Hisw2Dis

Flood Myth Discussion Thread

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Flood Myth

Use the knowledge you have gained in our course so far to address the questions below.  Your response should use 3-5 sentences for each question. 

· What have we learned in this course regarding flood myths of the ancient river valley civilizations?  (3-5 sentences )

· How were the stories of Noah and Gilgamesh that we read similar and what differences do you see?  (3-5 sentences )

· What do you think these ancient were trying to communicate to subsequent generations through their flood myth stories? (3-5 sentences )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFNz-q8z7S8&t=278s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA3j5_vKQfc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFNz-q8z7S8&t=278s

Instructional/Lecture Outline & Notes :

The earliest civilizations of the Mediterranean world that have left significant archaeological remains or written records originated in the Eastern Mediterranean basin and the Aegean Isles (Greek Isles).  The earliest civilizations began on the Island of Crete around 3,000 BC and were called the Minoans, named after the legendary King Minos from classical Greek mythology.  Alas the Minoans wrote in a primitive Greek called Linear A, which has to date not been deciphered and therefore all we know about this bronze age culture is what archaeology can tell.  Some scholars have theorized that when Plato wrote of the Isle of Atlantis, he was recalling the Minoan civilization with added legendary material formed over the years.  The Minoans were a sea going people, who established a strong maritime culture founded upon overseas trade and commerce.  Some have theorized that the Minoans were a matriarchal culture, as they did not construct walled cities or revere warrior cultures, much like the civilizations of the Indus valley.  After a short period of decline, this civilization suddenly collapsed between 1,200 and 1,000 BC.  This was part of the massive event known as the bronze age crisis, which scholars have theorized began at least partly from the eruption of the super-volcano at the Island of Santorini.  This event triggered massive agricultural failures and led to the collapse of centralized authority throughout the ancient world, but it especially affected the bronze age cultures of the Mediterranean basin. 

Along with the Minoans, the Mycenean Greeks were part of the Indo-European migrations that populated much of the Mediterranean and European world.  They also developed a large and thriving maritime culture, but expanded and colonized many regions along the northern Mediterranean coastline, including Italy.  These people created a unique culture that is traditionally date to around 1,600 BC and built colossal fortifications called Cyclopean, named after the legendary giants in Greek myth called the Cyclops, as later Greeks believed that only giants could have constructed such things.  Mycenean culture revered warriors and was highly patriarchal.  The semi-legendary account of the Trojan war written by the poet Homer, entitled  The Iliadtells the tale of Greeks from Mycenae and elsewhere, who went to fight against their rivals the Trojans from Anatolia (modern day Turkey), whose prince Paris had stolen away the wife of a Greek king, Helen.  This war lasted ten years and eventually led to the destruction of Troy through Greek deception via the Trojan horse.  While much of the tale is legend, it recounts many key aspects of Mycenean culture and customs, which revered warfare, courage, and honor.  Mycenean trade and colonization slowly ebbed as the northern Greek cities, such as Athens and Corinth came to dominate the region after the Bronze Age Crisis.  The Nostoi, or the tales of the return of the soldiers from Troy almost universally preserve a memory of a terrible situation discovered when the Greeks returned home.  Often their homes had been conquered or taken over by brigands.  These tales may preserve a kernel of historical truth about the fate of Minoan and Mycenean civilization, as a mysterious group of people called the Dorians (named after their pottery as they had no writing) seem to have become the dominant culture for a time after the crisis. Scholars have theorized that they could have been a external enemy migrating or taking advantage of weak central governments or the servile population that rose up against their masters and took control for a time.  It remains unclear who these people were and where they came from.  There were also the mysterious sea people who attacked Egypt around this same time and likely settled near the region of Canaan.

The Phoenicians, who were the original Canaanites (present day Israel) were also revered traders in the ancient world, who shipped Egyptian grain and other goods throughout the Ancient Near East.  They were also the greatest colonizers, setting up trading posts along the north African coast and as far west as present day Spain.  Phoenicians were particularly renowned for their purple dye, made from a mollusk found only in a few of their harbors in Tyre and Sidon.  These people also developed the first alphabetic language around 1,400 BC, which differed radically from previous pictographic languages, such as Egyptian hieroglyphics.  The Phoenicians were great trading rivals with the Minoan and Mycenean Greeks, with the Phoenicians eventually dominating the southern Mediterranean and the Greeks in the north.

The ancient Israelites, beginning around 1,400 BC pushed the Canaanites out of their original homeland in Palestine, and were forced into their northern costal cities that became Phoenicia.  The legendary accounts of Israel are preserved in the Torah or books of Moses.  These tell the story of the Hebrews (Israelites), who were slaves for 400 years in Egypt, only to be liberated with the help of their powerful God and Moses.  They moved into the land of Canaan, which their God had promised their ancestors, who had immigrated to the region from Mesopotamia many centuries before.  This story, likely preserves the memory of the expulsion of the Hyksos, who were a Semitic people that ruled over Egypt for a time and were eventually expelled by the native Egyptians.  The Israelites came together from two kingdoms of Israel in the north and Judea in the south, each made up of 12 tribal, regional groups.  This is called the united monarchy period.  The greatest king was David and then his son Solomon, who together built the great temple in Jerusalem.  This temple was dedicated to the Hebrew God Yahweh (it is deeply offensive to Orthodox Jews to pronounce this proper name of God), which stood as the center of Jewish culture until the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it along with the entire city in 586 BC and deported many of the people to southern Mesopotamia, where they remained until the Persian King, Cyrus the Great allowed them to return home and rebuild Jerusalem and the temple.  Jewish religion is nearly unique in the ancient world, as it was monotheistic, meaning the worship of only one God.  Other cultures worshiped many gods and no god or gods were all powerful or all knowing in the same capacity as the Jewish conception of God.  The Jewish faith proved the foundation for later Christianity and Islam that forever shaped the regions of the Ancient Near East, the West, and beyond down to the present day.

The Book of Genesis, which is the first of the books of Moses or Torah or Christian Old Testament, recount the legendary origins of human kind, the immigration of the Patriarch Abraham to Canaan, and the Flood of Noah.  Noah and his family were found by the Hebrew god to be virtuous, unlike everyone else in the world.  Therefore, like the gods in the Epic of Gilgamesh, God destroys the world and only Noah and his family along with many animals were preserved because of their virtuous lifestyle.  This flood myth has many similarities with that of Gilgamesh, but also some unique aspects.  Compare and contrast these two accounts.

Instructional/Lecture Outline & Notes :

The Celts are a famous iron age cultural-linguistic group that spread throughout northern Europe from the Hallstatt region of present day Austria around 1,000 BC.  Before the Celts, Stone age Indo-European people populated Europe and are known as the Beaker people.  This is because of the common beakers or pottery found in archaeological excavations.  The Beaker people built many megalithic (big stone) structures, such as Stonehenge, which might have been a calendar, religious temple, or cultural site.  All hinge means is circle – so any ritual monument in a circle irrelevant of material can be described as a hinge.  While being a Stone Age culture, these people were highly sophisticated and capable of making precise astrological calculations and building massive structures based upon mathematical formulas.  Nevertheless, the Celts with their superior bronze and iron weapons pushed out and dominated the previous stone using people. 

The Celts were not a singular culture, but made up of many tribes with each having its own unique customs. Rather, Celtic is a linguistic, not a cultural group.  They never developed any writing, like the Beaker people, so all we can judge them by is archaeology and what other cultures, such as the Romans, said about them.  Celts never developed urban centers, but remained a rural people depending on minimal agricultural and pastoralism.  They were fierce warriors and even conquered the city of Rome in 390 BC.  Eventually, the Romans conquered all the Celtic regions except for the mountainous regions of the British Isles, where they survived in the Scottish Highlands, northern Wales, and Ireland, where their ancestors remain to this day.  Their spirituality stressed the importance of pantheism or that all people are connected to the great mother earth, even the human soul is part of this living essence of the earth.  Celtic myth, such as the Cattle Raid of Cooley, emphasized the critical importance of cattle and their value to the society. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA3j5_vKQfc