The Black Sea deluge is a hypothesized prehistoric flood that occurred when the Black Sea rapidly filled, possibly forming the basis for some Great Flood myths. The theory made headlines when it surfaced in The New York Times December 1996.
In 1998, William Ryan and Walter Pitman, geologists from Columbia University, published evidence that a massive flood through the Bosporus occurred about 5600 BC. Glacial meltwater had turned the Black and Caspian Seas into vast freshwater lakes, while sea levels remained lower. The fresh water lakes were emptying their waters into the Aegean. As the glaciers retreated, rivers emptying into the Black Sea reduced their volume and the water levels lowered. Then, about 5600 BC, as sea levels rose, Ryan and Pitman suggest, the rising Mediterranean finally spilled over a rocky sill at the Bosphorus. The event flooded 60,000 mile² (155,000 km²) of land, and significantly expanded the Black Sea shoreline to the north and east. Ryan and Pitman wrote:
Black Sea today and in 5600 BC according to Ryan's and Pitman's theories
- "Ten cubic miles [42 km³] of water poured through each day, two hundred times what flows over Niagara Falls. ... The Bosporus flume roared and surged at full spate for at least three hundred days."
Although neolithic agriculture had by that time already reached the Pannonian plain, the authors link its spread with people displaced by the postulated flood. It has been suggested that the survivors' memory of this event was the source of the legend for Noah's Flood. Initial resistance came from those who looked for more detailed correlation with the Book of Genesis (see Noah's Ark and Mount Ararat) or preferred as prototype the similar marine ingression that formed the Persian Gulf in the lower Tigris and Euphrates valley.
Marine archeologist Robert Ballard claims he has identified ancient shorelines, freshwater snail shells, drowned river valleys and tool-worked timbers in 300 feet (100 m) of water off the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey.
Hershel Shanks, editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review, replied to the claims, "All modern critical Bible scholars regard the tale of Noah as legendary. There are other flood stories, but if you want to see the Black Sea flood in Noah's flood, who's to say no?" Fundamentalist Christians claimed that "Noah's Flood was not a local flood in the Black Sea area, but a world-wide flood that has left its mark on every continent on this planet," and that the timing was wrong.
Earth scientists also disputed the conclusions. More recent examinations by oceanographers such as Teofilo A. "Jun" Abrajano Jr at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his Canadian colleague Ali Aksu of Memorial University of Newfoundland have cast some doubt on this catastrophic flood theory. Abrajano's team, finding sapropel mud deposits in the Sea of Marmara have concluded that there has been sustained interaction between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea for at least 10,000 years:
- "For the Noah's Ark Hypothesis to be correct, one has to speculate that there was no flowing of water between the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea before the speculated great deluge. We have found this to be incorrect."
According to New Scientist magazine (May 4, 2002, p. 13), the researchers found an underwater delta south of the Bosporus. There was evidence for a strong flow of fresh water out of the Black Sea in the 8th millennium BC.
The hypothesis remains an active subject of debate among archaeologists.
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Last updated: 08-18-2005 17:57:04
