Did Noah's Flood Occur in the Lake Van Basin?

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DID NOAH'S FLOOD OCCUR IN THE LAKE VAN BASIN?

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Ilham Gadjimuradov Baku State University

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DID NOAH’S FLOOD OCCUR IN THE LAKE VAN BASIN?

Ilham GADJIMURADOV1

Abstract:

The biblical account of Noah’s Flood in the Old Testament states that the ark landed on the Mountains of Ararat. Elsewhere in the Bible there are references to a Land of Ararat north of Assyria. This suggests that the legend of the Flood may have been set in the area of the ancient Kingdom of Urartu around Lake Van. The Lake Van region is an important area for geomythology. Since the Pleistocene the adjacent volcanoes were an important source of obsidian, and early metallurgy developed in the region. In the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze age since 7000 years BP the climate became favorable for human settlements, agriculture and livestock rearing. Lake Van is set in a tectonically active area along a subduction zone. Earthquakes occur along major faults, and Nemrut Volcano was active in the Holocene. Volcanic eruptions would have been witnessed by people living in the area and may have inspired ancient legends. People migrating from and travelling through the region could have spread these legends to adjacent areas in Mesopotamia and the Levant. Lake Van is a closed basin, and the lake level is influenced by climatic and tectonic processes. Short lived catastrophic rises in lake level of Lake Van may have occurred since the beginning of the Chalcolithic linked to exceptionally heavy rainfall related to volcanic eruptions, or to tsunamis created by earthquakes or by pyroclastic flows entering the lake. One of these catastrophic events before the Middle Bronze Age may have given rise to the legend of Noah’s Flood. Future geoarchaeological research is required to clarify the changes in lake level of Lake Van during the Holocene and locate ancient settlements below the current lake level. These surveys could be integrated with de- tailed interdisciplinary studies of Holocene volcanic and tectonic activity and climate changeKeywords: to better understand the fluctuations of the lake level.

Noah´s Flood, Ararat, Urartu, Lake Van, young volcanoes, lake level

1 Geologist, M.A. Bonn, Germany. [email protected]

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1. Introduction

A problem common to all of the various theories about the Flood is that none of them provide a credible explanation for the very rapid rise in water level that would have been necessary to destroy an entire civilization in the manner depicted in the Old Testament. In the mind of a geologist, the flood stories that have come down to us in writings that originated in the ancient Near East suggest that they could be related to a catastrophic event that took place in an enclosed volcanic area. In general, it can be said that the volcanic phenomena described in the Old Testament have not yet received much attention from persons engaged in Biblical research. There is a description of the volcanic eruption that destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24). God is reported to have appeared to the Jews during their Exodus in the form of a pillar of smoke during the day and a pillar of fire during the night to guide them (Exodus 13:21-22). God is said to have descended down in fire onto Mount Sinai while smoke billowed up from it as if from a furnace and the whole mountain trembled violently (Exodus 19:16-19). These and numerous other passages in the Bible depicting fiery phenomena on mountains leave no doubt that what the authors of these texts were describing was originally based on reports by persons who had witnessed volcanic activity. However, no one has ever come up with a logical explanation as to where this volcanic activity could have taken place. There aren’t any young volcanoes in Egypt, in southern Mesopotamia, and in the Levant, where Old Testament stories are usually thought to have taken place. For this reason, references to volcanic phenomena in the Old Testament have often been interpreted2. The Term as Ararat allegories. in the Biblical Flood Story and Kingdom of Urartu mountains of Ararat The Old Testament tells us that Noah’s Ark came to rest in the when the flood waters receded (Genesis 8:4). This mountain range in the Land of Ararat was later confused with Mount Ararat in northeasternMasis Turkey,Ağrı on Dağıthe border to present-day Agirî Armenia. The latter mountain has very different-sounding namesArarat in the regional languages ( in Armenian, in Turkish, Çiyayê in Kurdish). It was not until sometimeArarat in the Middle Ages that began to be used as a designation for this particular mountain (Petrosyan 2016:68-80). By con- trast, the term in the Flood story, as elsewhere in the Bible, refers to a kingdom Kingdomlocated north of Urartu of Assyria (Jeremiah 51:27, 2 Kings 19:37, Isaiah 37:38). This, in Urartuturn, is a referenceArarat to what is known to ancient his- torians as the with its center at Lake Van (Fig. 1). The different spellings of and are a result of the fact that only

491 DID NOAH’S FLOOD OCCUR IN THE LAKE VAN BASIN?

rrt the consonants of words are written out in Semitic languages (in this case only ) and that the vocalization of a given word can vary. In the Islamic tradition Mount UrartuJudi is believed to have been the mountainUrartu Noah’s Ark came to rest on (Surah 11:44). It is located south of Lake Van, not far from the heartland of . The first known mention of dates back to the 9th century BCE, when it was described as being an independent state and an adversary of Assyria. A key characteristic of this region is the pres- ence of a number of young volcanoes which continued to be active on into historical times and could have played an important role in the shaping of mythological3. Noah´s Flood and and religious Lake traditions.Van in Eastern Anatolia

The area around Lake Van is a focal point of tectonic activity. The East- ern Anatolian volcanic axis passes through here along fault lines that ex- tend from Mount Nemrut (2935 m) to Mount Süphan (4434 m) under the western and northwestern shores of Lake Van andVan from Gölü there northeastGola- Wanêwards via Mount TendürekWana Lič (3538 m) and ThospitisMount Ararat Lacus (5165 m) to Tran- scaucasia (Schweizer 1975). Lake Van (Turkish , Kurdish , Armenian , Greek/Latin ) is 1650 meters above sea level, alkaline, saline, and up to 450 meters deep. It sits in a tectonically active zone at the intersection of the Eurasian, Anatolian, and Arabian plates (Fig. 2). It was created in the valley of the rivers Bendimahi and Zilan as a result of the fact that their outflow towards the Tigris and Euphrates was blocked off by lava flows from Mount Nemrut (Maxson 1936, p. 49-57). There is no other region in the Near East where there are so many young volcanoes concentrated in a relatively small area. Massive eruptions have occurred here in the current post-glacial period and, in part, in historical times. Pertinent passages in the Flood narrative make more sense when we realize that they have a volcanic background. During the Flood water came not only in the form of rain from above but also burst forth from below (Genesis 7: 11-12; Surah 54:11-12). It could be a reflection of gey- sers and hot springs generally associated with young volcanic areas such as those seen in Yellowstone National Park and in Iceland. Heavy rainfall is a phenomenon that can occur as a result of volcanic eruptions. The eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815 had a strong influence on global weather conditions, causing what was described at the time as “endless rain” in various parts of the world (Stothers 1984:1191-1198). Also of interest here are references to hot and boiling water in versions of the Flood story foundoven in boiling extra-Biblical over Hebrew sources (Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 12a). The corresponding part of the flood narration in the Quran speaks of an (Surah 11:40). This, once again, is

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an indication that the Flood occurred in a volcanic area. There is a large lake in the crater of Mount Nemrut, Lake Nemrut. In a volcanic eruption, the water in this lake could be heated and then end up flowing down into Lake Van in the form of lahars (flows of hot slurry), which would signif- icantly increase the water level there within a short period of time. The melting of snow in the mountains and heavy rainfall due to volcanic activity should be taken into account as factors in a related flood event. The fact that Lake Van does not have a drainage outlet would be a contribut- ing factor to a rapid rise of the water level in any flood scenario. Further floods, albeit on a smaller scale, continued to take place in the Lake Van Basin on into more recent times (Deniz and Yildiz 2007, p. 707-711). The high alkaline and saline content in Lake Van is due to its volcanic en- vironment. Crucial information about the history of the lake is revealed in its sediments. Some of these sediments are situated higher than today’s water level and others are at various depths underwater. These layers of volcanic ash have been documented and analyzed, making it possible to know exactly when eruptions of Mount Nemrut and Mount Süphan took place over the past several millennia. They have all14 been dated very pre- cisely using varve chronology and radiocarbon ( C) techniques (Land- mann et al. 1996, p. 797-808). Based on the analysis of these sediments, the water level in Lake Van about 15000 BCE was several hundred meters lower than it is today. There continued to be strong fluctuations in the level of the lake over the ensuing millennia (Fig. 3). Together with our knowledge that the earliest written references to an ancient oriental flood legend are about 4000 years old, these fluctuations in the level of the lake are very important to us in that they can help us to establish an approximate timeframe in which the creation of the Biblical Flood story could have occurred. Traces of the oldest settlement in the Van Valley date back to approximately 5500 BCE (Özdemir et al. 1996, p. 797-808). Considering that the earliest writtennd records we have of Bab- ylon are from around the beginning of the 2 millennium BCE and that they can probably be traced back to older Sumerian and Akkadian sources from the late 3rd millennium BCE, the timeframe for the creation of the flood legend would lie somewhere within the period between 5500 and 2000 BCE. Noah is described in the Old Testament as a “carpenter”, a “farmer”, and a “winemaker” (Genesis 6:14; 9:20). It can be assumed that the population these occupations symbolize lived in the Lake Van Basin during the Bronze Age (starting about 3500 BCE at the earliest). This means that the timeframe for the creation of the Flood legend should be refined to somewhere between 3500 and 2000 BCE. It can be assumed that natural disas-

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ters around Lake Van were responsible for the demise of the Kura-Arax- es culture, a Bronze Age civilization in Eastern Anatolia (Palumbi 2011). During this period, the population in question lived near the shores of the lake, whose level then was 20-25 meters lower than it is today. The land they were living on was suddenly inundated. The water level rose by 30-40 meters, as can be seen from the young alluvial terraces that formed in various places (Kuzucuoglu 2010, p. 1131-1132). The dramatic water-level fluctuations seen in Lake Van were probably caused not only by climate change but also by volcanic and tectonic factors (Cukur et al. 2014, p. 201-214). The mention of darkening skies, storms, earthquakes, fire, smoke, and heavy rainfall in the various flood-legend source texts can be understood as reflections of natural disasters that occurred on the shores of Lake Van in immediate proximity to the active volcanoes there. It is interesting to note that the Quran mentions “waves like mountains” during the Flood (Surah 11:42). This could be understood to mean tsunamis caused by strong earthquakes. Destructive waves could also have been caused by pyroclastic flows pouring into Lake Van from the flanks of Mount Nemrut (Sumita and Schmincke 2013, p. 29). In 2017-2018, the remains of ancient settlements were discovered 5-20 meters below the surface of Lake Van. This was in an area near the shore- line at the northern end of the lake, right at the foot of Mount Süphan. This remains has not yet been studied by archaeologists so it would be premature to assume that it was part of a pre-flood settlements (Fig. 4). But the fact that it was found at all is indicative of the potentials held out by underwater archeology. Exploration of the lakebed with high-resolution sonar in recent years has produced evidence supporting the assumption that the lake was much smaller 14000 years ago and that the shallower areas on its eastern and northern sides were not submerged (Cukur et al. 2015, p. 329-340). It should be fairly easy to find the remains of pre-historic settlements in the shallower areas of the lake with the assistance of high-resolution multibeam sonar (Fig. 5). I wish to leave aside any and all theological interpretations of the Biblical story of Noah’s Flood in this context and to view it simply as an ancient narrative about a flood that took place in a mountain valley and about a group of people, a family, who were able to save themselves and their domestic animals from drowning thanks to the kind of house they built. Having said that, we have reason to believe that a volcanic eruption and/ or a strong earthquake in combination with flooding may have caused the destruction of an entire Bronze Age culture that was probably related

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to the later Hurrian and Urartian population in the region. This kind of natural disaster may also have been the reason for the migration of the Hurrian population from the mountainous areas of Eastern Anatoliard to northern Syria, the Levant, and Mesopotamia at the end of the 3 millennium BCE. Narratives about the destruction of an early civilization in a high volcanic valley could have been passed down through the ages by oral tradition, taking on the kind of religious meaning they have today only after mankind was well into historical times. The religious meaning these narratives came to have was doubtless helped along by the volcanic component in the disaster experienced which, viewed as punishment meted out by God, had not been seen before and was never seen again in this form. This uniqueness probably accounts for a great deal of what lent these narratives the appeal that caused them to spread from the Eastern Anatolia to Mesopotamia, to the Levant, as well as to Europe and beyond, gaining4. Summary acceptance everywhere they were introduced.

A key consequence of writing this paper is that it made me aware that only an interdisciplinary approach based on the latest research in geolo- gy, archeology, ancient history, the history of religion, and the ethnology of Eastern Anatolia can provide answers to questions like the one dis- cussed here. It seems obvious to me that volcanoes in Eastern Anatolia must have played a significant role, previously unrecognized, in the emer- gence of mythological and religious narratives that ended up being widely disseminated in the ancient Near East. Further interdisciplinary research needs to be done in this area. Exploring the effects of natural disasters caused by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions might also help us answer some of the questions we have in the archeological work being done in this region. With regard to the history of religion, it should be noted that in general the Bible passages of interest in this connection should not be interpreted as allegories. Instead, they should be seen as reflections of natural disasters that took place in the Eastern Anatolian highlands and not in the Levant or in southern Mesopotamia. With regard to archeology in the Lake Van region, strong emphasis should be placed on the importance of underwater exploration, given that the level of the lake has ris- en considerably and at times catastrophically over the course of the past 14000 years. Locating suspected archeological sites on the bottom of the lake will require the use of high-resolution multibeam sonar and possibly also underwater robots. Cooperation between archeologists and geolo- gists will be of major importance, seeing as geomorphological changes in surface relief due to volcanic and tectonic activities will need to be taken into account when doing archeological research in the Lake Van Basin. If

495 DID NOAH’S FLOOD OCCUR IN THE LAKE VAN BASIN?

the hypothesis is confirmed that volcanism, tectonics, and seismic activity have played a key role in the dramatic changes that have taken place in the level of the lake, then this fact ought to be taken into account in future emergency management planning. The importance of this kind of research for tourism as well as for general economic development in the regionAcknowledgements should not be underestimated.

I would like to thank Jeremy Goff for helping me organize the material in this paper as well as for advice on geological matters, to Günter Land- mann for advice on hydrogeological matters, to Sinan Kılıç for advice on archaeological matters, and to Larry Fischer for editing the paper.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Çagatay,Quaternary M. N., et al. Science (2014). Reviews, Lake level and climate records of the last 90 ka from the Northern Basin of Lake Van, eastern Turkey. Formation15, of thehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. Upper Pleistocene terraces ofquascirev.2014.09.027 Lake Van/Turkey . (Lake level Holocene maximum according to C. Kuzucuoglu et al., ). , Journal of Quaternary Science, 2010, Vol. 25, Issue 7, pp. 1124–1137 Cukur, D., et al. (2015). Evidence of extensive carbonate mounds and sublacustrine channels in shallowGeo-Marine waters Letters of Lake Van, eastern Turkey, based on high-resolution chirp subbottom profiler and multibeam echosounder data. , Vol. 35, No. 5, 329-340. . Journal of Cukur, D.,paleolimnology et al. (2014). Water level changes in Lake Van, Turkey, during the past ca. 600 ka: climatic, volcanic and tectonic controls , vol. 52, no. 3, 201–214. Water Resources, Deniz, O. & Yildiz, M.Z. (2007). The ecological consequences of level changes in Lake Van, 34 (6), 707-711. Dicle, S. & Üner, S. (2017). New active faults on Eurasian-Arabian collision zone: Tectonic activity of Özyurt and Gülsünler faults (Eastern Anatolian Plateau, Van, Turkey), Geologica Acta, Vol. 15, No. 2, 107-120. Journal of Quaternary Science Kuzucuoglu, C, et al. (2010) Formation of the Upper Pleistocene terraces of Lake Van/Turkey. , Vol. 25, Issue 7, 1131-1132.

Landmann, G., Reimer, A. &Global Kempe, Biogeochemical S. (1996). ClimaticallyCycles induced lake level changes at Lake Van, Turkey, during the Pleistocene/ Holocene Transition. , Vol. 10, No. 4, 797-808. Nemrut Gölü Maxson, J. H. (1936). , M.T.A. Institute Publ. No: 5, pp. 49-57.

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, Global Özdemir,Biogeochemical H., et al. (1996). Cycles Comparison between archaeological findings and and level changes of Lake Van during the Holocene , vol. 10, no. 4. 797–808. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia Palumbi, G. (2011). The Chalcolithic of Eastern Anatolia, Chapter 90 in Chapman & McMahon, Comparative. Mythology Petrosyan, A. (2016).Biblical Mt. Ararat: Two Identifications. , Stothers:Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 68-80. Science Richard B. (2007). The Great Tambora Eruption in 1815 and Its Aftermath. .Untersuchungen 224, No. 4654, 1191–1198. zur Physiogeographie von Ostanatolien und Nordwestiran: geomorphologische, klima- und Schweizer,hydrogeographische G. (1975). Studien in Vansee- und Rezaiyehsee-Gebiet

, Vol. 9. Selbstverlag des Geographischen Instituts der Universität Tübingen, Sumita, M. & Schmincke, H. U. (2013). Impact of volcanism on the evolution Journalof Lake of Van Volcanology II: Temporal and Geothermal evolution ofResearch explosive volcanism of Nemrut Volcano (eastern Anatolia) during the past ca. 0.4Ma. , Vol. 253, 29.

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Fig. 1 Urartu=Ararat in Eastern Anatolia.

Fig. 2 Map of geodynamic systems in Eastern Anatolia (Dicle and Üner 2017).

Fig. 3 Water level changes in Lake Van (Cagatay et al. 2014:15).

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Fig. 4 The remains of an ancient fortress on the bottom of Lake Van (Photo: Tahsin Ceylan /Twitter).

Fig. 5 Paleo-Lake Van at ca. 14 ka with channels identified from multibeam data (Cukur et al. 2015).

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