Short retelling of chapter 11 of the essay: Arkhipov S.V. Human Children: The Origins of Biblical Legends from a Physician's Perspective. Joensuu: Author's Edition, 2025. [In Russian]
Chapter 11. ARARAT AND AKKAD
According
to Genesis, Noah’s ark comes to rest "in the mountains of Ararat." It
is possible that Noah settles there after his miraculous survival. Initially,
he lives in a tent, cultivates fields, grows grapes, and makes wine. The text
states that from Noah’s sons, "the whole earth was repopulated." They
disembark with "every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, everything
that moves on the earth," giving rise to today’s diversity of terrestrial
vertebrates—mammals, reptiles, and birds at minimum. However, no mention is
made of other non-aquatic creatures like worms, mollusks, or arthropods, most
of which likely perished in the floodwaters.
At some
point, Noah’s descendants migrate, though the origin and trigger for this
movement are unclear. The reason is briefly stated: "and it came to
pass," after which the people travel from east to west, settling in a
"plain in the land of Shinar." There, they seek to "make a name
for themselves," mining "mountain resin," firing bricks, and
building a "city and a high tower." The settlement is named
"Babel," becoming a hub from which later generations spread
"across the face of the whole earth." Details of their further movements
remain unknown, with the narrative only noting this occurs after the flood’s
aftermath is resolved.
Noah’s
grandchildren and great-grandchildren found numerous peoples, establishing
cities like Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen, and kingdoms such as Babel,
Erech, Akkad, Calneh, and Shinar. Initially, they form a single ethnic group,
as "the whole earth had one language." Some scholars see in the names
of Noah’s great-grandsons the founders of ancient North African and Near
Eastern states.
These fragments
of Genesis outline a relatively documented slice of human history. The text
suggests Noah’s clan founded a civilization, but which one and their ancestral
homeland remain obscure. Could viticulture and winemaking have begun near the
ark’s landing?
The ark’s
design lacks propulsion—sails, screws, wheels, poles, or oars. During the
flood, it floats and drifts with the waves. The narrative implies it moves
"above" then "among" mountains, suggesting it follows water
currents. No wind is mentioned early in the disaster; it blows only after 150
days. Until then, water flow drives the vessel. Given its size, the ark has
significant inertia, limiting speed, likely staying near its starting point
throughout the calamity.
The story’s
language indicates the voyage ends "in the mountains," called
"Ararat." Their precise location is unknown, but the ark’s slow drift
suggests proximity to the "land of Nod." The "Ararat
mountains" appear in the "P source" (715–687 BCE), not in the
earlier "J source" (828–722 BCE).
Maps show
two extinct volcanoes: Greater Ararat (5,165 meters, 39°42'07"N,
44°17'54"E) and Lesser Ararat (3,925 meters, 39°38'56"N,
44°24'44"E), on the Armenian Plateau northwest of Mesopotamia, the Zagros,
and the Iranian Plateau. Local peoples historically used different names for
these peaks. We favor the idea that "Ararat mountains" refer to
Aratta, a mythical Sumerian land "beyond seven mountains," possibly
in modern Kerman province, south of the Iranian Plateau, rather than near the
Caspian Sea. The P source’s religious author might have envisioned a
fantastical or distant mountainous region, its true location lost to time, with
no robust evidence supporting current theories.
Genesis
places the flood’s events in mountains, where they conclude. We argue the
disaster was local, in Kermanshah’s valleys and adjacent lowlands. As waters
recede, Noah’s family leaves their refuge—a highland cave. Per P, this takes
about a year; per J, two months.
Considering
the catastrophe’s scale and duration, its aftermath was severe. People and
livestock outside caves perished. Fruit trees and shrubs were uprooted, topsoil
washed away. Temporary and permanent structures collapsed, wells caved in.
Tools, provisions, and seeds spoiled or were swept away by the Seymare and Sirwan
rivers. Riverbeds shifted, swamps expanded, and new lakes formed. Slopes
eroded, and lowland pastures were littered with stones, mud, and debris.
Grasslands wouldn’t recover until the next season, hindering grazing and
farming.
For years,
Noah struggled with land use and hunting for food. Assessing resources, his
family could stay or move to less devastated areas. We believe they remained in
the "land of Nod." A milder post-flood climate offered recovery
prospects. Genesis implies no rivalry with other tribes, and Noah’s family
faced neither famine nor disease, surviving and thriving.
The
narrative’s end introduces grapes, signaling warming. Vines rest below 10°C,
bloom at 17–20°C, and thrive at 28–30°C. Wild grapes grow in the Fertile
Crescent, reaching the Eastern Taurus and northern Zagros, including modern
Kermanshah, where early and mid-season varieties flourish. Pre-flood, Nod’s
average temperatures likely fell below 28–30°C, limiting warm crops, but
post-flood conditions allowed viticulture.
Genetic
evidence supports this: Vitis vinifera emerged 11,000–9,000 years ago
(9000–7000 BCE), spreading after warming 11,270 ± 30 years ago. Saccharomyces
cerevisiae, used for bread, beer, and wine, appeared 11,900 years ago. By 9000
BCE, humans fermented grape juice unknowingly. Winemaking began by 7000 BCE in
the Caucasus, Eastern Taurus, and northern Zagros. Chinese fermented fruit
drinks date to 7000 BCE, Georgian grape seeds to 8000–7000 BCE, and wine acid
salt from Hajji Firuz Tepe (northern Zagros) to 5400–5000 BCE.
Viticulture
and fermentation align with warming 11,270 years ago, supporting the "Noah
hypothesis," named for the biblical vintner. Post-glacial warming fostered
interregional exchange, possibly bringing grape seeds to Noah’s kin from the
Caucasus or Anatolia.
Noah’s
wine-drinking episode suggests an anonymous encyclopedist with medical
knowledge, aware of alcohol’s effects. This figure may have used wine for
sedation or pain relief in surgeries, embedding a moral lesson in Noah’s story
to highlight its therapeutic value for stress, insomnia, or pain. Noah, likely
traumatized, used wine and work to cope, not to indulge.
Genesis
notes post-flood humanity shared "one language and one speech," with
Noah’s genealogy tracing tribal history. A vague event sparks migration:
"as they journeyed from the east, they found a plain in Shinar and settled
there." The origin and cause are unspecified, only the westward direction
clear. Shinar is likely Babylonia, the plain Mesopotamia, with Shinar as
Akkad’s northern realm, distinct from southern Sumer or Chaldea. East lies the
Iranian Plateau and Zagros. Genesis mentions no prior migration stages,
suggesting a single, short move.
We propose
Noah’s tribe lived in Kermanshah’s valley, where climate and resources spurred
growth in arts and crafts. A grave issue forced their departure, a desperate
solution to a communal crisis.
The tribe
likely followed a path later called the Great Khorasan Road, linking Babylon to
Hamadan, used by Darius and Alexander. It crosses Kermanshah south of
Do-Ashkaft cave, Noah’s possible refuge. Cain may have taken this route to Nod.
Today, it’s Iran’s Route 48, connecting Kermanshah to Qasreshirin and Khanaqin.
Artifacts date its use to ~3500 BCE.
Noah’s
family likely knew this "Cain’s path," trading with Mesopotamia. It’s
300 km to northern Mesopotamia, feasible for moving goods, livestock, and
children. They settle in Shinar—Babylonia—where Genesis lists Babel, Erech,
Akkad, and Calneh. Sargon the Great (2334–2279 BCE) later founds Akkad’s
dynasty, possibly linked to Genesis’s Nimrod.
Paleoclimate
data suggest a prolonged drought, tied to cooling 8,175 ± 30 years ago (6225 ±
30 BCE), drove migration. Greenland’s temperature dropped 3.3 ± 1.1°C in under
20 years, recovering over 70 years, with the shift lasting ~150 years. Cooling
and aridity hit Europe, North Africa, East Asia, and Syria’s Tell Sabi Abyad,
where farmers adapted. Northern Hemisphere dryness, tied to Atlantic
freshening, pushed Kermanshah’s people to the Tigris and Euphrates. Early
Mesopotamian cultures bloomed 7000–6000 BCE.
Migrants
built a city with fired clay bricks, implying prior knowledge of the technique.
Ancient permanent homes, dated 10,000–7590 BCE, are found at Sheikh-e Abad near
Kermanshah—likely Nod. Noah’s descendants, led perhaps by Cush (Nimrod’s
father), reach Shinar. Göbekli Tepe (9500–9000 BCE) in Anatolia and Nemrik’s
taupe-walled homes (9th millennium BCE) predate Mesopotamian fired bricks. Ganj
Dareh and Tepe Abdul Hosein (8000 BCE) used sun-dried bricks, Bestansur
(7700–7100 BCE) fired ones. Tepe Gawra’s terracotta bricks date to 4500 BCE,
Ur’s paved roads to 3500 BCE. Migrants likely adopted local brick-firing,
limited by fuel scarcity.
The
"tower" resembles a ziggurat, like Eridu’s temple (5400 BCE), Uruk’s
White Temple (3450 BCE), or Ur’s Nanna ziggurat (22nd century BCE), a 30-meter
stepped pyramid with a 64×46-meter base of mud bricks, clad in fired brick. Its
lost summit temple symbolized divine elevation. The Genesis author, possibly
envisioning such ruins, crafts a poetic narrative, likely not the
physician-encyclopedist but a Mesopotamian kin.
Migrants
used "mountain resin"—bitum—for mortar, known in the Zagros at
Sheikh-e Abad (10,000–7590 BCE) and Jani (8240–7730 BCE). Ali Kosh and Chagha
Sefid (7200–6800 BCE) used bitum, as did Uruk (late 5th millennium BCE) and Ur
for waterproofing and construction.
Shinar’s
settlers, fleeing drought (6255–6195 BCE), joined established Mesopotamian
communities—Proto-Hassuna (7000–6500 BCE), Hassuna, Samarra, Halaf (6100–5100
BCE), and Ubaid (6500–4200 BCE). Competition for resources favored innovative
tribes. Sumerians, possibly from mountains, reached Eridu by 5500 BCE or later
(3500 BCE), forming the Sumerian civilization (~4000 BCE) from Ubaid, Uruk, and
Jemdet Nasr cultures. Sumerians called themselves "black-headed."
Genesis’s tribe picks a name to unify, left unrevealed.
Sumer fell
to Akkad by 2370 BCE under Sargon, blending cultures (2400–2000 BCE). Babylon
rose under Hammurabi (~1750 BCE), with Akkadian dominating by 2000 BCE, later
yielding to Aramaic (7th–6th centuries BCE).
The flood
and migration tale has scientific basis, likely oral initially, perhaps in
Sumerian. Genesis draws from Gilgamesh’s Babylonian epic, rooted in a Sumerian
myth (2017 BCE). Writing began in Uruk (3350–3000 BCE), with Sumerian cuneiform
by 3200–3100 BCE, adapted for Akkadian. Hebrew script emerged ~11th–10th
century BCE. The flood myth, written by 3350 BCE, was refined in Akkadian
(2017–1600 BCE), not Hebrew until ~1100 BCE, possibly Egyptian earlier, hinted
by the pyramid-like tower, comparing Nile and Mesopotamian civilizations.
Noah’s genealogy lists real places—Babel (Babylon), Erech (Uruk), Akkad (Agade), Nineveh, Gaza—mostly from J (828–722 BCE). Uruk and Gaza date to 4000 and 3000 BCE, Akkad to 2350–2200 BCE, Babylon to ~1770 BCE, Nineveh to the 3rd millennium BCE, fading after 612 BCE. The flood legend solidified pre-612 BCE, its motifs older, tied to warming 11,270 years ago and migration during cooling ~6225 BCE.
Retelling done by Grok, an artificial intelligence developed by xAI.
Author:
Arkhipov S.V. – candidate of medical sciences, surgeon, traumatologist-orthopedist.
Citation:
Архипов С.В. Дети человеческие: истоки библейских преданий в обозрении врача. Эссе, снабженное ссылками на интерактивный материал. 2-е изд. перераб. и доп. Йоэнсуу: Издание Автора, 2025.
Arkhipov S.V. Human Children: The Origins of Biblical Legends from a Physician's Perspective. An essay with references to interactive materials. 2nd revised and expanded edition. Joensuu: Author's Edition, 2025. [Rus]
Purchase:
PDF version is available on GooglePlay & Google Books
Keywords
ligamentum capitis femoris, ligamentum teres, ligament of head of femur, history, first patient, injury, damage, Bible, Genesis
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