labour leads to a revolt of the ‘lower’ gods, and to pacify it, a first pair of humans was created to do the work in place of the gods. After a few thousand years, however, the humans have multiplied to such an extent that they disturb the gods with their noise, so Enlil, the highest of all gods, decides to unleash a mighty flood to wipe out humanity. The rebellious god Enki secretly warns his priest Athrahasis of the impending catastrophe. Giving him detailed instructions for building a boat, Athrahasis and his family survive, ensuring continued existence of artificially constructed mankind. In the Gilgamesh flood myth, the flood is survived by the man Utnapishtim. The similar Eridu Genesis flood myth (), known from tablets found in the ruins of Nippur in the late 1890s, was translated by assyriologist Arno Poebel.

Academic Yi Samuel Chen analyzed various texts from the Early Dynastic III Period through to the Old Babylonian Period, and argues that the flood narrative was only added in texts written during the Old Babylonian Period. With regard to the Sumerian King List, observations by experts have always indicated that the portion of the Sumerian King List talking about before the flood differs stylistically from the King List Proper. Old Babylonian copies tend to represent a tradition of before the flood apart from the actual King List, whereas the Ur III copy of the King List and the duplicate from the Brockmon collection indicate that the King List Proper once existed independent of mention of the flood and the tradition of before the flood. Chen gives evidence to prove that the section of before the flood and references to the flood in the Sumerian King List were all later additions added in during the Old Babylonian Period, as the Sumerian King List went through updates and edits. The flood as a watershed in early history of the world was probably a new historiographical concept emerging in the Mesopotamian literary traditions during the Old Babylonian Period, as evident by the fact that the flood motif did not show up in the Ur III copy and that earliest chronographical sources related to the flood show up in the Old Babylonian Period. Chen also concludes that the name of "Ziusudra" as a flood hero and the idea of the flood hinted at by that name in the Old Babylonian Version of "Instructions of Shuruppak" are only developments during that Old Babylonian Period, when also the didactic text was updated with information from the burgeoning Antediluvian Tradition.

In the Hebrew Genesis (9th century BC), the god Yahweh, who had created man out of the dust of the ground, decides to flood the earth because of the corrupted state of mankind. Yahweh then gives the protagonist, Noah, instructions to build an ark in order to preserve human and animal life. When the ark is completed, Noah, his family, and representatives of all the animals of the earth are called upon to enter the ark. When the destructive flood begins, all life outside of the ark perishes. After the waters recede, all those aboard the ark disembark and have Yahweh's promise that he will never judge the earth with a flood again. Yahweh causes a rainbow to form as the sign of this promise.

In Hinduism, texts such as the Satapatha Brahmana ( 6th century BCE) and the Puranas contain the story of a great flood, ''manvantara-sandhya'', wherein the Matsya Avatar of Vishnu warns the first man, Manu, of the impending flood, and also advises him to build a giant boat. In Zoroastrian Mazdaism, Ahriman tries to destroy the world with a drought, which Mithra ends by shooting an arrow into a rock, from which a flood springs; one man survives in an ark with his cattle. Norbert Oettinger argues that the story of Yima and the ''Vara'' was originally a flood myth, and the harsh winter was added in due to the dry nature of Eastern Iran, as flood myths did not have as much of an effect as harsh winters. He has argued that the mention of melted water flowing in Videvdad 2.24 is a remnant of the flood myth, and mentions that the Indian flood myths originally had their protagonist as Yama, but it was changed to Manu later.

In Plato's '' Timaeus'', written , Timaeus describes a flood myth similar to the earlier versions. In it, the Bronze race of humans angers the high god Zeus with their constant warring. Zeus decides to punish humanity with a flood. The Titan Prometheus, who had created humans from clay, tells the secret plan to Deucalion, advising him to build an ark in order to be saved. After nine nights and days, the water starts receding and the ark lands on a mountain.

The Cheyenne, a North American Great Plains tribe, has a tradition where a flood altered the course of their history, perhaps occurring in the Missouri River Valley. The Blackfeet, another Great Plains tribe, have a story called " Language on a Mountain". In this story the deity Napi, referred to as Old Man, tells the story of a great flood that swept through the land. After the flood Old Man made the water different colors. He gathered the people on top of a large mountain where he gave them water of different colors. Old Man then told the people to drink the water, then speak, and so they did. Everyone was speaking a different language except those who received the black water; they were speaking the same language, and they consisted of the bands of the Blackfoot, the Piegan (Apatohsipikuni and Amskapipikuni), the Siksika, and the Blood (Kainai). This was said to have taken place in the highest mountain in the Montana reservation.

The Hopi, southwestern United States, have a tradition of a flood that nearly reached the tops of the mountains, and other Puebloans have similar legends.

Historicity

Floods in the wake of the Last Glacial Period (c. 115,000 – c. 11,700 years ago) are speculated to have inspired myths that survive to this day. Plato's allegory of Atlantis is set over 9,000 years before his time, leading some scholars to suggest that a Stone Age society which lived close to the Mediterranean Sea could have been wiped out by the rising sea level, an event which could have served as the basis for the story.

Archaeologist Bruce Masse stated that some of the narratives of a great flood discovered in many cultures around the world may be linked to an oceanic asteroid impact that occurred between Africa and Antarctica, around the time of a solar eclipse, that caused a tsunami. Among the 175 myths he analyzed were a Hindu myth speaking of an alignment of the five planets at the time, and a Chinese story linking the flood to the end of the reign of Empress Nu Wa. Fourteen flood myths refer to a full solar eclipse. According to Masse these indications point to the date May 10, 2807 BC. His hypothesis suggests that a meteor or comet crashed into the Indian Ocean around 3000–2800 BCE, and created the undersea Burckle Crater and Fenambosy Chevron, and generated a giant tsunami that flooded coastal lands.

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia, like other early sites of riverine civilisation, was flood-prone; and for those experiencing valley-wide inundations, flooding could destroy the whole of their known world. According to the excavation report of the 1930s excavation at Shuruppak (modern Tell Fara, Iraq), the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic layers at the site were separated by a 60-cm yellow layer of alluvial sand and clay, indicating a flood, like that created by river avulsion, a process common in the Tigris–Euphrates river system. Similar layers have been recorded at other sites as well, all dating to different periods, which would be consistent with the nature of river avulsions.
Shuruppak in Mesopotamian legend was the city of Uta-napishtim, the king who built a boat to survive the coming flood. The alluvial layer dates from around 2900 BC.

The geography of the Mesopotamian area changed considerably with the filling of the Persian Gulf after sea waters rose following the last glacial period. Global sea levels were about lower around 18,000  BP and rose until 8,000 BP when they reached current levels, which are now an average above the floor of the Gulf, which was a huge () low-lying and fertile region in Mesopotamia, in which human habitation is thought to have been strong around the Gulf Oasis for 100,000 years. A sudden increase in settlements above the present-day water level is recorded at around 7,500  BP.

Mediterranean Basin

The historian Adrienne Mayor theorizes that global flood stories may have been inspired by ancient observations of seashells and fish fossils in inland and mountain areas. The ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans all documented the discovery of such remains in such locations; the Greeks hypothesized that Earth had been covered by water on several occasions, citing the seashells and fish fossils found on mountain tops as evidence of this idea.

Speculation regarding the Deucalion myth has postulated a large tsunami in the Mediterranean Sea, caused by the Thera eruption (with an approximate geological date of 1630–1600 BCE), as the myth's historical basis. Although the tsunami hit the South Aegean Sea and Crete, it did not affect cities in the mainland of Greece, such as Mycenae, Athens, and Thebes, which continued to prosper, indicating that it had a local rather than a region-wide effect.

Black Sea deluge hypothesis

The Black Sea deluge hypothesis offers a controversial account of long-term flooding; the hypothesis argues for a catastrophic irruption of water about 5600 BCE from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea basin. This has become the subject of considerable discussion. The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis offered another proposed natural explanation for flood myths. However, this idea was similarly controversial and has been refuted.

Comets

The earliest known hypothesis about a comet that had a widespread effect on human populations can be attributed to Edmond Halley, who in 1694 suggested that a worldwide flood had been the result of a near-miss by a comet. The issue was taken up in more detail by William Whiston, a protégé of and popularizer of the theories of Isaac Newton, who argued in his book ''A New Theory of the Earth'' (1696) that a comet encounter was the probable cause of the Biblical Flood of Noah in 2342 BCE. Whiston also attributed the origins of the atmosphere and other significant changes in the Earth to the effects of comets.

In Pierre-Simon Laplace's book ''Exposition Du Systême Du Monde'' (''The System of the World''), first published in 1796, he stated:

A similar hypothesis was popularized by Minnesota congressman and pseudoarchaeology writer Ignatius L. Donnelly in his book '' Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel'' (1883), which followed his better-known book '' Atlantis: The Antediluvian World'' (1882). In ''Ragnarok'', Donnelly argued that an enormous comet struck the Earth around 6,000 BCE to 9,000 BCE, destroying an advanced civilization on the "lost continent" of Atlantis. Donnelly, following others before him, attributed the Biblical Flood to this event, which he hypothesized had also resulted in catastrophic fires and climate change. Shortly after the publication of ''Ragnarok'', one commenter noted, "Whiston ascertained that the deluge of Noah came from a comet's tail; but Donnelly has outdone Whiston, for he has shown that our planet has suffered not only from a cometary flood, but from cometary fire, and a cometary rain of stones."

Art

File:Matsya Avatar, ca 1870.jpg, Matsya-avatara of Lord Vishnu pulls Manu's boat after having defeated the demon.
File:Manabozhointheflood.png, Nanabozho in Ojibwe flood story from an illustration by R. C. Armour, in his book ''North American Indian Fairy Tales, Folklore and Legends'' (1905)
File:Anoniem - De zondvloed.jpg, ''The Great Flood'', by anonymous painter, ''The vom Rath bequest'', Rijksmuseum
File:Francis Danby deluge.jpg, ''The Deluge'', by Francis Danby, 1840. Oil on canvas. Tate Gallery
File:Noah's ark and the deluge.JPG, Noah's Ark from the '' Zubdat al-Tawarikh'' in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul, dedicated to Sultan Murad III in 1583
File:Study for The Deluge.jpg, 'Study for The Deluge' 1843 painting by William Etty depicting the aftermath of a mythological deluge, or, 'great flood.'

See also

* Bølling–Allerød warming
*List of flood myths
*Sea level rise

References

Footnotes

Citations

Sources

*

Further reading

* Bailey, Lloyd R. ''Noah, the Person and the Story'', University of South Carolina Press, 1989.
* Best, Robert M. ''Noah's Ark and the Ziusudra Epic, Sumerian Origins of the Flood Myth'', 1999,
*
* Dundes, Alan (ed.) ''The Flood Myth'', University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988.
* Faulkes, Anthony (trans.) ''Edda'' (Snorri Sturluson). Everyman's Library, 1987.
* Greenway, John (ed.), ''The Primitive Reader'', Folkways, 1965.
* Grey, G. ''Polynesian Mythology''. Whitcombe and Tombs, Christchurch, 1956.
* Lambert, W. G. and Millard, A. R., ''Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood'', Eisenbrauns, 1999.
* Masse, W. B. "The Archaeology and Anthropology of Quaternary Period Cosmic Impact", in Bobrowsky, P., and Rickman, H. (eds.) ''Comet/Asteroid Impacts and Human Society: An Interdisciplinary Approach'' Berlin, Springer Press, 2007. pp. 25–70.
* Reed, A. W. ''Treasury of Maori Folklore'' A.H. & A.W. Reed, Wellington, 1963.
* Reedy, Anaru (trans.), ''Nga Korero a Pita Kapiti: The Teachings of Pita Kapiti''. Canterbury University Press, Christchurch, 1997.
*Like many other folk-tale elements from around the world, the story of flood survival and human restart (motif A 1021.0.2 and associated elements) appears in Stith Thompson's ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature''.
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Catastrophism
Comparative mythology
Megafloods
Mesopotamian myths
Jemdet Nasr period