outhouse

look here is the kicker

This flood level separated late Protoliterate and Early Dynastic I remains and dates from around 2950 to 2850 BCE. Perhaps, but not certainly, the Shuruppak flood may be equated with the earliest flood at Kish. No other Mesopotamian sites have produced flood remains of significance (Mallowan, 1964).



Mesopotamian flood tales are more useful. Similarities between the account of Noah's Flood in the Hebrew scriptures and the Mesopotamian flood tales are great and obvious. Despite some lesser differences, there is no reasoned body of opinion that claims they are unrelated.

The period 2900 to 2800 BCE is much too late to fit Woolley's impressive flood remains at Ur, which must be dated at about 3500 BCE. This period does, however, fit well for the two earliest floods at Kish and a flood level at Shuruppak, and many scholars specializing in the ancient Near East have concluded that the Flood stories of cuneiform literature and the Bible find their ultimate origin in the event attested to by the remains at Kish and Shuruppak (Mallowan, 1964, pp. 62-82; Kramer, 1967, pp. 12-18; Woolley, 1955, pp. 16-17. Woolley's findings were generally rejected by others, including his chief archaeological assistant, Mallowan).

funinspace

Yes, we an obvious flood fable, we have a guy on an obviously edited king list that purports to cover tens of thousands of years. Archeologists think there are non-successive segments, so have made assumptions, and made estimates for 11 generations of kings. That is a lot of assumptions and estimating there.

Ok, but the link you and I are referencing says the big Ur flood was 3500 BCE, which matches other references I have read:
http://ncse.com/cej/8/2/flood-mesopo...gical-evidence
PS I know not to trust Woolley's work.

outhouse

LOL not really, a little quote mining your as bad as I am


lets put it all into context for those to lazy to read the whole article.



key word to your 3500BC is "however" LOL



The great Ur flood, thus, can be dated with a high degree of certainty to about 3500 BCE. Kish, however, produced evidence of two floods at the end of the Early Dynastic I and beginning of the Early Dynastic II periods, around 3000 to 2900 BCE, and a still more impressive flood dating to the Early Dynastic III period, around 2600 BCE. All three of the Kish floods were much later than the great flood at Ur. Watelin argued that the earliest of these three was the deluge of the Bible and cuneiform literature.

Within a few years, excavations of a third Mesopotamian site, Shuruppak, also uncovered a flood stratum (Schmidt, 1931). It is of particular interest because, according to the Mesopotamian legend, Shuruppak was the home of Ziusudra, the Sumerian Noah. (The Sumerian Ziusudra means "life of long days." The Akkadian equivalent, Utnapishtim, is "he found life," while the alternative Atra-hasis means "exceedingly wise.") This flood level separated late Protoliterate and Early Dynastic I remains and dates from around 2950 to 2850 BCE. Perhaps, but not certainly, the Shuruppak flood may be equated with the earliest flood at Kish. No other Mesopotamian sites have produced flood remains of significance (Mallowan, 1964).

outhouse

heres the key points.

the flood mythology was based on real floods from oral tradition.


the people who wrote these myth's lived in a area that frequently flooded.


the flood myths evolved, survived in literature [cuneiform] and were later carried as oral tradition before evolving once again as Israeli mythology.


really not one thing I stated can be refuted with any credibility at all.

sotto voce

Except that 'Israeli' should be 'Israelite'.

It may be added that all ancient civilisations were founded on major rivers, and major rivers were prone to flood, so the concept of a giant flood was one that very readily appealed to people who often supposed (as people do today) that what we usually call natural events, 'good' or 'bad', were responses by deities to their moral behaviour. If people perceived that their local society was particularly immoral, a final flood punishment would have seemed appropriate.

outhouse

dang you!!!!!!

funinspace

I don’t quite know what you are getting at here… Yeah, I read all that from the linked article already. I haven’t argued that there wasn’t a flood in 2900 BCE at Shuruppak. Or, are you now agreeing that the big Ur flood with 3 meters of silt wasn’t in 2900 BCE?


Just to minimize the confusion, I think what you are saying is probably the best educated guess on the time for the source of the Sumerian fable, and then borrowed by the emergent Israelites. I’m just questioning the surety of several of your statements; well…and the depth of the silt in Kish and/or Shuruppak. Without the 3 meters of silt in 2900 BCE, the argument that this particular flood is “the one and only” originating source for the famous Gilgamesh tale, is greatly weakened.

outhouse

lets investigate the floods of that time

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...y-deluge-2.htm

The Kish Flood of 2600 BC was too recent to be the Deluge.



Woolley found a layer of silt from three to eleven feet thick which he thought to be the remains of the biblical flood. This seemed to support the claim of a catastrophic flood in the area around 2800 BCE.



The flood layer in Ur discovered by Leonard Woolley occurred about the same time as a flood in Nineveh, but is dated in the late Ubaid period [generally held to have ended around 3800 BC]. This Ubaid period flood was too early to be the flood of Ziusudra which was dated by archaeologist Max Mallowan at the end of the Jemdet Nasr period and the beginning of the Early Dynastic I period. This flood was radiocarbon dated at about 2900 BC flood and corresponds to flood layers attested at the Sumerian cities Shuruppak, Uruk, and the oldest of several flood layers at Kish. This flood of 2900 BC left a few feet of yellow mud in Shuruppak.



reads a little confusing i know.


In all I think your right about the 11 feet of silt not being part of the 2900 flood, BUT in another book I was reading it states this could have been a wind blown strata and not a flood.

funinspace

No, this part about multiple floods isn’t confusing to me. I had already been ignoring Woolley. My point all along has been about surety, or the lack there of.

Ok, thanks for the added sentence here, as I thought we were starting to go in circles... Dr. MacDonald covered the wind idea in the link I had already mentioned.
http://ncse.com/cej/8/2/flood-mesopo...gical-evidence

outhouse

I disagree with said person.

no one really disputes the attested flood of 2900 BC. As far as I know you only have one person [MacDonald] stating he's not sure about he flood. Everyone else is fine with the data.