the LORD said to Noah, Enter thou and all thy family into the ark, for I have seen thee righteous before me in this generation; (The priests permit Noah and his family to enter the ship).
2 and you shall take seven of every clean animal, male and female, and two of unclean cattle, male and female; (The division of livestock into clean and unclean is related to which of them can be sacrificed, clean is cattle, sheep, goats. The use of «sacred» numbers – 7 and 2, «male and female» – the establishment of patriarchy).
3 also of the birds of heaven, seven by seven, male and female, in order to preserve the tribe for the whole earth, (Using the concept of pure cattle and unclean, as well as «sacred numbers»).
4 For in seven days I will pour rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights; and I will destroy everything that exists that I have created from the face of the earth. (Again the use of «sacred numbers»).
5 Noah did all that the LORD commanded him. (The main thing is obedience).
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of water came to the earth. (Here, most likely, the lunar calendar is used, that is, the year – month. In 1929, the English archaeologist Sir Charles Woolley reported that during excavations in the Euphrates Valley, he found sedimentary rocks at a depth of almost 3 meters. Sumerian chronicles divide all historical events into «antediluvian» and those that occurred after the flood. In the lists of Sumerian kings who ruled before the flood, there are often periods of several tens of thousands of years, the explanation for this is that the lunar calendar was used and each king was attributed thousands of years of rule by court flatterers (sages) to get certain privileges and opportunities, they proclaimed millennial reigns. The epic of Gilgamesh was widely spread in ancient Sumer. In particular, it tells how the search for immortality led Gilgamesh to a hero named Ut-Napishtim, who survived the flood and was «immortal»! The story of Ut-Napishtim is very much like the biblical one. According to modern data, this gigantic flood occurred around 2800 BC, in addition, countless floods have occurred on the territory of Mesopotamia for many millennia).
7 And Noah, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, entered into the ark from the waters of the flood. (Entering the ship).
8 And of the clean cattle, and of the unclean cattle, and of all the creeping things on the earth (Loading the ship).
9 Two by two, male and female, entered Noah into the ark, as God had commanded Noah. (Loading the ship).
10 After seven days, the waters of the flood came to the earth. (Waters gushed into the Mesopotamia).
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on this day all the springs of the great abyss opened, and the windows of heaven were opened; (The strongest flood, accompanied by showers and hurricanes).
12 And it rained on the earth forty days and forty nights. (Using «sacred» numbers).
13 On that very day Noah entered the ark, and Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and his three sons’ wives with them. (Description of the people on the ship).
14 They, and all the beasts after their kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and all the creeping things that creep on the earth after their kind, and all the flying things after their kind, all the birds, all the winged ones (for all who must be saved).
15 And they entered into the ark to Noah, two by two, of all flesh in which there is the spirit of life; (Description of all living passengers).
16 And those who entered, male and female of all flesh, entered, as God commanded him. And the Lord closed behind him. (Closing of the hermetic ship by the priest-master).
17 And the flood continued on the earth forty days, and the waters multiplied, and lifted up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth.; (The use of «sacred» numbers during flooding).
18 But the waters increased and multiplied greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters. (Sailing of the ark ship).
19 And the waters of the earth increased exceedingly, so that all the high mountains that are under the whole heaven were covered.; (The valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is flat as a pancake, so even a small flood, a heavy downpour leads to the fact that the entire valley is flooded).
20 The water rose fifteen cubits above them, and the mountains were covered. (15 cubits is approximately 7 feet or about 7 meters, that is, «high mountains» are small hills in the Interfluve, which were flooded).
21 And all flesh that moved on the earth, and birds, and cattle, and beasts, and all the creeping things that crawled on the earth, and all people, lost their lives; (Because of the great flood, many animals and people died).
22 Everything that had the breath of the spirit of life in its nostrils on dry land died. (Everything breathing air has perished).
23 Every creature that was on the surface of the earth was destroyed, from man to cattle, and reptiles, and birds of the air, everything was destroyed from the earth, only Noah remained and what was with him in the ark. (In Mesopotamia, everyone on the earth’s surface perished, except Noah and the ark passengers).
24 And the waters increased on the earth one hundred and fifty days. (The water was still arriving in the Mesopotamia for a long time).
Modern research
Treasures swallowed up by the sea. Sensational discoveries of underwater archaeologists
MOSCOW, RIA Novosti, Tatiana Pichugina. During the last ice age, due to the fall in sea level, the area of Australia increased by a third. Our ancestors followed the retreating coastline, making drawings in caves and leaving a lot of tools. As the glaciers melted, all this was flooded with water. Only last year, traces of ancient people were discovered for the first time at the bottom. About the most amazing discoveries of underwater archaeology – in the collection of RIA Novosti.
Flooded antiquities of the Stone Age
«Very little is known about the now sunken landscapes, their population, their role in the development of mankind,» scientists from Australia write in an article with the results of an underwater archaeological expedition off the northwest coast of the continent. It is estimated that at the peak of the last glaciation, the sea level was 130 meters below the modern one. Consequently, a significant part of the continental shelf was land. Then the warming began, and about seven thousand years ago the continents and oceans acquired familiar shapes. Once vast expanses of the earth flooded. The depth is very large, and it was not possible to thoroughly explore it before. The Australians were the first to make efforts to study the sites of ancient people under water. They chose the Dampir Archipelago – there is a national park there, where, among other things, artifacts of prehistoric culture and rock carvings are protected. From 2017 to 2019, six expeditions were sent there. First, the water area was surveyed by lidars and drones from the air, bathymetry was carried out from the ship, topographic maps of the bottom were made and two promising sites were selected – at Cape Brugier and in the Flying Foam Strait. At the first site at a depth of 2.4 meters, divers found 269 stone artifacts, at the second – only one. Among them are nuclei – blanks, flakes, including sharpened ones, two stones similar to grinding ones. For comparison, 455 items were collected on the nearest shores. All of them, underwater and land, are made of local volcanic rock, they have many common features. Scientists cannot date the finds directly, but by indirect signs they are at least seven thousand years old. This is the first discovery of traces of Stone Age people on the sea shelf.
At the crossroads of sea routes
The coast of Syria has been the center of international trade for five thousand years. The sailors of Arvad Island are mentioned in the Bible. However, systematic archaeological work was not carried out due to the difficult political and economic situation in the region. Several attempts in the 1960s and